Wholemeal Crank

That's an interesting idea--rinse to the end. Tonight I am drinking the Honey Orchid Gold Medalist No 1 from Tea Habitat. I bought this tea and opened it thinking it was the same as the ‘commercial’ version that I had been enjoying so much, and was brought up short by some harsher notes it expressed on first brewing. I looked again at the label and realized this was the single-bush Dan Cong version, and unsurprisingly it demands a bit more respect. Tonight I am brewing it in the Chao Zhou pot I bought from Tea Habitat, and it is lovely. It’s flavors are sharper, spicier, and sweetness is more honeyed and distinct. It is like the prior tea brought into sharper focus. So far I am on about the 9th or 10th infusion, and anticipate plenty more infusions are left in it. I used about 2 grams of tea in the 60 mL pot, and infusions from 30 seconds at first to 1-2 minutes now, water 195 degrees, give or take 5, and the entirety of this gongfu session has been delightful. The tea and the pot are brilliant together.

Today, seesawing back and forth along the sweet--umami spectrum: Okuyutaka shincha, then on to the 2006 Haiwan purple bud sheng puerh from Norbu; and now back to the lightest side with Anji 'precious rare white tea' from Wing Hop Fung. Only horror is that the teakettle is empty and the white tea has a few more infusions left in it. Must rectify this soon!

A quiet tea day yesterday: my favorite white bud sheng puerh from norbu, a thermos full. At the satellite office I am always torn between being sad that I do not have anyone to share the tea with when it is so very good, and glad that I get it all to myself. Today, finishing off the Okuyutaka shincha from Yuuki-cha, and idly considering it vs two shinchas from the tasting. I suspect the balance in umami and vegetal is in between the lightest Sayamakaori and Honyama shinchas and the Saemidori, probably closer to the first than the last. But because it has been open for a good long while now, and is no longer in prime condition, it's not really a fair comparison to the fresh teas from the tasting.

Another shincha session: 2 grams of each tea in porcelain gaiwans using 2 ounces of water Waiting for water to cool down in a pitcher for the Kabusecha, then pouring from the teapot which maintains temp for the Saemidori First infusion 30 seconds: Very similar flavor profile, except that the Saemidori seems to have a deeper vegetal element with more umami; both are mellow, bitter-free, pleasant. 2nd infusion about 5 seconds until I started to pour, then variable long pour times because of less than ideal match between brewing instrument (gaiwans) and finely broken teas: Near bitterness coming out in the Saemidori, none in the Kabusecha, both still mellow and the SaeMidori is still more deeply vegetal and umami-rich. No brininess anywhere, even in this difficult infusion. 3rd infusion, 30 seconds, water 160 degrees for both: Again nothing bitter or briny, but there is a deep sweetness coming out in the Kabusecha that reminds me of roasted corn. This might be the best infusion yet. Experiment stopped after the 3rd infusion, because of frustration with the messiness and scorched fingers. But overall, successful in pointing out the mellowness and gyokuro-like aspects of the Kabusecha, and demonstrating that the depth of the umami in the Saemidori might be even greater than the Kabusecha, and which one I prefer at a given moment will be vary depending on which exact infusion I'm comparing. My first experience with the Kabusecha was a little rougher than my first brewing of the Saemidori, but after playing with the Kabusecha, I can find conditions like today's where I clearly prefer it. This brewing today, and another brewing of a different tea yesterday, where I finally had the feeling that I was tasting the difference in the same tea brewed in different vessels, are really giving me a better sense of what is possible when you really pay attention to your tea. Amazing to think that I was *afraid* of sencha until just about a year ago.

Just two teas today, because it was so hot this afternoon. Started with the tail end of the Sayamakaori shincha, then on to some Po Tou ginger flower fragrance Dan Cong from Tea Habitat. This was my first time with this particular Dan Cong in the Chao Zhou red clay pot I bought from Imen, and it was quite interesting: the tea was mellowed and rounded considerably. I need to do a head-to-head vs the gaiwan to be sure of what I think I'm perceiving here: if the impression holds up, and wasn't an artifact of diluting it too much, it will be the most dramatic effect yet of any brewing vessel on a tea that I've been able to perceive. Tomorrow: the shinchas from the tasting, head to head.

