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?

you can brew tea in cold water?

that's Tie Guan Yin on the left and Silver Needle on the right

This is really a post for summertime. So all of you in the Southern Hemisphere will be happy. The rest of you are probably asking, 'Why not wait until it's seasonally appropriate? What's the story on a summer topic in the opening days of winter?' Well, in my defence, I started thinking about this in summer. And if I try to wait for the right time, I just might forget.

Over the summer, I read people talking about cold-brewing tea. Putting leaves in cold (not remotely warm) water and waiting until the leaves naturally steep into some delicious goodness. You can do that? It works? I'm here to tell you that it does.

Those of you that already know this are going to think it's a non-story. Of course it does. Why wouldn't it? Now I know that...but it was somehow beyond my understanding. My mother made sun tea when I was a child. In her case it was tea bags in a container of water that was set out in the sun. After several hours, the warmth of the sun had brewed up a really strong tea (that people ruined with ice cubes and various forms of sweetener), but that's because of the heat. Right?

If you want to make tea, you need either hot water or you need to add some sort of heat. Isn't that correct?

Not necessarily. Why have I been sitting on this since summer? Well, it's simple actually. I had to try it. I had to know it was true before I went off half-cocked about it (I know that's not my normal way-I'm well-known for going off half-cocked). And once I got started experimenting with cold-brewing tea, I couldn't stop. It became a sort of obsession.

That's why it was so timely when in the comments of a recent post Tea Trade Peter mentioned drinking white tea cold. Here's how he said it:

'Let’s start with why does tea have to be drunk hot? I like white tea, but when it is hot, I find that I cannot appreciate the flavors, but when it is just warm, or at a temperature just slightly above the room temperature so you still get the aromatics (though, I think they still come through at room temp). I’ve gotten to the point where I’d rather let my white tea cool off before I drink it, it just seems better that way.'

Now, he's talking about brewing it hot and letting it cool. It's not the same thing. But when I read what he'd written, I had unintentionally been doing exactly that with various white teas. After I got as much out of the leaves as I could with hot water, I went on and soaked those same leaves in cold water overnight. With astounding results.

It's not the same as tea brewed with hot water. There are times when the result is something like faintly-scented water. It's subtle...a lot like what I've recently written about white tea in general. There are also times that I've left leaves in cool water, forgotten about them entirely, and after a day or so, the resulting tea was as strong and flavourful as any hot-brewed concoction.

Here, let's move in a little for a closer look:

Don't really drink the leaves, ok? Pour these through some sort of filter.

My question is: Have you tried this? What were your results? Though I don't think I'd do this with any black tea, it's had unbelievable results with Oolong, green tea, and white tea. How about you? Any experience?

sometimes good things happen when you run off and forget your tea

Eight Immortals Phoenix Oolong

If you asked me, 'Do you want to try an Oolong you've never had before?', there's little doubt that I'd answer in the affirmative before you even got the question entirely out of your mouth. A High Mountain Oolong? I'd climb that mountain if I had to. But I have to admit, I like climbing mountains. It's not like that'd be a burden or anything.

While writing about white tea and the Teekampagne, I've actually been drinking a lot of quite good Oolong and working my way up to writing about it. When Jo Johnson sent me her beautiful children's book The World's Special Tea, which I wrote about several weeks ago, she mentioned that she'd thrown in a couple of tea samples. One of them was the Eight Immortals Phoenix Oolong from In Pursuit of Tea, and receiving it was like being asked the question up above. 'Would you like to try a really exceptional High Mountain Oolong?' Well yes. Yes, I would.

Their photo of the leaves is nice, but look how my sample looked:

I'm not going to do a tea review here. Not now. I read something that Alex Zorach said a while back about really getting to know a tea before reviewing it, and that's exactly what I'm doing with this one. Although I'm savouring it the way I would any exquisite tea, I'm also being a bit brutal with it to see if it can withstand the abuse. So far, it has stood up valiantly to every test.

