Finally, A Great Golden Monkey

I've never been very taken with Golden Monkey Tea.  For me, it usually fell into the category of okay.  However, I have just had some from Teas Etc. that is absolutely top notch. 

The dry tea has a deep tobacco/wine barrel aroma.  The leaves are quite twisted, with many buds among the green/brown/gold twists.  The suggested time of infusion was 4 minutes.

The liqueur was a much, much paler golden amber than I anticipated and smelt of very fresh tea and milky chocolate.  It tasted of warm earthy chocolate with big hints of warmed flowers and apricots.  I added some milk to it and it then became somewhat sweet.  As it cooled, it's sweet and fruity nature came more to the fore.  A wonderful cup of tea.

I put some in the fridge and this is for sure going in the summer repetoire of ice teas.  It is sweet and fruity with a sturdy very subtle earthiness that will be much appreciated.

At the moment, however, we are dealing with snow!  Yeah, April 23, snow.  I guess since we had Spring in January, we'll have winter now.  Phooey.  Of course, I just potted up all my seedlings, ready to begin the in and out trek of mid-spring.

A large Swiss bell, from  Darstetten, my ancestral home.  I believe it was won in a singing competition by a choir from Darstetten.  The village crest is the red patch near the top of the belt.

Tea and Clover, With Shortbread on the Side.

This is a house sided with stones.  It is in a tiny remote village in the

Palatine region of Germany, from which some of my ancestors

emigrated.

Hooray, hooray! My clover is sprouting. This is the fastest that has happened. I guess the old tea really helped, in spite of a huge downpour. Thanks, Alex! Another use for tea is to compost it directly on your garden and house plants. I water the latter in the winter with leftover tea quite often and they seem to enjoy it. Most plants like things a bit on the acid side. It’s not tea, but roses love coffee grounds and ground up banana peel. I knew a man with wonderful roses who made the rounds of our town’s restaurants to collect coffee grounds for them.

It’s a beautiful morning, all misty and golden. A perfect morning for Golden Monkey from Teas Etc. This is a black organic tea from China. There are lots of gold buds and dust around these long, twisted leaves. They smell of tobacco, with a sharp, spice and fruit component. I brewed it for 4 minutes with boiling water. The golden amber liquid gave off an aroma of fresh wash, with a really zingy spicy, floral edge.

After all this, I was really expecting something super. Alas, it was not to be. The tea did not live up to its heralding and was quite bland, with nothing in the way of nuances. However, all was not lost. I did not finish it and when I sipped some of the cold tea it had a pleasant, woodsy, sweet taste. So perhaps this is one that is better served iced.

If you like shortbread with your tea, you might want to try McDuffie’s, from central New York. It is at least as good as Walkers and about ½ the price. (9 ounces is $3.99) Go to http://www.mcduffies.com/ for stores or ordering on line. The owners are shirttail relatives of mine. If they were named McTaggert, I’d still recommend them, the shortbread is excellent.


Oh dear, one of our fur persons is too smart and demanding. (Of course he's not spoiled.) He has figured out where I keep the catnip and that the cupboard door won’t quite close and so he gets it open and drags out the container, crying piteously for me to give him some. He now tries that twice a day. But I am mean and nasty and concerned for his health, so he only gets it a few times a week.

The Fox and the Fur Persons

All of the gold and white designs on this altar in Southern Italy are
exquisite inlaid marble.


Greetings friends. We had company over the weekend, so although I tasted a new tea, I didn't have time to write about it. My friend Dar brought her dog - consternation, upset, fluffed tails, oh my! The fur persons were not happy - after all, "Dogs drool, cats rule". They were all whispering this from under our bed. The dog in question is a beautiful, perfect specimen of Italian Vulpino. Think white and much prettier Pomeranian, with a true foxy face.

As I have driven around, it has been very interesting to observe the progress of spring as it creeps from riverside to hilltop. By the river - which is thankfully down about 3 feet - the trees have baby leaves and the maples and red buds and magnolias are adding red and pink to the scene. Up on the hills, there is either still gray or a faint haze of reddish pink. However, in the spinney across the road, the wild dogwood is lending a delicate white tracery to the gray trunks of the oaks.


