Wholemeal Crank

Still working on tea vocabulary....today I am drinking two pints of tea prepared this morning and in thermoses all day, not the perfect conditions for a fine head-to-head, but enough to give a good start. One was 'Fanciest formosa oolong' from Harney & Sons, and the other 'Champagne Ti Kuan Yin S-365' from Chado. Off this 'bulk' brewing I can say that the Champagne Ti Kuan Yin is similar in character to the diamond grade tie guan yin from norbutea.com and their alishan high mountain oolong--warm, floral, aromatic, fruity, really no hint of bitter, a gracious tea start to finish. The formosa oolong is a different and interesting critter, and I am only sad to say that the sample was so small--5 grams--that I don't have any more left for a more formal brewing and tasting. But it was a lovely tea something between the fruitiest golden yunnan black teas and these lighter greener new style ti kuan yins and taiwanese oolongs. The leaves were darker and slender, but despite the darker color, it did not have the smoky or roasted notes I expect from the darker traditional roast of my red-tin ti kuan yin. It did taste like 'tea'--a hint of something lipton-like but I mean that in the best sense, not bitter, not strongly astringent, and not really vegetal like green teas or green vegetables either. Because of my problems with bitter flavors, I suspect I will continue to spend most of my time with the oolongs and puerhs, with side trips to the most delicate black teas, and now that I have discovered the incredible floral essences of the greener oolongs, will drink less of the jasmines that, being mostly based on green teas, are a bit more problematic to brew.

Wikipedia has a nice article about puerh including the processing of it here. Most of the puerh I was reporting on in the two tastings above were 1 oz or 25 gram samples. It seems like a good way to educate my palate. I also need to get back to wing hop fung on a day when they're less crazy busy to see if I can sample my way through some of their older pus.

After yesterday's pu-erh tastings, I wanted to go simpler today, and I'm going to be on the road a bit, so brewed up a pint of yellow tea from vitaltleaf.com (5 grams of tea in the 200mL glass pot, infused a total of three times for 1 1/2-2 minutes each.. I was trying to restock a lovely tea I bought someplace that looked almost like a black tea with a lot of golden tips, but was a few shades lighter, scented strongly of fruit, and made delicate, mildly fruity infusions. I thought I bought it at their shop in San Francisco on a trip there last year. This brewing came out a bit darker, a touch smoky, and not sure if it was a difference in the brewing or a different batch of the tea--or if I was confused and the yellow tea was from a different source originally. Also trying a pint batch of 'champagne ti kwan yin' S-329 from chadotea.com, a very light green leaf, 5 grams in the 180 mL yixing pot, several infusions of about a minute. First sips are very nice, and it deserves a head-to-head with the diamond grade ti kuan yin from norbutea.com soon. Maybe next week. But today, brewing quicker & in bulk for the roadtrip. And that Dian Hong Imperial sounds marvelous. A close cousin to the golden yunnans I've been loving.

1 gram per 30mL, the 0.1 was a typo from thinking I was going to do an even smaller quantity, until I looked at how tiny 0.5g was. I was trying to scale back to a small quantity so that I could indeed drink several infusions of each tea; and guessing by eyeball that I probably normally do enough infusions from about 10 grams for a quart of tea, and trying to aim for a similar ratio. The tea liquors from all of the shu/cooked pu-erhs looked about what I expected, although the 3 sheng/raw pu-erhs from yesterday had much lighter infusions. As I work with the scale I'll have a better idea of what I've really been doing, and adjust accordingly.

