Oh, goodness!

I am still very much alive and kicking, and I apologize for any concern regarding that and for having the blog down for so long.

It was for rather wretchedly personal reasons, I’m afraid. I was being searched for/contacted by a person I’d rather not be dealing with, and went into temporary internet hibernation while I got everything straightened out.

Not sure as to the status of this project in the future but I AM hoping to be able to update at least once a month or so. Thank you all for reading when you did, and here’s the blog if you wanted any past entries, or if you wanted to give me another shot in the possible future. Thanks!

I am still here…

…and I still have the most sincere intentions to keep this sucker up on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, I work in the insurance industry, on the enrollment side of things, and with Medicare.  This means that the last few months have been full of open enrollment super-busy nonsense, and I haven’t had a lot of time to post, read blogs, etc.  My apologies!

While I’ve been gone, a few notable tea things did occur.  We visited “Dream About Tea” in Evanston again and took an amazing and incredibly informative tea class from Hong.  That was a blast!  I’d highly recommend her classes–whether on tea or, I’m sure, on Chinese language, as she was a marvelous and patient teacher–to anyone in the area.

Also, for Christmas, I got a gorgeous new gong fu tray and will definitely be showing off a picture here in the near future.  Pete got a Super-Gaiwan, as he always complained that the 4oz ones were just too small.  This one holds about 10, I think, and came from the Imperial Tea Court.  Pictures of that, too, later.

Thanks to everyone who prodded me about it!   I’ll try to be better in the near future.  Hope you are all well, and I look forward to catching up on your blogs.

A few brief tea-community-related notes…

First off, a great fella from the alt.rec.food.drink.tea newsgroup has just launched his own teablog.  He’s got reliable and interesting theories on tea, particularly greens, and his story about his own personal “tea journey” under “About Me” is really great.  Here’s to hoping that Dominic shares lots more tea ideas and information with us in the future at his Teasphere.

Also, here you can find an interesting interview with the fellow behind “The Simple Leaf.”  This is the beginning, it appears, of a few articles about the startup and philosophy of their company.  It’s a great inspiration to anyone wanting to share their love of tea with the world.

Other than that, thanks much to everyone who shared their answers with me in my curiosity on “What’s In The Pot?,” below.  Feel free to keep chiming in. 

That’s all I know for today.  I hope to do lots of knitting and tea drinking this weekend, though, so I’ll have lots of impressions to share next week.  Have a super weekend!

Yes, but what’s in the pot?

Let me tell you, the woods were *especially* lovely, dark, and deep this morning. I very nearly stayed in bed and called in. It’s drear and drizzly here, a bit chill…perfect nesting/knitting/napping weather. Still, I was able to shift my [arguably shiftless (although I am properly undergarmented)] self to work by promising myself I could have tea and zone out in front of some feeds and tea blogs for an hour or so before setting down to work.

But enough rambling and wordplay! I do have a point in posting today, though it may be a rather dull one. I was curious–all of us tea blog people are great at posting fascinating reviews of lovely (and mediocre, and wretched) teas that come our way, but we generally seem to consume these in small quantities, or, at the very least, in large quantities strung out over time due to using a tiny Yixing pot, etc.

My question, then, is this: What is in our pots? And, by that, I mean to refer to “traditional” Western teapots–the kind that produce relatively large amounts of tea for several people, tea that can be drunk and enjoyed but not truly *concentrated* upon, necessarily…maybe I’m still not being perfectly clear.

You see, I have a decent collection (nothing like some of the envy-worthy stashes of other online tea people, not *yet*) of tea that I truly treasure and enjoy. I’ll haul out the tiny Yixings and spend two solid hours really trying to understand a small quantity of a tea, or I’ll pull out a small gaiwan and make some rounds of really loveable, unusual green now and again. And I make about seven or eight single 8oz “mugsfull” of tea a day at work, brewing each one individually in a coffee press or Pyrex cup or gaiwan and pouring them into my designated “tea” mug. (I also have a coffee mug. It’s roughly ye olde East and West–and never the twain shall meet.)

But I drink a *lot* of tea in a day, and the vast majority of it comes out of a series of large, “traditional Western” teapots of various sorts that I own, teapots that make six or so large cups/mugs of tea at a go. I’ll put a green of some sort in here, or an oolong, and I will drink a pot with dinner, a pot (or two) while playing Neverwinter Nights multiplayer, or watching a movie, or what have you…and then I’ll make another pot to take cold to work in the morning, and maybe one more to keep iced in the fridge, etc.

