Tea

Tea Type: Black Tea Where To Buy: Whittard of Chelsea 1886 Product Description: Darjeeling Happy Valley 2nd Flush  SFTGFOP1 Loose Tea. Darjeeling 2nd flush teas have a more developed slightly nutty taste than 1st flush teas and are more full-bodied. Happy Valley is a famous Darjeeling garden with an reputation for producing top quality teas. This is a rich cup with a beautiful flavor and a touch of the “muscatel” Darjeeling tea is renowned for. Tasters Review: Recently I received a sample of this Single Estate Black Tea from Whittard of Chelsea.  As many of you know I start each day with at least 1 Black Tea and then move on to other tea bases throughout the day. This was a delightful Darjeeling.  A nice 2nd Flush. This has a gentle sweet-woodsy flavor with a bit of nuttiness to it as well.  It’s rich and pleasing in every way.  It’s a more pronounced flavor that many of the Darjeelings I have been sipping on lately.  I can vouch for the ‘muscatel’ flavor they refer to in the product description – especially on the end of the sip on to the aftertaste which lingers admirably. The post Darjeeling Happy Valley 2nd Flush from Whittard of Chelsea appeared first on SororiTea Sisters.

Despite what the name might suggest, Punjana is not an Indian tea company, but rather is based in Ireland. More about them here. A tip of the hat to teadog.com, where I first ran across this one. Cuisinart TEA-100 PerfecTemp Programmable Tea Steeper

  Eat tea. Yes, that’s right. We love eating tea, when it comes to matcha that is. Matcha is the only tea we actually eat. The finely milled powder from shade grown organic Japanese green tea whips up into a … Continue reading →

This tea comes to us from a small farm located on the slopes of Mt. Wudong, in the Chinese province of Guangdong. The leaves can be harvested only once per year in the spring, from 40-60 year old Jiang Hua Xiang trees. They are then withered, rolled and cooled just the right amount of times to produce buttery ginger flower notes. My sample is from the Spring of 2012. The leaves are impressively long and loosely twisted – I can tell right away that I’ll need a scale to measure them. Their aroma is softly floral, reminiscent of lilac, lily of the valley and narcissus. I decided that such a special leaf deserved a gongfu treatment. I followed Canton’s suggestion, brewing 4 grams of leaf in 200ml of water heated to 95 degrees Celsius for 5 seconds. The cup is buttery and grassy with a hint of honey to the finish. There is also a sizable peppery yet mineral element to it that, in combination with the finish, is reminiscent of fresh ginger root. I don’t know if I would have made that association on my own though. The power of suggestion is most possibly at play here. According to Canton the leaves can be brewed up to 12 times. I managed to pull 10 steeps in total. I might have been able to get a few more with longer infusion times. I re-steeped the tea adding 5 seconds each time, except for the last 3 steeps, where I added 10. My second try was similar to first cup, with it’s buttery top notes. However it presented a more pronounced ginger ale flavoured finish, especially as the tea cooled. My favourite of all was the third brew, with it’s more potent and well-developed ginger ale taste. The sweet finish is long lasting and leaves a slightly spicy aftertaste.The background flip flops between hearty buttery greens such as kale and Swiss chard, springtime bulbs and mineral notes. All and all this makes for a complex yet easy to drink cup. The following four steeps are quite sweet and more intensely floral. The ginger taste recedes slowly, leaving a slightly drying mineral finish in it’s place. My last three cups were pleasant enough but not outstanding in any way. By the 10th, the tea is vaguely sweet, smooth, but not much more flavourful than hot water. I found this dancong to have quite a unique flavour profile. The words “ginger flower” do describe the flavour perfectly. While I also brewed some leaves the lazy, Western way with good results, it’s worth infusing this tea gongfu style to get the most out of the leaves. It’s quite pricey, but worth a splurge, especially since it’s available in a variety of formats and currently on sale. Definitely a masterfully produced artisanal dancong!

Tea Information: Leaf Type:  Oolong Where to Buy:  T-Oolong Tea Tea Description: This quality Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty Oolong (#3) is from a very experienced tea farmer. This tea is all natural, handpicked, handcrafted and produced from Qingxin Dapa varietal grown in Hsin Chu county in Taiwan. The aroma and taste of this tea is very fruity, rich, complex and satisfying, and the aftertaste is fruity, sweet and long lasting. It is a very enjoyable Oriental Beauty we recommend. Learn more about this tea here. Taster’s Review: While Ali Shan tends to be my favorite type of Oolong tea, I’m still rather fond of Oriental Beauty Oolong teas, and I’m really enjoying this Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty Oolong #3 from T-Oolong Tea.  I love the fruity quality of this Oriental Beauty!  So sweet and delicious! It is a delightfully complex Oriental Beauty, with delectable fruit overtones that are reminiscent of a sweet, tree-ripened plum, bursting with juicy flavor.  There are very subtle hints of earth and wood to this cup as well, and I like the way these notes add to the depth of the overall cup.  My first few sips, I could have sworn I tasted a vague smokiness to the tea as well, but, now that I’ve finished my first cup (infusions 1 and 2) and working on my second cup (infusions 3 and 4) I find that the smokiness has disappeared, and it makes me question whether or not I actually tasted a smoky tone or if it was just my imagination. I love how the flavors develop with this tea.  The first cup was light and smooth, and the second cup seems to be richer in flavor.  It is still remarkably smooth though.  It has a silky mouthfeel.  The aftertaste is sweet and lingers.  The third cup (infusions 5 and 6) is smoother than either the first or second cup, and the flavors seem to have married into a more seamless kind of taste. Each new infusion brings a new adventure, and that is why I love Oolong teas.  This one is definitely worth trying – and it is one I’d recommend to those that tend to shy away from Oolong teas because of their strong floral notes.  This one is much more fruit-like than floral.  It’s a beautiful, contemplative cup. The post Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty Oolong #3 from T-Oolong Tea appeared first on SororiTea Sisters.