A similar setup to this morning--these mini tastings were inspired by the Harney guide to teas saying that while developing your palate, it's best to do several teas in a group at once, to highlight their different characteristics. All four ripe/cooked/shu pu erhs happened to be from from norbutea.com: preheated cups, 0.1g tea to 30mL, water just off the boil rinsed 20 seconds, drained, set about 2 minutes before brewing... round 1: 10 seconds: all of them are much darker liquors than all but the 1992 pu-erh from the earlier brewing round 2: 15 seconds round 3: 30 seconds round 4: 30 seconds round 4: 45 seconds round 5: 45 seconds round 6: 60 seconds and smelled the leaves again for a description after the 6th brewing. 2006 Hainan Tea Factory "Peacock Quest" from Yunnan 1-warm earthy slightly smoky bit of fruit/sweetness 2-earthy, bit of bitter, no sweet this time 3-sweet before earthy, no bitter except at the aftertaste 4-(accidentally 55 seconds) bit more bitter, earthy, the sweet is missing from this one 5-fruity and earthy, much less bitter than the previous 6-more fruity coming up, just a hint of sweet, almost tangy Leaves sweet, fruity, caramel, not strong earthy 2007 Yong De Zi Yu Tea Factory Ecological Old Tree RIpe Cake, Yunnan 1-primary impression of earthiness, nothing else really strong yet 2-very smooth, again no dominant flavors--bit of sweet, bit of earthy, touch of smoke 3-again, very balanced, nothing stands out 4-balanced, warm, earthy, bit more bitter 5-Just not enough tea to water? still mellow and a bit thin, but nothing objectionable otherwise 6-still thin, a little lightweight, mild Leaves also mild scent 2007 Mengyang Guoyan Tea Factory Golden Peacock from Yunnan 1-mellow, warm, earthy, quiet 2-warm, caramel, grounded, bit of bitter 3-more sweet notes, warm & earthy 4-fruity, earthy, bit of sweet 5-fruity first, then earthy 6-woody, fruity still there, but more earthy again Leaves earthy, woody, caramel notes 2006 Haiwan "Gong Ting" 100g Shu Pu-Erh Tea Tribute Brick (a very lovely compressed tea with a special stamp) 1-earthy, some sweetness, hint of bitter 2-hint of fruit, earthy 3-sweet first, then earthy, then bit of bitter 4-sweet, fruity, lovely, bitter and earthy essentially absent 5-fruity more than sweet, earthy, hint of bitter 6-fruity, sweet, hint of bitter Leaves sweet, earthy, not much tart/fruity however All of these teas still have more to give, but my capacity for drinking tea at one time, even 30 cc at a sip, is not unlimited. I also need to work on my tea flavor vocabulary, as I'm falling back too often on the same words while recognizing that the teas are more complex than that. I like the first and the last one best, although I think the 2nd one simply needed more tea to show off its true nature better. The back and forth they show between sweeter and earthier and fruity in different infusions was very interesting. I only have a tasting sample of each, except for the brick, but have filled my tea cabinet at home and tea drawer at work quite thoroughly. I need to drink through what I have to some extent before I can get more, although there is the enchanting prospect of building up a library of pus for future drinking. And, though at home I have no good setup for aging pus (presently no AC and no interest in investing in a wine cooler to keep temps steady for them), I could put a box of them in the office at work--a bit dry, but the A/C at least keeps things steady temperature, and I could add a bit of humidity easily as discussed up topic if so inclined. Hmmm....

As I only have a sample, I can't age it, but I have to imagine that it will be lovely when aged, with a lot of the bitter converting to sweet. Still, I found the 2008 bamboo sheng already lovely now. So even among young shengs, if I can get sample to check them first, there may be some treasures.

I will keep to older pu's from now on when I am looking at the raw versions. And am now very curious about the 'purple bud' 2006 sheng cake I bought from norbutea as well, which says in the description that the purple leaves have a strong bitter note. But it is a 2006, so a bit older still than the 2007 and 2008 which were both quite nice. But that's a matter for another tasting.

Clearly you need more tea with a high leaf to water ratio, not my near-water version!