Recently read about the origin of the term Wu Long (Oolong) in The Tea Drinker's Handbook, and thought it'd be a nice way to close out this post. Here it is:

'In Chinese, Wu Long means literally "black dragon" and refers to the very dark colour frequently taken on by the leaves during drying. However, according to legend, there's a different explanation for the origin of the colour: Wu Liang, a Chinese planter, was harvesting his tea one day when he saw a stag. He interrupted the harvest to give chase and arriving home with the carcass he got busy skinning and cutting it up and quite forgot to put the tea leaves out to dry. A few days later he remembered his precious crop and noticed that the leaves had changed colour. He fired them nevertheless, then infused some and was very surprised by the unusually soft and aromatic fragrance they gave off. The secret of his discovery spread around the entire province and the name Wu Liang was transformed into Wu Liang Cha or "tea of the black dragon."'

(source: The Tea Drinker's Handbook by Francois-Xavier Delmas, Mathias Minet, and Christine Barbaste)

Mago Merlino and his tea world

On the way back from visiting the tea shop that I mentioned in the previous post, I stumbled upon this little establishment:

Mago Merlino Tea 

The manner in which I found it was a bit like something out of Lewis Carroll...almost felt like it sprouted up out of nowhere while I was still teadrunk from a bit earlier. While taking photos from outside, there was a gentleman lurking ominously outside. Turns out he was the proprietor of Mago Merlino Tea, and I was in for an experience.

Here's a bit more about the fellow in his own words:



As he says, 'My name is Rocco Raffaele Jacopini. Some people-they call me "Bellino". Some people-they call me "Mago"...magician, you know? Because when they enter this place and they go to the tea house, they breathe a kind of atmosphere of the long time gone...I want to show my little touch of class. Imagination. Fantasy. It's very important.'



This guy's fantastic. If he were a teablogger, I'm sure we could get him to be a Beast of Brewdom.

The little shop above is at: Via Matteo Palmieri, 21/r. But I don't find that anywhere else on the web (thus my surprise at it's very existence). Instead, I think he wants you to come to the Mago Merlino Tea House which you'll find at: Via de Pilastri, 31/r. You might want to call ahead (tel. 055/242 970), because I'm not sure when exactly the tearoom is open.



I went there this evening, but imagine my disappointment at its darkened, shuttered entranceway. There's quite a lot written up about this place on the web, and it looks like a lot of fun there.






Maybe next time I'm in Florence, I'll get to check it out.

The best part of finding Mago at the shop was the tea he had on offer. After showing me some very delicious smelling Tie Guan Yin leaves that I balked at buying, he measured out a nice amount of what he called King Oolong. I had very low expectations of this tea when I brewed it. Boy, was I wrong.

I brewed it and brewed it and brewed it again. This tea was sturdy and delicious and a very nice, delicious Oolong. Seven infusions and that same fresh vegetale flavour that makes some tea obsessives focus exclusively on this sort of tea.

Here I was thinking I would be penalised for not buying the top-shelf tea he offered, but instead I walked away with an unforeseeable gem of an unknown tea. I'd regularly buy tea from Signor Jacopini were I living in or near Florence. And I'm sure he has some stories to tell. Both stories of the tea-related as well as the non tea-related varieties.

quite a selection of tea ware

One more view of this tasteful little shop

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.

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.

what's oxidation?

Had an enjoyable chat with tea people on Google+ Hangout the other night. There was discussion about Oolong that I won't even attempt to go into here, but one of the things I was curious about was how the others explained what Oolong was to people new to tea.

That's a fair question, right? I get it all the time.

People know black tea and green tea, but mention of Oolong leaves many people looking a bit befuddled.
So how to explain it?

And as you know, I'm normally looking for the most concise description. That's ridiculous of me to even say, isn't it? Would I really be looking for the most intricate and detailed description? Not here I wouldn't.

Simply put, green tea is not oxidised and black tea is fully-oxidised. Oolong falls somewhere in the middle between the two. Some Oolong is lightly oxidised, some is allowed to oxidise much more but not fully. Next question for someone who's curious and whose eyes haven't glazed over already:

Uh...what's oxidation?

Well, here's an article you probably won't even bother clicking over to: Oxidation & Fermentation in Tea Manufacture

And the article uses the same very simple example of oxidation that the above-mentioned tea people did. If you cut an apple in half and let it go brown, that's exactly the same chemical process that tea goes through when it oxidises.

The specifics of the process of letting tea oxidise is certainly very complicated and the most sought after Oolong was very likely tended by a highly experienced tea master.

