Wholemeal Crank

Today I prepared two teas cold-brewed: some of a Da Yu Ling described by Dragon Tea House as especially good for cold brewing. My first experience with it was as a hot tea, and it was a fine, tasty oolong, very reminiscent of the various Alishans I've been getting from Norbu. Cold (room temp) brewed, it was astonishingly sweet, so sweet that after a couple of sips I diluted the cup a bit with some fresh water and found it an improvement. Still, quite delicious, and now that it seems like hot weather is finally settling in for the summer, I'm going to keep this one reserved for cold brewing. I also used some Yong De white buds from Norbu for a cold-brewed cup, and it was floral/camphorous/sweet/fruity, with a bit of added chrysanthemum blossom. Really the only problem with these cold-brewed teas was that I didn't brew enough to handle my thirst after a long nap during the heat of the day. So for tomorrow, I'm prepping a larger volume with the Da Yu Ling. There's also some rather ordinary sencha that might be just right for this. Has anyone ever tried sencha + osmanthus, or cold-brewed osmanthus flowers?

Quiet topic lately. Today I roasted an unsatisfying oolong for the first time, and it was quite easy with pleasant results. I took some Taiwanese Tie Guan Yin, one that was not brilliant first time around, and got forgotten in the back of the cabinet, spread it out on a flattish bowl, put it in the convection oven at 275 (put it in during the preheat, no waiting), and let it go about 20-25 minutes. I played with the timer, the infrared thermometer, and looked at the balled up leaves and sniffed to decide when to stop, but I did not keep detailed notes. In particular, I forgot how hot the tea leaf was when I removed it from the oven--I am sure it was over 200 degrees, but not sure beyond that. It had a pleasant cocoa scent, and is infusing up quite nicely as a lightly roasted tea, much better than it did as a stale green oolong. I will keep this in mind for future 'forgettable/forgotten' teas. The delightful Bancha and Houjicha I've been drinking lately suggest this might also be something to try with sadder greens too. And the last posts up there remind me that I recently tried some 'Milk Oolong' from Dragon Tea House on Ebay. I was already ordering the teeny tiny yixing pot and gaiwan (discussed in the teaware topic), and when I saw that they carried a Milk oolong, decided to add some to the order. I found it too strongly 'milky' to believe it unflavored, and so strong that it was unpleasant to my taste buds, like many of the jasmine teas I used to crave but now really don't enjoy, but several of my colleagues enjoyed it, so it did not go to waste. I think I'll stop seeking the stuff out, because even the toned down later infusions still didn't strike me as a flavor that really enhanced the oolong experience, but if I do find myself ordering something else from a supplier vouched for like the one mentioned a few posts above, I might try a small sample.

