Who Has Seen The Wind?

It's another perfect day for tea while I watch the snow devils kicked up by the wind, as it howls and moans and keens its way across the long length of our back yards and on across the wide 50 acre pasture.  It's been quietly snowing all day, but there isn't any more than 3 inches, if you can find a place it's neither piled high nor scoured away by the wind. 

I have always loved the wind.  I love to see it ripple through long grass and set the trees and clouds flying against the sky.  I love its sounds, from the barest murmur to raging tempos.  I love to open my windows to hear it and feel it move across me as I go to sleep.  There is nothing quite like being snug in a warm bed while a storm rages.

You would think I would have a strong, sturdy tea for such a day, but no, I am having Jasmine Pearl Oolong from the puriTea.  I won't say a lot about it, because I have reviewed it before.  However, it is still wonderful, sharing the top spot with another from Life in Teacup.  Lovely jasmine, sweet and floral.  Lovely little green and white pearls, like miniature balls of yarn, unfolding in my pot.

It is worth having some glass teapots so you can watch your tea unfold or dance around or hop up and down as it brews.  More action seems to happen with greens and Oolongs, but some of the tightly twisted black teas are fun to watch, also.  This is often called "the agony of the leaves", but I rather think they are enjoying themselves, stretching out to do their job of enriching our day.

A.C. Cargill wrote an article recently at the English Tea Shop blog about tea and the Scottish games.  I was reminded that I haven't been to any for too long, so I am marking my calendar to go with my cousins to the ones on Labor Day weekend near Albany, NY.  The last time we went, it rained and it was mud to our ankles.  Not much fun, so we listened to some rousing bands, drank beer and ate 5 different kinds of french fries. (Ye gods!) There was only 1 clan tent still braving the elements and we were cheered to see their tartan is uglier than ours.  One or two at a time, ours - the MacDuffee - isn't so bad, but en masse, the weird reddish orange or orangeish red can be quite an eyeful.  This time I shall look for some good Scottish tea and biscuits and hope for harp players.

A poem I loved as a child, perfect for today:



By Christina Rossetti 1830–1894
Who Has Seen the Wind?


Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

The small Swiss town of Darstetten, in Kanton Bern.

Oolong in the Snow

Thank you Stephanie for hoping for snow for me.  It snowed!  Every little twig and branch is covered with it and it is absolutely beautiful!  I think we have about 3 inches.  Not a lot, but it is so much less gloomy looking.  The wind is blowing, so we won't have the tree beauty for long, but I love it while we've got it.

Same church, another view.  I love the soft yellow and blue.

Have you ever noticed how many things are fleeting?  Roses in June, most of the pernnial flowers, sunrise, sunset?  Perhaps if they were not we could not appreciate them as much.  But there are those which are not, the love between spouses, parent and child, friendship, and they are of value beyond price.  In the overall universe they are fleeting, what is 50 years compared to an eon?  And great moments in our lives are fleeting, but overall, we hope the love lasts and we work toward nurturing that love.

A cup of good tea is fleeting, but it's taste can go in our memory store so that when we find it again, we are cheered.  Such is a cup of Ali Shan (Formosa Oolong) from the puriTea.  I don't think I've met an Ali Shan I didn't like.  These high mountain teas are among the best Taiwan has to offer and this one is no exception.  I brewed it for 3 minutes at 180 degrees, after giving it a quick rinse to help the leaves unfurl.

The resulting brew was a soft, pale yellow, smelling sweetly of things to come.  From the aroma, which also had a slight vegetal edge, I think this is on the greener end of oxidation, which in Oolongs can range from 15-80% oxidized.  It really does stand between green and black teas.  The tea has a lovely flavor, being floral, vegetal and fruity, sometimes all at once, sometimes with 1 or 2 standing out.  It is one of those teas that seems to compell you to come back for yet another sip.

Most, if not all Oolongs can be brewed at least three times, although you should only do the first for a minute, the second for 11/2, the third for 2, etc.  Often the second one is the best, at least according to my taste.  Next time I have this, I think that is what I will do.

