tasting the Darjeeling and not yet ready for the Nepalese...

The three amigos of questionable tea

Did a tea tasting this weekend. With the lady who sleeps next to me.

She didn't like either tea, and I wasn't much more impressed. Oh well. Can't win them all, eh?

To be fair, these are not top-shelf Darjeelings. I knew that when the samples arrived.

Not going to do a tea review. Other than to say I wouldn't buy these. I suppose that's a review of sorts. I'll hold my tongue rather than go any further.

The Tumsong Darjeeling was the only one I'd drink again...under duress

Reviewing tea on the dark side

What tea is this?

I don't read Chinese, so I can't tell you. One of my clients found out I was into tea, which is an understatement, and brought me this. It was ok, not great. However, now I really want to know what it was.

All I know is that it's a green tea and tastes weirdly burnt. Actually, if she hadn't told me it was green, I'd have never guessed it.

That means it might not be. She doesn't read Chinese either. Anyone have any idea what this package says?

I can make it larger if that helps.

Oh, big news over here at the Lahikmajoe Drinks Tea blog. Hasn't been big news here in ages. I've neglected my tea blog for long enough. All that's about to change.

Turns out one of my favourite tea companies is interested in doing something with me.

Exciting, eh?

I've been very careful with such things in the past. Several times, I've had companies approach me who wanted me to write glowing reviews in return for tea.

As Robert Godden says, if your review can be bought then your review isn't worth much. I realise this isn't the standard position on this by many/most tea bloggers. I know for a fact that some tea bloggers will write scathing reviews if a tea is bad.

Those reviewers are the only ones I trust. Really.

If you can find something positive to say about every tea, then you and I are on opposing sides. Think about it.

There are some teas that really are a crime against humanity. If your policy is to never say anything bad about a tea, then you're essentially working for the dark side.

An exaggeration?

I've been known to exaggerate.

So, about the tea company with whom I'm talking. Who could Lahikmajoe possibly be talking about? Hold your horses, bub.

There'll be time enough for that in a future post.

tea for the revolution

Twas a bit cryptic over here for a few days, wasn't it?

Planned a blogpost about Revolution Tea, and quickly provided the link and thought I pressed 'save', so that I could write the post at a later time.

And here's what showed up instead:

Revolution Tea

That's it. A post with two words and if you clicked on it, it would've taken you to their website.

Pretty minimalist, don't you think?

I agree.

wet leaves and drier leaves

in Hamburg looking through the windows at Messmer Momentum's Darjeeling boxes  

Why are most Monsoon tea flush Darjeelings not normally sold outside of their region? Aren't all flushes worth drinking. I've had something called Autumn Flush from at least one company, and it was tasty enough. Certainly not bad. Anything but bad.

Then while I was talking to Michael J. Coffey and Geoff Norman, we got to talking about wet leaves versus drier leaves. Michael was talking about about Taiwanese tea rather than Indian tea, but he made an interesting point.

Apparently, the wetter the leaf is when it's been picked, the lesser quality the resulting tea will be. Now, I'm not a grower. Clearly. Sitting here in my flat in Germany, anything I say about growing tea is based upon very limited information. I read and I listen to tea people more knowledgeable than I, but I'm passing this onto you the way I heard it. My retelling is hopefully accurate.

I found the next thing Michael said to be the most intriguing. Here's what it was:

'There’s a tension between the farmers and the pluckers.  Pluckers want to work early in the morning, because the dew is still on the leaves and they’re plumper. They’ll be paid more for the same amount of work. Farmers know that higher quality tea results from plucking late in the morning.
 Some farmers will make a compromise, and they’ll do both an early and late morning plucking. Afterwards, they’ll sell the two different batches separately; the late morning one being of lesser quality.'

Michael Coffey said that this was true of Taiwan in general, so this doesn't directly relate to Darjeeling tea. The reason I even mentioned my favourite tea growing region of India, is I've often wondered how the rainy season affects the tea grown at that time.

There you have it. Wet leaves = ok, but not necessarily the best. Waiting until later in the morning to pick the leaves makes the resulting tea even better. Well, that's great because I was hoping to sleep in anyway.

a turtle and a strawberry

Welcome back to the new and improved Lahikmajoe Drinks Tea.

