Wholemeal Crank

I had a pleasant sencha morning with a tasting of a group of sencha samples from another online forum. The Shin-ryoku from Den's was part of it, and it was a nice reminder of what a lovely tea it is. There was a kabusecha that was part of it, and it reminded me very much of the Korean greens I tried earlier this year--very grassy-sweet and pleasant, and quite different in character from what I remember of the Kabusecha that was part of our recent tasting here. The Yuuki-cha Kabusecha had much deeper umami, and this one is very light and delicate: really umami-free. Then moved on to one of my new green teas, a Yunnan green that I first got as a free sample with a recent Norbu order, and liked enough to order more. Greg now has a good enough bead on my taste buds that this seems to happen more often than not! I started out with the idea of doing larger western-style infusions and using my large sansai Hagi cup, but ended up with a very pleasant but overly dilute tea; then overcompensated by putting in so much tea into a larger teapot that I ran out of capacity to drink it before the leaves were done. I do have enough left that I will not try to save these leaves, and will go back to it again later to try for a proper tasting on a scale I'm used to, with the small gaiwans in which I do most of my green tea brewing.

Today has been a very nice teaful day. No sencha to start, but midday drank a lot of Anji white tea, and was pointed to a very interesting article about the origins of this tea by someone on another forum even while I was in the midst of drinking some. And got a chance to use some of my new cups to share the tea at lunch today. With supper, some 2007 Rui Cao Xiang 'Wu Liang Wild Arbor' Sheng from Yunnan Sourcing, brewed a little cooler than usual at first (180 degrees), smooth but complex, with some elements of umami, smoky, herbaceous, sweet, and earthy. Then finished off with a sneak peek at Norbu's new Japanese teas with a sample of Sunpu Boucha, reviewed in the Japanese tea topic.

Not sure where to put this review, because this is such an in-between-y tea: Sunpu Boucha - 2010 1st Harvest Hon Yama Kuki-Hojicha Got a little sample of this free with my latest Norbu order, and because I want to get to sleep early tonight, I figured a low-caffeine tea was just the ticket for my first taste of the new stuff. I very much enjoy a roasted toasted flavor in my teas, but the first genmaicha I tried was overwhelmingly toasty and not at all to my taste. I think this tea must be what genmaicha wishes it could be: warm toasty but also sweet and surprisingly, fruity! I started with 2.4 grams of tea in my small gaiwans (about 75mL or 2.5 oz water per infusion), with water at 150 degrees. I used shorter infusion times than Greg recommends just because I’m a tea wimp and like most of my teas a little more dilute than average, and for the same reason I started on the lower end of his suggested temp range. I started 30 seconds, then 15, 30, 45, 45. All infusions were warmly toasty, but not so toasted as to be bitter (in this very different than that genmaicha that I couldn’t really enjoy at all). They were also sweet, and where I was expecting some vegetal flavors from the green leaf, something alchemical happened with the toasted stems transmuting it into fruitiness. Wonderful, odd, but wonderful. Very very nice. The sweet n’ fruity faded with later infusions, but even at my fifth it was delicious (probably lasting so long because of my short infusion times). This is a very nice tea.

I've come up with a few nice cracker recipes--saltines, corny crackers. Honey corn muffins keep well room temp or frozen, easier for the recipient than a whole pan of cornbread. Oatmeal raisin cookies keep better than anything and travel pretty well, although if the weather is hot they sometimes congeal a bit into a large cookie mass (but are still delicious when crumbled apart!). They also seem more nourishing with the nuts and raisins and oats than just a basic butter cookie. Poppyseed shortbreads are also long keepers and very sturdy. I've never tried to ship soup--it would just make me nervous--but I can imagine few things nicer than thawing out a bowl of split pea wonderfulness on a cold dreary fall day. Lots of great ideas here.

Today, shared some Bi Luo green tea in the office, and this afternoon, a wonderful infusion of Wuliang Shan Mao Cha, Loose Sheng Puerh Tea, Spring 2009 Harvest by Norbu. Today I bulk brewed up a thermos of it, starting with cooler water, because I was simultaneously working with the Bi Lo Chun, and then ramping up the temp for the last few infusions to nearly boiling. As always, this is a lovely tea, but what was a little unusual and different is that somehow the flavor has a very strong sweet/caramel/woody note that was so strongly reminiscent of the 2008 Yi Wu bamboo aged puerh I’ve been drinking that I could have sworn it was the same tea. And since I love that Yi Wu, this was a pleasant surprise. Now drinking some more of it--refreshed the leaves with hot water and going for more. Love these long-lasting young shengs.

