mixing green and black tea

I'm not a tea blender, so for me that entire art is a kind of alchemy. The people who do it well have my respect and I often wonder if it's something I'll eventually get into.

For the longest time, I've been particularly fascinated with the blending of green and black tea. Perhaps because I brew the two sorts of tea at different temperatures and perhaps just because they have such distinct tastes, but the vegetal sometimes grassy taste of a green seems to be in conflict with the malty character of a good Assam. Or the smoky taste of a Yunnan.

That being said, when I'm in a tea shop and I see a blend of green and black tea, I almost always get it. With varying results to be fair. Often the green tea might as well not even be in the blend. The black tea overpowers whatever character the green had. Watered down black tea isn't my idea of a good time, so I'm often less than pleased at my recent purchase.

Why is it so difficult to blend green and black tea?

If it is so daunting, why do people continue to do it?

My favourite green/black tea blends?

Buen Dia from La Tetería and Michel Strogoff from Le Palais des Thés. How about you?

luring them over to the leaf side

Seems most teablogs are in some ways similar. To a degree at least. There's a mix of tea tasting notes, and pictures of leaves, plants and entire fields of tea depending on the blog you go to. There seems to be a mix of both scientific, empirical data and more personalized impressions of tea drinking and customs.

Although I attempt to include things here that are to be expected in a typical teablog, I enjoy doing things that one wouldn't necessarily expect to find on a teablog. It's been a while since I purposely talked about tea in relation to topics that reasonable people should make every attempt to avoid, such as religion, sex or politics. But there was a time when I made every attempt to touch on these sorts of subjects. Not to offend. Maybe just to see what I could get away with.

Another way that I've set myself apart is to focus on attracting new people over to the leaf side. Whether describing tea basics here on the blog or slowly introducing people in real life to more and better tea, I really get excited when I can make tea drinking more enticing to someone who has little or no experience with loose-leaf tea.

Whether it's a client or a friend, I take every opportunity to serve tea. Maybe the first time someone's visiting, I'll offer a choice of beverages. If they show any interest in tea whatsoever, then I'll regularly serve it from then on.


My friend Jarrod comes over regularly to play music, and he seems open to try just about anything. He was here for the Darjeeling tea tasting I did a few months ago, and each time he's here his taste is stretched just a bit more. He drinks his coffee black, so I started off with a malty Assam and then a smoky Yunnan. But after he seemed to like the more delicate teas at the tasting, I started branching out even more. We've worked our way through some highly oxidised Oolongs, and he's already able to distinguish some very subtle flavours.



Here's Monique & Jarrod way back then, and I'm sure you'll hear more about my experiments with serving him tea in the future. You can't wait can you. Maybe he's just being polite by trying all of this tea. In that case, I'll make it my challenge to find something he dislikes so much it over-rides his manners.