tea awakening in the Chicago Tea Garden

Chicago Tea Garden

Several weeks ago, one of my non-teadrinker friends, who happens to live in Chicago, had signed up for a tea tasting at Chicago Tea Garden. My ears perked up and because I write this teablog partially for the tea newcomer and the tea curious, I asked Sue (@sepilipa) if she'd take a notebook along with her to the tea tasting and record her impressions. Sue, being the eager scientist that she is, quickly agreed. For the sake of science. And my teablog.

So because of her diligence, I can essentially mail it in today. Or cut and paste. Thanks Sue. First of all, here's the inside of Chicago Tea Garden:

Here's what she had to say:
First let me say my expectation was that Tony (Gebely) would be a much older guy, but he's probably younger than I am. He was very welcoming to my friend and me and to the other group of five ladies that attended (they were together). His shop is small but cute and his table was set up so there were essentially two groups; one on either side of the center where he worked. The people were all tea novices and there were no mr-know-it-alls in the group, so everyone was comfortable and friendly.

Tony worked on a tea table and had us use a snifter cup for each tea. He gave us basic tea information as he went along and was quite knowledgeable. He told us what plant tea comes from (Camellia sinensis) and told us that everything that does not come from this plant is NOT tea (I didn't know that). 

He briefly described the leaf and anything significant about it each time we started a new tea (ie, white tea smells very floral because it's withered a long time, oolong leaves are bruised and have 15 processing steps, black is fully oxidized, etc). Overall, it was a very pleasant experience. My friend and I had a very good time and learned a lot....well, relatively speaking, of course.

Below are the 7 teas we tasted. 

1. 

Name: Wu yu 

Type: green

Notes: used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @ 175F; tasted a bit like dusty spinach to me. 

2nd steeping @175; a little less dusty tasting but I still didn't love it. 

2. 

Name: Silver Needle

Type: white

Notes: kinda furry,  used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @ 175F; light and feathery, not a strong flavor but enough of a flavor to keep me interested. This one was my favorite of the whole bunch. 

3.

Name: Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy)

Type: oolong

Notes: rolled into little balls, used unglazed clay pots to serve

1st steeping @ 190F for 45 seconds; smelled a bit like a root vegetable; I could barely taste it.

2nd steeping @190F for 45 seconds;; felt "meh" about it.

4.

Name: Mi Xiang (honey orchid flavor)

Type: oolong

Notes: rolled long ways, used unglazed clay pots to serve

1st steeping @ 190 for 45 seconds; darker in color, tasted a bit earthy

2nd steeping @190 for 45 seconds; more flavorful. I definitely like the second steeping better than the first.

5.

Name: Golden Bi Luo (tiny snails)

Type: black

Notes: hand rolled into snail shapes,  used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @195F  (instructed not to steep longer than a minute or the tea would be bitter); smelled ricey to me but Tony said "malty vanilla finish".

2nd steeping @ 195F ; sweeter and smoother taste, a nice strong flavor. I liked the second steeping better.

 6.

Name: Chrysanthemum Toucha

Type: pu-erh

Notes: bird nest shaped; Tony said it makes a good cold brew,  used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @ 208C for 45 sec to 1 min; Very dark. Tasted like a forest floor. A comment was made from one of the other attendants that it was like "licking the bark of a tree". I did not care for this tea at all. He made another one that was even darker and more disgusting but I didn't write down it's name.

7.

Name: Yue Guang Bai (moonlight)

Type: white

Notes: Hmm. curiously I didn't make one single note about this one except it's name and type. I don't know why.

1st and 2nd steeping @ 175F for 1 minute

Really nice descriptions for a tea novice, don't you think? I think Sue did an excellent job. Although she's still a coffee drinker with a healthy curiosity about tea, I wonder how long it might take us to lure her over to the leaf-side. Thank you again my Cubs-loving, bicycling, outsdoorsy friend.

Tony Gebely and our staff tea reviewer

the dragon sleeps tonight

Sleeping Dragon leaves presteeping

Relatively often, I hear about what a wonderful community we tea bloggers have.  Tea obsessives go to the World Tea Expo or World Tea East and wax poetic about the generosity of the people they meet there.  

Although I've met many tea shop owners here in Germany (and some in England and The United States), most of my experience with the people who populate the world of tea has been here in cyberspace.  I'm not complaining.  Am sure I'll make it to a trade fair at some point.  Until then, I intend to continue taking advantage of the fantastic opportunities to connect with tea drinkers online.

A week or so ago, I read about a tea tasting that Courtney Powers (otherwise known as @ThePurrfectCup) was hosting where she'd be introducing several sorts of green tea.  Jokingly, I said that I wish I could magically transport myself to Upstate New York and try the tea she was talking about.

Like I say, I was kidding.  There was no way I was going to make it the next day to Courtney's little tea shop.  But she offered the next best thing.  She got my address and sent samples of the tea along.  What an unexpected surprise.

I read her recent blogpost (A Green Tea Tasting) with a different perspective, because I knew that soon enough I'd be able to actually taste the tea she was describing.  My plan was to actually brew up each of the teas she served and pretend I was there.  

