Richard Kilgore
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Posts posted by Richard Kilgore
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Two free Oolong samples available. If you are interested, please read the first post in this topic and then PM me.
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Here's a Holiday Smoothie for you.
1 cup frozen peaches plus 5 - 6 frozen cranberries.
1 cup Egg Nog, grocery store or your own recipe.
Blend.
Pour.
Top with a little nutmeg, if you like.
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Yes, in the shopping center just to the west of the large Asian market.
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For anyone else who may be looking for Piment d'Esplette, I found it at Zingerman's and on Amazon.
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I am making Red Beans with Chorizo, Blood Sausage, and Piment d'Esplette and am out of Piment d'Esplette. Central Market apparently no longer carries it locally. Paula lists three sources in the book, but none of them have it on their sites. Does anyone have 1) another source, or better yet for this batch 2) any suggestions for the best alternative?
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Little Sechuan Cuisine
240 Legacy Drive
Plano, Texas 75023
972-517-1979
972-517-1374
Mon-Sun: 11:00 am - 10:00 pm
eG Society member Greg Glancy recommended Little Sechuan to me a couple of months ago and I went there with friends recently, however they were interested in the Chinese-American items on the menu, so I did not really get to taste what the kitchen does. Except for the plate of dumplings. Oh my.
Last night I dropped in after an evening of shopping for food for making dishes from Paula Wolfert's new book on Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking. First I ordered an Onion Pancake for an app and a plate of the House Special Dumplings (again). Still curious I ordered a bowl of House Special Beef Noodle Soup. Nothing else I have eaten there that was labeled spicy has been a problem, but this set me on fire and tears ran down my face. But a delicious bowl it is, and I would order it again and ask them to cut the heat in half. Fuller than full, I had to take more than half of the huge bowl home with me.
But this, of course, is a place for eating with several people family style. I'll be back.
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A light tea day. Chamomile at the end.
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Tea greetings, just realized this was still alive and moved.
Pitiful and pedestrian: I mostly mean teabag tea as compared to the more exotic teas that are discussed so interestingly here. I have over 30 types of bagged tea on hand, and only about 10 types of smaller batch loose teas, mostly from tea specialty shops purchased while traveling.
I find that the water makes a big difference. Bad water = bad tea.
I am enjoying reading and trying the multiple infusions with my loose teas. Also trying to take the water temp, but mostly scorching myself, how is that best done?
Another discovery is the aroma, I am finding after reading here that this is more important than I realized. My cheapie teas have about zero aroma. It seems that this is one of the big differentiators.
Bottom line, does anyone here want to hear about grocery store teas or is this just a big snore?
I am glad to read about any tea that you find of interest for whatever reason. We're all learners here and questions and other posts of all sorts lead in many interesting directions. There's nothing "wrong" with grocery store teas, bagged or loose. While it is true the better quality teas are sold loose, there are some that are now sold in bags that are a little larger and give the leaves more room during the infusion, though they are still not as effective as letting the leaves flow freely within a tea pot or even within many teacup infusers - and they are more expensive. The problem with most teabag teas is that they are filled with the lowest quality leaf, essentially tea dust. And the drawback to grocery store teas is that they are often over-priced for the quality you receive. Nonetheless, there is a place for them and a lot of people find them convenient.
Yes, water is very important to brewing well. What are you doing for your tea water?
The aroma generally is more prominent with quality teas, and if aroma is important to you, you may want to seek out teas that are known for their aroma and select teaware that will make the most of it.
Ten loose leaf teas may not sound like a lot, but it's more than most people have. And nothing bad about having small amounts. I prefer to buy teas an ounce or two at a time. While some teas have a long shelf life, many start fading soon after you get them, so large quantities are not always practical to store. And with small quantities I can explore more teas than if I bought larger quantities of each tea, given the same total amount of money for my tea budget.
So if you have something to report or a question about a tea, "snoozer" or not, post away. If it's just boring to you and you're finding teas you enjoy, then....