Another 'baby' puerh from Essence of Tea tonight: finished a 2-day session with the 2011 Guafengzhai. 1.6 grams in 50mL tiny porcelain gaiwan (lots of broken bits because I was prying a bit off of one side and it got a little messy) Water 205 degrees Flash rinse—did not save—and only noticed later that a bit of water was left, like a grandpa-style ‘root’, that got incorporated into the first infusion, which is….strong. Campfire smoky gym socks strong. Still only a hint of bitter, but very powerful stuff. 2nd infusion, 10 seconds then poured, still very strong smoky umami stuff, but the sweet is able to show up at the front of each sip, and the aftertaste is spicy and herbaceous and bitter and still smoky. 3rd infusion, poured in, replaced kettle on stand, and poured out, less than 10 seconds: still very powerful stuff. I am so appreciating this lovely little gaiwan right now, the fit and the pour and the function for these fast infusions are just excellent. The tea is still transporting me back to childhood campfires, with a bit of sweet here and there. 4th infusion, same pour in/kettle/pour out, between 5 and 7 seconds, can’t be doing much more than rinsing what is already sweating out on the surface of the leaves, and still it has a powerful kick. A little more sweet apparent, though. Side note: simply because I was in the mood for it, I started my day with some Tie Guan Yin, couldn’t exhaust those leaves with the time available before leaving for work, and am working on some more infusions after the leaves were stored int he fridge for the day, drinking one infusion of this to a couple of the puerh. It’s astonishing how clean and refined the flavor is in contrast to this rambunctious smoky pu! 5th infusion, still crazy-smokey-rambunctious, ham and campfire and sweet and bit of bitter herbs. 6th is settling in a bit, but I can see that it’s going to take a lot of infusions and a kettle full of water at 40mL per infusion to tame these leaves. 7th similar, the smoky veil is showing a little more of what is behind it, but still, powerful smoke. If overwhelming, outrageous flavor now is a good predictor of aging well, this should be fabulous. But the kettle is empty and I do have to get some sleep eventually, so I’m setting the leaves aside for more tomorrow. Took this tea out of the fridge again after 2 days (previously up to 8 infusions): starting the first few infusions with a meal of cheese and crackers, and like any good puerh, the tea cuts the richness well. And the strong cheese also helps mellow the smokiness of the tea. By the 16th infusion, the tea is tasting more strongly of herbs and sweet anise, with the umami nearly gone. The 25th infusion is still strong and deliciously herbaceous, astringent but not truly bitter. Very pleasant stuff. Up to 30, and brewing by my thirst—some flash infusions, basically sweet water, to wet the palate, then a few more substantial, slower, showing persistent flavor beyond simple sweet water, amazing stamina this stuff has. Saying uncle at 32 infusions, that’s enough for now. I am very encouraged to think of what this tea will be after it has settled a bit and the wildly smoky start has softened. As I've noted before, I do yet have enough of an interest to attempt any sort of serious temp/humidity controlled aging of puerh, but I've got a few beengs that are already showing some changes after just 1-2 years in my care, so I feel confident enough that I'm not wrecking them to buy one or two here and there.

I will definitely ask them to bring me some the next time someone visits. My nieces are more reliable as a source of information than as potential tea-couriers, however. Several days, no tea reports. Much tea has been drunk, including yesterday's birthday offering of chamomile/hibiscus/gamro(hydrangea)/tulsi/lemongrass; Sichuan yellow tea from Norbu; some '1992' puerh from Chado (a poorly described loose tea, still don't know if it is sheng or shu and if 1992 refers to a date or the number of the item in their stock list); a first tasting of the 2011 Guafengzhai puerh from Essence of Tea, still not finished; some Tai Ping Hou Kui from Jing Tea Shop; Huang Jin Gui fall oolong from Norbu; Spring 2010 TGY from Norbu. Today, starting with some Silver Needle from Jing Tea Shop.

I have a bougainvillea in my yard: it's Tisane talent comes as quite a surprise. For me it's mostly a nuisance plant needing a lot of trimming and getting it's throne between me and the figs above it. What flavor or property does it add to the tea?

Wow, that's a lot of quite distinct herbs etc in one drink. Sounds very complex. I've only heard of about half of those. I like to vary my herbal tisanes based on whim or mood,'from spicy to minty to tart, but hardly ever use more than 5'or 6 ingredients at a time.

I was only familiar with the Mexican rice drink. I will have to ask my ecuadorian relatives about this. But I'll head over to the herbal tea/Tisane topic for more. NLast 2 days, only C sinensis teas, but we're having a birthday celebration for a colleague at work who loves herbal tisanes, and today I'll be stopping by a korean tea shop that has a selection of very interesting herbs for teas, so I'm looking for good ideas. Yesterday, O-Cha's "Aio" shincha, which is just as grassy and light as promised on their web site. Since I'm trying not to have multiple senchas open at once, I can't do a head to head comparison to the others I've been drinking a lot of lately--the shin-ryoku from Dens, the Zairai Honyama from Norbu, or the Sayamakaori that was a favorite from Yuuki-cha last year (and that I have a fresh stock of in the cupboard, yay!). I can say that this is grassy, sweet, less nutty than the Zairai, and probably less rich than the Sayamakaori, but grassier than either. Also yesterday, a nice oolong session alternating infusions of Song Zhong #5, a brilliant Dan Cong from TeaHabitat, and a Dong Ding same from a tea swap, long enough ago that I can't remember any details about the provenance. I've had a lot of taiwanese Alishan greens over the last couple of years from Norbu, and this one was clearly related to those teas, but it was much darker than the light Alishans, and lighter than a version I got fro Norbu last year. It did not come off badly as I went between it and the Song Zhong, and given how fantastic the Song Zhong is, that's saying a lot! The day finished with a 1999 Liu An sample from Yunnan Sourcing, not technically a puerh, but as puerh-like as could be, earthy, woodsy, sweet humus.