Today got in 4 teas: Anji white tea to start (just didn't feel like sencha today); then the wuliang loose Mao Cha again; Bao Hong green tea from Yunnan Sourcing; and finally another Wuliang puerh, this time the 2007 Rui Cao Xiang 'Wu Liang Wild Arbor' Sheng from Yunnan Sourcing. Got sweet, earthy, floral, vegetal, spicy; only missed the fruitier, highly oxidized part of the tea 'spectrum'.

As I found out when I was trying to decide which ingredients to add or leave out of a canned version of a homemade soup recipe, the variables include things that are highly non-intuitive. To prevent botulism, every bit of the canned product must be acid, or held at a sufficiently high temperature for long enough time to kill the botulism spores. So....when you're looking at a recipe for a vegetable soup, and considering altering it a bit, consider the possible substitution of vegetable X for vegetable Y: do you know if vegetable X will alter the pH balance of the recipe? will it take more or less time to reach that 'safe' internal temperature to kill any bacteria or spores in the middle of a chunk of it than it would a similar piece of vegetable Y (what's it's heat capacity?)? will hard, dense vegetable X it absorb less liquid from the broth and thus maintain a higher internal pH than porus vegetable Y? There are so many variables: pH, piece size, density, absorption, heat capacity--those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. It's just not something to mess with until you've got a very very good idea what you're doing. The once or twice I felt I had extended processing times to sufficiently to truly cover all the possibilities of my changes, AND taken the recommended precaution of making sure that a non-acid canned food is reheated to boiling for the recommended fifteen or twenty minutes after opening (to be really really really sure you break down any botulinum that may have grown because of an error in the original processing) I was left with custom made mush. I play fast and loose with my jams made from acid fruits, because botulism is out of the picture, and I don't worry too much about my meat and vegetable stocks because they're just flavored water. But I've given up on having stocks of curried lentils and split pea soup and all the other dishes that seemed to natural for home canning. Just not worth the risk for the results.

Today some Big Red Robe, from Wing Hop Fung, a little rough around the edges, but toasty roasty warm and nice.

I always refrigerate it.

What kind of teas?

After a pleasant afternoon with some green Jin Xuan, I am now drinking some more of the Winter Dong Ding oolong from Norbu, such a smooth stand in for my old Ti Kuan Yin, all that smoky earthy odor but none of the rough edges. A very good tea day, and I will try to bring the teapot home tonight for the tea tasting showdown between the shincha and the kabusecha.

The siren call of Honyama sencha won out this morning over another session with the Kabusecha. Also forgot to bring home the 2nd pino to control the temps better.

Today has been a pleasant day of tea: started with the kabusecha from the current tasting; moved to the other end of the spectrum iwth some loose puerh Mao Cha from Norbu, the Wulian Shan I reviewed recently, which went over very well with my colleagues in the office; then back to green with some Tai Ping Hou Kui; and ending with Dan Cong, always a nice punctuation to the day. Mmmm.

Tap water; and my tokoname kyusu that I shared in the teaware topic. For the second infusion, I am counting to 10, and pouring. I have not attempted to count the timing on my pour, but the sasame certainly halved it or more vs a gaiwan or small glass teapot with small strainer spout. I have not tried tap vs bottled or filtered water with this tea, but have never noticed a difference with water from the water cooler ("spring" water, IIRC) vs the tap, or one time brewing with filtered tap water from the fridge at home (when the tap water was turned off), although I have not done head-to-head tests with the same tea.

That's almost exactly what I'm doing already for the saemidori: set the teapot for 160 degrees, preheat the kyusu, weight the leaf out until I have something between 4 and 5 grams, and then fill the 5 oz pot completely if I end up with 5 grams of tea, or a little less if I end up with 4 grams and a bit. And then watch the temp gauge on the teapot until it is within 2-3 degrees of the goal, and pour into the kyusu. The less water in the pino, the more it tends to over- and undershoot as it attempts to keep the temp close to the requested setting. First infusion 30 seconds, second infusion--where I believe the wet leaf is already releasing a lot of the things that we want in the tea liquor into the water that clings to the leaves--little more than a flash rinse, and 3rd infusion back to about 30 seconds, or a little longer. May try the head to head with slightly lower temps for the kabusecha, but it's going to be tricky to manage both at once. Might be easiest to just tote the office pino home for the event.

