António Vieira da Cruz

(também publicado no Substack )       It’s already Autumn, and a cup of tea is the perfect companion for reading a book while it rains outside. To prepare a good cup of tea, you first need quality tea leaves. When you order a special tea from overseas, you are essentially asking for a treasure. To prepare those leaves, you just need good water and a nice teapot. Your tea is well-infused when you extract the best flavours from it. However, using the wrong water or mishandling its temperature can ruin the experience.    Tea leaves are truly an unpolished gem. You have a fantastic raw material right in front of you! They were likely selected by local experts and travelled halfway around the world before reaching your hands. It would be a pity to ruin them, wouldn’t you agree?   The famous Cutty Sark was a tea clipper, one of the fastest ships of its time (1869).    Fortunately, it is not that difficult to bring out the best flavours in your tea...