Good Bye, Old Friend

OK, so these are spring flowers.  They are still pretty and an antidote to the gray uglies out my window.

What a sad week.  One of my oldest friends has expired.  Before you feel too bad for me, I should say it is my Kitchen Aid mixer.  Only 25, but then my last one which I bought used, lasted for 40 years.  I did get a new one, but I shall miss my old faithful friend who gave me so many wonderful cakes, cookies, scones, bread, mashed potatoes, whipped cream, ice cream, profiteroles.  I'm on my second Cuisinart, also.  It always pays to buy the best you can afford.  I always recommend to new kitchen folks to go to an industrial or professional cookware shop - the stuff is made to last and they have everything one needs to have a well-equipped kitchen.  Or an over-equipped kitchen, as my case may be.

We tried to go for a walk today - I even got out my winter jacket - rats.  It was just too cold, with the wind blowing a howling gale.  I had to hurry home and have some tea to warm my toes and fingers.

I have reviewed this tea before, but it is a new year's batch, so...  It is Pearl Jasmine from the puriTea - yes, that is the way they spell it.  Two minutes at 180, or 3 1/2 if you mess up, like I did.  It didn't matter, which is amazing, since Oolongs and greens can be picky.  This is the same wonderful stuff that smells absolutely like jasmine flowers and tastes like them, too.  It is a green tea that doesn't get bitter if you over do it or if your cup is very large.  It is one of my 2 favorites.  I must warn you, this is comparatively strong, but I don't find it overwhelming and it isn't sickly sweet or like perfume.  it is simply, wonderful.

Celebrations

I couldn't find my poppy pictures, so I am just showing this Italian church's roof brace.

I've been reading about various Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations on various tea blogs and thought I would add something about our family's cemetery visits.  We lived in NYS so there was no Spanish or Mexican influences, but as children we cheerfully visited cemeteries for Memorial Day or funerals.   We always visited every single relative or old friend and my great-grandmother or grandmother would tell us kids how they were related, who they were named for, stories of their lives and times so we would remember them.  Many years later, I notice that we, in our turn, are telling our children and grands about Gramma and Grandpa Geores, Aunt Ettie, Gram Turnbull, Uncle Art and all the rest of the clan.  I think this is part of the reason I have never been afraid of death - there are all those loved ones and characters there, waiting for me, with stories to tell.

Now that the downed trees are gone and the tree men with them, the deer are back, all set to once again eat up the birdseed.  They look so sweet and innocent with their big ears and dainty feet, but there is evil in their hearts when it comes to black oil sunflower seed.

I've been back to the eye doctor and have only 1 more week of looking at my toes half the day!  Hooray and hooray!  He is very pleased with its healing and I am pleased to be able to see around the bubble that is holding up my retina.  I had best have a celebratory cup of tea, don't you think?  Being in a remembering mood, I am going to use the poppy china, which I got to remind me of the poppies along the railroads in Italy, as well as their enormous fields of bright red, wild poppies.

I am having the puriTea's Oriental Beauty or Bai Hao Oolong.  My  introduction to this tea, several years ago was so spectacularly good that it has been a favorite ever since.  The dry tea is quite pretty, with leaves touched with silver and gold along the edges and a scattering of gold buds.  It has a slightly sweet, somewhat woodsy scent.  As it brews for 3 minutes with water about 190, it gives off a lemony aroma, almost a tea rose, with the woodsiness.  The brew is a fairly dark yellow brown.  I've not been doing multiple infusions with any teas lately - when you only have a half-hour of upright time, it is too time consuming.  But I will get back to it.

Oh yes, this is a nice tea.  It tastes like lemon-kissed roses with perhaps some rose stem thrown in to ground it,  something in the woodsy end at any rate.  I can imagine this with some Indian dishes, especially their rice pudding or some of the milder curries.  I think it would go well with most tea sandwiches or desserts and probably with Mediterranean dishes as well.  Hmm, I would imagine it would compliment white chocolate, too.  We can't leave out chocolate, can we.

Oriental Beauty is a case for environmentally sound tea culture.  It is a lowly bug which gives it its characteristic taste.  The bugs (a form of leaf hopper) bites the leaves, the leaves produce an enzyme to thwart the bugs and we all benefit from the tea.  Pretty cool, huh?

