Wholemeal Crank

Reminds me I have some amazing winter BaoZhong from HouDe at home. So nice. But today started with some Sencha, but still I'm not entirely consistent with the stuff--the water had cooled to about 155 by the time I started, one infusion was perfect, one very briny and umami, not so nice, and the third came out just right again. It's only been about six months since I started drinking them, way too early to get discouraged, but it's a good reminder that they're not as forgiving as oolongs. But then, what is? So now drinking a solid but not spectacular 3rd grade pouchong from TenRen. A very unfussy and dependable tea.

Flash rinsed to wake up last night's leaves, a quick infusion went overlong as I got distracted, so I diluted it a bit. The earlier experiment with keemun this evening had primed and reminded my tastebuds about serious bitter: this has definite astringency but nothing like the keemun when it was overinfused. This tea is not in that class for bitter. Then I drank a bit of hot water from the kettle to be sure, and no, my tongue is not so scorched from a day of drinking hot tea as to think plain water is sweet. This tea is sweet. It's a delightful thought experiment to contemplate this tea pressed into beengs and aged.

Finishing the last batch of leaves, left in the gaiwan overnight, and after a flash rinse, the liquor is still gentle, pleasing, sweet. Drank a little keemun earlier tonight as part of a palate reality check: this is much less bitter. Also compared to hot water from the kettle without tea: not sweet. Fun as this stuff is, imagining it pressed into puerh, aged to mellow the bitter so I wouldn't have to lose so much with those first rinses, wow....

Today has been a good tea day. Sencha shin-ryoku from Den's to start, then a long long long afternoon in clinic with some of my very first puerh beeng, a very mellow tea, which I again shared with my colleague who is coming to realized that not all tea is going to give him a caffeine rush or acid stomach. Finished off the entire thermos before the last long discussion, which was painful without enough tea on board. Now making up for that with some Shui Jin Gui oolong from Norbu, nearing the end of a sample I ordered a while back. It starts out spicy/sweet and ends fruity/toasty. Unfortunately, the day is playing out such that I need a little more before I get to go home. I'm staring at a bag of "Premium Keemon Black Tea" from Wing Hop Fung, and wondering if I am brave enough to try it again. I survived (adored!) the supposedly very bitter young Lao Ban Zhang puerh from the current TT&D, so maybe I can be open to a bit of keemun. And if it doesn't go down well, I have plenty of other wonderful stuff to rinse the taste from my mouth. Decisions, decisions. Tried the keemun, a miniscule quantity brewed quite hot, briefly, and it's kind of nice. Won't compost this one. (not sure why, but I'm having a lot of trouble consistently spelling Shui Jin Gui)

This was the first Yunomi of Ginkgo's that reached out and said "you need me." I love hiking in California's Sierra Nevada mountains: the granite itself is beautiful, shiny, a sparkling kaleidoscope of color that merges to gray at the scale of a landscape photo. This cup reminds me of granite up close, sparkly with colorful inclusions and fine crystalline appearance, but unlike granite, it is softly rounded and feels wonderfully gentle in my hand. Today it was baptized with Den's Sencha Shin-ryoku and then helped with a tasting of Lao Ban Zhang this evening. I did gain some new insight today into the value of handles, when I filled the green/white yunomi at work with freshly infused Tie Guan Yin brewed at about 185 degrees. I had better results iwth the Lao Ban Zhang puerh, despite infusing it hotter, by the simple expedient of not filling the cup. No more burning fingers! different side, different lighting, still beautiful It is a bit larger than the blue/green/white yunomi, probably large enough to serve as chawan for matcha, if and when I'm ready to try that again. I will continue to enjoy some teas in my glass cups especially to enjoy the color of the tea, and the small matched cups for comparative tasting sessions, but expect these to be my best companions on many tea drinking adventures from now on.

Today started with sencha in my new yunomi! Pics in the teaware topic. Then on to a light infusion of yunnan mao feng, getting a white-tea like feel to it; finished off another packet of spring Diamond Tie Guan Yin, and finally home to work on the Lao Ban Zhang from the tasting topic, these last three all from norbu.