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I don't know much about the different teas but I do like teapots. Here are photos of my two Japanese ceramic pots. The little blue one was purchased from Pier 1 over a decade ago, along with 4 matching cups. The other pot, along with matching cups was given to me by my mother several years ago. She knew I always coveted the set but I have no idea where she got it nor how long ago. All I know is that I have found similar tea items on the internet that have described it as somayaki.
Yes, I would agree that your pot most likely is a somayaki. I have an old Japanese somayaki tea cup that is similar.
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The simple bamboo tea tray I bought a couple of weeks ago--the top lifts off to clean it up.
and the character on the tea tray, which I presume means 'tea'
I like the simplicity of your tea table, WmC.
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Enjoying the Keemun Hao Ya B from Teasource.com...cocoa, earthy, sweet.
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I have been brewing a Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha (Spring 2009) that I ordered from norbutea.com a while ago. Greg at Norbu puts up a yellow flag warning that this sheng pu-erh is not for sheng newbies, but this brewing was really easy and pleasant. Some expectable astringency, but delicious. I brewed it gong fu cha in a Yixing made of clay from the '70s or '80s, so it may have something to do with clay effects. Time for another sloppy not-double-blind tea experiment! This is one I should brew in two or three Yixing and in a gaiwan to see what happens...and I'll post about this on the pu-erh topic.
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I am going to do two or three dishes over the weekend in order to get ahead of Thanksgiving week and will post a report and pics next week.
In the meantime I'll mention this cavet about caveats on a heat diffuser you may see on Amazon. La Tienda recommended this to me: Flame Tamer/Simmer Ring. I noticed that there are a few Amazon reviews that warn about these smoking and the handles catching on fire. I picked up a couple of them at a local Indian market and the directions say quite clearly to wash them thoroughly with soap and water before using...or they will smoke. I have a hard time seeing the handle catching on fire if you are using low to medium heat, which is what it's designed for. I have used mine once on an electric element with no smoke (or fire) and I think it works at least as well as the much more expensive simmer mat, which I also have, although it may well not be as durable or last as long.
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I have a lot of tea from several sources that I have not opened yet. Today I opened one I got from Greg at norbutea.com. This is a Fall 2009 Bai Yun (White Cloud) Oolong from Yunnan, but in the style of Taiwanese Oriental Beauty. Gong fu style it brews well at a ratio of about 1.5 g per ounce of water. A richer infusion gives me more of a stone fruit-peach flavor, but the lower ratio shows better the layers of floral, citrus and honey. It is fairly highly oxidized and is noticeably astringent (drying). This will be an interesting one to play with to try a few different brewing parameters.
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Several months ago I bought a couple ounces of a new Pu-erh from Greg at Norbutea.com - a 2009 Norbu Lao Cha Tou. It still had a little of the usual new shu funky fermentation hanging on to it, so I put it in a plain white paper bag and let it air out, not trying to brew it until today. It's doing fine now, the fermentation funk is gone and it is very smooth with a pleasant camphor note. I expect it will continue to improve over the next 6 - 12 months, so I'll probably order a brick.This shu is very compact little nuggets and it can tolerate, yes benefits from, a little longer 1st and second infusions, but is sufficiently open by the third or fourth to pull back a bit. I did my usual 20 second rinse, followed by a 10, 15, 30 and the first two were a bit thin. The third infusion at 30 was just right. So I would start with 20 next time. This was with 3.2 g in a 55 ml gaiwan with boiling or just barely off-boil water.
I may let this one sit in the drawer for a while before I start playing iwth it.
This has rested long enough to go ahead and try it, I continued to brew infusions after posting the above, and it just got better.
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There are only two free Oolong tea samples left. Please PM me now if you are interested.
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I have also brewed a 2009 Norbu Lao Cha Tou today. I posted about it in the Pu-erh topic and an infusion I did since then has been even better - richer, thicker mouthfeel. Very nice.
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Several months ago I bought a couple ounces of a new Pu-erh from Greg at Norbutea.com - a 2009 Norbu Lao Cha Tou. It still had a little of the usual new shu funky fermentation hanging on to it, so I put it in a plain white paper bag and let it air out, not trying to brew it until today. It's doing fine now, the fermentation funk is gone and it is very smooth with a pleasant camphor note. I expect it will continue to improve over the next 6 - 12 months, so I'll probably order a brick.