Lots of tea, and definitely not my most precious greens and puerhs and the darling, exciting samples of oolong I recently got from Stephane at Teamasters’ blog, etc.

Mostly, my pots are filled with the bancha, sencha, hojicha, kukicha, and genmaicha I purchased in the cheap “sleeves” from a Korean grocery store near Chicago, the super cheap “Dong Ding” oolong (”Dong Ding” in quotations because…well…I sincerely doubt it. The stuff has an almost “soapy” aftertaste if it isn’t brewed just right, or if it is chilled.) I got from an Asian grocery near here, etc.

None of it is super tea, and some of it is tricky to brew so that it can be palatable, but some of it is darn good in its own way, and all of it is cheap and plentiful enough to hold up to pot after pot (multiple infusions and copious fresh leaves when needed), and I don’t fuss about the quantity or price and just drink the stuff like water.

Am I alone in this? Do others simply drink small amounts of good tea (my philosophy with alcohol…small amounts of good *always* better than large amounts of mediocre, although it’s different, for me, with tea)? Or do you, too, have “second string” teas you use in making large potsful? Or, do you, as either well-heeled, established professionals or, at the very least, hardcore classy tea junkies, shell out for the truly premium stuff in mass quantity, everyday consumption as *well* as in your brilliant, clever, highly controlled reviews?

I’m just curious. What’s in your pot?

Review: Mountain Malt Assam from The Simple Leaf

Okay, I’ve been seriously slacking lately, and I apologize. My only excuse is that, for the last four days, I’ve been so dramatically ill with a sinus infection that I haven’t been able to taste so much as the spicy, sodium-y goodness of Picante Chicken Ramen noodles, let alone the delicate nuances of so many of the teas I own. Definitely not a good time to be conducting review of new tea. (On a side note, I’ve been relying heavily on the teas I *was* somewhat able to taste as comfort these last few days–lots of long-brewed shu puerh and the American Breakfast Assam I mentioned earlier. Yum!)

Today, though, I think the clouds are breaking (and by “clouds” I actually mean “the globules that do not bear thinking about which are inhabiting my sinus cavities”) and I think I can taste properly, so I’m going to give the last of my “bold” teas from The Simple Leaf a try.  Don’t quite trust myself yet for more delicate Darjeelings, but let’s see how this goes…

Dry, this tea smelled less malty than the American Breakfast I reviewed before.  This made me second guess my tasting abilities for the day, so I opened American Breakfast and smelled that, thus verifying that “Mountain Malt” does indeed smell slightly *less* malty than “American Breakfast.”  The leaves are large, curled pieces and are very attractive.

Brewed, the liquor is a lovely dark brown with hints of a coppery red undertone.  It smells like…well, like autumn, really.  A little bit of hay, a little bit of cool outside air, and a little bit of dry fallen leaves. 

The taste of this tea is *very* bold–a very strong tea, in a good way.  It’s very smooth, mellow, and full-bodied, with a definite black tea taste that is refreshingly lacking in “bad” bite and bitterness.  This tea stands well on its own but could definitely hold up to some milk and sugar.  In fact, the mellow smoothness of this tea would make me pick it to pair with milk and sugar over the more malty American Breakfast.

For me, this is a very good basic black tea.  I enjoy the “round” taste of it, and the lack of heavy malting makes it more “basic” for me, better able to take milk and sugar or just to drink several cups of on its own.  I still enjoy the bold maltyness of the American Breakfast, but this one may very well become a staple as well for the pure strength and black-tea-purity of the flavour.

I’m really enjoying learning about what I like and prefer in black teas.  I seem to very much enjoy strength and maltyness.  This isn’t really a surprise, given that my first cup in the morning is usually filled with wretched-tasting coffee that I use to jolt myself into unpleasant awakeness…I’m too much of a zombie in the early morning to even trust myself to brew a decent cup of tea.

Fight the Power.

It’s been a crazy-busy week, and next week won’t be any better.  (Next week is our scheduled governmental audit and everyone is a little keyed-up, naturally.)

