Wholemeal Crank

Bought an interesting Puerh today: The label says its a 'Mixed Flower Puerh' and indeed you can see flowers pressed into the outside of it. I'm not sure how much of it is flowers, but a 1 gram piece with the same ounce of water I used for the norbu white buds sheng discussed above made for a pretty dilute tea. I think it wants a quite different treatment, and will have to play with it a bit.

Another frustration is that when you go to your local tea supplier or online source, they have several white teas, but none of them have a name that matches what you were just reading about. Is their best white tea more like a yin zhen silver needle or bai mu dan or several grades below either of those?

I am surprised not to have seen a more comprehensive resource online myself. I find an abundance of very generic rules--lower temperatures for green teas, just off the boil water and multiple infusions for puerhs--but in the two tea books I've purchased and online articles and discussions the more detailed suggestions focus on a very specific tea--a spring harvest from a particular plantation in a particular year--and there is quite a bit of variability among brewing instructions for several versions of white teas in any one source. And now that I've got a scale that can weigh small amounts of tea accurately, I'd prefer instructions in grams of leaf per quantity of virus: there is a huge variation in the density of teas by how open the leaves are. Both of my tea books describe volume of tea per cup of water. Sigh.

Today I had my best gongfu session yet, and I think I'm finally starting to get it. I worked with a terrific white bud pu-erh from Norbu, and brewed about 20 one ounce infusions and drank each separately intead of combining a half dozen pots (about 6 oz each) to fill my quart thermos. Yes, it was worth it. The multiple tiny infusions allowed me to enjoy the different layers of flavor that were obscured when I brewed this marvelous tea in bulk--the smoky start, the fruity middle, the floral end. It's not something I can do every day, but fabulous when there is a luxury of time and a fine tea to explore this way.

I got my whole cake of the 2007 Norbu White Bud 250g Sheng Pu-Erh Tea Cake this week. And today I am trying to find out how many infusions I can get from this amazing tea before it gives out. As I wrote in the gongfu topic, I used this setup and brewed away. I preheated the pot with boiling water, added 1 gram of leaves, rinsed 20 seconds with 1 oz boiling water, then started making infusions. I infused about 1 to 1 1/2 oz water each time, and reheated the water to a boil or nearly so every four infusions. I rinsed the leaves briefly--add hot water, swirl, pour off--for the early rounds when the leaves sat more than a minutes between sets of infusions. I used such a small quantity of leaf and water because I am drinking this by myself, and as I anticipated many rounds of infusion, even at one ounce apiece it was going to add up--. And then the tasting: 10" fruit first, smoky later 10" smoky and fruity immdiately, both 15" again more of the fruity, and the warm background smoky; bit of astringency 20" fruity, smoky, earthy, no astringency break, 10 minutes 20" should have rinsed leaves first, but didn't: darker than the others by quite a bit, and rather bitter and astringent, yikes, will rinse after next break 30" back to fruity, smoky, hint of sweet 30" very similar, bit of astringency 45" marvelous break, 10 minutes (taking the picture you see above), rinsed leaves quickly before starting again 45" sweet, fruity, vegetal too 60" fruity and floral again, so good it was gulped, no discipline here 60" (same problem, sluurrrppp, gone!) 75" smoky is essentially gone, but fruity and floral opened up, love it, too hot still to gulp, but lovely, have to sip slower and appreciate it gap 4 minutes 90" sweet, fruit, floral 90" same 150" bit more dilute but still delicious 180" floral dominant, more delicate, delightful gap 5 minutes 5' delicate, floral, sweet, fruity 7' same 8' still delighful, delicate, sweeter and more floral, even. awesome. 10'(tapping fingers, checking timer, lifting lid and sniffing deeply, impatient, want more NOW!) losing strength, a little more vegetal than floral, still sweet, though 15'fruity, vegetal, floral, hint of bitter, may have overdone a bit. Stopping now because the infusion times are getting just too long. That's 20 infusions, about 25 ounces of tea, and an hour plus of pleasure from ONE gram of tea. And this brewing really brings home the way the flavors 'open up' during the infusions--the first impressions of smokiness give way to an incredible fruity, floral, sweetness that was overwhelmed by the smoky earthiness when I brewed this tea 'in bulk' as I usually do at work--several longer infusions with a higher water to leaf ratio to brew a quart thermos' worth of tea. This is a case where all the elements--the tea scale to measure that teeny bit of tea, the tiny teapot, the multiple drinking cups, timer, and the careful protocol--really added a lot to my enjoyment. I should probably post a link to this in the 'is it worth it?' topic, because the answer today is yes! At $16 for the 250-gram cake, even plus the shipping, that's a heck of a bargain.

