drink it to the last leaf

A few days ago, I read about Nicole Schwartz's plan to rid herself of some excess tea in the blogpost The tea pound.  (You might know her as @AmazonV over on twitter).  I liked the idea, but I've continued to blame my distance from most of the rest of you as a reason not to get into direct tea trading.

But it just so happened that I went digging into the back of my tea depot, and I have much more of a Choice Formosa Oolong than I realised.  My solution today was to just drink as much of it as I can.  This isn't a burden, as I really like this tea.  It was my introduction to Oolong, and for a long time it was the tea I turned to much more readily than any other.  Here's an autumn photo that makes me think of this Formosa Choice Oolong's dark brown leaves:

autumn in Bavaria

So I regularly order little 100g or 200g packages of as many teas as possible, but if I really like a tea, I'll order as much as a kilogram.  This is exactly one of those situations.  But the next time I ordered, I forgot that I'd already ordered it, so I had another 500g sent along with my selection of other tea.

What's my point here exactly?  Well I have a question for you.

When you have a lot of a specific tea you like, do you go overboard drinking it like I do?  You don't always meticulously ship it off to others, do you?


I assure you that I'm not trying to sell off this tea.  Am genuinely curious whether you ever order too much of a tea you like and, like I do, power through to use every last tea leaf.

Must one study tea to really appreciate it?

Have been up on the mountain most of the day, and here's a photo of my trusty orange flask as proof:


As much as I enjoy drinking tea at the top of the mountain after the most strenuous part of the hike, one of the things I like most is the time I have up there to ponder things.






Today I had exactly just such an opportunity, and some of that time I spent considering how to answer a question that was posed to me by a relatively new reader to this blog. I've mentioned Cara in Cleveland before, but in reference to what tea would best to mask the anti-allergy medication she wanted to give a phlegmy coworker.  My regular readers will concede that this topic is exactly the sort of contribution we need to the world of teablogging.


Now to be pedantic about this, we can't call Cara in Cleveland a newcomer to tea.  She's drunk tea for years and has a favourite brand that her grandmother drinks.  This Red Rose tea is one I'd not heard of, but supposedly it's rather well-known and widely available.  So this isn't someone who's never had tea.  She's not approaching tea drinking for the first time.  


I'm not going to quote her question directly, but essentially she asked if one really needed to become a tea obsessive to enjoy tea.  Do you need to learn about leaves, flavours, steepings, and whatever else to fully get the experience?  Must one practically study tea to really appreciate it?


I think it's a fair question, and I'll tell you exactly how I responded.  I said, 'Not at all. I know tons of Brits who'd rather not think about it at all. Depends on what you want to do.'


What I meant was that many people simply want to drink the tea that they've always drunk and not over-think it.  They don't want fancy tea gear. They're not interested in Asian tea ceremony.  Tea is tea.  It's a daily enjoyment but it needn't be anything more.


And you might think that a teablogger would be against that.  Would have some sort of snotty elitest position on such people.  Other teabloggers might, but not this one.  If you want to enjoy your tea and not be bothered with all the other stuff, then you have my support and even my blessing.


But that begs the question:  What are you doing here Mr Lahikmajoe?  Why all the Sturm und Drang?  Why the obsessive questions and contemplations and strongly-held opinions?


Those are questions for another time.  They too are quite interesting and deserve my full attention.  For now though, I'm going to brew a pot of Choice Formosa Oolong and rest my well-hiked legs.

my shingle's been hung

Read an article in a spa magazine recently that went through the different types of tea and explained the differences between them.  For the 4 types of tea mentioned (I know there are more...talk to the spa magazine people, will you?), there's a column in which is answered:

Good for you because

Reach for it

It tastes


I could easily go through and talk about the very practical information that was imparted by the article, but  I've decided not to do that.  There are plenty of places you could go for exactly this sort of thing.  Most days I'd be more than eager to delve deep into it.  But not today.

Today, I've resolved to do two different things.  One is to hang out my shingle and offer a therapeutic service regarding tea.  What tea fits your particular situation/emergency?  This is a shameless attempt to deal with the second thing.

In the past, I've had tons of discussion here on my blog.  I continue to get more over on my mirrored blog (lahikmajoedrinkstea) at Tea Trade (their main site), but I really like a bit of lively back and forth at both places.  So here's my shameless attempt to get some of you who like to come here and gawk to actually speak up.

Everyone loves an advice column.  Ok, not everyone.  Most people like advice columns.  As a result, I'm offering to answer non tea-related catastrophe with very tea-related solutions.  Either in the comments themselves or in an additional blogpost, I'll hopelessly and even recklessly make your problems a thing of the distant past.

And to kick it all off I've decided to answer a question I've received from Larry in Dayton, Ohio.  Let's hear it Larry.

Larry in Dayton:

Yeah, uh...ok.  See, I really hate my brother-in-law.  I hate him so much I want to kill him.  So my question is What sort of tea is best for me to deal with that?


My answer:


Oh gosh.  Ok Larry in Dayton.  Not a very light-hearted question to kick this off, is it?  But I promised I'd do my best.

I'm going to assume you don't want a tea to help you get up the nerve to actually off the guy, right?  I can't do that.  That'd be unconscionable.  (*whispers* Assam by the way...a dark, strong, malty Assam)

No, I'll just take it for granted you want a tea that'll help you calm down and not go through with these murderous thoughts.  So my gut feeling is that you need a good strong Oolong.  And not one of those lightly-oxidised sorts of Oolong.  I'd go with a nice flavourful Choice Formosa Oolong.  This tea won't let you down.

It's Good for you because...you won't be committing murder.  You can enjoy your freedom and actually choose when and where you go and what you can do.

Reach for it...Brew some up any time of the day, but especially right before you're forced to have any contact with this brother-in-law of yours.  I'm sure it'll do the trick.

It tastes...nothing like a black tea, but packs a strong full punch.  It's got something nutty and earthy about it.  There's even a hint of caramel.

You're probably feeling an undeniable sense of peace now that you've followed my simple instructions Larry in Dayton.  Enjoy this photo from a balcony looking out over the Mediterranean.

After that expert advice above, I'm sure the questions will now come flooding in.  My proverbial shingle has been hung and I'm awaiting your queries.