I did manage to try a new tea from Teas Etc. It is their Assam Reserve. The leaves are a pretty mix of gold, brown and black and smell wonderful, like the best tobacco. It brews up very daark after 3.5 minutes in boiling water and gives off a wonderful earthy, wet barn wood, spicey aroma. Oh boy, says I, this will be a treat. Well, it was and it wasn't. The cup is pleasant and a bit astringent, which suited me just fine. However, the flavor was so mild and bland, I really have nothing to say about it. Guess I'll blend it with some other more flavorful Assams.


I just heard of a tea company in Europe that has been producing and selling tea since 1883. It is called Gorreana and is located on Sao Paulo Island off the coast of Portugal, http://www.gorreanatea.com/ I am going to order some of their tea and try it. I never heard of it before, but I saw it advertised on the World Tea News Home page.

Tea With Friends and Sweet Rosy O'Grey

We had the most glorious thunderstorms last night. I love to watch them. Since we are near a river and in the midst of hills, the litghtning and thunder can be pretty spectacular. Sadly, some people experienced quite a bit of destruction from them and that is the downside. I still enjoy them, however.

I found a site you all might be interested in for tea party fare. It is http://www.teapartygirl.com/ There is a lot of good information there and over on the right is a place to sign up for a free tea party recipe, one every week. That's a great idea, since we all sometimes need a new idea. Angela McCrae, on her blog http://teawithfriends.blogspot.com/ has been having resipes for tea sanwiches every Saturday. A number of the blogs, in my list to the right, often have recipes for tea.

Most of my birds have been hard at the suet cakes. Not just the woodpeckers, but the titmice, chickadees, red wing blackbirds and "the Bully Boys" although the blue jays prefer peanuts. They also like cat food, but it is raining too much to put any out. I think all the courting and nest building requires a lot of energy.

Yesterday I made ice tea with Teas Etc. Rosy Earl Grey. About 1.5 quarts of water, 10+ teaspoons tea, 5 hours in the fridge. What lovely stuff! Rose, citrus, a delicate but sturdy mix. Well worth doing again and an excellent tea for a summer tea party.

Beauty in the Snow

Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin'? In the lane snow is glistenin'.


Just getting ready, it is supposed to snow, anywhere from flurries to dustings
to actual snow for the next 5 days.

My local chain - Weis Markets, has Christmas teas from Bigelow, Stash and Celestial Seasonings. Maybe yours does too. They are also carrying a line from Bigelow that is probiotic, anti-inflammatory and something else - three separate one. I got a couple Christmas teas for guests, but didn't feel like trying anything too new today.


Except, of course, some tea. Today's' cup is Teas Etc. "Oriental Beauty" Oriental Beauty was my introduction to Oolongs and I fell in love with it. I have never had any as good as that first batch, but I've had some good ones. This one smells like baking bread, in the dry leaf. The leaves are quite mixed, with some beige and silver, some long slender pieces and a few shaped like clover leaves. I just did this a little below boiling, for about 2 minutes. It came out a medium old gold in color and as soon as I sipped it I was struck by its full, round mouth feel. It smelled slightly spicey, and a little like corn silk. The main flavor was that of honey and clover, sweet but not at all sugary, with a touch of astringency at the end. The aftertaste was of sweet bland crackers, like perhaps Marie Bisquits. A very nice tea for a quiet afternoon and a rather different Oriental Beauty.

You Gotta Get Up In The Morning

Tea Blogger has gotten funny about paragraphs again - sorry

A watering trough outside the inn from yesterday. Notice it is
made from a tree trunk, with the branches serving as legs. I have
a coat rack from the same school of wood carving, Swiss Rustic, perhaps.




We welcome to the world and to our family, Ruby Sue Hagin, born Nov. 7, 2010! It's been a nice month - a family wedding and a new baby. The great ongoing-ness of life.