I’ve been depending on lots of tea at work to get me through the workday. (That and bothering Pete via Gmail chat.)  Haven’t had a lot of time to do formal tastings on any more of the new teas this week (I’ve also been distracted by the beginning of my yearly yarn-frenzy…this year’s bout of knitting has begun), but I did have time to attempt to right a grave, grave wrong.  (And to be free with my parentheticals, clearly.)
In the office kitchen, the only provided tea-choice is a big box of vile, horrid, food-service quality “Darjeeling” tea.  This stuff is *way* worse than Lipton.  It’s dreadful.  And yet, somebody is drinking it…I know they are, since the box very slowly gets less-full.  So it’s probably only one or two people, judging from the volume, and it’s probably only once in a while.

That’s still too many people drinking it too often.  Time to attempt to Stick it to the Man.

Sign taped to the inside of the office kitchen tea box cover:

I’ll be sure to tell you all if I have any takers. 

In other news, while I’m sure *everyone* has read both of the NY Times articles on tea (teabags and gongfu tea) as they’ve been all over the blogs and mailing lists, this video has not yet gotten as much attention.  It showed up on a (the!) tea newsgroup a few days ago and I only just got around to watching it now. 

I know we’ve all seen the other videos of gongfu cha/etc. on Google video/YouTube/etc., but this one must be fairly new.  Now, I’m not linking to it for educational purposes (or even this man’s incredibly creepy-yet-amusing constant sociopathic smile) or telling you to follow this fella’s technique.  What I am linking to it for is the fact that I just spent five minutes trying not to laugh my morning tea through my nose.  Starting at about one minute into the video, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, watch the bottom left corner.  There is a strange lightning bolt-esque lightshow over the HEAD OF A SMALL WHITE DOG.

It is bizarre, inexplicable (please tell me post-processing!) and HILARIOUS.  Go now.

Have a super weekend, everyone!

Vendor Review: Current tea catalogs…

This isn’t a vendor review proper, just a few notes on the latest round of tea catalogs that has graced my threshold. 

I requested a few this year that I’d never gotten before, just out of curiosity.  I think I asked for Upton, Harney & Sons, Mark T. Wendell, Stash, Republic of Tea, Peet’s…I think that’s it.  The only one that hasn’t come yet is Stash, but I’ve gotten their catalogue before and I’ve never ordered any tea from them, just the occasional gifty-type-thing.

Peet’s…you can pretty much forget about the catalogue.  It looks like they might have one or two worthwhile teas, despite being more a coffee company, but you’re better off ordering at their website.  The “catalogue” is glossy and easy to navigate, but it’s also only about five pages long…more of an advertising mailer than a catalogue.  I’ve never ordered anything from Peet’s, only just heard of ‘em.  I’d probably pick to get my tea from someplace that specialized in tea, but, like I said, they seem to have a few interesting offerings.

Mark T. Wendell’s I’ve also never ordered from, and probably won’t.  They have a nice, modest, easily navigated catalogue, but I get a weird vibe from them.  They seem to focus mostly on teabags and producing consistent-but-possibly-mediocre teas and tea blends…they also do a lot of “importing” and reselling of packaged brands (loose and bagged) from different areas of the world.  I’m sure this was useful ten years ago if you wanted PG Tips in America or Typhoo or some Chinese tea bags, but the advent of the internet and larger “Ethnic” sections in most grocery stores makes this seem like a waste of effort and catalogue space on the part of Wendell’s.

Harney & Son’s…I’ve had their tea now and again when I’m shopping at Barnes & Noble, as that’s what their little cafe serves.  It isn’t bad; I’d compare it to Numi or Republic of Tea in quality and presentation.  I’m sure a lot of Harney fans will take that as an insult, but their company strikes me as concerned mostly with wide-appeal, consistent-but-not-thrilling blends, fancy packaging, “theme” teas, *lots* of flavoured teas, etc.  None of that is really my favourite.  The catalogue is very glossy and impressive, but a little busy and hard to navigate, for me, anyway.  Too much flash all around.  Stick with the website if you’re after one of their more “normal” teas or a favourite blend.

Upton’s catalogue is, as always, a huge favourite.  They always have interesting, long, in-depth articles on the history or influence of tea, which is a great treat.  The selection is, of course, enormous, and you will know *everything* you wanted to know about the age and provenance of most of their teas.  Their “blurbs” on the tea are occasionally helpful, but they do tend to run together after the hundredth one or so…still, good guidelines.  The best thing about the catalogue is the *super clear* organization and the absolute no-nonsense style of it.  No colour, no graphics, small black and white pictures of teaware where needed, just lists of tea laid out by colour, region, and “body/boldness.”  Yay!  I *hate* Upton’s website, although that’s where I go to do the actual ordering…it’s just not instinctive for me to navigate, for some reason, but I love the catalogue.  Use it for fun browsing and the website for up-to-date information on selections and ordering.  You can also read their quarterly articles on the website–well worth it.  The current one is on the early economics of tea as it related to Tibetan/Chinese horse trading…very cool!

