Here are the answers to yesterday’s Tea Trivia Quiz. How’d you do?
1. a. The story is that Chinese emperor Shen Nung was drinking his cup of boiling water when he brushed by a tea bush. A leaf fell into his cup and instead of fishing it out, he left it in there. The first cup of tea was enjoyed!
2. b. The familiar round teapot was modeled in the shape of a musk melon, said to the best configuration for tea steeping because it allows the water to flow, unimpeded by corners.
3. c. While the Dutch began importing tea, the Portuguese missionaries in Macao were actually the first to begin drinking it.
4. c. Tea is grown in about 40 countries but the best teas in the world come from only 5, China, Japan, Taiwan, India and Sri Lanka.
5. b. Orange pekoe refers to the larger of the leaves on a fine plucking and the term indicates a generally good-quality tea.
6. b. Yunnan is a black tea with a chocolately aftertaste and is considered one of the finest varieties on earth.
7. b. The leaves are rolled by hand into tiny pellets that resemble gunpowder.
8. b. Grown in the foothills of the Himalayas at altitudes of 6000 feet, Darjeeling is one of the most famous teas in the world.
9. c. Cupping is the process to judge the value of a tea.
10. c. A tisane is a hot drink made from boiling water and edible leaves, not from the Camellia sinensis plant’s leaves.
11. c. Queen Victoria introduced the habit of taking a slice of lemon with her tea, a custom she learned when visiting in Russia.
12. a. The first European style cups were made in a German colony in Transylvania called Cronstadt.
