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Richard Kilgore

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Posts posted by Richard Kilgore

    What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted

    Tea source's Keemun Hao Ya B this morning, then at noon my second attempt at making Matcha (an inexpensive one from Yuuki-cha.com), which seemed to work a little better than last time, though I was not aware of doing anything different other than using a different teabowl (chawan).

    Please note - I'll post the next (and last for 2009) Tea Tasting & Discussion offering of free tea samples by tomorrow.

    What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted

    No tea this morning. The electricity was out and I opted for a decafe, a cranberry scone and a newspaper at Central Market, rather than building a campfire in the kitchen to heat water.

    Have just started on a shu pu-erh from YunnanSourcing.com: a 2008 Menghai "Hong Yun" Ripe Pu-erh Mini tea cake (100 grams). Scott at YSLLC says on his site to go for very short infusions at first, and gong fu cha it's difficult to pour this too fast on the first few. Tasty, rich, thick mouth feel. I thought I detected a little hint of cocoa in the first infusion, but it was gone on the second.

    What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted

    Ceylon Vithanakanda Estate Extra Special from Tea Source this morning. (I need to order more. They are out of it but expect more in early December.)

    Later continued to brew the Lao Ban Zhang from Yunnan Sourcing that I started yesterday. Continued to be pleasant through many infusions. I did not count, but at least 10 so far.

    What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted

    Keemun Hao Ya A from Teasource.com this morning. I love its complexity and will have to get more on my next order.

    Tonight I have been enjoying a 2009 Lao Ban Zhang Premium Raw Pu-erh I got from Scott at Yunnan Sourcing in July. This is just a first impression, but this sample from a beeng seems to be milder than the Lao Ban Zhang mao cha from norbutea, which is probably the best young pu I have had. I'll have to brew it again and post more in the Puerh topic later.

    BTW, there will be just one more Tea Tasting & Discussion this year, with samples offered by yuuki-cha.com. If you subscribe to the Coffee & Tea forum, you will be the first to know.

    Cooking with Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking

    in Cooking

    Posted

    The turkey turned out well, with the parchment-like skin Paula writes about in the book. The sausage and mushroom dressing was a big hit with cornbread-stuffing-loving Texans. No pictures; it was gone in a flash and the carcass was not terribly photogenic. (I used the baking stone method rather than the Romertopf method.) This definitely will go in my Thanksgiving rotation.

    I also made the Pumpkin with Roquefort Soup and multiplied the recipe 2.5X. A boy who doesn't care that much for pumpkin soup went back for seconds, and my brother who actively dislikes pumpkin in any form wanted more, more, more. I may be required to do this every year.

    Vita-Mix Blenders & Mixers

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted

    I did my first soup using the Vita-Prep for Thanksgiving - the Pumpkin and Roquefort Soup from Paula Wolfert's new Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking. The ingredients included match sticks of prosciutto. I really anticipated some fragments, but two minutes in the blender and it was velvet smooth. No straining needed.

    The art and science of the smoothie

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I think that the original need was to use a thickener other than banana, and the most convenient and obvious one is xantham gum. I see no "need" in any of the above posts for a thickener that is natural, truly natural, unnatural or truly unnatural - just a need for a banana substitute.

    Have you looked at what kind of processing at home it would take to make Irish Moss possibly usable for a smoothie? Yikes! And "natural" is no guarantee of healthy or safe; Irish Moss is a hazard to anyone taking a blood thinner, for example, because it has a blood thinning effect itself.

    So I'll pose the opposite: why the need for a "truly natural" thickener when there are convenient, natural, easily obtainable alternatives that require no processing at home to make them usable?

    The art and science of the smoothie

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by Richard Kilgore
    add link (log)

    I may have missed something, Tony, but I don't see a post saying there is anything wrong with "truly natural" alternatives to a banana as thickener, though I don't understand the difference between "natural" and "truly natural". That said, I found some interesting information on Irish Moss (E407 or 407b) on Wikipedia, that suggests it might work in a smoothie.

    Irish moss is also used to make a beverage popular in the Caribbean. The beverage is made by boiling the Irish moss for about an hour in water. Flavourings including vanilla, peanut or strawberry may be added, and finally milk or sweetened condensed milk, rum and spices are added. It is usually served chilled, is very thick and is sometimes thought to have aphrodisiac qualities, and a cure for male impotence.

    Despite the attractive prospect of aphrodisiac qualities, working with Irish Moss appears to be a bit of a project and I would have to mail order it; so whenever I get around to experimenting again with trying to make a Matcha Smoothie, I'll most likely use Bob's Red Mill Xantham Gum, because I can get it easily at Central Market locally.

    What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted

    Pulled out the packet of First Pluck Akishan High Mountain Taiwan Oolong from Norbutea.com for the first time, I think, in over a month. This is way past the time I should have finished it, and while no longer very aromatic, the flavor is still delicious for multiple infusions (at least eight so far, from 30 seconds up to three minutes), gongfu cha in a Yixing pot, over several hours of cooking.

    Japanese Green Teas - Sencha, Gyokuro...and more,

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted

    Interesting, WmC. Gyokuro is expensive, so much so that few people in Japan drink it. It is typically drunk in very small infusions of about 2 ounces or so in a relaxed moment, and I am not aware of people brewing it in large quantities to hold and drink over several hours. Your experience certainly contributes to my understanding of why this is so.

    What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted · Edited by Richard Kilgore
    spelling gremlins (log)

    Not wanting to waste precious gyokuros, I combined small amounts of the last of the Organic Asakina Gyokuro Tsuyuhikari and the Organic Karigane, both from Yuuki-cha.com and came up with 6.1 g, just enough to brew a couple of ounces of water in a Banko houhin. I thought it might be so old at this point that it would not be worth drinking, but I was able to coax 5 flavorful infusions out of the leaves. Nice.

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