Breakfast Tea - I often say something I've tried has not many nuances and I would save it for breakfast, as I am not very awake then. This is not a disparagement of tea. I treasure a tea I can just let fall from numb fingers, and an even number brain, into a pot, brew it and it tastes just fine. At the other, empty end of the pot, I am alert, I hope, and ready to face the day. In the morning, nuance and careful thought are beyond me. Ritual is what I am aiming for then and some teas are just perfect for that.







One of them is Teas Etc. Irish Breakfast - see, even the name knows what its about - breakfast. You put it in your pot, you add boiling water, snooze for 4 minutes, pour it in your cup and voila! or voy-ler, 20 minutes later you may be able to really open your eyes. No muss, no fuss, no thought and there you are, awake, with a decent cup or two of tea inside you. This is a strong, hearty brew, with a good bit of malt in it. It goes well with cream and probably sugar, but I think it is a bit sweet all on its own. There is also some astringency at the end. It is obviously mostly Assam, but there may be some Kenya in there as well. Just a nice cuppa to get the brain going. I have a drawer of teas that are almost exclusively "breakfast teas", although not a lot of them have that name.







One of the joys of tea is that you have so much to choose from. First, there are the different categories of green, white, yellow, Oolong, black, pu-erh. Then there are blends. Flavored teas come in and there are, of course, the huge range of herbals. There is an even larger range of price and one can choose from an assortment of bags, sachets or loose teas, I have noticed that in the past five years, there has been an immense proliferation of new takes on tea. One example is Earl Grey. Upton's lists 14, plus a sampler. There is now vanilla, chocolate, lavender, rose, citrus, and grenadine added to Earl Grey. Some of it I can applaud, some not. I admit I have 2 of Upton's I like to blend half and half. Personally, I am not big on fruity teas nor do I like blends that have no taste of tea, but taste of something else entirely. I really prefer my pie with a cup of tea, not in it. For one who likes new things, being a tea taster is paradise, most of the time.




A new use has been discovered for tea cosies. We have a plunger type glass coffee pot. I often make coffee early in the morning and it gets cold by the time Himself arises. So I put my largest tea cosy over it and it is nice and warm for him. Tea people are sooooo clever. LOL














We really need to take time to celebrate. A lot of life is downright hard, scary, ugly and unpleasant so be joyful when you can, look for things to bring joy into your life. I am now 3 years cancer free and 37 years married, Let's boogie! Right now I am thankful for sun, bird calls, my cats winding around my feet, shadows on the lawn, good bread, warm feet, a good morning kiss. No biggies, but I am here to enjoy them. What are you thankful for?

Sweet Rosy O'Grey

Old Swiss Architecture, showing the house on the right connected to the
barn on the left. Very handy in an area of great cold and snow.

Speaking of which, we had snow yesterday, while the sun was out and it was raining. Of course, it didn't stick, but it was an interesting weather phenomenon, especially since it was only in one small area.

Earl Grey is often mixed with other flavors and there has been a lot of experimentation with it. The newest, to me, is Teas Etc.'s Rosy Earl Grey, from a lot I bought this summer. They describe it as jasmine green tea, black tea, flavors and pink roses. As you can imagine, this is a very pretty tea. It also has an almost overwhelming scent of very sharp bergamot. Oh oh, I hoped this was not what it would taste like. As it brewed, the smell softened considerably and I hoped the taste would, as well. I love Earl Grey, but you can have too much of a good thing.

The proof is always the taste and this one excelled. It was a very nicely balanced cup of rose enhanced Earl Grey that was smooth and full. I couldn't detect any jasmine in the brew. You could taste the tea base and while a bit bland, you need to remember it's the over all blend , not just the base. If the base tea is too far forward, there would be no point to the blend. For myself, I would prefer to make it a bit stronger than a level spoon full and perhaps only brew it for 3.5 minutes instead of the recommended 4. I chilled some of this and it is very good chilled, as the roses come out a little more. I didn't add either cream or sugar, so you will have to experiment with that on your own.