This shu is very compact little nuggets and it can tolerate, yes benefits from, a little longer 1st and second infusions, but is sufficiently open by the third or fourth to pull back a bit. I did my usual 20 second rinse, followed by a 10, 15, 30 and the first two were a bit thin. The third infusion at 30 was just right. So I would start with 20 next time. This was with 3.2 g in a 55 ml gaiwan with boiling or just barely off-boil water.
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Today started with a cup of Grand Keemun from TeaSource.com. Not as complex and classy as the other Keemuns from Tea Source that I have been drinking, but a solid, full-codied and inexpensive one.
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I finally bit the bullet and ordered an additional container for my Vita-Prep. I had been considering getting the smallest one - 32 ounce capacity - and this video clip during which Martha Stewart used that size container when Paula Wolfert was on her show recently, pushed me over the edge. It's just the right size for any number of smaller jobs that would leave much of the contained on the walls of the container as you poured it out of the standard 64 ounce size.
E Gads! Maybe it's the small container, maybe Martha and Paula are smaller than I think, but in that video, the base looks HUGE! After watching some of the demos on YouTube - all hosted by male chefs - in Martha's video, it looked much larger.
The base is larger than your average home blender, but it looks disproportionately larger in the video clip because of its relation to the small 32 ounce container. (I think most home blender containers are about 48 ounces.) The standard 64 ounce container looks large but does not stand out because it is in good proportional balance against the base.
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Started the day with the Nilgiri, Glendale Estate, Handmade from TeaSource.com. Just about to finish up a bag of it, but I have another in reserve that I ordered after trying the first one. This is another tea featured in a Tea Tasting and Discussion earlier this year. One smooth tea.
I have also been brewing a Lao Tie Guan Yin, Late 1990s aged. I bought some of this many months ago from Greg at Norbutea.com and today tried it gongfu cha style in a Yixing and in a gaiwan. Stone fruit up front with the wood-fire roastiness. I liked it better brewed in the gaiwan and do not yet know if the Yixing clay is still new enough that it is absorbing tea oil and sucking out flavor (which is normal), or if other teas brewed in it are interfering, or if another Yixing pot with a different clay will do better. But for now, the gaiwan brews a richer, fruitier tea liquor. I'll play with this tea in a few Yixing pots and see what happens.
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Several members here have done it and there are several topics in this forum about it. You can do it simply and inexpensively (popcorn popper) or you can do it with a good deal of tweaking and/or expense. I enjoyed it and did it for a few months rather modestly with a decent lower end air roaster, but I'll probably sell that soon on eBay since I am now primarily a tea drinker. You may want to check out sweetmarias.com for equipment and especially for high quality green beans.
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I finally bit the bullet and ordered an additional container for my Vita-Prep. I had been considering getting the smallest one - 32 ounce capacity - and this video clip during which Martha Stewart used that size container when Paula Wolfert was on her show recently, pushed me over the edge. It's just the right size for any number of smaller jobs that would leave much of the contained on the walls of the container as you poured it out of the standard 64 ounce size.
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Today's been a slow tea day. Started with a nice Ceylon from TeaSouce.com this morning and just got around to brewing the Sencha Select from TheCulturedCup.com featured in a recent Tea Tasting & Discussion. Two fine teas.
Tonight I'm resisting getting into my sample tea for the next Tea Tasting & Discussion featuring a Fall 2009 Ma Xi, also known as a Harry Crab Oolong. Okay, so drinking a Harry Crab doesn't quite work as an appealing image, but the tea is from Greg at Norbutea so there is very good reason to believe it likely will not hurt you too badly.
And the reason for the name is in the link. Check it out.
What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)
in Coffee & Tea
Posted
Today I had my first successful attempt at making Matcha. (I had one really unsuccessful previous attemept at trying to turn it into a Matcha Smoothie, but that's another story.) This is an organic Yabe Matcha I got from Dan at yuuki-cha.com. I bought this one because it was inexpensive and I did not want to learn on anything pricier. I'll take some pics of the set up tomorrow and post those and more detail in the Japanese Green Tea topic.