The 42 herb horchata sounds quite interesting. Does it really have 42 herbal ingredients, or a mix of spices and herbs?

Today, Dragon Well start (early meeting, couldn't get in the sencha); Lao Cha Tou shu puerh nuggets from norbu for the afternoon; and spring (2010, but newly opened) TIe Guan Tin from norbu to end the evening, in the new little porcelain shino pot.

That makes perfect sense, thanks. I'll trust your explanation and hope I don't have a chance to confirm it through a close encounter of the breakage kind.

The tomatoes are the point of my soup, if you look at it carefully, just a hint of onion and celery and a tiny quantity of stock to fill out the flavor. If you can't understand how this is far more enjoyable to me than slivers of tomatoes in sandwiches, where the flavor is more than likely diluted not only with more bread per mouthful than tomato, but also clouded with mayo, mustard, and sandwich meat, or turned into salsa where again onions and peppers take over from the tomato, then you probably won't be invited to my place for dinner again, unless you bring me a large quantity of super-ripe, home grown, and no-strings attached tomatoes....

This week I tried my first shincha of 2011: Uji Asamushi Sencha "Aoi" by O-Cha.com Finally finished off the last of a 2010 packet of sencha, and have now started my first 2011 shincha: Very deep green leaves, most fairly small pieces, sweet rich scent between 5 and 6 oz water, 160 degrees in my Petr Novak kyusu, about 45 seconds first infusion sweet, nutty, vegetal, lightly grassy, and delicate green color but can’t judge that well against the blue glaze of the teacup 2nd infusion, 20 seconds, 160 degrees, very similar, some grassiness a little more prominent towards the end of the infusion 3rd infusion, 170 degrees, 30-45 seconds, sweet, vegetal, a little less nutty, sugar snap peas rather than asparagus 4th infusion, 170 degrees, 1 minute, sweet, light, astringency absent There was a 5th, but I was too distracted to note much—it was 180 degrees, for about a minute, quite light and tasty. Addendum: 2nd series of infusions, about the same setup, except I started lower, 145 degrees, working up to 180 at the sixth, still all delicious, perhaps even a little moore so than the first time. Nice that it’s so flexible. One sad note: my packet is 100 grams, so given my 2-4 times weekly sencha habit, it may not all be drunk while still ‘shincha fresh’. And that would be sad. Will have to step up the sencha-brewing.

Another new cup arrived today, almost the last of a recent buying spree: How does that delicate blue glaze transform the strong red-orange clay into gray granite with a tracery of blue over it?

A very contented looking collection. I'm guessing they all get use with different teas, or different numbers of guests, so there's no jealousy in the ranks?

I can imagine no higher calling for a fine fresh tomato than tomato-basil soup. MIL is insane.

So simple, but it does look right: thicker areas are whiter. It's just fantastic the way basic chemistry and physics result in such glorious variety in ceramics.

It's been a lovely tea day here too. I started with sencha in the new kyusu and teacup from Petr, and moved on to my first cups of barley tea/mugi-cha at a Korean restaurant with lunch. I was surprised by the lightness and sweetness of the barley tea--I'd expected something more like the deeply roasted rice in japanese genmaicha, which is quite toasty and more than a little bitter. I'll be checking into that more soon....I foresee some Mugi-cha experiments. Then I've been enjoying a first session with some Huang Jin Gui fall tea from Norbu, a light floral green oolong, which I bought because I so enjoyed a package of spring HJG last year. It was very similar, perhaps not quite as rich or as much body as the spring version, but really very reminiscent of TGY in the early infusions. Quite lovely in a bargain oolong. Now I'm working on a pot of 2010 Spring Wu Liang Mtn - Xue Dian Mei Lan green/oolong tea, and starting to slosh a bit with all of the tea, but I have a difficult piece of writing to finish tonight so I need the constant caffeine infusion.

