Tea

Recipe difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients

A teabag or loose leaf tea
Hot water

Tools

A teapot or tea strainer for loose leaf tea
Your De'Longhi automatic espresso machine

From black to green, oolong to herbal, there is a huge variety of teas (around 1,500 in fact), but all tea is made from the processed leaves and buds of the evergreen ‘Camellia sinensis’ bush. Differences in flavor come from the size of the leaves, the conditions in which the tea is grown, the soil and climate, the way the leaves are harvested and the manner in which they’re processed after picking.

Tea is grown in India, Sri Lanka, East Africa and China, with the teas produced by each country having unique properties.

Whether you use teabags or loose tea, it is one of the simplest drinks to make as you just add hot water, brew to taste and add milk and sugar if required. The process can be made even simpler by using one of De’Longhi’s bean-to-cup coffee makers, which provide instant hot water to prepare tea or herbal drinks.

Method

If using a teabag, place it in a cup and add boiling water. Stir and remove the teabag after a few seconds. Add milk and sugar to taste.
For loose tea, add the tea to a teapot, pour on boiling water, stir, place on the lid and leave for a minute or two to infuse. Pour through a strainer into a cup unless your teapot has a strainer built in. Add milk and sugar to taste.
Check first whether you need milk as only some teas are suited for it, such as English Breakfast Tea, Indian Chai Tea and North American Tea Lattes.

Some teas - such as a chai latte - should be brewed with milk and not water. If you aren't a coffee fan, but love a creamy milk tea, try using one of our milk steaming machines, which heat milk to the perfect drinking temperature.