“Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.” ~ Catherine Douzel
The following guest post, written by Nicole Schwartz , is an account of scenerios and complementing ideas worth knowing when it comes to efficiently making great quality tea away from home, with as little trouble as possible.

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I enjoy loose leaf tea; I have worked to learn about the best preparation methods for making my favorite loose leaf teas. At home I have all sorts of tea-specific kitchen gadgets. This is great for me when I am home, but I need to go to work, or a hotel, when traveling. How can I make the best cup of tea possible when I am not at home?

I took a look at each step on the tea making process and how I worked to get that resource while away from home, both at work and traveling. My solutions may not be best for you, but I hope they give you some ideas.

First I needed water. I decided to use tap water as my palate isn’t able to pick out the difference between that and filtered water. If you are concerned about the quality of water when traveling, there are many portable (camping) water filtration systems that are tiny that can purify tap water for you. Otherwise, you’ll need to find a local store to purchase filtered water.

Now that I have water, I need to heat it. I took a good look around to see what ways I could heat or get hot water. I found; a water fountain that also dispenses hot water, a coffee maker that offers hot water, and a microwave. Have you taken a good look around your office? Have you checked the hotel website to see what amenities there are (microwave)? If you cant find resources to provide heated water, or are not sure if they will be available, you’ll need to look into a device to heat water. There are nice electric kettles if space is not an issue, and if you need more portability there are very small travel immersion water heaters. I used a thermometer to check the temperature of the water to see what my maximum temperature was for the resource I found. You can always let the water cool a little first. I wanted to try to match the tea to the water temperature I had available.

At work I decided to use the instant hot water spigot on the water fountain, because electronic devices are not welcome. When traveling, I use a plastic hot pot since I am already a heavy packer, space is less of a concern than durability.

So now I know what temperature of water I can obtain, what types of tea will this temperature best suit? When traveling, my hot pot will get all the way to a boil so I can bring any tea I want, where at work the instant hot water is cooler so black tea isn’t brought to its full potential and an oolong would better. I am going to choose loose leaf oolong for work and loose leaf black for travel. You’ll want to pack the tea in a good container (I used a tin inside a plastic bag) so it does not get crushed during travel. There are some great pyramid tea bags with large leaf bits out there so I don’t totally ignore good quality teabags from being an option when I travel.

Now that I have chosen my tea, how am I going to prepare that tea? There are many ways to make tea, so I looked first at my limiting factors. When at work my constraining factor is that I have no easy way to clean up. When traveling, durability is my main constraint. I have chosen a cup with a removable mesh strainer on top for use at work. It’s small enough to keep at my desk and easy to empty the strainer into the trash when the tea is ready. I measure the tea with a plastic lunch spoon. When in the hotel I use the t-sac paper tea bags and a plastic lunch spoon to make little disposable teabags for myself.

Last, how do I enjoy the tea I just prepared? At work, I can drink out of the cup once I remove the strainer. When traveling, I bring a plastic double-walled travel mug, I rest the lid on the over-hang of the t-sac until it’s done steeping, then remove and trash the t-sac and screw the lid on before I adventure out.

I hope this helps you think through your options – there are ways to make good tea, it may not be ideal, but I think a good cup of tea beats the teabags and warm carafe water you get at work, meetings, or hotels by a mile.

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Nicole Schwartz is tea enthusiast who shares her insights and regularly writes on a great variety of teas as she tries and rates them on her site. While you’re at it, go ahead and follow her on Twitter.

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