Although this is rather basic information when it comes to tea, I am asked this question often. Do you have any other ways that you explain oxidation? I'd love to hear them.

charms of The Iron Goddess (Tie Guan Yin)

For regular readers of my teablog, I'll have to apologise at the outset. Normally I write about anything but tea. Sure I drag tea into it, but the topics I like most are tangentially related to that hot brown liqueur. I like to write about whatever film I happen to be watching or what I might serve footballers playing in the World Cup Final based upon the quality of each individual's play. You get the idea.

It's a teablog, but I rarely get bogged down in actually reviewing tea. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Robert (@The_Devotea on twitter) has assured me that there's nothing more boring than, 'I took the tea and I submerged it in the water and then I tasted it and it tasted like ______ and then I infused it again...' It might be informative and clearly written, but it's not the most exciting stuff. To each his own, eh?

But sometimes I feel I should just do a traditional review of a tea. It is still a teablog after all. And of course with the introduction I've built up, I'm almost daring myself to make it somehow more interesting than the typical teanote. I might have set myself up with unrealistic expectations in that case.

The tea I want to talk about is Tie Guan Yin (the notorious Iron Goddess). A while back I read someone disparaging comments about how everyone knows the sultry temptress that is the Iron Goddess.


As if this tea was somehow boring due to its popularity. I gave into her seduction when I visited Zhi Tea in Austin when I wrote An oasis on the Eastside.

Alex Zorach made a valid point, in the comments of that post, when he said, 'It seems to be the "default" named Oolong, so there have been a few cases where I tried it and it wasn't the best quality.' He went on to write that finding a good Tie Guan Yin is an entirely different story. I think I know just such an exception. The one I'm talking about is from Upton Tea Imports.

Now according to them, this is a 2nd Grade tea. Their description actually states:

A classic Tie-Guan-Yin, with dark-golden, rolled leaves, producing a flavorful cup with the aroma of sweet raisins complemented with robust earthy tones. The fine flavor lingers on the palate with a toasty, sweet aftertaste. (source: Upton Tea Imports).

I can definitely taste the raisins by the second or third infusion. Although the earthy tones are evident immediately, they somehow get stronger the more times I brew the same tea. In my estimation, that's the sign of a good, sturdy Oolong.




As I've heard so often when people talk about it, the thing to remember when brewing decent Oolong is to use more leaves and less water than you might be accustomed to. And almost as important are the incredibly short brewing times. Really.

Roughly twenty seconds to start. After many infusions, you might increase it to thirty or forty-five. But if you're truly using more leaves and less water, steeping this tea for a long time is only going to result in something bitter. And in my experience, Oolong isn't supposed to be bitter.

If you haven't before been lured in by the Iron Goddess charms, will this review convince you to try her out? No idea. I'd like to think this tea is a perfect introduction to Oolong in general. And might this specifically encourage you to try multiple steepings? That would please me more than you might know. Well, now you know. I just told you.

the 'best tea'?

Was asked by a friend today what the 'best tea' was. What a question, eh? But I love a good debate. And blog comments. In case I've been unclear in the past, I really really like blog comments. So here's my not-so-humble answer. I wonder how the rest of you might respond.

Many teabloggers focus on green and/or Oolong tea, but as much as I like them, I've focused more on black tea. Most tea sellers in Germany make their own unique Ostfriesen Blend that is often a mix of strong, malty Assam and a Chinese Keemun (and maybe an Indian Nilgiri). If I had to choose my favourite non-single estate tea, it'd be one of those specialty blends.

But if it's brands we're talking about, the tastiest and most consistent tea I've found is 'Yorkshire Gold' made by Taylors of Harrogate. But that's only if we're talking about black tea blends.

I'd say the best non-green/Oolong tea, in my opinion, is still a single estate Darjeeling (to be truly accurate, most 'black' Darjeeling is really only 90% oxidised, so it's actually Oolong). I like stronger tea, so I enjoy second as well as first flush Darjeeling.

But the best brand? If you're buying from a seller that can tell you on which estate a Darjeeling was grown, then the likelihood is that it'll be better than something labeled simply as 'Darjeeling'. The estimation is that 40,000 tonnes of Darjeeling are sold worldwide, while only 10,000 tonnes are grown. Logically, one isn't always entirely sure that purchased Darjeeling was actually grown there.

