cdh

Philly's Russian markets are out in the wilds of the upper Northeast. On Bustleton Ave just past Castor you'll find Bell's Market, and a couple miles further out Bustleton you'll find Net Cost Market. My primary purchases there are pelmeni, kefir, pickles, and occassionally pickled mushrooms. They've got a very european selection of lots of stuff... Do a search for Bell's Market on eG.... that's where I found out about the markets out there, and there are lots of interesting suggestions from our fellow forum readers.

Love kefir... but aside from drinking it and pouring it over cereal, I don't use it as a culinary base. It is amazing the variety of "spoiled milk" products that are out there... the russian markets I go to for the best kefir selection have shelf-feet of stuff I barely understand so there must be use for all of them... Some day, if I'm bored, flush, and feeling scientific, getting one of each of the varieties and doing taste-tests and pH readings would be a fun project.

Ugh... sad news indeed. There was some good stuff there when I was looking just prior to posting here. I never knew of the cross ownership by the mall stall corporation... but let's hope that the founders of the company cashed out handsomely when they got bought out and use some of that cash to found something newer and better.

Just wanted to spread the benefits... specialteas.com, an old favorite source of good teas, has a 75% off everything in their inventory. I hope this is a inventory refreshing operation rather than a last hurrah, but either way, there are (still) some great deals there now.

More gastronomically... anybody know anything about how grapefruit and natural statin-y compounds in stuff like oyster mushrooms play together?

Depends on the leaves. Some give up all the interesting flavor in the first infusion... some keep getting better. As far as the ones that keep getting better... the course of a day is about as much as you can hope for. To re-infuse every few hours, you are essentially re-pasteurizing the leaves. Leaving them sitting wet and warm overnight is asking for stuff to start growing on them. If you do a hot rinse, you can kill it all again... but the flavor is usually funky when you do that.

It will survive two weeks in the fridge without any problems. Don't freeze it.

Glad to see my sentiments on the overall ranking jive with another taster. The Castleton really does improve with milk and a bit of sugar... clearly made with the British style of taking tea in mind... Will have to try the other two with milk and sugar as well...

It's available in PA, but only as an SLO. Here's the lcb info. Probably easier to make a run for a convenient border.... if you've got borders convenient to you.

I've just brewed the Castleton with water at 180F, 3.3g, 275ml, 3.5 minutes. It's much different than with the boiling water. Malty and astringent. Still low fruit. Not flat, but a very low note tea. Not changing much as it cools down... just trending a bit more bitter. I think the second half cup will get the milk and sugar treatment. And yes... this is a tea built with milk and sugar in mind. Quite a dramatic improvement of the experience that a splash of 2% and a demitasse spoon of raw sugar makes.

Oh... I've tried multiple infusions... and had no success... the second cup was just washed out. These are teas built for "western" brewing.

Ok, with a first brewing of each of the Darjeelings done, I must say that the teas are each remarkably different from each other. The most green, or least oxidized, seems to be the Puttabong, and it has come to the front of the pack in my estimation. The Namring has much more of a black tea flavor profile, but manages to infuse lots of interesting complexity into the cup. The Castleton is, unfortunately, just un-interesting... or maybe that is just the boiling water's effect on the brew, which is unique to the the treatment I gave it. Take my parameters on the Castleton as a warning, rather than a recommendation, and do something different and let me know how your treatment works out. The Namring, I think might benefit from water at 175, so I might try that next.

Giving the Castleton a try now. Since the directions on the packet specifically call FOR (rather than warn against) boiling water, I'm going to give that a try. The dry leaf aroma is lacking any fruit hints. It's grassy and papery. I recognize I'm using "papery" as an aroma descriptor a lot lately and haven't gone into detail about what I mean. What I mean is that sorta sweet scent that comes when you open, say, a fresh box of manilla envelopes. Second hand bookstores kinda smell like what I'm talking about. Now when 275ml of water a minute off the boil go onto 3.3g of the leaves, a maltiness emerges in the aroma, and the greener leaves float to the surface. This aroma makes me anticipate a strong tannic astringency, and puts me of a mind to take this cup with milk. I poured the tea from the brewing mug into a drinking mug, letting it pour long and splashily, and the aroma is now quite grainy. Strong bitter malty astringent first sip, though the expected tannic astringency does not materialize. Remarkably short follow-through on the flavor. A strong hit quickly fades into just a lingering bitterness on the back of the tongue. As it cools, a wee hint of something herbal comes out in the aroma, but the flavor is just fairly flat.