147 degrees when I added the Kabusecha to the prewarmed kyusu this morning, for 30 seconds first infusions: the temperature difference softened it very nicely. Still umami that outweighs any sugar-sweet, but the edge of harsh brininess is completely gone. So easy to see, with a tea like this, how I initially was very frustrated and indeed skeptical about all green teas, because I was starting with water that was way too hot. I had some vague idea, a couple of years ago, that water should sit a bit after boiling before preparing my then-favorite jasmine green tea, but it was still so often bitter. And when I started trying other greens, I was doing the same thing: trying not to use water right at boiling, but had no idea what temperature I was really using. So I had one lousy cup after another, and discarded several of those teas. Wonder how many of them might have been good if I'd known how to brew them? Just give this Kabusecha the temperature it wants, and it shows its true character: at the second infusion, just 10 seconds, there is rich vegetable greenness, abundant umami, a hint of spiciness, a gentle touch of brine, just enough to accent the smooth richness of the umami. A 3rd infusion, again about 30 seconds, water a little hotter now, up to 149 degrees, is very similar, a little lighter. Tried for a 4th infusion, but the water in the pot was depleted, so this was a 'double-concentrated' version, let go a shorter time because of that, about 30 seconds, and it was about the same: vegetable, umami, not bitter, not sweet, just fresh spring vegetable--asparagus stalks, peas, green beans. Next up, maybe tomorrow, I will be trying a head-to-head in gaiwans, which will be a little tricky since I need to use different temperature water. I just want to compare them directly, since this infusion now very strongly resembles my taste memory of the Saemidori.

Today there was little tea, but it was good. I drank some dragon well during a long meeting, refilling from the hot water on the water cooler, and it was either not hot enough to bring out the flavor, or the length of the meeting required too many infusions from the leaves. At the end of the afternoon, has some lovely infusions of the Norbu Wulian Shan Mao Cha from my recent tasting. Very nice. But the day was seriously lacking in shincha. Tomorrow hope to make up for that.

What's interesting to me is that the Saemidori gave me exactly that impression: sencha sweetness mixed with a gyokuro-level of rich umami. But will try again with the kabusecha at lower temp, and see if the flavor profile smooths out to something similar.

Ok, next kabusecha will be even cooler.

Some of my favorite soups have been refrigerator soup. I always have a pantry full of herbs, vegetable and chicken stock, so it's easy to take some odds and ends and have a nice soup. I make a lot of soup, usually heading to the market with some flavor profile in mind--rich tomato, delicate corn, sweet n' sour curry--always taking the contents of the fridge in mind. Sometimes the odds and ends are too odd to fit together harmoniously, but I can usually figure out how to get most of the 'looked good at market but didn't get cooked up by itself this week' veggies into this week's soup. And there is such a variety of possibilities, that after a couple of decades of relying on soup for more meals than any other staple dish, I am still making new discoveries. Last fall I made an incredible winter squash soup without stock--just baked winter squash pulp, seasoned with peppers and leeks and sage and pecorino--and now I can't wait for fall squashes to come around again to explore this theme further. I've recently been doing a lot with cauliflower, which is so amazingly versatile, sweet, sour, hot, strongly herbed or gently sweet. Yum. And now, fired up by this topic, I am starting to imagine a soup for today, but the freezer is still full of some marvelous sweet corn and freekah soup, and some tomato-corn-squash-pepper-basil stew, and there is no room for another large batch until I eat more of what I have. But once I get the soup bug in my head, it's hard to stop obesssing about it. How much pepper can one soup hold? Sweet peppers and hot peppers, spiced with coriander and cinnamon, or with rosemary and oregano and dry jack, bulked out with carrots, potatoes, rice, barley, or millet? A bit of chopped or grated nuts for seasoning? What greens would be complementary? I don't eat nearly enough greens, always need to fit more of them in. And does it need a complementary bread, cracker, muffin to go with? I love love love vegetable soups.

Shincha this morning, for the lastest tasting of two teas from Yuuki-cha. It's cool enough here at home that hot tea is still very pleasant. Probably need some serious puerh next...a nice gongfu to sip between afternoon chores. Or maybe some Dan Cong.