Again, I'm very grateful for the question. Clearly the answer you'll get is entirely objective. I like thinking about how to make loose-leaf tea drinking more attractive. If I were a tea snob, it'd be the worst way of going about the whole thing.

What about you other tea obsessives? When someone asks you what the 'best tea' is, what might you say? I know on the face of it, it's an impossible question. But please jump in and claim your stake on this issue.

Did I mention that blog comments are encouraged?

accesible Gong Fu

When I think about who I write this blog for, other than for myself, I imagine people who're curious about tea and want to know more. There are certainly some rather knowledgeable people who come here, but there are so many beautiful and knowledgeable blogs about tea. I want to try and help demystify tea drinking a bit, and so I purposely write with the tea newcomer in mind.

Because I'm passionate about it in my daily life, I get a lot of earnest questions. I'm sure some of the more direct inquiries never get made. Along the lines of, 'Wow, this guy's a bit obsessive, isn't he?' But instead, people ask me a variety of questions both general and specific. And I figure such curiosity is the perfect sort of thing to write about here.

So my friend Gaby was over the other evening, and I offered her a glass of wine or some sort of sparkly fruit beverage. She knew I'd be drinking tea, so she insisted that sharing tea with me would be just perfect. I have a new Gaiwan that she hadn't seen, so I decided to go the way of Oolong. It wasn't immediately clear if I'd made the right choice.

Recently, I read something Alex Zorach said about not doing Gong Fu in a traditional way. Essentially his idea was, and I hope I'm paraphrasing it correctly, that he did a sort of a modified Gong Fu that might look a bit strange to a purist. Those are really my words, but the point was that he brewed in a way that worked best for him.

I think it's applicable if my above-mentioned goal was to make tea drinking a bit more approachable. As I poured the first infusion of the Milky Oolong for Gaby, she looked at the curious little snifter cup. 'Where did you learn about all of this?' It's a funny question. I've watched plenty of videos, been to tea ceremonies, peppered tea shop owners with a myriad of questions.

She didn't particularly like the smell of the first infusions of the Milky Oolong, so I didn't make such a big deal of sniffing every infusion. She did like the taste. She said it smelled like a flower you can get at the Viktualienmarkt, which is an open-air market in downtown Munich. Maybe it was called the Joshua flower, but she wasn't sure.

The nice thing was that she was so curious and so eager to try each new infusion. Although she preferred the taste of the tea to the smell, she continued to use the snifter cup. She liked the tea as it got weaker and lighter. As we continued through cup after cup, I tasted less 'milky' and more Oolong, but it wasn't the most complex tea.

What's my point here? Do I really think I can proselytise and convince everyone I know to not only drink tea, but go the way of Gong Fu brewing? No way. But it was a pleasure to see how accessible it was for a tea newcomer. It was nearly a foregone conclusion that I'd have a good time with all of this, but I was very pleased that Gaby did.

blindingly optimistic

I can feel my sense of taste coming back to me. For a few days there, I was drinking really strong (even bad tea) and getting nothing but a inconsequential jolt of caffeine. It was often loaded with Vitamin C and obscene quantities of honey, and I could barely tell. The consistency of the tea was a bit sludgier, so I guess the texture was noticeably different. But for a tea lover, having this sort of cold was the worst sort of punishment.

So here I am back in the saddle. There was plenty of Oolong, as well as a light, floral Darjeeling. It's so nice to stop coughing and sit down with a pot of tea and the paper. I stare off and think to myself, 'My goodness, I'm glad I don't talk about politics in my tea blog.'

There are incomprehensible things going on in the world, but here I am sipping on my Pasir Nangka Java. I wonder about another American politician making questionable choices, but I'm more embarrassed by the maelstrom of coverage it gets. Is any of it really necessary? Sometimes after reading an article about all of this I wish I could scrape the information away from my polluted eyeballs.

Instead I take another sip of tea and remind myself that a Bavarian politician had a love-child in Berlin several years ago. Of course, the press had a field day. They hunted the woman and her baby down and there was plenty of hand-wringing all around. Well-meaning columnists pondered whether he could keep his rather elevated position in the German political system.