Have just opened up the Puttabong and set it to brewing. 3.2g in 275ml of 175F water for 3.5 minutes. Dry aroma is that typical darjeeling fruitiness. Less specifically apricot-y than the Namring, but just very fruity. Wet, the fruitiness adds a minty dimension as well. I'm brewing these in a stainless mesh infuser basket inside a mug, and the leaf color of this tea is significantly greener than the Namring, which was an even golden brown. This is, in typical darjeeling style, a hodgepodge of brown and green leaf segments. This tea has none of the malty and papery low notes of the Namring, and lots of the higher notes. I'm getting an indistinct spiciness lingering in the background too... somewhere between floral and cookie spices. Negligible astringency... probably a result of the 175F steep.

Have just opened up the Namring and it doesn't disappoint my memory of fantastic Namring of old. Dry, the leaves' aroma is slightly papery, with a strong hint of apricot. 3.3g of leaf steeped for 3.5 minutes in 290ml of 190-ish water gave off a more expected malty aroma (still with hints of apricots). The flavor in the cup is slightly astringent, quite malty, with a nice thick rich mouthfeel. Longlasting malty aftertaste.

The goodies have arrived. Will start brewing in all likelihood tomorrow. Can't wait to revisit my old favorite Namring that I've neglected for years.

I generally think much like WC with regard to tea and food pairing. Some teas are best considered alone rather than paired. I don't look at the Jin Xuan as just like an oolong, but the family resemblance is definitely there. And reading its background, perhaps it is the particular varietal character that is showing through, rather than the style character.

As to the food pairing query, I'm not sure... I'll give it some thought...

Am having another go with the Jin Xuan. It is continuing to remind me much more of an oolong than a green, albeit one with much less aroma than usual until it cools down. It is a very pleasant tea on the 2nd and 3rd infusions, slightly fruity, a plum/peach sort of aftertaste and aroma that follows a rich sweet and not at all astringent first feel on the palate. The aftertaste morphs into something a bit more floral after a while on the palate. I can kinda see where the grassy descriptors are coming from, but mown grass isn't this fruity or floral. I don't get anything brothy or vegetal from this tea.

Did the Jade Dragon with water at 172 this time. Still tropical, though much less astringent. Long long aftertaste continues.

And you got no tropical aromas out of the Jade Dragon at all? That's interesting. It was quite prominent the way I brewed it.

Good pictures to show the long twisted leaf presentation of the Jade Dragon.

Your suspicion is incorrect. Do I need to take pictures of this stuff? You know the color of Guinness, right? This "brewer dark roast" makes that happen at about 5% of the grain bill or less, if that's not dark enough for your tastes in coffee, well... I don't know what to tell you.. The stuff responsible for Guinness flavor is sold as "Roasted Barley", meaning it's not malted... which might be the problem with the dark malts I tried... they appeared to fuse together into a lump of black sugary stuff in the portafilter.

Have just brewed up the Jin Xuan Winter 2009 Harvest. Talk about a study in contrasts when evaluated against the Jade Dragon. Much less aromatic dry leaves. Leaves crumpled into little bunches (just like lots of oolongs) as opposed to the elegant long twisted presentation of the Jade Dragon. What aroma there is is grassy and vegetal... no tropicality here at all. Brewed 2.5g in 100ml at 170F in yixing teapot for 90 seconds. Negligible aroma to appreciate in the cup. Straw yellow color in the cup, grassy sweet flavor with a long lingering grasp on the taste buds. Rich body, though not as mouth-coating as the Jade Dragon. As it sits in the cup and cools, hints of that lightly brassy almost-oolong flavor come out.

Still failing at this... it plugged up the AeroPress too...