Does local oxidation/reduction 'microclimate' in the kiln also explain the variation in color between the more orange parts of the Kyusu and cup's glazes? It looks like a uniform glaze up close by texture, but the color differences are signficant.

Thanks for the great tips. As it turns out, she's a bit more conservative on the subject than I suspected, and already complained the the small bodum I suggested doesn't look like the chrome and glass french press she used to have. I like the mug top aeropress, looks a lot like some of the wonderfully clever and handy gadgets coming out now for preparing tea on the go, but I don't think she'll go for it. I think she will be happiest if we just replace the traditional style french press, so it looks the same as what she's used to. The time isn't really an issue, as I think this was requested by guests who prepare the coffee themselves when they're over (my sibling and mom's best friend, IIRC), who remember the one that got cleared out with the overwhelming accumulation of my father's kitchenwares. We got a bit too enthusiastic, it seems, in our Mom-friendly kitchen makeover.

For a non-coffee drinker who wants to offer guests an option of something a step up from a drip filter and a mug, any specific recommendations for a small volume (single serving) french press? I don't drink coffee either so I can't advise my mother on what to get, but it apparently has been requested by a couple of visitors.

Now the hard part is stopping the parade of teaware purchases.....because I've got a pretty nice collection of some pots of different sizes and materials for use at home, a couple of different options for brewing at work, some inexpensive mass produced matched pieces that are very practical for tastings, a few extra special cups that have found regular use at home and at the office....and the cupboard is full. It's time for a thinning of the less-used pieces for goodwill or gifts--the ones that sometimes burn my fingers, or that just aren't the right size for the volumes I usually brew. I've already gone through some of the obvious culls over the past year, and now some of the nicer but neglected pieces need to go. Not looking forward to this part.

I first discovered Norbu Teas through a tea tasting here on eGullet. The Alishan oolong was so fantastic that I immediately placed a larger order, and tried a variety of different teas. I've now ordered from Greg every few months, white teas, green teas, oolongs and puerhs, teas from Taiwan, China, and Japan. There is enough of a selection that I nearly always start with one or two things on my wish list, and after several iterations of saved carts, I and up ordering many different things besides. The best thing about ordering from his shop is that I've now got enough experience with Greg's detailed descriptions of things to be able to predict whether or not I'll like a tea from his prediction, and he knows enough about my palate to pick a couple of samples to include with the order that I am usually going to really like. I also like that he has found some really lovely teas that are quite bargain priced along with the pricier ones, like the wonderful Huang Jin Gui oolong I enjoyed last year--not as long lasting as his Diamond TGYs, but a quarter of the price, and quite lovely for my 'bulk brewing' to share at work. I've had good experiences--good service, good teas--from most of the other merchants I've tried. I have had several lovely teas via eGullet tastings from The Cultured Cup, but their online site is apparently not a patch on the variety and selection of their store. I've had very good results from e-mail and telephone inquiries when I wanted a particular tea I already knew about from a tasting, however--their Pai Mu Dan was particularly impressive after a couple of other experiences that were 'meh'. And the Lemon Myrtle Rooibos continues to impress those I share it with who prefer herbal to C sinensis teas. It was tasting their sencha that finally opened the world of japanese green teas to me. Most of the other sources I've dealt with have had something available that I'd heard about and put on my list of 'must try' teas, and once I am placing an order, a few extra things usually come along too. I enjoyed some very nice green teas from Denstea.com in their sampler, placed an order, decided I prefered light sencha to gyokuro, and then explored a little more last year with a first order from Yuuki-cha. I explained to Dan in an e-mail what my taste preferences were (less umami-sweet, more sugar-sweet) and he picked a group of four teas for me, two of which I liked, and two of which I loved and have reordered a couple of times. I think I tried Yunnan Sourcing simply because it sounded interesting after many mentions here and in other forums. I found some neat teas there--like the Yunnan 'Oriental Beauty' that has been such a delight. I have been working slowly through most of the puerhs I bought there, some because they seem to need more aging, and some--Menghai Golden Needles White Lotus--because the brick is just so firmly compressed that it's hard to break bits off of it. I found HouDe because I was looking for Rou Gui, the 'cinnamon' oolong, but while I enjoyed that tea, I preferred some of the other teas I added just because, like the winter wood-roasted Shui-Xian. The prices seemed in line with the quality of the tea, so I wouldn't expect to find bargains, but definitely good tea. I tried Jing Tea Shop because I wanted to try a few high quality green teas, because I was not sure whether what I was buying from my local tea shop, often at quite high prices, represented the best I could expect to find. And I was not surprised to find that the teas from Jing were much better, while not that much more expensive. I've written elsewhere here that when I first ordered from them, I did not receive a package delivery notice from my local post office, so the package sat at the PO for several weeks. It was about to be returned to China and Sebastien was notified, sent me an e-mail, and I promptly picked it up. That was nice service. While I was aware of Essence of Tea from several sources, it was a plan to finally try some high quality aged puerhs that prompted my first order. I'm still working my way through those samples, and waiting for my 2nd order from them. I love that I can order a small sample of some very pricey aged teas, making it affordable to see what I'm missing in the really aged stuff. I was quite surprised today to get a personal reply when I noted elsewhere that my current order still hadn't arrived--I hadn't contacted them to inquire or complain yet, because it hasn't been that long, and I was the one who didn't pony up for registered/EMS service. That was an unexpectedly friendly touch. It really seems like the online tea business is still small enough that there is a lot of personal touch involved, much more than with most of the other online business I do (and I do a lot of online purchasing). I've been equally happy with the service I've gotten ordering teaware online, direct from the artisans or one via a retailer one step removed from the artist, but just as with the tea, I'm not buying a lot of the really high priced stuff where people may be more highly motivated to commit fraud.