Good thing this teablog's not about politics, huh?

So, I'm reminded of an article I read in Time this last week. The article was called Optimism Bias, and gave me plenty to think about.




Very roughly summarised, it said that despite all evidence that'd lead one to be morbidly depressed about the state of everything, we're hard-wired to believe things are going to turn out blindingly well. A losing streak has to end at some point. The storm was yesterday, and this is the first day of the rest of your life.






I don't know about all of that. But as I drain the last of this pot of tea, I weigh my options for the next tea I'll brew. Maybe there is something to this optimism, after all.

my last tea

I made a mockery of my blog this weekend. I don't mind admitting it. Got caught up in the swell of emotion and ridicule that was The Rapture of 2011. I really couldn't help myself. Ok, I could've. But I didn't want to.

But what if I really only had time for one more tea? I'm not taking the above-mentioned Rapture even remotely seriously, but I am using the event as an opportunity to play with this hypothetical. One more tea? Really.

Not my best tea. I couldn't even begin to decide what that would be. But the last tea. How would I usher myself on the way out of mortality?

So here's my Alishan Zhu Lu Oolong and the precious tiny rolled leaves. I wrote about it here in the dead of winter. It's the kind of tea that just gets better and better.







I write mostly about black tea here. And I like to encourage people curious about tea to take a deeper dive. To come a bit farther in and not be daunted by the obsessiveness of some of us tea people. But there's a reason so many tea bloggers and tea experts get so excited about High Mountain Oolong from Taiwan. I assure you that if I could only have one more tea, this wouldn't be a bad choice. If nothing else, I could drag the time out by infusing it again and again and again.




And here are the leaves after multiple infusions (I didn't count). I wish they'd actually gone through with the invention of smell-o-vision, and you could actually smell these leaves? They're delicious.

An oasis on the Eastside

Have been reading about Zhi Tea for a while, and promised myself that when I made it back to Texas, I'd definitely make the trip to see it for myself. Am very glad I did. What a great little shop. When I was a kid, I wasn't even aware there was an Eastside of Austin. Things certainly change.

Have had a rather stressful few weeks travelling, and this was exactly what I needed. They've got plenty of loose-leaf tea for you to take home with you, but are just as happy to brew you up a pot while you're there.

Decided to go with the Iron Goddess Oolong (tie guan yin), whose leaves looked like a medium oxidation.


The first infusion's always a bit weak, but I could already tell this was more highly fermented than I expected. There was a hint of something that reminded me of a Formosa Oolong. But only a hint.






The second infusion was much more flavourful. Delicious. Very fruity and vegetal. Can feel The Iron Goddess working her magic. A bit darker cup colour and here are the leaves as they continue to expand.










The leaves don't look that much different for the third infusion here, but they are quite wild coming out of the infuser. The taste the third time round isn't quite as strong, but still delicious. Every time I drink this tea, I'm reminded of the video Leafbox Tea Called my attention to. Here it is. There's definitely still something in these leaves. I'm going for a fourth time.









Although the leaves don't look that much different, I think I like this infusion the best. There's something incredibly sweet about this time. Much lighter shade in the cup, but incredibly tasty.


They have quite a selection of different teas, and their attractive tins can be found in many places around the city. Here's a photo of one of the displays (the black teas), and below is where I sat and drank the tea and wrote this post.




Am really excited about the excitement about tea in the States. Of course, I read about it on blogs, and see fellow tea fanatics on twitter, but to be able to visit multiple tea rooms while I've been here has been a treat. If you're in Austin or happen to be visiting, you should definitely cruise over to the Eastside and check out Zhi Tea.

Waking up in Mangalam

Ordered a selection of Ceylon and Assam tea that I started my blog with last year. I want to see how my tastes have changed, and find out specifically what I still like about these very traditional black teas. Am also excited to exhibit some of the research skills that I've honed in the last year.

The first tea I'd like to reintroduce is Assam Mangalam. This is an excellent Assam with plenty of golden tips. Although it has a typical malty taste, this tea is absolutely not bitter.

Everything I read about the estate is incredibly laudatory. I plan to dig deeper and find out more about its history. No matter how much I enjoy learning about green and Oolong, there's nothing better to start my day than a strong cup of Assam.

