Yajna Patni

I noticed a new store opened in Davis Sq on Holland Street yesterday. They have loads of bitters, fees, regan bros, and schrappel (SP?) and all kinds of cocktail bits and pieces; everything for cocktails but the booze. I bought a bottles of regan bros bitters and went on my way but i intend to return.

Andisenji, you are a trooper. my pre mammogram beverage belongs on the spirits and cocktails thread.

I have been drinking and English Breakfast from my tea parcel several months ago. It comes in a pretty tin, and is made by wedgewood. I think it is a mixture of darjeeling and perhaps an assam. It tastes like a ready made of the classic Indian mix of green label and red label, which is leaf darjeeling and assam ctc. The ctc makes the tea deeper coloured than the darjeeling on its own, so it dosnt get washed out when you put the milk in.

Lapsang. But I am not feeling it. I should have made some English breakfast. Very unlike me to not feel the lapsang. But its hard to make a decision with out the caffeine that comes from the first sip..

So finally..... brewed it with the minutes on the little package, 2 minutes perhaps? boiling water, in my regular tea pot, glazed pottery cheap from China town. Very very little astringency, and the winey floral notes really sang. I tend to be more of a second flush type, but i could really appreciate the delicate flowery tang of this. Not too sweet. The color was the pale color that darjeelings tend to be, (and the reason i tend to add a bit of the brook bond red label to the cheaper darjs) Definatly i found this delicious, but not too high in caffeine.

I have no milk in the house so am about to brew the last half of my darjeeling slightly weak to drink it like it is supposed to be. i will report back.

Maggie I have made it. It comes out delicious, and reminds me of my favorite Bengali sweet Mishti Dahi, which is kind of similar. I used a recipe I found online http://www.whiteonricecouple.com/vietnamese-recipes-2/vietnamese-yogurt-recipes/ But i usually tweak it... I used milk instead of water, and most times i just leave it to sit where i leave all my home made yogurt to sit which is inside my gas oven. The pilot light seems to make it the right temp. Sweetened yogurt "cures" faster, and is less tolerant of temperature variations. But it is delicious.

SOrry this has taken so long... aside from being really busy, i will admit to hating this new format, and have been staying away from egullet. I loved this tea. I brewed it first with half the tea in the sample package, and one pot of water, which holds about a mug and a half. I used on the boil water, and brewed for two minutes, i poured a little and tasted. much too weak for my taste, but i wanted to see if i could taste any difference with this and a stronger brew.I left the rest to brew a few more minutes, and could detect no really different notes. But I did like the stronger brew better. I tasted no malt at all. a very flowery flavour the great white winey tang i am used to from a good Darjeeling., with the lightness of a first flush. I left the leaves in for another few minutes to make a brew more to my liking, and added, horrors i know, a splash of milk. this took the edge of the astringency. I really really liked it. I found it very light and flowery. I will go back and see if i can taste the geranium.

Earl grey.. from my tea parcel! a really good one. half one that came in a bag that says two for the price of one, and half the gulabi tea. strong bergamot and strong tea.

I am in tea heaven right now, having received a fantastic gift of a box of all kinds of different teas. I will probably be up till 3 am tonight because i am drinking tea right now. For breakfast this morning i opened up the Kalami Gulabi, i had seen this box at my friends house, and is Chaldean, from Baghdad and LA. She says her grandmother makes this tea. She boils it Indian style with cardamom and sugar. I just made it in a pot with boiling water. It was the perfect breakfast tea for me. Whole leaf, and Assam i would guess. Strong, "tea" flavored, with out the kind of nasty back taste of boiled sock that sometimes afflicts the cheap bag tea i.e. PG tips. It struck me that due to its strong flavor it would be excellent to blend with other teas. So this evening I mixed it with another tea from the box! This one has the most fantastic packaging. Kusmi teas, Prince Wladimir. It says it is flavored with spices and citrus and vanilla. To me it smelled of clove vanilla and orange. Like a kind of warm Earl Grey. I mixed this half and half with the Gulabi tea. Delicious, mildly spicy, like a warm Earl Grey. PS... I expected the kalami gulabi to be rose flavored. Gulab is hindi for rose. I don't read Urdu or Arabic, so i have no clue what the rest of the box said... any one know if gulabi means something in Arabic?

you can still get weil's disease from eating cooked rat. So i bet you could still get chlamydia from cooked pigeon. That is what the eeew gross is for... the crap that they eat. getting shot out should not be an issue. All the game we ate growing up was still full of shot. You just dont bit down to hard.

My initial response is eeewww gross, but this might be more helpful. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database...npie_8159.shtml

Any one else confused by all the grades of tea? My first question is... what is the difference between Orange Pekoe and CTC? The tea i am drinking now says it is orange pekoe, but it looks like the little balls i associate with CTC.

