Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Invite a Baroness to Tea

More flowers - the hope of things to come!

Yesterday was a nice "lamby" day, but today is one of the "lion" days of March. So do we say March came in like a lamb or a lion? Or just confused, as all the weather this season has been? Soon we can start some seeds inside. Mostly what we know as "Peter's tomatoes", from the boss of a friend years ago. I guess we have saved them for 20 years. I think they are a Polish Paste type, very large, long and sort of slender, with heavy flesh and not many seeds. Very sweet and tomatoey, though and that is how we have saved the seeds - from the sweetest. Now we have to work on up the yield per plant.
I have gone back to the blacks because of the wind and today I am having Culinery Teas Baroness Grey. This is a pretty tea, with seems like a mix of green, brown and black leaves, which then has a blend of rose petals, blue and yellow flowers and dried orange and maybe lemon peel. It smells very much like those Russian-style teas, with the bergamot as a top note and the heaviness of the citron as the bottom.

I brewed it up the standard 3.33 miutes with water just off the boil and the heavy scent filled the room. The liquor is a lightish amber and smells heavily of dried citrus peel. The bergamot seems lost as the citrus takes over and there is some bitterness from too much pith on the peel - the white stuff right under the colored peel. This is interesting if you like Russian type teas. I found that there was alas, not enough bergamot to stand up to the citrus and it was more bitter than I find tasty. It is difficult to get flavors blended well, especially when you are dealing with heavy hitters, like dried fruit peel. I would not put milk in this.

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