Have had a bit of a break due to my day job, but hopefully that's settling down so I can devote more time to teablogging. After all, that's what really matter, right?

Some have asked me if I'll ever blog again? Well, I suppose this is an answer to that.

Want to see a photo of a turtle and a strawberry?

Really?

What other teablog offers you something like this? None! None, I tell you.

As a matter of fact, this is the first I've ever seen such a photo on a teablog. What does it have to do with tea, you ask?

My answer?

What doesn't it have to do with tea? Strawberry tea. Turtle tea.

My friend Diana, when we were touring in Japan in the early nineties, compared the taste of green tea to turtle pee. After the obvious enquiry as to whether she had personal experience with drinking the urine of the testudo, we agreed that the tea we'd been served by our host actually smelled like turtle urine must taste...to someone who had actually tasted turtle pee, which we hadn't...not us.

What?

Oh, you still want the photo, don't you?

Well, here it is:

tea kills (maybe)

This is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started this teablog a few years ago, and I have to apologise. Really, it wasn't intentional.

I could make up a lot of excuses, but the truth is you don't come here for my problems. You come here for teablogging goodness, and that's what I intend to give you. Is this the prettiest teablog you've ever seen? It is not. Am I an expert on the topic of tea? Nope. Far from it.

The whole point of this teablogging lark was to document my 'learning about tea' journey, as well as to display my writing. I already had made a few stabs at other blogs, and there was something missing. I read some things about bliss and passion, and then I wondered what mine were.

A while back, in the midst of one of the busiest times I've had in years, I saw an article that would shock and astound you. Well, it would if I could find it. It was in a German paper, which I set aside in order to use it for a future blogpost.

When I went hunting for it earlier today, it'd disappeared. Gone. What to do? Not sure.

It was a scientific article that made a dramatic and terrifying claim. For any of you men who drink a lot of tea, as well as for the people who love them, this was worrying stuff. But can I write about it if I don't have the source? If I only have a very vague idea of what the article even said?

Of course I can. I can do nearly anything I want here. This is all fun and games, right? Teablogging fun and games.

So, I'm going to pass on an unsubstantiated story...you've been warned. Hold onto your hats, because you're not going to like this.

If you drink eight cups of tea, or more, per day and are of the male persuasion, there's a higher likelihood that you'll get prostate cancer. You heard me. All you people who tout the health benefits of tea can stick that where the sun don't shine.

That tea you love so much...the tea you swill from dawn to dusk...your tea is killing you. And I can't think of a better reason to break my teablogging silence. As one of the Beasts of Brewdom, I feel it's the very least I could do.

For the good everyone.

Be careful out there gentlemen. It's not easy being a tea drinker.

we've no time to wash the things between whiles

`Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.' 

Howdy, lahikmajoe's teabloggians. Lahikmajoe has been kind enough to let me guest-blog today. This is always a treat because then I get to be goofy elsewhere, other than my home. I’ve been here before. You might remember me. I’m the one who knows very little about tea and is very willing to try it, but hasn’t found anything to make her want to drink it on a regular basis yet.

Today I went on a very grand adventure. This adventure was a few months in the making, so it’s exciting that it actually finally happened. Yes, it was a tea adventure. It would be a odd if I was here and it wasn’t a tea-related adventure, now wouldn’t it? Yes. Yes, it would.

A few months ago, I noticed a sign go up in a field that I drive past on my way to work. 

This is kind of what the sign looked like. ANYWAY, I was all, “Hey, lahikmajoe, I think we’re getting a tea place, or maybe a sewing shop, when it opens, I should check that out, yeah?”

Then I kind of totally forgot about it completely because life got in the way. It happens.

Then a couple of weeks ago, the local paper reviewed the place I’d completely forgotten about, and I thought, oh, oh, crap, I totally forgot about that place. I guess it opened. Whoops!