If you are an Oolong lover and would like to learn about them, http://www.teafromtaiwan.com/ has a lot of information on its site. Click on Wulong tea information. Oolong, Wulong and Wu Long are all the same tea.


Here is a little ditty that has been running through my head for far too long:

I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
It makes my peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on my knife!

No Earl for Tea

A gold crucifixion scene from the Vienna State Museum




Ho boy, when it rains, it pours [and pours and pours]. The cats gave up on the outdoors and have decided this is a good day for a nap. I decided to make soup and maybe bake something - it is definitely a kitchen day.



And a good day for a cup of tea. I'm having Lavender Earl Grey from Teas Etc. It smells of very smooth lavender, with a piquant edge - I assume from the bergamot. I cannot smell either the tea base or the bergamot. The tea is almost gray with lavender buds. I brewed the usual 3.5 minutes with boiling water, It continued with the floral aroma, but I could catch some tea. Taste wise, this was a very pleasant lavender tea. Quite straightforward. However, the Earl did not come to tea with me and I was sorely disappointed in him.



Simpson and Vail still wins in the lavender Earl Grey department, with its Victorian EG.

A Wow Ceylon!

Just a simple jeweled solid gold Bible cover.

We went out to brunch today and I thought about having tea, but said, "Nah, it'll just be teabags and luke warm water" About 3/4 of the way through our meal, someone ordered tea and it was a real pot with real tea and boiling water. That'll teach me, maybe. Next time I'll ask about it.

One of my many tea orders was from Teas Etc, another company that allows you to buy samples before you invest in larger lots. Today I am having their Ceylon OP1, which means Orange Pekoe, a large leaf and the one is either the first pluck of this group or 1st quality or refers to a specific varietal. Ceylon is the largish island off the south tip of India.

What a treat! The scent of the dry tea will knock your socks off. It smells of a field after the rain or good red wine or chocolate covered lemon drops, or some combination of them all. The leaves were small to medium, black and somewhat twisted in appearance. As it was brewing for 3.5 minutes there was a combination of fresh wash on the line and good wine barrels, and still that chocolate lemon ending.

The infused tea didn't disappoint either. It was a nice dark brown with a winey, lemony, oaken taste, with hints of chocolate in the aftertaste. Wow, what a super treat this is from first to last. It really coats your mouth with lovely flavors. I've never been one to rave about Ceylon teas, but this is really an exception.

A Great Disappointment

My many greats-grandfather Schaeffer came from here in the
great Palatinate emigration to the American colonies in 1710. This is Dickshied, Germany. I am standing in Hilgenroth, Germany, where his wife was from. I like knowing my roots.



I also like knowing where my tea is coming from and some vendors do a really good job with that, others don't. I ordered some Golden Pearls from Teas Etc. and all it says is that it is "an elegant smooth hand-rolled Chinese black tea. However, they no longer have it on their website, so I can't find out any more. This makes me wonder - did they not get much or is this last year's tea?

I reviewed this last year on Aug. 9 and gave it really high marks, as it was exquisite. This however, is rather hum drum, with few nuances, an ok smell and nothing to excite me. It's maybe even a touch sour or acrid. Rats, I thought I was getting something wonderful and it's below ordinary. I will try it on another day and hope for the best.







-

Experiments

A brand new house in Switzerland. You can tell because the wood is so light.

By the end of yesterday, I really needed a cup of tea, so I brewed up some of Simpson and Vail's Bolivian Black, Large Leaf. I had forgotten how very nice it is, strong, floral, astringent. I was so glad I had it. And it makes a refreshing ice tea as well, which I had for lunch today. I reviewed this more fully on Nov 29, 2009.

Today I decided to try 2 teas using the cold brew method. The first is Teas Etc. Orange U Slim, a dark Chinese Oolong with pieces of orange and orange essence. The dark I assume refers to the Oolong being one that has oxidized quite a bit. Oolongs vary in oxidation from about 10% to 80%. This one definitely appears to be on the upper end of the scale. The two times I have tried it it has not been a winner, so this is absolutely it or into the mulch pile for sure.