The basics of a samovar are simple, so you will be asking yourself why you would need one. And indeed you do not need one. You can enjoy a samovar-style tea time without having a samovar.A samovar, developed in the 17th century, is actually… Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.© 2013 A.C. Cargill photos and text

The basics of a samovar are simple, so you will be asking yourself why you would need one. And indeed you do not need one. You can enjoy a samovar-style tea time without having a samovar. A samovar, developed in the 17th century, is actually two items: a large urn that holds hot water and […]

In the Age of Communication, publishing and distributing their thoughts and ideas is always at people’s fingertips. Actually, this is really great, and the world of tea has benefited hugely from this: there are myriads of tea bloggers, creators of websites or books or e-books related to tea, content writers and “niche journalists” out there […]

“Won’t you please come in?”  The woman was impossibly frail, but refused a helping hand from her kneeling position in a bed of spent narcissus.  “If I start taking a hand, I won’t be able to get up by myself.” “I don’t want to interrupt you,” I apologized, “I’ll just leave this flyer for the school board election coming up.  Please look it over.“ “Nope, come in.  I need the break.”  I followed the woman into her apartment.  She offered me the comfortable chair and sat down opposite me.  Immediately her lap was occupied by an enormous white cat.  As if on cue, a big yellow tabby hopped into mine.  “You’ll have a cup of tea.”  It was an order.  “Turn the flame on under that kettle and tell me what this is all about.”  The tabby was unperturbed when I stood up, flowing off my lap like a yellow waterfall.  With guidance, I found tea cups and tea bags. I was canvassing.  Going door-to-door to ask voters to write in a candidate for school board.  Write-in victories are about as rare as a tea drinker in Sweden, but our cadre of canvassers had a positive outlook.  My partner and I were assigned to a neighborhood of apartment complexes representing the entire spectrum of Oregon citizenry: subsidized housing for low-income voters; condominiums for the wealthy; and assisted living for the elderly.  We were in a complex of voters between the ages of 70 and 90 years old.  All were single.  All were living alone.  All were hungry for conversation.  During the first 90 minutes of ringing doorbells, we spoke to or left flyers for 60 people.  During the last hour, we spent time with six adults who had experienced the Great Depression, a world war followed by three decades of Vietnam, skirmishes large and small, two terrorist attacks, Homeland Security, Hurricane Katrina, Mitch McConnell, and the Tea Party.   After a cup of Red Rose – I’ve consumed better tea, but none as gratefully shared – we looked at photos of the grandchildren and petted the cats.  Across the courtyard lived an 83-year-old man with a cubic zirconia earring the size of a blueberry in his left ear.  My knock was greeted with the shout that accompanies severe hearing loss, “THIS BETTER NOT BE JURY DUTY AGAIN.”  It turns out that the gentleman LOVES jury duty, but became annoyed when the lawyers became annoyed after being asked to repeat key testimony several times.  He also wanted us to stay. Dear readers, go visiting.  Make and share tea.  Pet the cats and look at the grandchildren.  In not so many years, it will be you and me craving the sound of another’s voice and a shared laugh, and looking at another through steam rising from a cradled mug.  Humani-tea. MAIN | IMAGE 1 The post All politics is local appeared first on T Ching.

Shanti Tea’s Chocolate Strawberry Mocha is one of two unique tea blends offered. Shanti Tea combines coffee beans with tea and flavorings, I was impressed by the other blend I’ve had from them, their Caramel Latte so we’ll see how this one compares. Shanti Tea combines coffee beans, tea (presumably black), cacao pieces, rosehips, safflowers, and natural essences together to create a unique blend of all things caffeine. Considering this cup has coffee beans in it, you would expect it to give a fairly dark liquor. To my surprise the liquor is amber gold and that is after brewing past their recommended 2-3 minutes. From my experience with their previous tea and coffee blend I chose to steep for 5 minutes. The scent of the coffee beans is definitely present with a sweet smell to it as well. While this tea is considered full bodied, you can’t expect it to be as black as a cup of coffee. The strawberry is pretty evident with the sweetness of rosehips, but the chocolate flavor is lacking. It was difficult to pick up on the chocolate alone since the coffee beans carry their overpowering flavor. Milk is not recommended in this cup, so I skipped it. Their other blend, Caramel Latte was definitely enhanced by the milk, but they suggested it so I’ll take their advice on this one. Overall, this blend is tasty and definitely unique, but I’d rather have their Caramel Latte tea and coffee blend instead. Still, a good blend to have on hand for coffee lovers.