Now onto the Kabusecha: same setup, but done serially--couldn't do this parallel because I don't have a duplicate set of kyusu and cup for each tea. So 4.3 grams of tea in the 5 oz kyusu. Just weighing out the tea, the leaf fragments are smaller, sweet deep vegetal scent. First infusion: 160 degrees, 30 seconds. It is lighter liquor, not as densely green, but the flavor is surprisingly deep from this lighter green liquor. There is a little more sharpness here--not bitter or astringent, but there seems to be less caramel-sweetness to temper the vegetal flavors. Second infusion: 160 degrees, 10 seconds, and this time a deeper, denser green liquor, as expected. Sharper, herbaceous, a little briny. Third infusion: 170 degrees, 30 seconds, and a little more sweetness is coming out now, with the dominant flavor still strong, vegetal, umami, leafy green vegetables, a sense of contained bitterness. I think this is the best infusion so far. Fourth infusion: 180 degrees, 90 seconds, and now the umami is much decreased; sweetness and bitterness are dueling now--parsley and pepper and a light refined hint of sugar. I think this one is done. This is my first Kabusecha, and I was expecting something closer to the Saemidori, with that deep velvety umami. Instead, it is the sharper one. Any possibility the labels could have been switched?

First try with the Saemidori today: 4.2 grams in my 5 oz kyusu, preheated, water at 165 degrees, 30 second first infusion: first impression is warm, vegetal, umami, no astringency or bitterness. The strong sweetness that I crave is not there. Second infusion, 10 seconds: lush spring vegetables, with a little more sweetness coming out amidst the flavors of peas and asparagus and young leafy greens. Third infusion, 30 seconds, increased temperature to 170 degrees: warm, vegetal, the umami is a little lighter, a little less lush, and the sweetness is barely still there, just under the surface, but again, their is no hint of bitterness. Fourth infusion, pushing this time, water at 185 degrees, 90 second infusion: the umami is fading a little more, not surprising for a deep-steamed tea, but that lets the little caramel come more to the fore, and the vegetable taste is a bit sharper--a bit more spicy/herbaceous, but still, even pushing it hard, not a trace of bitterness or significant astringency. This is quite an amazing tea: rich, lush, umami, but the umami is velvety and not a harsh brininess; there is no bitterness even when I push it rather hard (compared to my usual, at least); and though this hasn't converted me from preferring the light-steamed asamushi senchas, it did give me pause. Lovely stuff.

Two Yunnan "Oriental Beauty"-Style Oolong Teas 2009 Fall Bai Yun Oolong--Yunnan Oolong Tea from Norbu (BYO) Yunnan Wild Arbor "Oriental Beauty" Oolong from Yunnan Sourcing (YSOB) Note: this is comparing the end of a sample bag of the BYO, so the leaves were not in as good a shape as those in the YSOB sample. In the end, both were lovely teas. Oddly enough, given that the BYO was end-of-bag with more broken leaves, it took the 2nd infusion to start showing the spiciness and full flavor that the YSOB gave immediately. The BYO, however, seemed to hold that lovely flavor a little longer, but by the 5th infusion, both are starting to thin out, pretty much done. I have only had one Taiwanese Oriental Beauty, and that was a rose scented version that was quite unlike roses or like these lovely teas. A high quality Taiwanese Oriental Beauty is reputedly quite hard to come by, but these teas are quite satisfying, and not too pricey, so I don't feel any particular need to try the genuine article. 1.9 grams of tea about 4 oz water (larger gaiwans, not preheated) 1st 195 degrees, 45 seconds 2nd 185 degrees (too impatient to wait for full reheating), 30 seconds 3rd 175 degrees (ditto), 1 minutes 4th: 195 (more patient this time), 2 minutes 5th: water just off full boil, 1 minute (stopping because of diminishing marginal returns) 2009 Fall Bai Yun Oolong--Yunnan Oolong Tea from Norbu Leaves: thin, dark twists, with sweet fruity tea scent 1st infusion: sweet, fruity, floral 2nd: spicy flavor there now, still fruity and floral 3rd: still spicy/sweet/fruity/floral, but starting to thin a little esp in the fruity notes 4th: a little thinner, but still quite enjoyable; holding up better than the YSOB 5th: thinner, still a little fruity/spicy Wet leaves: dark red leaves with hints of green; scent is sweet/tart Yunnan Wild Arbor "Oriental Beauty" Oolong from Yunnan Sourcing Leaves: thin, dark twists, with sweet fruity tea scent 1st infusion: sweet, plummy, floral, with a spiciness that is not there in the BYO 2nd: spicy, fruity, floral 3rd: losing a bit of the spicy and sweet edge, thinner flavor, perhaps dissipating a little faster than the BYO, but really not much to choose between them at this point 4th: 4th: a little thinner, but still quite enjoyable; not holding as well as the BYO 5th: thinner, still a little fruity/spicy Wet leaves: dark red leaves with hints of green; scent is sweet/tart

Got my samples, should get first crack at them in the morning.