The second is one of my favorites, Hu Kwa, a Lapsang Souchong from Mark T. Wendell. That means it is a smoked tea, getting much of its flavor from the smoke of smoldering pine branches. People either generally hate it or love it. I am in the latter category. To date, it is the best one I have had. I have not heard of anyone trying this as an ice tea, but I thought, why not? If you had this as ice tea, please tell me about it in the comments.

Well, the great experiment was a total bomb. Orange U Slim was its usual tasteless self and the Hu Kwa was just plain awful. Mulch pile for the first and back to hot tea status for the second.

I am in no way connected with the PUR water filter people, but I have to say I like their newest on- faucet-filter. It goes on easily, although you may need to use 2 washers to make the connection solid, it swivels back under the faucet so it is out of the way and it makes a big difference in the taste of your water. I found that for my amount of use – two pots of tea a day, pot of coffee for Himself, a filter lasts about 4 months. They are available at most big box hardware stores, as are the filters. Go for the slightly more expensive ones – the cheapies are just that – cheap.

Fresh Herbs for a Sunny Day

There's another mountain I'd like to put in my backyard.

Although it started out a bit grim, the sun is out once again. I went to look at my "lavender garden" - 7 plants - and it seems most survived the ground they're in and the winter. Now we'll see if they survive the spring.

This little visit reminded me of some tea I have to review, and once again a tea swap provides it . This time it is Chamomile and Lavender from Teas Etc. This is from the Etc. part, as it is a tisane, not tea from Camellia Sinensis. It is just what it says, a blend of the two herbs, with what looks like more of the chamomile. I brewed up about 1.5 teaspoons to a cup of water at almost boiling, for 5 minutes. Herbs take longer to develop their flavor than most teas. It was a messy tea, as the chamomile gave up a lot of stamens and it was hard to strain them all out. It is a very balanced blend, so that you can taste both herbs, neither of which is overwhelming. Both these herbs are known for their relaxing properties. However, I did not care for the taste, thinking it would be better in a small pillow, which I may do, and that will be pleasant at bedtime.

After the tea, I went out to see if the chamomile was up, but it is on a darker side of the house and nothing in that bed has even poked out a bit.

The Pot of the Lost Orange

Such a gray day, spitting rain, sleet and snow at us. But we are
Northerners and we are not fooled – Spring is on its way.


I was at one of my local shops, The Cheese Trap, and bought some Orange U Slim tea, packed for them by Teas Etc. I bought it because I generally only like citrus in my tea, and almost none of the fruit flavors. In fact, I have met very few I did like. The tea comes in a nice reclosable zip-locked packet and is billed as a “medium body dark Oolong, with dried orange and orange essence.” The leaves are of mixed size and brown and black, with dried orange peel to add some color and flavor. There was the barest whiff of orange scent. There were no instructions so I brewed it for 2 minutes with water about 190 degrees. There was no orange flavor or scent to the brewed tea and the Oolong was just ok. What a waste of money and time. I decided to try and fix it by adding two drops of orange oil and reclosing the packet. I'll let it sit for a couple weeks and try again.

After that experience, I tried an old favorite, Upton's China Superior Keemun Mao Feng. Love the “line-dried wash” smell of good fresh tea, coupled with the slight smokiness. Love the long twisted black leaves. Love the bright amber color. And the great taste! It is like some wonderful vegetable slightly grilled over a super smelling wood, that gives it a special oomph, even though there is no real smokiness or vegetable to the taste. It is just very, very fresh and full tasting. A wee touch of smoke maybe, but nothing like my wonderful Hu Kwa from Mark T. Wendell. I have mentioned these teas before, but they are worth mentioning again.

Sweet Rosy Earl Grey

We all need a little buttressing in our lives and I want to honor a woman who buttressed mine. Today would have been my Gramma Duffee's birthday. Harriet Grace Ottman McDuffee that is. She was born in 1885. She was an adventurous person, getting her ears pierced when she was about 80 – and getting my cousin to do it as well [and in trouble]. She bought her last car at 85 – a bright red convertible, and she had her first motor boat ride when she was 90 . Her cookies were wonderful, and she served them with green tea! Gramma was the only person I had ever met [until I became an adult] who drank green tea, Lipton's loose in a green and white box. So today I will lift my green tea in tribute to a great lady, whom I loved dearly.

