Wholemeal Crank

starting with the last of a sample of wild puerh white bud tea from norbutea.com. This was the spring pluck, and I'll definitely add some of this type of tea to my next order. It's delicate but still has a distinctive flavor. Very nice.

Gyokuro nitecap. Very nice. Need to keep going a while longer to get my costello ready for tomorrow.

Today at work, 2009 Spring Tie Guan Yin from norbutea.

Over the last couple of weeks I've had a useful realization: the little strings that tied the lids of my little yixing pots to the handle may not simply be to keep the lid and pot together while being handled by customers in the store: that neat little string will keep the lid from falling off when pouring out the last drops, even if you forget to keep a fingertip on the lid as you pour. It only took several broken lids before I realized this was a pattern I might be able to fix by leaving those little strings in place. And on a different note: The gongfu set I posted a picture of here has one other problem besides the stringless lid that is free to fall off and shatter: the tasting cups' unglazed outer surface may be interfering a bit with the flavor of especially delicate infusions. Yesterday I noticed that the gyokuro kin I brewed at work for the first time, drinking from the lid of my stanley thermos with its plastic rim, was just not as interesting as the same tea brewed a few days before at home, despite best attempts to duplicate brewing conditions and a liquor and aroma that appeared quite similar. I had pretty much finished the batch off but had a little bit left to pour into a porcelain cup and suddenly the subtle vegetal sweetness was more prominent. So I paid attention during the gongfu session last night with the Lao Mansa Puerh, and suspect that the unglazed surface is indeed distracting. I'll head to Wing Hop Fung again this weekend, and along with replacing some little teapots whose lids are broken (wish I could buy just lids!), and setting those up with little retainer strings, I will get some bowl-shaped porcelain cups for tasting and see how those affect the next brewing of the Lao Mansa Puerh. I'll also have to figure out some carrier arrangement for a porcelain tea cup to carry with my thermos, because I usually am carrying way too many files and other things when I take it to clinic, and will surely shatter an unprotected cup.

Last night, first brewing of the Lao Mansa Puerh (see tasting topic). This morning, starting the day with Honey Orchid Phoenix Oolong from teahabitat.com. Marvelous stuff. 1 gram in a yixing pot, gongfu style, 8 infusions, mmmm.

2 grams to 60mL yixing pot; water just off the boil The leaves give off a very smoky, earthy scent just after being warmed in the preheated gaiwan 10" sweet, smoky, astringency detectable but not to the point of bitterness 10" very similar 15" more astringency/bitterness this time 15" ditto break, rinse (after sitting 5 or 10 minutes, leaves are given a very brief swirl and rinse to avoid the bitterness of leaves that have sat wet for a few minutes) 15" fruitiness coming out, bitterness gone again 30" fruitier 30" similar break, rinse 60" not bitter, but fruity, bit of earthiness 60" almost winey, hint of bitter, little of the earthy flavor I'm expecting to show up sometime 90" more edges of bitter around the winey flavor 90" similar break, no rinse, water not reheated, so cooler 120" very light, mild and still that hint of astringency/bitterness, but nice This is my second infusion of this tea; the first time I did it with several other teas at the same time, and didn't give it the individual attention and adjustment it needed. There is a sweetness and fruitiness that should help it age very well; right now it takes very careful handling to avoid the bitterness that I really dislike. An interesting point that came up in this tasting: I had bought a group of tasting cups that are thin walled porcelain with a wide bowl shape to facilitate quick cooling especially of pu-erh teas brewed with boiling water. But the cups I picked were unglazed on the outside. I think the unglazed surface is interfering with the tasting by giving a bit of flavor/texture sensation of its own. Will do the next tasting differently, with a porcelain gaiwan and porcelain tasting cups.

So glad to see this thread pop up today at the top of the list....was given four very large, gorgeous pomegranates as a gift yesterday, now I know what to do with them. And I have pH paper and a lemon tree, I think we can work this out. Heh!

After my lovely experience with the gyokuro kin over the weekend, I tried it at work today. Based on 1 grams of tea for my six ounce pot over the weekend, getting 3 nice infusions out of that, I tried 2 grams with several infusions to net 1 quart for the thermos. It looked lovely--pale green liquor in the glass pot before pouring into the thermos--and with nice aroma holding through the multiple infusions. But the tea was less than satisfying despite having that lovely scent. I think it really may be all about the teacup, because I mostly drink from the plastic thermos cup during the day; and this evening I drank the last bit from the thermos in a small porcelain cup, and the delicate vegetal flavor came through much better.

Tried to 'bulk brew' the gyokuro kin today at work, and it didn't come out so well--too delicate, if anything. More in the japanese green tea topic.