After the black teas this morning, this afternoon sat down to work with a group of raw pu erh teas of different ages, all of them 25g or 1 ounce samplers. preheated cups, 0.1g tea to 30mL, water just off the boil rinsed 20 seconds, drained, sat about 2 minutes before really started... round 1: 15 seconds round 2: 15 seconds round 3: 30 seconds round 4: 30 seconds round 4: 45 seconds round 5: 45 seconds round 6: 45 seconds (should have gone on to 60 seconds, but forgot my place as I was timing these) and smelled the leaves again for a description after the 6th brewing. 1992 chado loose pu-erh CRL 17 1-dark red, earthy, fruity, sweet, lovely right off the bat 2-sweet, fruity, earthy coming as an aftertaste 3-earthy, sweet, fruity, just hints of bitter enough to ground the other flavors 4-can hardly stop to sip because it is so sweet and lovely I want to gulp it 5-still in a sweet just earthy enough to be interesting phase 6-i'm in love leaves smell like sweetest products of my worm bin--by this I mean a lovely earthy fresh clean smell, with more than the usual sweet 2007 norbu white buds sheng pu erh, yunnan 1-pale, smoky, vegetal, not sweet 2-smoky, vegetal, not sweet 3-smoky, some sweet and fruity starting to come through 4-less smoky, more sweet and fruity 5-smoky still fading, more vegetal and still sweet notes 6-sweet notes over smoky now leaves smell very sweet, just a little smoky 2008 norbu yi wu mountain bamboo raw pu erh, yunnan 1-yellower liquor, vegetal, sweet, bit of bitter 2-sweet, vegetal, delicately bitter, bitter aftertaste 3-sweet, vegetal--like sweet green peas, nothing fruity, just sweet and green, and less bitter 4-more intensely sweet vegetable, yum 5-cleaner still than before, sweet vegetable, green, bitter aftertones 6-very delicate early spring baby vegetables leaves like young alfalfa hay with a lot of green left in it 2009 norbu lao mansa sheng pu erh, yunnan 1-still more bitter, vegetal, no sweet yet 2-bitter, vegetal, no sweetness 3-still dominated by bitter, but more vegetal flavors coming through; given the predominance of bitter, though, will retire this one from this tasting Leaves smell like fresh cut grass after rain Conclusions: the 2009 sheng is too green for me yet; not sure that it can age well in the small sample that I have, however. I like the 2007 and 2008 teas each in different ways--the 2007, while a white bud version, is so smoky that it seems heartier than the leafier 2008 tea, which is so strongly vegetal. The 1992 is a revelation, and make me want to retry the loose pu erh I got from wing hop fung that I quite disliked at first brewing. With more carefully controlled portions and brewing times it might be a different animal althogether, and should be, for the price (it was quite expensive). Later tonight I'll go at it again with some of the new shu or cooked pu-erh samples I've gotten. There are more of those, and after playing with this series I can see why. The cooking gets you a lot closer to the 1992 pu faster, even if not quite as smoothly.

My first brewing was 1 gram per ounce, because I used a 1/8th cup measure for the water for 1 gram of tea, which also had printed on it '30mL'. So it was half as strong as 'the usual'; the 2nd brewing was about 1 gram for 3 oz, 1/6th 'the usual', and that was just right.

A kind friend has translated some information on my first couple of pu-erh cakes for me. The cake on the left is from the Yunnan Province Tea Leave Import Export Company. The cake on the right is "Palace Seven Sons Cake." It's from a Taiwanese tea company called Ten Fu. The tea is from the Nannuo Mountain Tea Plantation: "Palace Seven Sons Cake is a traditionally famous tea that evolved out of history and is mainly produced in the Simao and Xishuiangbanna tea regions. In the past, the "Puer Palace" (today's Puer County) was the historic place for the collection and distribution of tea leaves. Due to the unique quality of the tea leaf products shipped and sold in Puer, they came to be prized by domestic and overseas consumers, and it also formed a specific way of drinking which became the renowned puer tea. "Puer tea is made from the large variety of fresh leaves from tea trees in Yunnan that are the raw ingredient called Shaiqingmao tea that are then fermented, screened, [etc.]. "Palace puer tea uses a foundation of the traditional craft of making puer, uses the large-leaved Shaiqingmao tea as its basic ingredient, which has a tight, straight, fine, and tender appearance, a p[rticularly large number of golden buds, and a meaty flavor and a strong smooth quality." (The rest describes the tea's qualities and medicinal properties.] " It was packaged in Fujian province in China, its quality is "outstanding!", and there is no expiration date.

Redid the tasting with a milder version of only the keemun and yunnan, at 1 gram for 100mL of water at 205 degrees and just a tad over 1 minute of steeping, and now the keemun is pleasant enough, with gentle flavor, no overwhelming bitterness, but something almost medicinal in the odor of the liquor and the leaves. I will certainly drink the remainder of this 1 oz sampler, and might try some others in the future, but there is little of the fruitiness that I love in the aroma and flavor of the yunnan. I am now also convinced of the value of the tea scale I bought, and will order another one to have with me at work as well.