So I'm imagining where these tea leaves were grown. The care that was put into growing and processing them. A part of me is falling asleep tonight wondering what it'd be like to wake up on the tea estate. I'm already there in my dreams. Put on your seat belts...this is going to be an eventful ride.

sniffing tea leaves...over and over again

If you were accustomed to brewing simple black tea in a pot, what would you think if you started reading about Gong Fu brewing of Oolong tea?

You plug Oolong into a search engine, and find videos of people pouring tea out of little Gaiwan pots and inviting the others at the table to sniff the leaves. It's almost as if you've wandered in off the street into a freaky tea leaf smelling cult.

I've met tea drinkers who want nothing to do with all of this. On more than one occasion, I've explained my fascination with Oolong to someone who already likes drinking tea, but they stare back at me with incredulity. Multiple steepings of the same lea leaves? Really? Can you not afford fresh tea?

No, I assure you-the tea changes as you brew it repeated times. The taste develops. It really does.

But let's say you're still on the fence about this one. You don't know about buying a lot of tea gear for something you're not even sure you're going to like. Some of those sites about Oolong you found talked about the Gaiwan, while others mentioned a Yixing teapot. What is all of this stuff? Is it really necessary?

The complicated answer is that yes, the tea tastes different brewed in a specialist's clay pot. But actually the simple answer is no. I often write this blog with the tea newcomer in mind, and I'd like to describe how I started brewing Oolong before I bought any new paraphernalia.

The first thing to remember is more tea/less water for short steeping times.

For this discussion, I'm going to use Hampstead Tea's Oolong from the Makaibari Tea Garden. I've intended to review this tea for a while, so here's my chance. How much tea exactly? I'm making a small container of tea, so I'd suggest one or two handfuls of tea leaves. Like here.



The initial infusion rarely offer much in terms of flavour. It's custom in some tea ceremonies to even throw the first steeping out. But even if it's just to see if there is much taste, I always sample the first go round at least. For our purposes, I'm using a measuring jug. Remember, we're approaching this with common household materials. Here's what the leaves look like in the glass:





Now this will probably be completely counterintuitive considering you normally brew tea for much longer, but only 20 or 30 seconds for each steeping. Really. Oolong is rarely bitter (it's one thing people really like about it), but if you let so much tea in so little water brew for much longer, it can get strong. That's what happened in the first infusion above because I was taking the photo, but by the second it came out perfectly. A very dark brown cup colour, and a deliciously light, even smoky, taste.




You won't simply dump the leaves into your cup/mug along with your delicious tea. This slotted ladel was almost certainly not intended for this purpose, but all that really matters is that you find something to strain the liquid and separate the leaves. Say what you like, this works for me in a pinch. The third time round is a bit less smoky and there's even a bit of a lemon taste.






So what do you think? If you've heard/read about multiple tea infusions, have you given it a try? Might this description help you jump in and do a bit of your own experimenting?

If you've been doing this forever, how did you come to it? Did you acquire the proper utensils before you ever attempted this? What was your experience early on? Did I leave anything important out that you think is really necessary? Please let me/us know. I'll be over here sniffing my tea leaves.

pet peeves and off-the-cuff theories

Recently read an article in the New Yorker about Dick Cavett's new book 'Talk Show' and the talk show wars in the US, and one line in the article got me thinking:

...“Talk Show” (Times Books; $25), a collection of the blogs he writes for the Times. A blog is a means of sharing your pet peeves and off-the-cuff theories of everything with the entire planet. To this point in the history of civilization, that is not what a book is. In a book, normally, one’s eye is on a somewhat farther horizon...


So this blog business is normally about topical things. Right? How can I blog this weekend and not somehow deal with the earthquake/tsunami in Japan? It seems like it's on every channel. Is there really anything new I can say about it.

As I sat down to write this, I'd already considered the many Japanese teas I like. Sometimes I hear people talking about green tea, and some Japanese greens are disparaged for tasting grassy. I understand that, but I like grassy. Although I usually write about black tea on this blog, I definitely enjoy green and Oolong tea.

For some reason I turned to a very simple Japan Sencha Fuji, which I've written about at length in the past.

Here's one a little less than a year ago: analog tea tasting.

