Chapter XXVI
BEVERAGES
FILTERED WATER
Boiling the water. It is a recognized fact that many diseases are contracted through drinking impure water, yet many are so careless as not to take the simple means of removing this danger. It only requires boiling the water to destroy the germs. This, however, does not remove the foreign matter, such as decayed vegetable growth and other substances, therefore it is well to filter as well as to boil water. Many good filters are made which are cheap and easy to clean. The Gate City Stone Filter is perhaps the simplest one, being an earthen crock with a porous stone bottom. Although all filters claim to remove germs as well as impurities from water, it is safer to boil it first. Bright, crystal-like water in clear glass carafes is an ornamental addition to the table service as well as a convenient way of serving it. If the carafes are stopped with cotton and placed in the refrigerator for several hours, the water will be refreshingly cool, and cracked ice, which many do not use, in the belief that it arrests digestion, will not be required.
TO FREEZE CARAFES
Packing. Fill the bottles a little less than half full. The water should be below the largest part of the bulb; stop the bottles with cotton, and over the top of each one invert a tin cup. Individual timbale-molds may be used. Cover the bottom of a tub with ice and salt, place the bottles on it, leaving some space around each one, then fill the tub with ice and salt, the same as in packing ice-creams, and cover it. Within two or three hours the water will become frozen. Care must be taken that the water in the tub is never high enough to flow into the top of the carafes. When ready to serve, wipe the frozen carafes and fill them with ice water.
TEA
The water. You cannot have first-rate tea or coffee unless you use freshly-boiled water. Water that has been boiled for an hour or more lacks life, and gives a dull taste to the decoction. Draw freshly filtered water and let it come to a hard boil before using.
Scald the pot and immediately put into it the tea-leaves.
When the water boils hard, pour upon the tea-leaves the required quantity of water. Shut down the cover of the tea-pot and let it stand just five minutes before serving.
Proportions. To give the proportions of tea and water is impossible, as such different degrees of strength are demanded. One teaspoonful of tea to a pint of water, steeped five minutes, makes a weak tea. Two teaspoonfuls give the color of mahogany, if an English breakfast tea is used. Oolong tea does not color the water very much, so its strength cannot be as well judged in that way. Steeping. Tea, to be perfect, should not steep longer than five minutes; it may continue to grow stronger after that time, but the flavor is not as good, and if the leaves remain too long in the water the tea becomes bitter.