Hot chocolate mix, nicely spiced/seasoned. I start with good chocolate (my preferred is 70% Sharffenberger, but what matters most is a chocolate calibrated to their taste preferences re: how dark it is/cacao percentage), chop it coarsely, whirl it with an appropriate amount of nonfat dried milk in the food processor, and add some of my favorite chocolate seasonings like chili-cinnamon or long pepper & lime. I start with about 1 ounce of chocolate per 8 oz of milk for non-choco-fiends, so 1 oz chocolate to 1/4 cup of powdered milk. Then they just scoop out some of the mix, stir in a bit of cold water first (to be sure the powdered milk doesn't clump--you're not putting in anti-caking stuff like you'd find in foil pouches of the stuff), and then hot water to taste.

Still haven't opened my black or oolong from Yuuki-cha yet. Working on too many others at this time..... After lonely drinking yesterday--a quart of lovely 2007 white bud sheng puerh from norbu all to myself--today has been a sharing day. Started with sencha with breakfast, a particularly nice rich brewing of the Yuuki-cha sayamakaori, and then on to share some of Norbu's Huang Jin Gui at work with a candidate interviewing for a position with us, and while that particular batch might have been losing a bit of it's freshest bloom after being opened for more than a month now, I think it still helped to leave a good impression on her. Then....well....a mistake. I was slow getting the afternoon thermos prepped, and after some good results with quite a few oolongs and puerhs recently from setting the tea to hot water in the Kamjove while I go down to lunch--ending up with mostly one very concentrated brewing, and pouring enough additional water through the leaves afterwards to get most of the residual flavor, generally with good results, I tried it with the wrong candidate. My Phoenix Honey Iris oolong from Wing Hop Fung turned rather unpleasantly bitter. Sigh. It wasn't horrible so it was still traded around a bit in the afternoon clinic, but people weren't clamoring for seconds, and much was mercifully dispatched before the evening session with Precious Rare [Anji] White Tea from WHF. Sweet, spicy, vegetal, rich, washed the sadness of the Phoenix honey iris right away. I love this stuff.

He also added several Japanese teas to his lineup. I'm eagerly awaiting my latest box with them. I've only got another month's worth of sencha left in the cupboard....

That charcoal roasted TGY is almost too roasty-toasty for my everyday drinking--I prefer the Dong Ding overall--but that high-roast TGY holds marvelously in the thermos for a long day or a long drive. I've enjoyed some of it my last couple of drives to Las Vegas.

I regularly shave off a bit of black here and there on cauliflower, and it seems just fine.

Another day, another oolong.... Dayu Shan 2010 Taiwanese spring oolong tea from Wing Hop Fung, A very nice oolong, quite pricey, actually, and I'm not sure yet if it's worth the price. I'm trying to understand the buttery flavor other people have reported in Taiwanese mountain oolongs, like Da Yu Ling. Making this one in a small clay pot, about 5 grams of tea in about 100 mL of water. The water is near boiling--the Pino is keeping it between 198 and 212 degrees throughout. First infusion was 30 seconds, not too sweet, but rich, floral, warm, a little spicy, and yes, a little buttery....I think that what I have been thinking of as a sun-warmed hay could be interpreted as buttery. A little longer 2nd infusion is spicier, vegetal, still a little of the 'buttery', but the floral/sweet elements are a bit overwhelmed because of the overlong infusion. Third infusion, down again to about 40", better, the buttery is more prominent, but the sweet/floral is not as strong as the first infusion. 4th at 45 seconds is spicy, sweet, floral, but the buttery has receded this time. By the 8th infusion it's getting pretty much to slightly sweet or spicy water. In the end, this one presently lacks the very strong sweet and floral notes I expect in the best Alishan oolongs, and I suspect the difference is not the nature of the tea, but the storage conditions with the tea in a large jar instead of tiny vacuum sealed bags.