Another trip back to wing hop fung, and now I have a very workable gongfu setup. Today I'm using the small yixing teapot, because it's smaller than my smallest gaiwan, and I planned a long series of infusions to 'get to the bottom' of my Norbu white bud sheng pu-erh. Here's the setup: One small teapot, four teacups that each can hold the full volume of the teapot, and one strainer, on a plate for the spillovers (looked at the tea trays but haven't sprung for one yet). I rinsed the pot, added the leaves, rinsed the leaves, then brewed the first four infusions in a row, pouring each one out into a cup, then let all cool briefly before drinking them. After a few minutes break, I rinsed the leaves again very briefly (didn't do this the first time and the next steeping after a 5 minute break was bitter and astringent), poured of the rinse water, and again brewed the four infusions in a row. The bowl shaped cups allow the tea to cool quicker than the deeper cups I was using before. So far, I am up to 16 infusions and still getting nice tea. This is much the best setup yet.

>Whatever good-quality pure origin teas you may find there you can't even sample properly because of the ambient perfumery smell that permeates everything This was my fear from the web site of Mariage Freres. I like a nice jasmine tea, but as I've been exploring the range of oolong teas more extensively, the rich floral flavors in the lighter green versions have me craving the jasmine less and less. I am interested in learning more about japanese teas, but with very limited french this might not be the best use of my limited time in Paris.

Tonight I am drinking some of the Alishan oolong that was featured in the tasting. It is hitting the spot at the end of a very difficult day at work.

In the past few weeks, inspired in part by this forum, I've ordered a bunch of teas and tea samples online, to complement those I can find at my local tea shops. I even ordered from one of them because their online store has better parking! I found all of them delivered as expected. The teas were as described, the quality was high, and service was generally quick and efficient. I won't be reordering again soon from most, however, because my tea shelf and drawer are now quite full, and it will take plenty of diligent drinking and sharing to have room for more again. I've ordered twice now from Norbutea.com, and when I found a glitch in the shopping cart (corrected first thing the next am), I got a couple of bonus samples in my order. Wonderful teas, excellent service. I went a little crazy after a recent brewing of their wonderful Diamond Tie Guan Yin spring harvest and ordered a slew of additional packages--that's going to be my little christmas gift for some of my tea buddies at work. The variety is wide and while that happens to be one of their more expensive teas, I've gotten some lovely pu erh quite inexpensively. I enjoyed my samples from Harney & Sons and was mostly disappointed that they were only enough for a single pot per sample. Need to drink more before I have room for some of that Fanciest formosa oolong, however, while the others were excellent, I have pretty good tea shops closer to me so probably won't order a lot from them. If I didn't have ten ren and chado and tea hop fung, I might make more use of them. Vital Tea Leaf in San Francisco sent me a yellow tea that is not quite the same as what I thought I bought there once before. I will have to figure out where that other tea came from while I enjoy this one. There was a 'small order' fee tacked on, because I only ordered a few ounces of hte one tea, but at 2$ it was less than a trip to San Francisco. Chado's online tea shop is the one with easier parking than their Los Angeles area stores. I'll go back to this site as often as to the stores because it is just so easy, and I think I'm less tempted to keep ordering more and more when I'm at home within sight of the collection already here. There's a wide selection especially of what Harney calls the 'British Legacy' teas, and less variety but very high quality of the chinese teas I prefer. I haven't heard yet if my nephew has gotten the gift of some tea I had shipped to him from Ten Ren, to match the tea I brought on our trip together, which he just loved. It is quite lovely to be able to share this with him. Their selection is a little more limited as to tea varieties, but I've been perfectly delighted with even the 3rd grade Pouchong.

fine desserts plus tea, score!

For drinking, shopping, or both?

Actually, my current interest is narrower: fingers crossed but I may get to go to Paris on a business trip next month, and have a little free time to play. I have already got some pointers to the better chocolate places, but not as much information on tea shops that may be worth a visit. I have pretty good tea sources here in Los Angeles, so am mostly interested in places that would have unusual selections of teas or teawares--particularly chinese teas. Some of my tea-drinking colleagues are devoted to british-style teas, though, so a good selection of those would also be good. Mariage Freres has been suggested by several different people, and though their web site is rather off-puttingly frou-frou (white tea buds harvested with golden scissors?!), multiple recommendations make it sound worth my while. Any other suggestions?

Nice!

Plate o'shrimp! I have just been trying to figure out whether to make this shop part of my itinerary if I am lucky enough to actually go to Paris for a business meeting in a few weeks. Their web site looks rather silly--lots of fancy teapots and flavored teas with silly names and gift packages and not a peep about oolong or pu-erh. This mention bodes well.