So I went to the website and I brought up the tea menu and I asked lahikmajoe if it looked any good and if I should go there. He said there were plenty of decaf options for me (I’m not supposed to have caffeine, because one of my cadre of doctors - yep, I have a cadre of them, I’m a whole medical miracle - told me that caffeine was a migraine trigger, and it seems to be the case, because when I cut the caffeine out, my migraines mostly stopped, too) but here’s the thing - I didn’t want to go to a fancy tearoom and have decaf, because the decaf options were mostly herbal, and it seemed like going to a tea place for tea that doesn’t really have tea in it would be like going to an amusement park for the people watching. It seems like a waste. You’re THERE, you really need to participate in what’s going ON. 

Plus, I really, really, REALLY wanted to try Oolong. Lahikmajoe talks about it all the time and makes it sound wonderful. Even if I tried it and hated it, I wanted to see what it tasted like. And they had Wu Yi Oolong. Doesn’t that even SOUND fancy and like you’re going on an exotic vacation? It totally does.

So I decided, let’s try something with caffeine, and see what happens. It’s probably been 12 years since the “don’t have anymore caffeine” edict, and I’ve changed a lot since then, so who knows what will happen.

So this morning! I got up at 6:45am. ON A SUNDAY. I know. I’m very dedicated. Oh, last night, lahikmajoe gave me a tutorial on Oolong and oxidation and such, which was nice. It was like going to the tea place with prior knowledge. Like I was a secret agent.

I got to The Tailored Tea at a little after 8am. I had lahikmajoe on call. I think it’s important to have a tea expert on call for situations like this, don’t you? Sure it is, come on.

The Tailored Tea looks like this. I am stealing this photo from the Albany Times Union website, because the photo I took...well, here’s their photo:

inviting, eh? you'd go there for some tea, wouldn't you?

And here’s MINE, because I felt like a weirdo standing in the street to take a good photo, so I stood off to the side and it looks terrible.

incognito photography

I’ll never be mistaken for a professional photographer, that’s for sure. Also, there’s the Midas Brake Center and the Dunkin’ Donuts. Hi, chain establishments!

So I was the first person there. That’s a little worrisome. The staff pays a LOT of attention to you when you’re the first person there.

Now, most of you probably already read the review The Purrfect Cup did of the same place? She’s more knowledgeable than I am. So, if you didn’t, here. This is a much less scatterbrained review of the same place.

Lahikmajoe said I should ask the waitress if they do multiple infusions, and if they did, tell him, because that was the way to go. And that they would know what he was talking about. He’s the tea expert. I said I would.

I was seated at the TINIEST TABLE EVER. So, so tiny. I was immediately sure I was going to break something. I am a total bull in a china shop. Oh, also? There was a LOT of china. This had utter disaster written all over it. I immediately tucked in my elbows and prayed I would be coordinated, just for an hour or so.

The table settings were pretty. All classic linen and mismatched china.

doesn't the china look nervous?

The waitress was young and seemed very sweet. So I was kind of nervous asking her about the infusion thing. But lahikmajoe said to. So I did.

“Um...infusions...I don’t...do you want to know how we brew our tea?” she asked.

I explained that no, I was pretty sure that wasn’t what it meant - it was more about how many times you used the leaves. (Sheesh, lahikmajoe, I hope that’s right. I didn’t know there would be a quiz.)

“Oh. We steep the teabags for three minutes,” she said, very happy she knew the answer this weird person was wanting.

Teabags? Oh. Um. I don’t think a fancy tearoom is supposed to have teabags. That’s a worry. (And actually really confusing, because before I left, the owner came and talked to me, and you can buy any of the teas they sell there loose-leaf. So why do they have them in teabags? Do they put them in teabags themselves? Or was the waitress just ill-informed? She was utterly adorable. I don’t want to get her in trouble.)

So I told her whatever they did would be fine and got a half-pot of Oolong, which is supposed to be 2.5 cups. She asked if I wanted her to leave the teabag in or out. She said if she left it in, it would get very strong. “Out, out, please out,” I said. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like strong tea.

I also ordered a big old omelette because it had ham and cheese in it. Yum.

