What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 1)

[Wholemeal Crank]

Finishing the evening with some gyokuro kin from denstea.com.

[Richard Kilgore]

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.

[Richard Kilgore]

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.

[LuckyGirl]

I am drinking a cup of the Wild White tea from Norbu that Wholemeal Crank included in a generous package of various teas to sample that she shared with me.

This is the first tea I've had that I get what people mean when they refer to "camphor".

My husband and I had a rich meal this evening at the home of some friends and we both ate too much. This tea is acting as a nice digestive.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Today made a thermos full of a medium grade dragonwell from Wing Hop Fung. Lower temps, shorter infusions, and I got a nice, nutty, mildly swett tea, but a bit too dilute. I guess when brewing so gently I can be more aggressive on the tea to water ratios.

And glad to see you're enjoying that wild white tea, LuckyGirl. It's eye-opening stuff, so distinctive, but very mild for all of that.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Wholemeal Crank (log)

[Wholemeal Crank]

Today I started off by finishing the last of my fuka-midori sencha sampler from denstea. Delicous. After I finish the gyokuro I'm not sure if I'll restock with gyokuro or sencha.

[Richard Kilgore]

Enjoying the Keemun Hao Ya B from Teasource.com...cocoa, earthy, sweet.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Today at work, a nice green jasmine pearl from the coffee bean and tea leaf. Got it much nicer than usual with a cooler water and careful attention to brewing time. Avoided the bitter and the soap flavor I so often get with this stuff. I think the attetion to brewing parameter with the Japanese green teas is paying off.

This evening, I tried the Lao Cha Tuo from norbutea. It's a lovely sweet shu puerh. Very nice.

[Richard Kilgore]

A light tea day. Chamomile at the end.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Just some hainan purple bud puerh (from norbutea) today. First time in a while with this one, and good to remember how sweet it is.

[velveeta]

My late morning tea is from an Asian grocery, it's called Butterfly Brand China Jasmine Tea.

It is nice and full tasting and dark colored. Looks like a black tea.

The label from China says it's made from the China National Produce and Animal By-Products I/E Corporation. Mmmmmm.

I am dipping an Amaretti into it, just out of the oven.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Interesting to see jasmine in a black japanese tea. I've only seen in combined with green teas. How strong is the jasmine, and how does it complement the tea?

[velveeta]

I assumed it was a green tea too, but after brewing it was so dark so I looked at the raw tea more closely, it looked like a black. Now that I am done with it now the leaves at the bottom of the pot I just emptied look more like a green tea. ??

The jasmine flavor and aroma were very prominent and along with the stronger tea leaf taste aspect it's a winner. I'll be using this as a morning tea until it's used up.

[Richard Kilgore]

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.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Started with some "small bud gold" yunnan black tea from tea habitat today. Unfortunately I let this one get a little too cool before I drank it. It was nice enough, but I didn't get a good chance to judge it properly.

This evening, finishing off some of the spring floral ti quan yin sampler from Harney & Sons. It is an amazing golden liquor that is quite beautiful in the glass mug.

[Richard Kilgore]

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.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Richard Kilgore
spelling gremlins (log)

[Richard Kilgore]

Enjoying a Yunnan Imperial from TCC.

What teas are you all drinking in your part of the world?

Edited November 23, 2009 by Richard Kilgore (log)

[Richard Kilgore]

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.

[Richard Kilgore]

Dian Hong "Pure Bud" Black Tea - Spring 2007 from Yunnan Sourcing in my cup today. I just opened this tea for the first time. It's not a Dian Hong Imperial, but it's good.

So what teas are you all drinking today?

[Wholemeal Crank]

2007 White Bud Sheng Puerh from norbutea. Mmmm....hit the spot just right after an epidemic of overeating at the office pre-thanksgiving potluck today.

[Richard Kilgore]

Keemun Hao Ya A from TeaSource.com this morning, with scrambled eggs, Russian Rye bread and blackberry preserves. Works for me.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Gyokuro kin this morning, with toast. It was sweet and green, but probably is not the best choice for eating with honey-on-toast--the honey sweetness overpowers it a bit.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Made a pot of some summer harvest wild camellia from yunnan (from norbutea) and this is my 2nd or 3rd time with these wild tea leaves, and I haven't yet achieved a brewing that is quite as nice as the small sample of the spring version I got in a tea trade from Richard. Not sure if this is a spring-to-fall difference, or just not getting the brewing parameters right.

At the end of the workday, a cup of Podrea, a jasmine/vanilla/mandarin flavored black tea from Chado, from a colleague who has gotten a teapot of her own to brew at work. It was nice, but not as nice as the straight black tea I had a couple of days ago.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Due to inability to concentrate adequately on work, needed one more brewing to get me through to the end of the workday. Drinking some more of the Alishan High Mountain spring Oolong from norbutea. Mmmm.

I need a new word for the golden silky warm flavor that is so deep and persistent in this tea--I keep saying haylike, but although it reminds me of the smell of a freshly opened bale of high-quality hay on a warm sunny day in the barn, I've never even nibbled on the stuff I helped feed to horses, so I really don't know what that hay tasted like. It's a little vegetal and a little caramel but not really sweet, and a little umami too. Although the tea is sweet, the flavor I'm trying to describe is not especially so.

Sun on field

Wind ripples grass

Spring tea gives best of summer

[Wholemeal Crank]

Today, anticipating a nice afternoon nap, felt like a change of pace, and brewed up some herbal tea--hibiscus, orange peel, licorice root, rose hips, and chamomile. I think the makings will yield at least one more brewing later.