Wholemeal Crank

My first brewing this morning was a thinner brew, about 1 gram in both a gaiwan and a small yixing pot, using about 2 ounces of water in each, so perhaps 1/3 of richard's. Even at that dilution, there is a rich body to the tea. It is a little bit sweet, but not nearly as sweet as the two spring oolongs--the Alishan or the Diamond Tie Guan Yin. And there is a rich warm hay/grass note, a bit of astringency but not bitterness when brewed at 180 degrees--it was quite chilly as I was brewing it and I had trouble hitting the 190 I was aiming for. There is something else there between the sweet and the hay notes, and I will be trying again soon but double the leaf to water ratio to see if I can give it a better name. Overall, it's a lovely tea with bright green leaves yet buttery yellow liquor yet I cannot see, in the rolled dry leaves or in the opened leaves after brewing, any real 'hairy' texture. (link to the same image larger, for a more detailed look at the leaves here)

Add some small pasta, or serve the soup over rice. This is my version of lentil soup with sausage.

I'm leery of the straight tasting, precisely because of the variable heat. I mostly want to compare some relatively mellow chiles, no intention of tasting vs habaneros, or even chipotles. I know what those are good for. I want to compare the mild and medium chiles that are often suggested as substitutes for each other, like anchos, pasillas and mulatos, and these chilhuacles; and cascabels vs california vs guajillos. It's not so much regarding heat, because that is the easiest thing to increase by adding cayenne or bits of habaneros if needed, but regarding sweet/tart/unami.

I have just obtained some dried chilhaucle chiles, and before I use them for mole, I'd like to try one in a really simple recipe that I can use to compare to some of the more easily obtained varieties. I want the flavors of the different chiles to stand out, and it to be simple enough to make several versions at a time for comparison. Would it make more sense to rehydrate a piece of each and mix with otherwise plain rice, or make a quesadilla with a bit of queso fresco, or mix with some cooked sweet corn or hominy? How would you or do you test chiles?

More Alishan High Mountain spring oolong today. Next up, the Hairy Crab for the tasting.

I make popcorn 3-5 times per week, and have switched entirely to using a microwave popper, but one without the need for the disposable "intensifier" that some have. I do get quite a few unpopped kernels in this one from NordicWare, but it works well enough and I can avoid the unpopped ones. I like to keep the topping separate from the popping, so there's no concern about burning one vs the other while it pops. I imagine the one you linked to is going to be not only more expensive, but also will be more delicate, being glass.

Looks like the general principle is just nougat with nuts. There's a description of turron history and varieties here here and I found a recipe here. I have not made this recipe but have several times played with nougat recipes from the TimeLife Candy book.

Almost forgot to mention: today I started with some gyokuro kin with fig/lemon jam on toast, a very nice combination, and now am working on an excellent brewing of the spring Alishan high mountain oolong from Norbutea.

This is why I shouldn't have one--I don't use it enough to make it worth the cost of that replacement q 60 days. I think this one is headed for the recycle bin and won't be replaced; much as I hate hate hate buying water, I think it's more environmentally responsible to buy a few pints of spring water a year for my starters than try to keep up with the filter pitchers.

Found my first notes on the purple bud puerh here, and will go back to that plan for my next brewing of it. For traveling, I like to take two different teas that are quite forgiving in the brewing--like the one of the new style green oolongs and a mellow puerh or roasted/old style oolong. [Moderator note: This topic continues here, What Tea Are You Drinking Today (Part 2)]

I only have a brita filter for working iwth sourdough starters, and it also gets used for occasional guests who prefer their water ice cold. So it sits in the refrigerator for many months between cartridge changes. There is also a fine haze at the bottom of the pitcher that could be specks of carbon from the cartridge, but the taste of the water was more consistent with mold. Icky.

This morning I started the day with some dragon well, and noticing that the tap water smelled unusually strongly of chlorine today, decided to do a taste test with filtered water from the brita pitcher in the fridge vs tap. Surprisingly, the tap was much better--at least some of the chlorine must be driven off in boiling--and the brita filter pitcher is putting out water that tastes moldy. Teas were made in twin gaiwans, same weight of tea to water, and same temperature to within 2 degrees, and infused the same time before tasting. Finished off three steepings of the tap watered leaves. Then some of the Lao Cha Tou pu-erh brick to keep me going through a long meeting, and finishing paperwork with a perfectly brewed thermos of the 3rd grade pouchong from TenRen. It's always a nice tea, but this carelessly prepared brewing--didn't pay attention to leaf quantity or water temperature--is the best I've made in a while. Just wish I knew what I did that made it so much nicer than the "just ok" batch from two nights ago.

Where I buy generic and where I buy brand name items hasn't shifted with recession. I tend to stick with a brand when I've had disappointing experience with the alternatives. Sometimes the bagged or bulk cereal is just as good or better as the name brand, sometimes not. If I find a good generic, I'll stick with it until I can't get it any more.

In this book he's applying the stretch-and-fold plus prolonged cold fermentations to produce basic types of breads he's written about before. The long cold fermentations are where he is building flavor, so less reliance on sourdoughs and bigas, although he gives directions for working with preferments with this technique as well. I was already doing a fair bit of this starting with pain l'ancienne from BBA, and playing with the Lahey no-knead bread recipe in the NYT, so it's not that new to me, but I bought it because I always learn something from his books, and usually keep learning more with rereading.

Big Red Robe to get me through a hectic clinic, then a little gyokuro to relax with afterward--after I was done sharing the Big Red Robe, it wasn't enough for the post-clinic paperwork too.

this morning, brewed a not very successful batch of the purple bud sheng puerh from norbutea that I've done much better before. I think used too high a leaf to water ratio and ended up with more smoky than fruity flavor. This evening, some more Pouchong, pleasing as always.

licorice, ginger, lemon sound delicious

Bought a small sample of TenRen's first quality Pouchong today, and while it does have a bit more body and sweetness than the 3rd grade, it is still a lighter tea than the alishan oolong and spring tie guan yin's I've been drinking. That part is a bit disappointing; but on the other hand, it means I can keep on buying the much cheaper 3rd grade and still have a nice, reliable cup of tea.

What's in that?

I've had my dough stick to a well-seasoned cast iron dutch oven thoroughly preheated and measured by my infrared temp gun to 450 degrees.

More herb tea this morning, prompted by how nice it was a couple of days ago. Hibiscus, chamomile, tulsi, orange zest, rosehips, licorice root.

Could you just fold the parchment carefully into the pot shape *before* you put the pot into the oven and heat it up, then remove it while you heat up the pot, slip the now more or less shaped parchment back into the pot, and pour inthe dough like always?

Dragonwell this morning, and the Lao Mansa puerh this afternoon and evening.

Didn't take very long to see a difference!

Two accidental tests of what happens to tea after brewing this week: made a thermos of very nice sweet gyokuro, that over the course of four hours both turned from green to gold and lost virtually all of its sweetness, although the liquor body remained thick and silky; and last night, had to abandon a portion of a cup of Tie Guan Yin, the very sweet and lovely spring diamond grade 2009 from norbu, and it had not changed its golden color noticeably, but did lose the sweetness entirely. Now setting up a more proper experiment.