Richard, Ribena..... an english blackcurrant syrup drunk diluted with water. Similar to Robinson barley water , and part of a group of sugar saturated concentrates called squashes. Diluted with water and drunk by children. Or at least they were when i was a kid. Today i am drinking a very pedestrian brew.... half liptons green box and half brook bond red box. Green box Liptons is a whole leaf Darjeeling, and the brook bond a ctc. Tastes very homely and right to me. The CTC gives it the dark color and body, the darjeeling adds taste. I am really really enjoying all the new teas i have been tasting in the tasting sessions, but sometimes, I guess I am like Maggies the Cat's grandmother.... i just want the orange pekoe. Which begs a question. What is the diffrence between Orange pekoe and CTC? is this a new topic? tea grades can be confusing.

I am with you! I love it too, but enough already. It's like pesto in the 90's. any one else sick of that?

Massala Chai. Brooke Bond in the red box, fresh ginger, black pepper, black cardamom, star anise. a little sugar. half milk and half water.. boiled. I kept half to drink later today with ice.

I tried iced this morning. It is really hot. I used a black currant black tea from Petes. I like it because i was raised on Ribena, and it kind of tastes like unsweet RIbena.. It was ok cold. I didn't use any milk or sugar, just tea. It tasted good, but not quite right for the morning IMHO.

I do know some of this. But I am not going to write it down. I think that Gautam is an expert in this field, and will be able to explain it all.

Are you sure a glass teapot is the way to go? i would have thought something less breakable might be better... I am very low tech. I have small metal box in my purse with a few Barry tea bags, and if i am flying a long way, some sachets of vile all in one hong kong milk tea or chai It is kind of not the best thing, but it does not need boiling water or separate milk, and makes me feel more at home on a plane.

I will start by describing the brewing, although it was not complicated. I used my favorite tea pot, a very simple China Town for $6 one. But it works well. The lid is extra thick and helps keep the tea at the right temp for brewing. Teapot has a wire basket inside for the leaves. I did not use this. It makes things slightly quicker to clean, but does not really let the leaves open up right. Fine with some dodgy CTC, not so good with amazing wide open leaves like these. rinsed pot with hot tap water, boiled water to rolling boil, pored on leaves in pot. Pot holds about 1 1/2 mugs of water, and i used just under half of the tea. I let it sit for the time suggested on the package, 8 minutes I think. To keep it warm i used my multi tasking cosy.... The quilt that is draped over my couch... it either keeps my toes warm or, i wrap in over the teapot and it keeps that warm. Back to the tea. When i opened the little package i saw the leaves, as Baroness showed above. They are definitely whole leaves. I gave it a sniff, expecting a far maltier richer Assam aroma. I was quite surprised at how green and Darjeeling like it smelled to me. I found the aroma to be grassy or flowery (ish... this is the world of black teas ) After the required brewing time. I poured it out. Brew was a darkish brown. Pretty much what I would expect. I put in about a tablespoon of milk (sue me.. i cant drink it with out), and sipped. This was a delicous tea for my taste. Living up to the smell of the leaves, this definitely had the taste of a Darjeeling to me. I would describe it as winey... white winey, that real flowery champagne taste. I definitely did taste astringency, for me, the perfect amount, enough to offset the milk. Clover as baroness said, is a good descriptor for what i tasted. I tasted very little malt, but this could be because i was expecting more, and because i often drink strongly malt teas, and i was expecting this to taste much more like an Assam. Obviously wrongly. I thought this was a wonderful tea. Pretty much exactly what i like to drink. In order to experiment, i brewed a second infusion..... boiling water, same brew time... I did manage to drink it, but it was far tooo weak for my taste. i could discern no increased sweetness of anything. just less of every thing. I have enough for another brewing and wanted to save it till i saw what others thought, and then see if i could taste the same things.

And like wine.... in tea there is a lot of deliciousness at price points that will not leave you homeless or hungry.

One thing to remember..... probably almost all of China and India start their day with a cup of tea, and they are never measuring water temperatures or milligrams of tea. I have a teapot that is extremely functional and brews excellent tea. It cost $5.99 in Chinatown. I do not at all like tea made with water under a rolling boil, I throw the leaves in teh pot, which i first rinse with water from the hot tap, then when the kettle whistles for enough minutes to irritate me, i throw the water on the leaves. Leave it to brew and drink it. it takes maybe two minutes. THis makes to my taste, as long as the leaves i started out with were good, an amazing cup of tea for me to drink before i leave the house for the day. Takes me all of a minute. I think its like the diffrence between enjoying a glass of wine, and owning a wine cellar and decanting and knowing the exact temperature..... an having a the correct glass for each specific wine. Like tea, i drink my white wine from the fridge and me red at room temp. I adore it, but do not spend much time on it.

Iced Mugicha is excellent! and very cooling. An old English cooling drink is barley water, which is made with unroasted barley, and ayurveda gives cooling properties to barley. works for me!

A lot of cough syrup is "cherry" flavored.

Ten Ren in Baltimore made my favorite bubble tea of all time. I liked it because they used real tea. and most of the places in Boston that i have visited use dodgy milk shake style stuff. (one exception, the bubble tea stand in the porter sq. japanese food court used to make an acceptable one)