Republic of Tea’s catalogue was surprisingly nice…I wouldn’t order their tea, as a rule, but it isn’t bad for bags (and the occasional loose).  It’s pricey, though, I think…you’re paying a lot for packaging, artwork, etc.  Lovely catalogue, but what was really nice was all of their teaware.  While the markups on, say, Bodum products, was a little ridiculous, their own line of pots and cups and accessories is shockingly well-priced, for the most part, and quite pretty.  There’s a tea tray and a few pots I have my eye on in there–I’ll post if I wind up ordering them.  Tea-wise, they do a ton of “themed” stuff, including a Jerry Garcia teas line (WTF?!?!?) and a “Sip For the Cure” Breast-cancer research line, which is all…pink, in one way or another.

They sent along a sample bag of their “Pink Grapefruit Grean Tea” from the “Sip For the Cure” line with my catalogue–brief review as follows.  Anyway, request some of these catalogues–they’re fun “fluff” reading, and they might even send you a bit of tea!

PINK GRAPEFRUIT ROUND GREEN TEA BAGS from The Republic of Tea:

This is *not* a tea I would *ever* pick for myself.  It’s flavoured, themed, and pink.  That’s *three* things going against it.  Still, I’ll try to keep an open mind.  Dry, the bag smells vaguely citrus and vaguely green tea.  And vaguely pink, but that might be psychosomatic.  Steeped the bag in green-tea-temperature water in a cup for about a minute.

This stuff purports to contain “green tea,” (Does it make anyone else mildly nervous when something says it contains “green tea”?  What *kind* of green tea?), “natural grapefruit flavors,” (Hopefully of grapefruit origin…) and “pink peony petals.”  (Alliteration having to do with a pink flower…DANGER, DANGER!)

The tea in the cup smells a little green-tea-ish and a little citrusy-astringent.  The tea in the cup tastes…like medium quality generic “green tea” with, maybe, a hint of mild lemony-grapefruityness…but only a hint.  I’d characterize this tea as “warm, inoffensive, and marginally even pleasant,” but that’s about it.  It’s classic flavoured tea-bag tea, to my palate–slighly bland, slightly exotically-scented, warm, wet, and…yup, that’s it.

I wouldn’t recommend this tea, and I’d probably pick something else (even a straight green) if I had to get at tea bag at a coffeehouse.  You could serve this to a non-tea-drinker, though, and they wouldn’t dislike it, hot or iced, I’m sure.

Review: “American Breakfast” and “More Amor” Assams

Tea: “American Breakfast” and “More Amor”

Type: Assams

Vendor: The Simple Leaf

AMERICAN BREAKFAST:

Until this very moment, I did not really understand what people were talking about when they referred to Assams as “malty” at times.

Holy yum.  I’m sitting here, just smelling the dry leaf of this ”American Breakfast” Assam tea by The Simple Leaf.  I want very much to brew and drink this tea, as well, but right now I’m content to just be floored by the scent.

It’s “malty” in the sense of ever-so-slightly fermented sweet grain of the sort you can find being fed to horses, in my opinion.  Not so much true “malt” as “sweet fermenting grain” of some variety.  As usual, my strange “horse” and “barn” analogies are *compliments* to this tea, not marks against it.  Smelling this reminds me very strongly of being little and visiting my aunt’s nice, clean horse barn early on a summer morning while she was doing the feeding.

Only, with a “tea” undercurrent.

Maybe a bit prosy–do forgive me, I have an atrophied brain due to being an English lit/Classics major.  Still, I’m loving the scent of this tea.

It’s also very attractive–a dark, dark brown and very uniform, with little bits that I can only assume are portions of tightly rolled leaves and that remind me of Grape-Nuts, of all things.  Super cute, and interesting, if a bit unusual.

The parameters were about a teaspoon of tea into about seven ounces of water just off the boil, for about two minutes in a single-serving Bodum coffee-press.  These two minutes were a little confusing, since they were filled with…dancing Grape-Nuts.  The little bits floated around and got bigger and puffier and Grape-Nuttier, but they didn’t “unfurl.” 