Alas, it wasn't to be.  I got distracted steeping and resteeping Sleeping Dragon from Adagio Teas, and then ended up writing a tea review about it.  

I'll link to the tea review when it's been published, but suffice it to say I enjoyed this tea. 

Not sure why they bill it as a tea for a green tea novice, but as advertised it wasn't remotely grassy.  

The best part?  Well, the time that I set aside for multiple teas, I spent really focusing on just one.  The last few weeks, I've been drinking tea functionally.  Good tea-no question. But tea on the run.  Tea for the train ride.  A pot for the other musicians and me before a rehearsal.

In this case, I really gave my full attention to each steeping of this Sleeping Dragon.  It was worth every minute.  Even got a little tea drunk in the meantime.  As a result, I think I might even sleep as well as the dragon.

Thanks Courtney.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

What an enjoyable afternoon Neil of Neil's Yard and I had trying a variety of tea. Am going to briefly go over the highlights, and possibly come back and go into more detail if there's more to cover.

I wanted to see what he thought of the Darjeeling I have from Darjeeling Tea Express, so I started with a Goomtea Pre Autumnal Black. You can read about it here: Darjeeling Pre Autumnal. This is a tea I like, but Neil was immediately smitten. He loved it. Couldn't help but taste the muscatel, he said. He could clearly see why I was so excited to share this tea with him.



Then I tried his Everyday Kenya from leaf. (leaf. tea), and I was similarly impressed. I've not had much Kenyan tea, but this was delicious. It smelled smoky like a good Yunnan, but was so smooth and spicy. Here's how the leaves looked before adding boiling water (Very dark brown with yellow tips):




Although many Darjeeling lovers wax rhapsodic about first flush tea, I've always liked the stronger second flushes. So I was excited to brew a bit of Gopaldhara 2nd flush (again from Darjeeling Tea Express Gopaldhara 2nd flush). Although he liked it, it didn't make nearly the same impression that the Pre Autumnal did.

This is one of the things I love about tea. Not just the variety of flavours, but the incredibly subjective response that can result from two different tea drinkers.

After we got the black tea sorted, we spent the remainder of our time on multiple infusions of something called Organic Blue Tea (again from leaf.). According to their website, Oolong is sometimes called Blue tea because it's somewhere between black and green. Had never heard that description, but why not? Here's how they describe it: Organic Oolong 'Blue' tea, and it's stated, 'this oolong tea is a Qi Lan from the province of Guang Dong in China.'

From both appearance and taste, this is clearly a highly-oxidised Oolong. Like many first infusions, the smell was more pronounced than the taste. Nevertheless, you could tell what an enjoyable tea drinking session was in store based simply upon this smell.




Sure enough as we drank multiple infusions, the taste of the tea developed. How I ever brewed one single infusion of a decent Oolong still makes me shudder. It was at this point that we sat down and looked at twitter. I think Neil was a bit impressed, as well as intrigued, that the tea companies he'd been in contact with were so easily accessible on Web 2.0. So often, twitter makes no sense until one can see it in action.

There you have it. A wonderful tea tasting experience, and the more he talks about it, I can't wait to see how Neil's Yard turns out. Stay tuned.

Neil's Yard

My friend Ruth married a guy named Neil, which means I got a new friend in the process. A while back, I saw them at some function, and they informed me they were packing up and moving to Newfoundland (and Labrador), where he'll have a little cafe/shop and serve tea. That's right tea!

The plan back then was to sell/serve tea from teabags. I thought that maybe my short-term goal was to bring him over to the leaf-side, but he seems to have made it over here on his own already. Thankfully.

Nevertheless, he wants to show me the teas he already has, and I want to introduce him to the Darjeeling from Darjeeling Tea Express that I served at the tea tasting I did a while back.

I'm also going to show him the basics of twitter, and extoll the virtues of meeting/communicating with tea people there. Should be fun. Will definitely be reporting here on the whole ordeal, but I wanted to start out by introducing Neil and his soon-to-be-opened cafe/shop. It's called Neil's Yard, and here's the website:

Neil's Yard

Go have a look.

More soon on an impromptu tea tasting and a welcome newcomer to the online tea community. You can't wait, can you?

Tea Tasting Terms

Jeff gave me a great idea, and I'm pondering how to present it.

Here's what he said and what I'm thinking:

Why do wine drinkers have such easy, accessible terms to describe the way wine tastes but tea terms are often so indecipherable? 'What the hell does "tannic" mean?', were his exact words.

I have noticed my vocabulary for tea tasting is limited, and I want to develop it. I don't want to just do one or two blogposts about this and forget it. Instead, my plan is to put something permanent on the side of the main page of the blog. So that when people are looking at the other blogs I follow or my twitter feed, they'll also see a list of common tea tasting terms/phrases.

Sounds useful, eh? I think so.

Stay tuned amigos. And have a great May Day weekend. Drink better tea. Much better tea. You'll be glad you did.