From the Himilayas to Qiman

This is the exterior of the church with the mosaics and stone work.
Note how small the windows are and how the building conveys, at
least to me, great strength and solidity. Remember how old it is.


I finally am getting around to trying the tea I bought from SERRV a few months ago. This is billed as Himalayan Mountain tea or Ilam Black Tea with mint. I must say upon opening the package, I nearly threw it out. It did smell gently of mint, but it also smelled odd, sort of moldy, sort of something else I couldn't identify. The leaves were all chopped and varied from pale green to brown. As the tea brewed for 3 minutes, I thought it smelled more and more like a green tea – very vegetal. The liquor is a very light amber.


Well, I would hardly call this mint tea or black tea. What it is is either a very poorly processed tea or poorly stored tea. There is no mint flavor and the tea doesn't taste very good. I am sorry to give a really negative report, as SERRV helps many people to make a decent living. I buy many things from them, mostly as gifts, but it doesn't look like tea will be one of them.


On the other hand, I needed to fill out an order from Spices, Etc http://www.spicesetc.com/ and so I bought a sample of their Keemun Tea. It came in a standard spice bottle! In the jar, the tea smelled fresh, but that was about it. The leaves were small and black. I brewed it for 3.5 minutes in boiling water, a heaping spoon of the measure that came with my teapot. The liquor is a very nice straightforward amber. The tea tastes fresh, with a very small hint of smoke, some licorice or sarsaparilla taste, and a kind of woodsiness; lots of flavor action. Lest you think this is surely awful, it isn't, it's good. It just has a lot of nuances to keep your mouth busy trying to figure them all out. They work well together and I would say Spices Etc. did a good job.


It is the most gorgeous day today; blue sky, sun, warm but not outrageous, no humidity, birds singing, cats purring and a new book to read with my new tea. Life is good.

A quick bit of info - the Tea Review Blog www.teareviewblog.com is back! I find the bulk of their tea reviews are thoughtful, well written and cover a wide range of teas. It is worth your checking out.

The Russians are Coming!

Those Germans do very good gardening in small spaces!

Life is certainly sometimes serendipitous. Yesterday I read a review about a Czar Nikolas II tea, looked it up on Amazon.com, and today I received some in the mail, in a tea swap. So, of course, I knew I just had to try it. On one website it is described as Ceylon tea, blended with spices and fruits in the traditional Russian manner. http://www.therussianshop.com/ I think I might add perfume, as the scent reminded me of old expensive perfume bottles you might find in your mother's or grandmother's closet to make her best clothes and furs smell wonderful. I could not identify it, but it was definitely intriguing.

I had read that a 2.5 minute steep was all it needed and I remembered that samovars , while very hot, were not boiling, so that is what I did. Lovely. The brewing tea just smelled very, very fresh, with very little of it's earlier aroma. But the brewed tea tasted wonderful. It is a delicate tea, a medium pale amber that is very floral, with a sharpness and some heavy undertones that to me always says “Russian”. There is perhaps a hint of raspberry and certainly some bergamot and perhaps some other citrus. But the blend is so well done, with such a good base tea, that no one thing stands out. I like my tea to taste first of tea and then to have whatever is blended with it to accompany it, not be overwhelming. This one does a pretty good job, but it is unmistakably Russian, as it should be, given the name. A good afternoon tea, with perhaps, some tea cakes or a blini or two, or more, at least until the pot is done.

This is also not an expensive tea. I googled this and other Czar Nikolas II teas and found them to be about $9.00 for a half pound. Kusmi Russian blends are more than double that. I shall have to see if I can compare them side by side, as I do have a tin of Kusmi's flower blend in the cupboard.

Today I came across as SERRV catalog and looked them up on the web at www.serrv.com This is an organization that sells goods from impoverished villages across the third world. I have gotten a number of tea pots, cups and infusers from them that I really like. I learned they are now carrying teas and I intend to purchase some, as they are quite inexpensive. Some are loose and some are bagged. They are fair trade and sometimes organic.