Yesterday I finally brewed up a couple of free samples included in a recent order from Norbu, two loose young sheng puerhs: 2007 Spring Yong De Mao Cha and 2010 Spring Lao Ban Pen Mao Cha. Both of these have long intact-appearing leaves and a fair bit of stem. The leaves smell sweet and earthy, a stronger mushroom odor to the Lao Ban Pen than the 2007 Yong De. Yong De on left, Lao Ban Pen on right I put 2 grams of each into my tiniest gaiwans, with 1.5 ounces near boiling water. After a flash rinse, both smell even stronger and more delicious. First infusion, 205°F/96°C, 10": YD--sweet anise LBP--smoky, earthy, sweet Second infusion, 205°F/96°C, 15": YD--sweet anise, woody/earthy starting up LBP--sweet and earthy, woody, bit of anise and smokiness lighter already Yong De on left, Lao Ban Pen on right Third infusion, 205°F/96°C, 20": YD--sweet anise, woody/earthy LBP--sweet and earthy, woody, bit of anise, smokiness almost gone Fourth infusion, 205°F/96°C, 20": YD--sweet anise, woody/earthy, still the anise is very strong, bit of bitter aftertaste LBP--earthy, sweet, smoky Fifth infusion, 205°F/96°C, 35": YD--sweet anise, earthy has retreated now, bitter/sweet aftertaste LBP--sweet and earthy, bit of herbaceous flavor Sixth infusion, 205°F/96°C, 60" (stopped to take a picture of the leaves): YD--sweet anise and earthy, rich and strong LBP--sweet and earthy, deep, warm, rich Seventh infusion, 205°F/96°C, 1': both a little dilute, should have let them go longer, more sweet water with hints of anise (YD) or earthy (LBP) Eighth infusion, 205°F/96°C, 3': oh, this is much better, my anise and earthy flavors are back. Still delicious, yum. Young sheng stars. Losing count--10? 11? still wonderful, both of them. Troubling fact: I want to shoot the spent leaves, lay them out to show the size and pluck, but they're just not quitting, now 15, 16 infusions in. It will be a long night. 1.5 liter later (the kettle was filled completely when I started), they're not as rich, but still, a little better than just sweet water. Wet leaves are are mix of light brown and green, but the LBP is more uniformly light green, and the leaves are a bit smaller than the YD. Yong De on left, Lao Ban Pen on right

As a card-carrying wholemeal crank, I believe you should stop trying to compromise and just use whole wheat flour (the proper pastry or all-purpose or bread versions, naturally) for everything. But since most of the world is crazy enough to disagree with me, I'll try to answer the question you asked, instead of the question you should have been asking. Really it all depends on what you're looking for with the whole wheat. If it's just a theoretically extra bit of healthfulness in a mostly white flour recipe, you can generally substitute 100% all purpose flour and your recipe will be fine. You'll lose the taste boost--the nuttiness of the whole grain--but poorly treated and rancid whole wheat flour that sits in the back of the cupboard doesn't boost things in a good way anyway. And unless the recipe is VERY plain--simple breads with flour, water, yeast, salt; crackers without oils or spices; you're probably not going to miss the whole wheat that much, especially if it's making up 1/3 or less of the flour total for the recipe.

Just saw this topic in the banner this morning. I like fruit, and I like cake, but the technicolor bits of candied citrus pith in liquor drenched bricks in the cakes my grandmother and then my father used to make were the stuff of nightmares. I have since realized that I can make delicious cakes with dried fruit (stuff good enough to eat plain), sans the liquor, and they can be delightful. It's fruit, and cake, and actually tastes good.

White chocolate is just sugared grease, and though the grease may be cacao butter, it's still just sugared grease. Vile stuff.

I remember reading about his chocolate in somebody's book a while back.....blanking on the name of the book and the author, but the author actually travelled to Corallo's plantation and made me very excited to watch for when the chocolates became commercially available. Thank you for the heads up! on this one. Yay! Off to order some. Only google checkout. Order FAIL.

Don't know from sweatiness, but I have enjoyed chocolate plus lime plus long pepper (gives pepper plus some extra fruitiness that plays well off the citrus), or cardamom (similar but not peppery), or basil (adds peppery without the fruity).

Daily chocolate for me is the 70% Scharffenberger. Occasional rivals would have to include some from Domori (as noted above, hard to find, and super expensive), some of the single-bean selections from Michel Cluizel in his mini-squares tasting sets (ditto), but day in, day out, its the 70% SB.