Today I brought some Bird Pick Dragonwell (the good but not highest grade stuff from wing hop fung) to work, and brewed up a thermos full. I was so concerned about bitterness and the first infusion smelled a little bitter; I was worried that the water might be too hot and have pulled out a lot of bitterness, so I next did a series of very short infusions to fill up the thermos. It ended up being too dilute even for tea-wimp me. Have now ordered a duplicate thermometer for work to help with getting green teas right: my fun this weekend with the sencha and gyokuro has convinced me I need to work on them as well as the oolongs and puerhs.

Only problem with one that large is that for teas that really give you a lot of infusions, multiples of 200mL may be too much to drink at one time. OTOH, I love my 200mL teapot for bulk brewing when speed is the more important.

>I wonder if disappointment is sometimes just because we came to a cookbook at the wrong time in our cooking careers This surely is true. I've looked at a number of books that other people raved about, and been able to recognize that yes, this looks like an excellent book, but doesn't offer anything I don't already have on my shelves in other books. So if it were my first ever bread/italian/chinese book I would have gotten a lot out of it. But now, it was too late for it to find a home on my shelves. Unfortunately, a couple of those were purchased on someone else's recommendations before I had a good chance to look at them.

Actually, it looks like oil, trans fats, and cocoa: Cocoa, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and/Or Soybean Oils, Coconut Oil, Tbhq and Citric Acid (to Preserve Freshness). is the ingredient list as posted here at walmart.com. Not chocolate at all.

Blue people gingseng oolong from vitaltleaf.com: sweet & pleasant; nice toasty background to the sweetness.

After starting the day with gyokuro, and doing a little gongfu puerh, I'm finishing with a thermos full of pouchong, probably made a little light on the tea leaf, because it's more dilute than it usually comes out. It's not as nuanced as the diamond tie guan yin or as sweet as the gyokuro, but it is undemanding, pleasing, and enough for a busy session of baking to come (two kinds of flatbreads, one batch of cookies, and walnut dip/sauce are on the agenda for the evening).

My original wok spatula had a wooden handle that was simply hammered into the metal part as per your picture--no pin, no glue. Worked fine, but once in a while I'd have to bang it against the counter when it got loose. Eventually I replace it due to rust problems damaging the edge, rather than handle problem. The one I have now has a handle pinned in place and is solidly connected enough to hang by the handle.

I think of it a little differently: Western style uses a lower leaf to water ratio with one longer infusion to get everything out of them; gongfu style uses more leaf to water but you extract the tea flavors in multiple shorter infusions, which allows the variety of flavors in the tea to express themselves individually as they are extracted at different rates.

I'll be a little bolder next time.

Just got an alert about this topic from the "from Gully's desk" header, so glad I saw that. I've been working with an almost daily cup of hot chocolate now for about two years, and playing with lots of variations. It is so satisfying that I am drinking a lot more chocolate than I am eating. My mostly daily cup is 1 cup skim milk (because that's what I keep at home), heated in the microwave for about 90 seconds full power 1 ounce 70% scharffenberger chocolate about 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon of a 2:1 mix of 'hot' new mexico ground chili:cinnamon powder. I have posted more details along with my favorite flavor combinations here, including With chili and cinnamon With Thai lime and long pepper With Arabian Spices With Star Anise and Pink Pepper With Cassia buds, Orange and Cardamom With Mace, Star Anise, and Cinnamon With Coconut Curry With Basil and Long Pepper

Wanted to be sure I didn't end up with bitterness, figured too short was better than too long for the first infusion. And it was so nice that I went on from there.

First ever gyokuro today, gyokuro kin from my first order from denstea.com. 1 gram of leaf to 160 degree water, about 6 ounces in my little glass teapot, steeped 40", 60", about 90". 40"--sweet, mellow, almost no astringency or bitterness, also little aroma. 60"--similar, but can detect a little astringency, still very light aroma. 90"--losing the thick sweet sensation, this should be the last infusion--still quite nice, however. This is a wonderful way to start the day.

Still working through the japanese green teas, and this morning, my first gyokuro: there is a strong resemblance to the wonderful green oolongs I've been drinking recently. I will definitely be keeping some sencha or gyokuro in my regular tea rotation.

Thought I should add an update: I am trying a very simple glass kettle from Amazon. I wanted to see the water doing its thing, so I can learn what 160-180 degrees looks like, and I'm rarely putting the kettle on and leaving the room, so I don't miss the whistle. So far, it's nice, but if it has an unfortunately short lifespan in my kitchen, I will go for the simplex.

Better picture of how I dry them, laid over cooling racks, and with the baking pans inverted over them, so air circulates and all surfaces get dry. The bigger pastry mat just goes right over the top of the stack.

I have several volumes of the Time-Life Good Cook series, and find them excellent with clear photographs of some things that were otherwise confusing, and the back of the volumes have a quite wide variety of recipes from disparate sources. Unlike most of my other books, there is no one author's voice, but the recipes always work. I particularly use the Candy and the Cookie & cracker volumes, the latter being particularly useful as a source of cracker recipes--a topic that gets short shrift in most baking books.