Big Red Robe Wuyi Oolong, and after the better part of a quart of tea, I suddenly took a sip and could taste the kinship with the greener oolongs I've been drinking recently--something definitely essence of oolong, just wrapped here in a big red earthy tea. It's a little bit like the scent of a newly opened bale of a nice hay, and not the young-asparagus vegetal sweetness I associate with green teas, or the fruitiness at the edges of a pu-erh, but something else. I'll call it oolongness.

Last week, tried an alternative--made the cookies with lemon juice & zest incorporated into the dough, and it just wasn't right--the balance of sweetness in the dough was thrown off. And I was right in suspecting that the contrast between the lemon topping and the ginger cookie is much more interesting than a lemon/ginger cookie. Off to the drawing board again. Will be sure to completely dry & crisp the cookies before glazing, and making a thicker/dryer glaze to be spread on rather than brushed on.

Never did post a followup about the little scale I ended up buying Ashtray Scale It looked very compact, was inexpensive, and turns out to be easy to use and I love the small size and that it comes with a cover that allows it to be stacked when stored without the scale weights/spring/whatevers being damaged. It seems to weigh down to 1 gram with reasonable accuracy for tea-making purposes. I liked it enough to get a 2nd one for the office.

The smallest of my current gaiwans is 80mL. I'll keep my eye out for smaller ones. With a 60mL micro-yixing pot tonight, the limiting factor in how fast I could brew and enjoy the changing infusions of the puerh was not the volume of tea I was drinking, but how fast it cools down to drinkable without scorching my tongue. Suddenly the legions of little shallow cups that look more like bowls, which were next to the legions of more conventional looking cups on the displays at Wing Hop Fung, make more sense. This was not as much of an issue when trying the lighter oolongs where I was brewing them cooler. And I can see where a more accurate pouring teapot--as in, the pot that actually gets heated on the stove--would also be very handy, along with the fancy drainboards that are set off to one side and below the gaiwan display. Many small infusions in a tiny teapot or small gaiwan with water poured from the basic revere ware teapot means many larger spills of water on the counter. A good part about all this teaware experimentation now is that I do have this lovely tea shop nearby where I can experiment with different bits of teaware and equipment very inexpensively--2.99 gaiwans and .79 drinking cups and 6.99 teapots.

Today, a thermos full of Rishi Pu-Erh Tuo Cha, one tablet to one quart of water just off the boil. Just so calming, earthy, and a sweetness that comes out to surprise you at various moments. And last night, a bit more of the diamond tie guan yin from norbutea, brewed gongfu style in a gaiwan, as a treat before bedtime. I ordered a bunch of that a few days ago, in the midst of a tasting session where it was so good to the 10th infusion plus. I'll be giving that one out for holiday gifts to a few of my tea-drinking buddies. And since my tastebuds are now craving something smoky, tonight I'll try to see if I can get to the bottom of the 2007 norbu white buds sheng pu-erh tea, working my way through the 25g sample still while waiting for my full cake to arrive in the mail. I'm betting I'll get at least 12 infusions, if not 20....

As it turns out, the person who asked me this question says that it is not a question of anaphylaxis, but gut upset, and that the level of contamination produced by shared equipment lines, as long as they're not deliberately adding more soy lecithin to that particular batch of chocolate, should not be too much of a risk.

cool! And somehow I think that my next batch of cookies now will be chocolate chip.

yes, although chocate 4 chips is designed to stand up to baking better and not melt into the batter. But since most chocolate has lecithin, as discussed above, 'pure' chocolate may not be too easy to come by.

As I understand it, if you have an unglazed clay teapot, that will inevitably develop a patina because it can't be fully cleaned, you are supposed to reserve that for only one kind of tea--oolongs or pu-erhs but not both. So if you use the teapot for one kind of tea, 'seasoning' may be ok, otherwise, not so much.

I don't know how bad the soy allergy is for the person in question, so will pass this thought on to them as well.

I may be lucky enough to be in France in a few weeks, and if there, will try to pick up some proper rose petal from this sort of rose, if they're an agricultural product I can bring back to California.....do dried rose petals carry any pathogens, and are customs people going to yank them away if I buy them? And another most unrelated post, from a series of pent-up tea musings from when the forums were down.... A few days ago, I made a pot of a fine jasmine tea, which reminded me of how lovely the good jasmine can be. I've been so much preocuppied with the lighter oolongs and puerhs recently that I neglected this former favorite. There remained a mild astringence underneath the jasmine flavor, and I found myself trying to figure out if the jasmine actively counteracts that in some way, or just covers it over.