Sweet Rosie O'Grady. Oops, no, I meant Rosy Earl Grey. The tea. From Teas Etc. Sweet it is, but not sugary. It smells wonderful, more like its rose-scented jasmine component than Earl Grey. It is very pretty too with a mix of green and black leaves and big pink rose petals. I brew it my standard 3.5 minutes with not really boiling water, using a bit more than a teaspoon per cup. It smells delightful as it brews and pours out to a very nice amber. There is not much taste of bergamot, either when it is hot or as it cools. It tastes almost exclusively like a very nice rose-kissed jasmine, with the very barest hint of lemon, which would be the bergamot. It is a very nice tea, just made for a “lady's” afternoon. I had it for a late breakfast with tea breads, does that count? I wonder if Gramma Duffee would like it? Probably too frou-frou for her taste.

The last tree in the neighborhood that has leaves is finally losing them. It has been interesting to watch this beech turn yellow, deepening to gold, then red and finally burgundy. The top is bare now, with just a raggedy frill about the bottom. If we get more rain, it will be bare like all the others.

Golden Pearls and Green Camels

These bells are from the Meiringen Lutheran church in Switzerland,where my grandmother was baptized. Meiringen is famous for the Reichenbach Falls where Sherlock Holmes met his "death" and for creating meringues, those lovely confections of air, egg white and sugar. In the town, they are often served with ice cream and raspberry sauce.

I was reading Jane Pettigrew's Tea Companion - the first edition that came out in 2004. It is a wonderful book, sparely full of great information about a wide range of teas, how to make tea, a brief history of tea, etc. Something I really noticed was that PuErh tea was given only a partial sentence. Five years later, it is a very hot topic. Such a short time for it to have achieved such eminence, in the western world. The New Tea Companion, put out the next year [2005], with Bruce Richardsoon of Elmwood Inn Teas had a great deal more to say about PuErh, but certainly not up to the standards of most conoisseurs. This covers a few of the same teas, but is much broader in scope, covering more teas and more countries. Someday I am going to pusue PuErh, but not yet. I have enough with just thinking about Greens, Oolongs and Whites.

First, there was morning tea - Golden Pearls from Teas Etc. $19.95/3oz. Really a beautiful tea from Yunnan, China - rolled multi-hued golden balls that smell of toast, a good
Chinese restaurant, a citrus edge. The balls unfurl quickly into a deep rich liquor still with the toasty, Chinese smell and that unique malty Yunnan tang with a hint of smokiness. There is also a vegetal smell, something like summer squash cooking on the grill. It has a mellow Yunnan taste, but there isn't the spice you get with a true Golden Yunnan, it is more both laid back and somehow hearty. There is a nice lingering taste in the back of my mouth that I can't really describe. An excellent morning tea for special times - because it is pretty expensive. As it cools, the flavor seems to come out even more and it's even fuller than before.

Afternoon tea was a green gunpowder - Camel brand, imported from China - I think it was one of my Asian Market buys. I compared its looks to some Twinings Gunpowder, as well as the smell. No comparison. The Twinings had few actual rolled balls and smelt rather flat - I may have had it too long. Anyway, the Camel brand looked and smelled the way a gunpowder should - tightly curled small balls giving off a nice fresh green scent. I brewed 3 teaspoons in 2 cups of 170 degree water for 90 seconds, stirred it around and poured it out. It is surprisingly brownish with atinge of yellow and nice bubbles around the edges. It has a pleasant, almost jasmine, floral scent with a good full feel in your mouth and a warm vegetal flavor, almost toasty but not quite with a little lingering bit of floral. A very nice, probably quite inexpensive green tea. I made it in a small tetsubin pot, to hold the heat - it's my green tea pot.