Still sweet. This one had a rocky start: the last 2 g of leaf, in a gaiwan, and at the point of the 2nd 20 second rinse with water just off the boil, I bumped the gaiwanm, spilled leaf all over the counter, but I'd been doing dishes and just wiped the counter, so scooped it up, gave it one more flash rinse, and have drunk a couple of infusions. The taste is sweet up front as I slurp/inhale/sip, and rich with depth that is astringent, and probably a bit bitter, that starts to take over afterwards, but the sweet is so good that I am not wanting to spit it out like I did the nilgiri teas I tried some time ago (I was just reviewing that topic earlier today, and remember vividly the strength of the bitterness that was just intolerable to me). I like this one enough to shepherd it off of the counter and back into the gaiwan; a lesser tea would have been consigned to the compost heap at that point! It's as if something about the combination of the heat and the sweet keeps my tongue so busy that I miss the bitter until after the sip is swallowed, and by then I am already more focused on getting that sweet heat back with the next infusion and next sip. Does that help?

Apropos of nothing here, someone just posted a recipe that I must go right home and try NOW so I will be able to give the Lao Ban Zhang another spin shortly.

I've been looking and looking, checking out local shops and online catalogs and forums, seeing many lovely things, and waiting for some to 'speak' to me. I can't actually say I dreamed about these, but it was close. It was 2nd cup in this blog post that finally got me hooked, but this less dramatic little blue/green and white said, "I'd like to be a soothing presence in your office, buy me too." So I did.

I still have a an unopened packet of the spring Diamond Tie Guan Yin, and just finished off one that had been opened for probably a couple of months. The tea that had been opened still had wonderful scent and flavor, but just didn't last as many infusions as the freshly opened tea has. Fortunately, the unopened packages seem to be holding their flavor very well, at least the one I opened most recently at work did, so I have more of this gorgeous tea to look forward to, and to tide me over to the spring 2010 harvest. BTW, I was surprised (and a little bit horrified) to see one of the tea sellers at Wing Hop Fung busily cutting open a quite large box full of little vacuum-sealed bags of tea, apparently getting ready to dump it into one of the big glass jars they sell from. I would so much prefer to buy it little bag by little bag, fresher and no risk of light damage, but oh well.

I enjoyed the pattern of those water marks for about a week before a swipe! with the dishtowel and the kettle was shiny as new. Today I am celebrating the arrival of my first Yunomis, two pieces made by a Swiss potter whose work I discovered in another forum. So far just a cellphone snap to give the general picture of the first one, already hard at work in the office, holding the An Ji white tea: It is small, about 5 cm x 7 cm with a little raised foot, feels solid with comfortable heft in the hand, yet looks delicate and sparkling. I will have to work with the lighting a lot to capture the true beauty of this one.

Today I got in my morning sencha (Shin-Ryoku from Den's), then was onto the lovely An Ji White tea from Wing Hop Fung, to celebrate my new Yunomis (more about them in the show-off topic!), and now am relaxing at the end of the day my earthy-smoky/grounding white bud sheng puerh from Norbu. This will see me through as much paperwork as I can stand tonight. A good tea day.

Behind in the updates. Sunday finished off with a lovely Bi-Lo-Chun-like Silver Dragon white tea reviewed in the green tea topic. Yesterday started with the odd mixed-flower puerh I wrote about a few months back, and it was still disappointing due to sheer blandness. Moved on to some Chado Pouchong (T-103), sweet and spicy--almost rou-gui like, but like the one and only rou gui I've tried, that special spiciness was transient, not holding on for many infusions, then on to some mellower Oriental Beauty from Yunnan Sourcing. Today, big thermos of Shui Jin Gui from norbu, then went mellower with nice organic Dragon's Well from Wing Hop Fung. Going to need a big earthy smoky puerh soon, after all this green and white sweetness and spicy oolongness.