She brought out the tea. The teapot was bigger than I expected. She poured me a cup in my tiny, very delicate-looking teacup. Oh, please don’t let me break this, I thought. That’d be so embarrassing.

first cup of Oolong

I looked around the table. No cream. No Splenda. I’m sure they HAD such things, but I’d have to ask for them, and the poor waitress was busy by then. Three other parties had come in. And they were old, and they were demanding. (More on these shenanigans later.)

I wanted to try it without anything in it first anyway. It’s not fair to try something to see if you like it with a bunch of add-ons. That’s like salting a meal before you even taste it to see if it needs salt.

My take on Oolong...it tastes like flowers. And it doesn’t taste as tea-like as the other types of tea lahikmajoe has encouraged me to try. He wanted to know if it tasted like anything else. My answer is? Probably, but I’m not the person to ask. I don’t have a fancy palate. My favorite meal is honestly chicken fingers. All I tasted (and smelled) was flowers.

And I drank an entire half-pot (without cream or Splenda) all by myself. Without even a grimace. I actually liked it quite a lot. It was smooth, it didn’t have that weird aftertaste, and it made me feel like a fancy lady to be drinking it out of a nice teacup at a table with a tablecloth on it.

And and AND, it’s been a couple of hours, and no migraine. Not even a headache. It could still be coming, I suppose, but the only after-effects I’ve experienced so far are I’m hyped up like a crazy person (listen, YOU try not having any caffeine for 12 years and then having a half-pot of tea, which was supposed to be 2.5 cups but was really 3.5 cups!) and all the peeing. ALL THE PEEING.

Oh, the other people in the teashop? Ok, so there were three other tables of people.

Table one: crotchety demanding couple. They complained about everything to one another. “I don’t LIKE bacon. Why don’t they have TURKEY bacon.” Blah blah blah. (Also, turkey bacon is an abomination of nature, lady. Get with the program.) When the waitress cleared their table, they waited for about .0005 seconds, then the wife went LOOKING for her, out by the KITCHEN, for the check. I could hear her haranguing the staff, “We’re ready for our BILL now!” (Granted, the wait for my bill was interminable, too, but I was nicer about it. I had my phone to entertain me.)

Table two and table three: Old people who knew each other from a billion years ago. Table two said to table three, "Hey, is that you, Mary Alice? We used to volunteer at the church together!" And they were off, reminiscing about old times. The best thing though? The best thing? Table two was telling table three about a diner she liked to go to, and table three said - actually said - “Are there HIPPIES there?” And table two said, “Um. Hippies?” And table three said, “Every time I drive by, there are ALL THE HIPPIES hanging around outside.” Table two laughed uncomfortably and said, “We go very early, so there are no...um...hippies there. Then. No.” I was trying VERY HARD not to laugh out loud. THOSE DAMN DIRTY DINER-RUINING HIPPIES.

(I promise I wasn’t being openly eavesdroppy. The people didn’t know I was listening to them. I can listen and look like I’m not. I’m very good at it.)

Also, and I just kept thinking, “This would make lahikmajoe so sad,” because all three tables, the MINUTE they sat down, said a variant of “You DO have coffee here, RIGHT?” I think a couple of the ladies might have gotten tea, but mostly the men they were with were all TEA IS BAD NEWS WE DISTRUST THIS TEA NONSENSE. One guy actually said, “I’ll have coffee. And KEEP IT COMIN’.” OK, Hopalong Cassidy.

When I was done, the owner came and checked in with me about how I liked my food and my beverages (I did! Very much!) and then I went home. Oh, this is their backyard:

the backyard, which is really the airport

The backyard is the airport. Some people really dig watching planes lift off and land. I’m not as charmed. They’re just planes. 

So. The Tailored Tea in Latham, New York. I’m all-systems-go on this place. It’s cute and it’s fancy (so tuck in those elbows, people as clumsy as me) and the food is good and priced reasonably. You will probably be the youngest person in the room by about 40 years if you are my age.

And...Oolong. Well, so far I have tried black tea (in chai), Rooibos (NOT REAL TEA!), green tea, and a weird licorice herbal thing. Oolong wins hands-down.

What’s next, lahikmajoe?