I have found that 'Old Plantation' to be forgiving of just about anything, and it's not just that it doesn't develop unpleasant flavors when brewed in bulk, but the complexity of it is retained much better than many other deeply roasted oolongs brewed the same way. Yesterday I was trying some new teaware, so started the day with Norbu's Zairai sencha in my new kyusu, and later baptized another new teapot with some Diamond TGY. I'm sharing some pictures in the teaware topic.

This week I received two orders of teawares--I think my sales resistance was down after the first order! I have been looking for an especially fine handmade kyusu with more personality than my Tokoname pots for more than a year, and this one by Petr Novak spoke to me: Beautiful inside and out And for the first time, I did a comparative tasting of plain hot water in several of my teapots, to see whether there was any effect of the clay on the water in the absence of tea. I was pleased to note some slight sweetening of the water from this pot's iron-rich clay. I also ordered some cups and a pitcher (a ridiculous number of additional photos of all of these pieces, and links to more info about the artist, are here on my flickr) And shortly after I ordered those, I saw the first really small pots by another artist whose work I'd been admiring, and I picked this bouncy little pot (holds just 60mL), which has a little more neutral impact on the water, and already seems perfect for green oolongs. Even being so tiny, it still has nice details A few more pictures and links to more info about the artist are in my flickr set here. I still haven't figured out how to capture the sparkle of the subtle and complex glaze.

Then this morning I infused a batch of the Muzha Tie Guan Yin from Dragon Tea House, my second time drinking this tea, combining infusions in the thermos. The first time I brewed this, I only noticed a basic deep roast oolong-ness, also during a bulk brewing session. This time, despite being bulk brewed, it was much more interesting--a surprising blend of the spiciness I've associated with new-style green TGY and rich deep roasted flavor. I get hints of this in my inexpensive SeaDyke TGY, but this takes it to another level. I bet this is why it's so popular. Delicious stuff. I'm finishing off the thermos now, 12+ hours later, and it's barely lukewarm but the spicy and the toasty are still hanging on. Nice! Then this afternoon, between the early and late sessions with the Muzha, I finished off the last of my 'High Mountain Beauty' summer 2009 Alishan Oolong from Norbu--the 'bitten' tea. It was an exceptionally nice session, enjoyed by several colleagues. Here's hoping the jassid bugs are getting ready to bite again!