This morning am doing a small tasting of black teas, each brewed with 1 gram of leaves to 30mL water just off the boil in a preheated gaiwan for 2 minutes. I thought black teas were vile until I met golden yunnan, and then decided I should give them a chance. But brewed under these conditions, I don't really like any of them, although I dislike the golden yunnan the least. I think I have been brewing the yunnan much weaker overall--probably 4 to 5 times as much tea but for what ends up being a quart of tea--but decided to try stronger for the tasting to be sure the flavors were clear. May try it again with much smaller quantities in the future. Chado Sessa Estate Winey Assam [T-36] This was so bitter I wanted to spit it out; I could only detect bitterness when tasting it. The liquor does indeed smell winey and fruity; the leaves smell a mix of bitter and winey; but the taste of the tea is biter bitter bitter yikes. Milima Estate FOP [T-3] Also has a lovely aroma, and the leaves smell a little better than the assam, but still the dominant flavor is bitter bitter. Keemun Mao Feng [T-24] less dominantly bitter, and less fruity aroma of the liquor; delicious smelling leaves, but the liquor is still about equal parts bitter and fruity notes, but here, at least, the fruity notes dominate the aftertaste. Can't really detect much in the way of chocolate notes here. Chado Royal Golden Yunnan Xtra Fancy [s-300] Least bitter, but at this strength, even here the bitterness is enough to give me pause, marvelous aroma, leaves have the mildest aroma; fruity taste does win over the bitter notes; this is the only one that I am unable to retaste as I write this up because I drank it all. Not sure this is a helpful guide to the undoubtedly wonderful properties of these teas, but if any other bitter-phobes come across this, I can say go straight for the fancy golden yunnan, and avoid the others. And still waiting for my taster test in the mail, to see if the results confirm or refute the tongue papilla count.

FInished the last of some orchid oolong today....and now, am drinking some of my traditionally dark roasted ti kuan yin. So amazing that such variety is coaxed from a single plant. And looking forward to tomorrow and sunday, when I will be trying out my new scale with many new teas from recent orders including oolongs, puerhs, white teas, and keemun black tea, to see if the much-discussed chocolate notes resemble actual chocolate in any way.

That's just lovely. I'm trying to figure out a very compact kit, taking less space in my suitcase, without going all the way down to a heating coil and a mug and a teabag.

You can certainly get it from handling the rat while preparing and cooking it, but if it is properly cooked, that should kill the bacteria. AFAIK leptospira does not make any heat-resistant spores. Nor does chlamydia.

The 60mL yixing doesn't have any off odors; I used it for a little TiKuanYin today (a greener one, not the darker roasts), starting with a hot water rinse, and it was fine. I must admit I bought it half because it was cute, but also thinking that it would be good for gong fu style with some fancier teas: a small quantity of leaves could fill it right up, and not generate too much tea to drink at one setting, even with many infusions. Of course, after I go to her store, who knows what I may come home with!

after a little more browsing on the site, I think this might be the right sort of thing to dedicate the tiny 60mL yixing pot towards--at an average of $30/ounce, or $480/lb, I wouldn't be drinking this stuff in bulk....

For an occasion like this I'd want comfort food, tried and true recipes--out of my own repetoire, I'd want brownies, oatmeal raisin, spritz, and nutmeg/walnut icebox cookies, all family favorites when we were growing up, and save the rosemary walnut or lemon-anise-pepper cookies for another day. Icebox cookiesOatmeal Raisin Spritz

That sounds amazing. I am in process of signing up for a tea brewing and tasting session next month at this shop. Thanks so much for the pointer.

how do you get a 2nd infusion when using matcha powder? Don't you drink all of the powder with the tea? Or use a really fine strainer?

Rishi Ancient Tree Golden Yunnan organic black tea. Lovely fruity stuff. Not quite as wonderful as the 'Royal Golden Yunnan Xtra Fancy' I got last year from Chado that finally made me realize 'black tea' was not synonymous with 'english breakfast' type teas that I couldn't stand, but delightful nonetheless.

DIrect count reveals that my cookbooks now number 124, up from the 100 I estimated in 2004. That reflects a fair bit of rehoming of books found wanting and replaced...

happy to report, the fifth infusion is still delicious, delovely, and delightful after boiling water rinse, and 1 minute with water about 2 minutes off boiling. Might not have worked with a more delicate tea, but a more delicate tea wouldn't have inspired the experiment.

No one favorite.... These are all in the cabinet above the stove--not the coolest spot in the kitchen, but in my house without a/c, there is no cool dry place besides the refrigerator, grouped by how I use them and how many fit into each basket: top left basket is larger volume spices, e.g., ground cinnamon, black peppercorns, bay leaves next are the smaller volume powdered mostly sweet spices e.g., ginger, cardamom, coriander, cloves middle right dried herbs, eg, thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory top right extracts & food colors Bottom left savory seeds etc--cumin, celery, mustard, fenugreek middle left sweet whole spices--cardamom, mace, nutmegs, cinnamon sticks, star anise, cubebs middle right ground chilies and a few other bulky things far right misc savory things like asafoetida, long peppers, szechuan pepper