And then here's one where I started writing about Japan Sencha Fuji and then somehow found myself riffing on the Ten Virtues of Tea.

My not-so-original thoughts as I sip this delicious Japanese tea and think about what unbelievable circumstances the people made homeless in Japan? Well, it's really hard to look at the footage. My experience with the Japanese people has been fantastic. It's one of the nicest places I've ever been.

Here I am watching an old man on television who's lost his home, and he's crying in front of the camera. I know many cultures are said to be loathe to show their emotions, but this was the most raw thing I'd ever seen displayed by an older Japanese person. I was shocked.

Am I sharing my 'pet peeves and off-the-cuff theories of everything with the entire planet' here? There have been so many examples of how small the world is over the last few days. A friend whose son was snowboarding in Japan flew out of Tokyo's Narita airport just hours before all hell broke loose. A Tokyo tea lover I'm acquainted with on twitter was shaken, but she was assuring everyone who asked that she was unhurt.

As I fall asleep in my very safe home in my very safe city, I hope the people devastated by this event are waking up in a safe, dry place. I want to believe that even if these people are sleeping in community centres or makeshift camps, that someone is providing them with decent tea. It might be one of the few things to bring some sort of comfort in this incomparable time. At least I'd like to hope so.

dark brown unfurling

Am excited about a package full of Hampstead Tea that I received today. Seems there selection of Darjeeling all comes from the Makaibari Tea Garden. A great resource for information about any Darjeeling estate is Darjeeling Tea Express, and this is what I found there about Makaibari.

So the teas from Hampstead Tea are a white tea, two black teas (one first flush), and even an Oolong. In the next several days, I plan to brew these up and share my impressions here. I must say that I'm very impressed with the presentation of the packaging. The picture of the dark brown liquid unfurling into the white background is really attractive. You can see it at their website here:

Hampstead Tea

Should be a good weekend for tea drinking.

hot at the outset, but quickly cold

Read a post at Alex Zorach's teablog recently, which was inspired by another post at J-TEA International's The Oolong Tea Times about drinking tea out of dainty little cups versus big sturdy mugs.

Here's the original:

The Oolong Tea Times

And here's Alex's take:

One Advantage to Drinking Tea from a Mug

Then I got into a discussion about it with other tea drinkers on twitter, and realised I've held back the fact that I often drink out of a mug. For some reason, it doesn't seem like the actions of a tea obsessive to be swigging from these bulky ceramic mugs. And the point J-Tea makes is really true: mugs are ineffective.

As he says, 'As soon as the tea is ready, it is too hot to drink. Then, near the end of the mug, the tea is cool. This wide range in temperature combined with the volume of tea results in a very narrow window in which tea stays at the ideal temperature for consumption. This problem is particularly exaggerated with using large mugs.'






I'm not yet planning on giving up my mugs, but what he describes is definitely the case. Above you'll see a mug with a picture of a happy Bavarian with his little Dachshund, which always puts me in a better mood. Here's a mug I found years ago at the Chagall Museum in Nice. It also makes me smile every time I pull it out of the cupboard.






And here's a ridiculous one I found on the Baltic Sea a while back. It's a very thick ceramic mug. Always works for me. If by working for me, you mean 'It's too hot at the outset and too cold at the end'. That's not really working for me now that I think about it. Nevertheless, when I'm feeling a bit whimsical, it's nice to have a cup that bends in the direction the wind blows.









When I brew Oolong, I use the little cups that I got with this teapot. Well I should say, I pour the two little cups full, but then I fill what's left in a big ungainly mug. I love the way the tea tastes from these little cups.





This is the cup that goes with our dishes, and I really like the pattern. When I serve tea to guests, this is what I normally use. Although the tea doesn't necessarily stay warm that long, I'm too busy pouring a new cup for you to notice.




And finally, here's a Hermès cup and saucer that always makes me nervous. While I'm drinking from this cup, I'm not enjoying the tea. I'm very simply trying not to break the cup. That's no way to enjoy tea, is it?



Am wondering how the rest of you enjoy your tea. I often try to open up such a topic to discussion with varying results. So I'll ask a few pointed questions:

Have you ever thought about the impact what sort of cup has on the way a tea tastes?

Do you like thin, bone China sometimes?

If you still prefer a mug, then why?