May 18, 2015

Making Thunder Tea- Lei Cha 擂茶

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Wordful Wednesday Miaoli County., Nanzhuang Township, Penglai Village, Taiwan, Thunder Tea, wordful wednesday

The Pestle and Mortar

During the last trip to Taiwan I tried my hand on making Thunder Tea at 苗栗縣南庄鄉蓬萊村 Penglai Village, Nanzhuang Township, Miaoli County with R and his friend Z . It was a really interesting experience for me.

Thunder Tea ( 擂茶) is the native tea of the Hakka people who live in Taiwan. Lei cha is not the same as Taiwanese tea because there are always other ingredients. Pounded tea consists of a mix of tea leaves and herbs that are ground or pounded together with various roasted nuts, seeds, grains, and flavorings.

Ingredients for Hakka Tea

The traditional ingredients of lei cha are:

tea leaves (either green tea or oolong)
raw sesame seeds
roasted peanuts

Other ingredients which can be added:

raw pine nuts
sunflower seeds
cooked or puffed rice
lentils
mint leaves
mung beans

The ingredients are mixed to a ratio of 3 parts tea leaves, 3 parts sesame seeds and peanuts, and 1 part remaining ingredients.

Instructions for Making Hakka Tea

Place all the ingredients in a ceramic bowl and grind them with a wooden pestle. Add a small amount of water as you grind to make a paste.

The resulting paste is mixed with hot water and served in bowls. Lei cha was traditionally served salty, but today is often sweetened with sugar.

Hakka tea is a healthy drink that may account for the renowned longevity of the Hakka people. It is often served with rice and side dishes of vegetables, tofu, and pickles.

Adding the ingredients one by one

After listening to the instructions we set off to “work”. For this particular workshop we used red tea leaves instead of green tea as it was late afternoon. They do not recommend that one take green tea in the afternoon/ evening as if you are sensitive to caffeine and it may keep you awake throughout the whole night.

Grinding the ingredients

It was teamwork for us as one was needed to hold the bowl while the other person does the grinding. You have to use your whole strength to grind. We had to grind up the tea leaves, sesame seeds and peanuts. The other items were given to use pre-mixed so we just had to add them into bowl to mix.

mixing the ingredients with the spoon after they have been grind

When all the ingredients were ready we added hot water into the mixture and the tea was ready to be drunk.

Thunder Tea

As there were many ingredients being used in the tea it was rather “thick” as compared to traditional Chinese tea. I didn’t really like the taste as the green teas that I am used to drinking.

Have you tasted Thunder Tea before?

May 4, 2015

Jewelry Making in Taiwan

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Wordful Wednesday Jewellery workshop, Taipei, Taiwan, wordful wednesday

The rings that R and I made.

During the recent pre- anniversary holiday trip R booked a couple jewellery making workshop for us to try out. It has been a long time since we attended a couple workshop.

If my memory doesn’t fail me it was the 2nd couple workshop which we have attended together. The first one was a cooking workshop back in 2012 at TOTTS,

The jewelry workshop

There were many stations for students at the Jewelry workshop. There were about 5 couples and a single lady which attended the 2pm Saturday workshop that we signed up for. It was really interested to see what went into the making of a silver ring.

Another view of the workshop

The window view onto the road below

The tools that we used

It was the first time for me to be in a hands on workshop which involved the use of tools. I had fun playing with the different hammers and even used the blowtorch for wielding.

The apron that we had to use before starting the session.

The key ring

Each participant in the workshop had to use the key ring to self measure the size of the ring that would be made. I was contemplating on whether to make a ring for index finger or my ring finger. In the end I decided on the ring finger as it would certainly sit more comfortably then on the index.

Engraving tools

We started off the lesson learning how to engrave and were given copper plates to try out chiseling in the letters to form words. It took me some time to decide what to engrave on my ring and after much consideration I decided on carving in our 5 names.

Our instructor for the day

The pretty instructor taught us how to use the different tools that we will be using on our work bench. You can see her above giving instructions on how the blow torch was to be used.

The instructor showing how to knock the ring to size.

We were taught how to knock the ring to expand it to our chosen size. It was interesting that a single piece of silver was able to shaped and molded into different sizes.