Tea and Friendship Go Hand in Hand

Many of us have that one special person in our life that we can always count on. I am not referring to our spouses or our significant others. I am referring to our best friends. These great friends of ours deserve only the best gifts. They most certainly deserve to receive some wonderful best friend gifts.
You can give best friend gifts for practically any occasion. Give one for a birthday or a holiday; or give one "just because." In fact, the latter reason is the absolute best reason to give gifts. After all, these great friends deserve a gift every day of their lives, just for being who they are.
One wonderful idea for best friend gift is a "Tea for Two" gift basket. In this basket, include a teapot and two teacups and saucers. Include two biscuits (on second thought… including a lot of biscuits! And be sure to include a lot of chocolate, as well! Two good friends can go through these items quite quickly!).
There are some excellent books out there on tea and friendship. To make this best friend gift basket truly special, though, include a book. If you decide to give loose tea, add a tea infuser, as well. Also include sugar cubes, honey, and a great variety of tea.
· "A Cup of Christmas Tea" by Tom Hegg and Warren Hanson
· "The Twelve Teas of Friendship: When Friends are Together, It's Always a Celebration" by Emilie Barnes, et al
· "The Red Hat Society ™: Fun and Friendship After Fifty" by Sue Ellen Cooper
· "Tea and Friendship Journal" by Sandy Lyman Clough
· "The Art of Tea and Friendship: Savoring the Fragrance of Time Together" by Sandy Lynam Clough
· "You're Just My Cup of Tea: Our Friendship Warms My Heart" by Camille Ellerbrook
· "Friendship Teas to Go" by Emilie Barnes and Susan Rios
· "Join Me for Tea: Infusing Friendships with Love and Laughter" by Emilie Barnes
· "Sandy's Tea Society: Delighting in Friendships Steeped in Love" by Sandy Lynam Clough
· "A Little Friendship: A Cup of Tea Together Will Make Us Glad and a Little Friendship is No Small Matter" by Renee Locks
This is just one idea of a great many for gifts for best friends. What you decide to give depends entirely on you and your best friend. The important thing is to give a gift that shows him or her exactly how much you care and how much he or she means to you.
Other great things to give to your best friend are two tickets to sporting events, the symphony, ski resorts, etc. You can also reserve an entire day for your best friend, taking him or her out to dinner, on a hike, to the spa, etc.
Anne Clarke writes numerous articles for websites on gardening, parenting, fashion, and home decor. Her background includes teaching and gardening. For more of her articles on tea and friendship and great gifts, please visit
Distinct Gift Baskets
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Tea Varieties

Oxidation is the reaction of the enzymes contained in tea leaves when they are broken, bruised or crushed. In its most basic form, processing is the taking of the raw green leaves and deciding whether or not, and how much oxidation (or fermentation) should take place before drying them out. It is the processing techniques that produce the four simple tea categories are considered the art of tea making.

Shades in flavor derive from the region of cultivation and the method of processing the tea leaves. If you do like tea drinking, but simply never had the opportunity to learn more about it beyond the fact that you enjoy it, you should know that there are thousands of kinds of tea offered on today's market. Tea is made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush in hot water for a few minutes, a great variety of tea tastes, aromas and colors can excite even the more skeptical drinker. Interestingly enough the 3,200,000 tones of tea produced worldwide come from only one plant species, named "camellia sinensis." But how a plant becomes a beverage?

The second most consumed beverage behind water is tea.
The first category is that of black tea. Black tea is nothing more than the leaves of the camellia sinensis after being exposed to 8-24 hours of open air. After the leaves are picked up they are spread out to let the water they contain evaporate. You have probably witnessed it happening to a flower that is left without being watered. The foliage curls up and begins to dry. After this part of the process, the tea leaves are balled into rolls that encourage oxidization. When fully oxidized, the leaves turn into a rich black color. Tea producers then put the tea leaves into the final drying period before sorting and packaging them.
Oolong tea is another tea category and is considered to be the most difficult of the four types of teas to process. The best way to describe oolong tea is that it is somewhere in between green and black tea. This is because the leaves are only partially oxidized during the processing. As with black tea, the leaves are spread out to dry for 8-24 hours, but after that, they are tossed about in a basket in order to create a bruising and partial exposure to the air. The final step involves steaming the leaves, which neutralizes the enzymes in the tea and prevents further oxidization.
Though the tea leaves are sometimes laid out to dry for a few hours, then, in order to neutralize the enzymes and prevent further oxidation, the leaves are rolled up, still quite green in color. The whole process of creating green tea revolves around preventing oxidization from taking place in the leaves. This type of tea is also lower in caffeine and has higher antioxidant properties. Green teas, like white teas, are closer to tasting like fresh leaves of grass that the other two tea categories.
Finally, white tea has recently become a popular item in the west as it is the least processed tea and thus tastes the most like fresh leaves or grass. White tea is made of the little buds of the tea plant. Again like green tea, white tea is steamed or pan fried to prevent any kind of oxidization, and great care is taken to avoid bruising or crushing the tea. The dried buds have a silver-like appearance because the tiny white hairs of new growth are still present.
John Gibb is the owner of
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