Curious, I poured off the tea (nope, didn’t press it, no worries), which is a gorgeous coppery red-brown colour, clear and lovely.  I then examined the little tea-bits and discovered that they were actually very small leaf pieces that were apparently pressed and formed into these cute, irregular little tea-bits.  The bits disintegrated when prodded, but not in the water…intriuging.

The proof, of course, is in the tea, which was *super!*  Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I got this excited about a black tea.  I knew immediately upon drinking it that I wanted no milk or sugar–this tea needed none!  It was very smooth, and very sweet, of all things.  In fact, I did a double-take at first sip to see if I *had* added milk and sugar.  This is a big deal for me, as black teas have always been a strong, slightly bitter milk-and-sugar delivery system, not a standalone.  This is definitely a standalone.

There is only the tiniest bit of back-of-the throat tannic dryness to this tea–the rest is all smooth, sweet flavour.  Tons of flavour, too, and a very full mouthfeel, not thin at all.

This tea is *holding my attention,* which heretofore has only been something that good greens, whites, an puerhs could do.  Black tea was always like coffee or water–just another thing in a cup at my desk to drink unthinkingly.  Turns out this wasn’t “black” tea’s fault…it was just a question of getting better black tea.

Seriously, though, miles away from teabags, miles!  The wet tea leaves smell even more like the grainy-malty-loveliness I mentioned earlier. 

(Confession: I made another cup.  It takes milk and sugar quite well.  I couldn’t resist!  Still, I’m pleased and surprised to note that I like it *better* on its own.)

MORE AMOR:

Same malty scent in the bag, but more delicate, somehow.   This tea is billed as a “Mild” where the American Breakfast was billed as a “Bold,” and it turns out that’s really the case.

The taste is similar in ethos (essential character, pardon my Greek) to the American Breakfast, so I have now begun to learn what makes an Assam an Assam.  (This specific black tea stuff is completely new to me.  I’m glad I’m starting with type-specific blends as opposed to, say, single plantation & flush pickings, as I think they would be utterly lost on me at this point.)

It is milder, though, and slightly thinner-feeling in the mouth.  The sweetness is there, but not so pronounced, if only because the taste of the Assam maltiness is not so strong here.  The tea is made up of smallish leaf-pieces which aren’t rolled or pressed this time–larger “chunks” of leaf than the American Breakfast, but they’re individual as opposed to collected into, umm, Grape-Nuts. 

There’s a slight “golden” overtone as well, which is very pleasant.  I’m sorry that I don’t know how to describe it other than “golden,” but I’m trying to address a certain warm-vegetative-cream-muted brightness, if that makes sense.

Another standalone and another very pleasant tea–this one strikes me as a possibility for a truly superior iced black tea.  I think I preferred the strength and “punch” of the bolder American Breakfast, but this was nice, as well.

Tea is so exciting!

It was a bit of a rough weekend, what with Edgar the Ferret getting sick and needing surgery on Labor Day, so I can’t describe how exiting it was to get two tea packages yesterday!  One was from Stephane Erlers at Teamasters Blog, and the other from The Simple Leaf. 

 It really lifted my spirits to find two beautiful, painstakingly packaged boxes of tea!  I pawed through them immediately and found both of them to far outstrip my initial expectations.  Expect vendor and tea reviews on these in the near future–I plan on sitting down to some of these lovely blacks and oolongs (and a green!) later today.

Anyway, don’t wait for my reviews–if you’ve never dealt with either of these vendors/sources (somehow I don’t exactly consider Stephane a “vendor,” proper, but rather a “source,” if that makes sense…?) before, I’d tell you to go for it.  The service was knowlegeable and prompt, the shipping was fast, prices were good, packaging was careful, etc.–and the teas, while currently untasted, look to be of a very high, uniform quality. 

In other news, Edgar has returned from the animal hospital.  He had a hairball blocking off his little stomach.  The hairball had probably been building up since before I even owned him, the poor dear.  He’s feeling better now, I think, and is eating well, so I feel much better.  In closing, a few darling and completely off-topic slices of cuteness:

(Note the adorable fang-a-langs below.  Strictly decorative–he’s a very sweet ferret.)

Apologies for the posting delay…

…family plans this weekend, etc.  Plus, my pet ferret is in emergency surgery right now, so I’m rather stressed and worried (not to mention flat-broke!) about that. 

 Hope to post later this week–thanks for the visits and patience!