Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[trixi]

When I was a small child, my next door neighbor always made me tea with milk and sugar in it.  Since I'd never had it any other way, I thought that was the way everyone drank it.  Then we moved, I got older and people made fun of me for drinking it that way.  I don't drink it that way all the time, but it's still a favorite way of mine for drinking it.

[MissKitty]

Just found out one of my coworkers is headed to Japan with the CSO. I'm going to see if she can find my green tea!

[c-lando]

Just found out one of my coworkers is headed to Japan with the CSO. I'm going to see if she can find my green tea!

WOOHOO! Good tea vibes, MK!

[rva]

Teavana tea is just specialteas.com tea marked up about 75% to cover their brick-and-mortar costs and sold in a nice tin (that they also charge you $7 for).   I am not saying that specialteas makes a good chai and teavana makes a good chai.  I'm saying it's the EXACT SAME tea from the EXACT SAME company.

My sister likes the flavored teas and herbal teas and cream.  She has a Brown Betty teapot with a cozy.  She also prefers teabags for the convenience and flavor control despite the fact that teabag tea is shredded leaf shite and the teabags are wasteful.  I buy her tea pouches and loose tea as presents so she can drink some good tea every once in a while.

My parents are straight up traditional Asian tea drinkers who drink cheapass oolong and jasmine loose leaf from the Asian market in bulk that they dunk in water from a hot water heater and pour into cheap glass mugs.  They just like tea; they aren't picky.

I don't drink as much tea as either my parents or my sister, but I like all kinds.  I use an electric kettle, buy loose leaf, and put it in a tea stick for steeping.  Usually cheap Earl Grey (often Trader Joe's), but I also keep a couple of herbal flavors and fruity teas around for a change of pace and for guests.  I also have the Asian style teacup with the lid to keep the tea warm and to catch the leaves which my parents laugh when I use and think is very Chinese of me.  And every once in a while I splurge and buy crazy-expense oolong, for which I will break out the clay teapot with tiny clay cups which my parents laugh about and think is about as Chinese as Lemon Chicken (ie. not at all Chinese).

I also make green tea ice cream is quite delicious and easy to make if you have an ice cream maker.  I use green tea powder that I get at the Japanese store in Carytown.  I once tried using the green tea powder to make actual tea and it tasted like I dipped a green crayon into some hot water with sawdust in it. 

[MissKitty]

Green tea powder is the crap that Japanese Tea Ceremony thrives on, and it tastes like ass. Is it any wonder that you are supposed to put a lump of pressed sugar in your mouth before taking a sip of it? Blech!

Rva, I LOVE green tea ice cream. How do you make it?

[rva]

This is the healthy version I pulled off grouprecipes.com.  It's also the easiest to make, BUT it requires an ice cream maker, and even then it has a tendency to get a little hard which personally doesn't bother me.

2 boxes silken tofu
2 1/2 c. plain soy milk
2/3 c. honey
4 tsp. Matcha powder (powdered green tea)
1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Whisk the soy milk and matcha powder first to make sure the powder gets dissolved and then evenly distributed throughout the ice cream.  Dump it into an immersion blender/blender/processor with the rest of the stuff.  Blend until everything is all mixed up together into one smooth mixture.  Pour into ice cream maker of your choice.  Make ice cream like usual.  Leave it in a little extra long if possible.  Pour into container and freeze overnight.

This is the unhealthy, messier and slightly-harder-to-make (but still easy) version that does NOT require an ice cream maker and also tastes better:

3 egg yolks
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
2 TBS green tea powder (Matcha)
1 1/4 c heavy cream

I am lazy, so I substitute honey for sugar (blends easier).  I whisk the green tea powder with the cream then dump everything in a food processor/blender/immersion blender.  You can also add a bit of vanilla or ginger or cinnamon or whatever to suit your taste.

You have to have a pretty good immersion blender or processor to get everything to blend properly.  If you do not have very good blender, you can add a tiny bit of water to the green tea first, then mix that all up.  Then take the yolk, cream, and sugar and put it on very low heat and whisk that all up.  Then add the green tea paste to the ice cream base and whisk that all up.

Pour mixture into container (metal is preferable because of the freezy properties of metal).  When it's hard and just about frozen (but not so hard you'll break your blender) take it out of the freezer and dump it into your processor. Mix it all up again until it is soft-- like really soft soft-serve ice cream, but not liquid.  Put back in freezer.  

You can repeat the process several times (and you may have to if you overliquify).  Also depending on how hard you like your ice cream.  The freeze-then-process procedure is basically just high-tech ghetto churning.  You just want to make sure you don't break your processor.  If it gets too hard, you can always melt it a bit, process it, and refreeze.  If, after like 6 hours and you've gone through the process 2 times already then you need to let it sit longer and churn less.

[foolsgold]

You made my day, RVA.  I love(d) green tea ice cream, but since I developed a lactose allergy, it's been relegated to my colon blow-out wish list (along with double cheese and sausage deep dish pizza, a glass of egg nog, a chocolate malt, and the good mother-in-law's mashed potatoes.)  

My parents have an ice cream maker (it's old, but an ice cream maker is an ice cream maker, right?) and I have the next two weeks off of work!  It's all coming together.

edited: when you say "make the ice cream like usual" what does that mean?  Are other ingredients added?  It's been since the mid-80's since I've made ice cream, so things are a bit foggy.

[rva]

I just meant like there are different kinds ice cream makers, so just follow the directions for your ice cream maker.  If you need to add rock salt, then add the rock salt.  If you pour it into a pre-frozen doodad and just let it sit, then make sure your doodad is pre-frozen.  If you need to hand crank, then crank away.  Whatever.

Also, I forgot that instead of 2/3 cup of honey, I use slightly more than 1/2 cup.  And I don't quite fill the 1/2 teaspoon all the way.  I thought the original recipe was slightly too sweet, but your taste may differ.  You can make it the way it is written and just adjust next time you make a batch.  Or add the smaller amounts and taste the mixture and add more sweet if necessary before freezing.

Also, I have not tried this but I think adding tiny bit of cream/milk or a dash of vodka/appropriately flavored alcohol might soften up the final product.  I think it would only take a tiny amount.  But again, I don't really mind it the way it is.  It's kind of a pain to scoop, but I like my ice cream on the hard side.  That way it tastes good as it melts when I eat it instead of turning into mush.

[MissKitty]

FG, if you make green tea ice cream and do not share it with me, I will kill you.

[foolsgold]

You don't scare me, She-Gibbs.

I'll only share if I don't like it.   

[MissKitty]

I see how you are.

Well let's hope there is an ice cream maker under that Christmas tree, or yer dead.

[Hell Toupee]

Ditto...

Bring some Saturday morning. 

[MissKitty]

Oooo yes - green tea ice cream with curried deviled eggs and beer, first thing in the morning. I like the way you think, HT!

[va-vacious]

It's only tangentally related, but I'm sharing anyway...

My parents have a Christmas tea cozy- embroidered with St. Nicholas. I was helping to decorate, and decided that it would be better as a pope hat than as a cozy. I wore it around the house and blessed people, dinner, whatever (computers and wrapping presents?).  Mercifully, noone had a camera handy, so there is no proof that this ever happened.

[Poncho]

I hope someone snuck one and we get to see it.