Even my cookie press has in fact been used to make eclairs as well as cookies. Cookie cutters have made biscuits. Citrus juicer has done a bang up job with pomegranates. Pressure canner has sterilized driftwood and river rocks for the fish tanks. Pizza cutter has trimmed pie crusts. Waffle iron is reversible and does pancakes too. Poppy seed grinder does spices and makes a bit of flour in a pinch. The rolling docker has really only docked crackers and breads. It does an excellent job and does it better than a fork. And the toaster only makes toast. Cherry pitter only pits cherries. Hmmm....if the metal jelly bag holder-opener-thingie has been used for holding open jelly bags both juicing fruit for jellies and straining stock for soups, is that multi-tasking or unitasking? I do try to avoid unitaskers unless I do enough of that one thing to really want the right tool for the job. I had a series of very small kitchens before my present spacious culinary nirvana.

A new-to-me white tea today: Supreme Silver Dragon White Tea from Wing Hop Fung Not too expensive ($48/lb), this tea is curled and delicate, leaves smell vegetal but not strong. 5 grams tea, 5 oz/150mL water 165 degrees, infused about 30 seconds in a glass teapot, then mixed the first two infusions together as I am drinking them. The liquor is pale golden, sweet, very delicate floral flavor, with a nice thick body, hints of sweet peas, no hint of astringency or bitterness. A 3rd and 4th infusion are losing body and sweetness, some astringency coming through. The damp leaves smelled like asparagus after the 2nd infusion, but can’t distinguish much after the 4th. Overall, this is a nice, mellow, sweet white tea, and not too pricey as white teas go.

Um, d'oh! 1 g tea per ounce water in a small gaiwan.

Today has been a busy tea day, and there will be at least one more. Started with Sencha Zuiko from Den's, then on to finishing off a bag of the spring 2009 Diamond Tie Guan Yin from norbu. It was opened quite a while ago, and the fines and bits at the end of the bag didn't have as many steeps in there as usual (although of course it was delicious as far as I went), so I moved on to a formal tasting with photos of the oolong I bought from Hankook. That's described in the Korean Tea topic. Then I had a cup of chocolate milk to fuel the end of a good afternoon session in the yard--weeding, but most importantly pulling out the roots of a particularly invasive plant growing between the curb and the street, hand work with small tools. Now that's done, and I deserve a nice dinner and some good tea. No idea what it will be. I'd like to wait a little longer before returning to the Lao Ban Zhang for the tasting, to not push my taste buds too hard with it. Green, white, pu?

Preconditioning of the taste buds could be a big part of my taste experience with this one too. When I first tried some more formal tea tastings I would eat bits of plain crackers between sips and between teas; I've gotten more precise about my temps, mLs and brewing vessels but a lot more carefree about what I may have eaten before/during tastings. But the first time I drank this and was overwhelmed my umami, I was using cooler water, and longer infusions, without the longer hotter rinses, don't think I was eating anything with it; the second time, when I was discovering the sweetness, I was eating some mints in between infusions; the 3rd time, I was eating some quinoa with pinenuts and cheese, and apples for dessert. No mints, but both times when I was eating other stuff I got the sweetness. The sweetness, BTW, is most apparent with slurping sips of still quite hot tea: could it go away with cooling/sitting or be renewed with the extra aeration/mixing from slurping?

Put together a review of the Hankook Oolong tea today. This is fairly pricey like most Korean teas, apparently due to rarity with most being consumed inside Korea. The leaves are dark, small, twisted, with toasty and fruity odors. When added to the prewarmed gaiwan, the odor is stronger, mostly fruity and tart. The first 30 second infusion with water several minutes off the boil (probably about 180 degrees) yields an amber infusion, tasted like dilute black tea--touch of fruit, bit of toasty, but very little of the floral and earthy notes I expect from my chinese oolongs. 2nd infusion at 170 degrees (thought it was a bit warmer, surprised when it was so cool in the cup), also about 30 seconds, again tastes strongly of....well...black tea. A little fruity, very tea-like, a little hint of caramel. For the 4th infusion, I put water just off the boil for 20 seconds, and a little more sweetness comes out. It reminds me a bit of the Yunnan Oriental Beauty I got from Yunnan Sourcing: tastes strongly oxidized, like a black tea, but without any of the bitterness that makes most of them intolerable to me. The leaves are broken, curled, dark after infusion, and again, has a strong tea scent. ('Tea scent' here is code for smells like lipton, but that seems like a bad word to use describing a pleasant mild tea.) It is easy and pleasant, but not that special for the price.