Yesterday I made some fall 2009 Taiwanese Tie Guan Yin, a heavy roasted version from Norbu, for my long drive. It's a bit more roasted than I prefer for daily drinking, but that heavy roast is reliable and stable when held for many hours on the road. Today, the 2007 White Bud Sheng Puerh from Norbu, an old favorite that continues to make friends and influence people. Today, Lisa said, "this is the first time I haven't added anything--no honey or lemon or sugar--to my tea!" And this was a cup from an admittedly inferior brewing--fit in around some crazy fast-paced work that went right through lunch--a 30 minute first infusion (not a typo, yes, 30 MINUTES!), several more almost as insane infusions, mixed in the thermos, and the end result was not only drinkable, but charmed someone new to my teas. Good job, dear puerh!

Took a little detour on the way to the sheng puerhs, when the 2006 Menghai tribute brick shu puerh from Norbu caught my eye. More in the puerh topic, but long story short, it was very pleasingly fruity/sweet/earthy/spicy. Fun to go treasure hunting in the puerh collection, and find them!

2006 Ripe Puerh Tea Tribute Brick by Haiwan Tea Factory, from Norbu First time drinking this tea in a while. Like most bricks, it is challengingly compressed, and one of the teas that inspired me to buy some particularly pointed letter openers. Success! several grams of tea have just soaked up their ‘flash’ rinse quickly in my gaiwan. Earthy, sweet, fruity, plummy scents arise—makes me want to eat it as much as drink it. Greg warns about overly long steeps at first—suggesting a possibility of off flavors. I find nothing like, but perhaps this is in part due to letting it ‘air out’ loosely wrapped in my puerh drawer. The first two steeps—no more than 30 seconds between the—are combined in my small yunomi, and deep red-brown liquor, and I want to drink fast but am waiting….tap, tap, tapping impatient feet—for it to cool. And the first sip is rewarding—deep, sweet, lovely, all the things promised in the smell of the wet leaf. And nothing whatsoever ‘off’ about it. The leaves are still swelling and will eventually fill a good part of the gaiwan, so this should have a lot of steeps in it. 10 or so steeps in, the gaiwan is at least 1/3 full with very broken up leaves. It still requires a bit of care to avoid oversteeping—and responds well to a little dilution if I overdo it. Earthy, sweet, fruity, plummy. Rich body. Compared to the Norbu private label Lao Tou Cha nugget brick, this is an earthier tea, but equally delicious in a different way. And like that tea, it is very potent due to the density—a little goes long way. I really thought it was such a thin little sliver when I dropped it in the cup…. Many infusions later—certainly more than 20, maybe closer to 30—it is getting on towards sweet water, that gentle ending, but this with what are still very short infusions. Will give it longer to see if I can coax more out of it before we’re done. …… 1.5 L into it, the kettle is empty, but the tea leaves still have some sweet & spicy scent left.

Some typically variable tea days this weekend: Honyama sencha to start both days, and afterwards, some Hawaiian oolong, yunnan silver needle, Jade dragon green tea, and....horrible to contemplate....no puerh! Today started with some 2010 spring TGY from norbu, but now will have to make up for lost opportunity with some puerh. The puerh tasting posted today reminds me of the excellent young loose puerh I have sitting in the drawer. Mmmmm.

The usual things lately....a little oolong, something green, oolong, morning sencha, and a new tea yesterday that is unidentified, a gift from a friend of a friend who visited China, and said to be very high quality. It is a bright green rolled tea, with a grassier than floral scent to the dried leaf, and a sweet oolong flavor in the first brewing--although since I was distracted, did not time it carefully enough, and was eating salsa-flavored chips before & after--so can't really report in detail on the flavors. Interestingly, the mystery teas leaves were quite broken up at the edges, but none of the edges were reddish.

Another tasting of the Jade Dragon last night, went back to gongfu cha with lower temperature conditions and I think cdh's brewing parameters made a much more interesting brew. This tea doesn't give its best easily, but the best is pretty nice. Fortunately, I have some more to finish wih a hotter brewing.

Aside from the obvious--a young smoky puerh doing wonders with a pot of beans in a rich meaty sauce, and white teas that can be so lovely with fruit--I've never really tried hard to match tea and food. Mostly I drink the tea I want to drink, eat what I want to eat, and if the tea isn't working so well with the food, drink some water until I'm done eating and continue with the tea. So this is a hard question for me. And interesting that you're finding more oolong than green tea character in the Jin Xuan--I'm involved in a running debate in another forum with people who think that, as a rolled tea from Taiwan, this MUST be an oolong and not a green tea. I found some definite green tea character along with some oolong-spectrum flavors in the spring version, but haven't pushed the winter green enough yet to find the green character.