One of the things that Mom and Dad got me was a box of gunpowder tea and a metal tea ball to brew it with.

The individual pieces of tea are about the size of shredded coconut that you buy at the grocery store. Each of these little pieces is actually an entire tea leaf that has been individually hand rolled into this little ball shape! This is the definition of gunpowder tea from Epicurious.com:

This fine Chinese tea is considered the highest grade of green tea and is noted for both its form and its flavor. The small, young tea leaves are rolled into minuscule balls, giving the tea a granular appearance. Gunpowder tea is light in color, with a distinctively sharp flavor.

I thought it was called gunpowder because it was roasted to be very strong. It is actually green tea. It is called gunpowder because the little balls were about the size of British gunpowder granules.

After you brew the tea, the little balls unroll into full tea leaves. A full tea leaf is about ¾ of an inch long and about ½ of an inch wide. These are the tea leaves referred to when you hear about telling your fortune from reading tea leaves.

It is very good. It has the body of coffee without having all of the acid or feeling as heavy. I have had several cups this evening.

Some sites I have found on-line said because the whole leaf doesn't let the flavors escape from the leaf as fast as the ground tea, so you can use the tea leaves for about three brewings. It works! I just kept the ball in my cup and added more hot water when I reached the bottom. One level teaspoon (measuring kind, not from the silverware drawer) I think is a little strong for a large cup, and ½ teaspoon makes the cup too weak. Tomorrow I will try ¾ of a teaspoon for a large cup, and I think that will be just about right.

I have a porcelain tea pot around here somewhere, which would be perfect, but I don't know where it is. I will put that on my to-do list.

I am definitely going to keep this tea on hand from now on.