Hmmm. My first infusion was dominated by that umami without much sweet, probably closer to what you're describing, when I infused at very low temps. Then the hot rinses and flash infusions brought sweet out so strongly that it's hard for me to understand how you're not missing it, because you started out with that infusion pattern. Fortunately, I've been brewing miniscule amounts, so I've got a couple more grams to play with to try to figure this out.

After some more steeps of the Lao Ban Zhang, noticed and for the first time opened the Tencha-Kuki Houjicha from Den's tea. It was part of my first order from Den’s Tea. I was shy of bitterness in green teas, hadn’t yet figured out how to steep them, and Richard suggested I try this as an entry to Japanese tea, knowing my fondness for dark roasted oolongs. I ordered a little of this, and a little gyokuro, because that wasn't supposed to be bitter, and a green tea sampler. I figured out how to enjoy the senchas and the gyokuro, and now am drinking one of them nearly every morning, and then this tea got left in the back of the cupboard. But tonight I opened it up, and I am enjoying the toastiness. It is a little more one-note than a serious oolong, with the toasted note over a mild herbaceousness, but still entirely pleasant, easy, mellow. I will doubtless pick up a little of this from time to time. And thank you, Richard, for suggesting this one. It is still a very good fit for me.

Started with some dens sencha zuiko, then on to the Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha Sheng Pu-erh from the tasting. Going to steep it some more, but I feel a need for some oolong after this.

This is my first time checking yixing vs gaiwan, after seasoning, as closely as I can control the conditions--so really more of a test of infusion vessels rather than a tea tasting, but still, since it was with this tea, it goes here.... 1.6 grams leaf (did trade a few straight overly long leaves for some slightly curled ones to get all to fit without breaking leaves) 50 mL water close to boiling One very small gaiwan One very small, newly seasoned, 'yixing' pot 2 20-second rinses first 5-second infusions thereafter (wait 5 seconds, start pouring, takes about 10 seconds to get all out) Liquor is yellow, sweet, delicious. Leaves are variable sizes, mostly intact, twisted and curled but not rolled tightly. As for the gaiwan vs yixing, I found the sweetness and liquor seemed slightly stronger from the gaiwan, as though the yixing clay is keeping some sweet for itself. Just a tiny difference, not so obvious in every infusion, but each time I could detect a difference, it was the gaiwan-brewed that was sweeter. This tea is amazing.

Today overslept, no sencha, but despite great hurry had a lovely brewing of yunnan mao feng from norbu this afternoon--lots of leaf, low water temps (didn't have time to get it those extra few degrees, to the 175 or so I usually use), and basically poured a quart plus of hot water through 10g or so of leaves, hardly two minutes total contact time of leaf and water: it came out so delicate it was like a white tea, very lovely, and quite popular with several people lucky enough to share this afternoon. Now working on the Rou Gui 2009 Oolong from Houde; will hold off on the next amazing infusion of Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha from the tasting until tomorrow when I can shoot some pictures. The Rou Gui is spicy, sweet, so very very nice, on the 4th infusion now. Mmm. Interesting aside: the Rou Gui does not have long legs: the special spiciness is noticeably weaker already after just four infusions. Can't have everything, I guess!

I consider the lids that fail to seal when canning to be the ideal lids for long-term storage of my dry goods. They're not dented or lifted on one side. Since I do a lot of canning (stock, stock, stock, jam, applesauce, stock), I do turn over my stock of ready-for-dry-goods lids. I have found some nice jars with one piece metal lids with a plastic seal that are great for storage, but I've never seen the plastic lids mentioned above.