White or Green?

I am feeling a little proud of myself. I was reading Alex Zorach’s article on uses for tea on http://www.ratetea.net/  and went out and did one. We have an awful lawn and whenever the weather is right, I sow some clover on it, hoping it will someday look halfway decent. He suggested using tea as mulch for new seeding and so, I cleaned out all the tea that is too old or that we hate and sprinkled it on top of the clover seed. Since it is slowly drizzling today and tomorrow is also calling for rain, I am hoping this will be productive.




I have also decided to relearn knitting and crocheting. And to that end got a couple of very simple books and so far, I have knitted a piece about 4x5”. Slow going. I had such a hard time figuring out how to cast on. I think this book's method is a particularly odd one for that task. We’ll see.



Let’s move on to tea, at least I can boil water. Or, this case, bring it to 180 degrees. I am having White Monkey Green, from the puriTea. It originally hails from the Taimu Mountains of Fujian Province, China.
I used 1 tsp. in 180 degrees water for 2 minutes. I used a small glass teapot, so I could watch the leaves do their up and down dance as they unfurled. The dry leaves smelled like alfalfa. They were kind of chunky green leaves, obviously not processed too much. The brewing tea smelled very springy green, but also of nice, ripe pears. The liquor was a very light gold. The tea in my cup was sweet and mild, with a bit of spice and fruit and a tinge of grassiness, but pleasantly so. The finish had a bit of astringency, which I thought just added a very pleasant nuance to this delightful cup.

More signs of the ending of summer - Purple Loosestrife is blooming; a few maples are beginning to shift from green to yellow; the evening insects are  now very noisy and their noise is that of the close of the season.  Purple Loosestrife is a tall, spiky plant with soft purple pink flowers.  It is very pretty, but very invasive, choking out other native plants in small waterways.  I am sad to see some summer things go, but I always welcome fall.  Cooler temperatures will be very welcome for many people this year.

Spring Has Sprung!

I must say, if I was using green tea to urge Spring into springing forth, I must have overdone it just a tad. Yesterday was cool, bordering on cold, gray, grim, rainy. Today it has just skipped right past warm and gone to hot - 72 and still climbing. In summer time, this would be pleasant, but my body isn't quite ready for it. I even made some ice tea from some rosy Earl Grey I had.


I am slowly working my way through the tea cupboard. I finally got smart and put them in order by company and got them out where I will see and try them again to see if they are compost, giveaways or keepers. A giveaway isn't bad, it's just not to my taste.


Today I am having a green tea again, because it is hot and this is a lighter tea. It is one of the samples I got from the puriTea - Emerald Needle Green. The dry leaves are indeed a fresh green and quite long. I expected them to be rolled into long thin needles, but they weren't. I brewed them for about 2minutes with 170 degree water. The resulting tea was very, very pale, with almost no discernible scent. I couldn't really detect any taste, so I tried 3 minutes - still not much I had to push the leaves to 5 minutes and still there was not much there. A hint of green, a bit of vegetal, just not much. I think I will mix it with something else and make ice tea with it. I really like green ice tea, much more than most black teas. I often find that where they fail hot, they really shine cold. I have often found the opposite to be true of black teas, they often are heavy and overbearing cold, whereas hot, they are sturdy and comforting.

How about you - what is you experience with ice tea versus hot? By the way, I almost always do mine as a cold brew where I put about 10 teaspoons of tea in my pitcher, add cold water and stick it in the fridge. It suits my exceedingly lazy nature.


The Japanese tea harvest is in full swing, but power outages and overly careful government bans may cause this tea to be late in arrival and very expensive.

Several companies, such as Harney and Sons, are putting out teas for the Royal Wedding - I hope you got yours if that is your interest. Once again, it was either more tea or keeping the husband and as usual, he won. LOL

How are you celebrating THE wedding? I think if I manage to be awake enough to watch, that will be a celebration for me. I know many of you are having tea parties that morning - have fun. I could never do that - it takes me 2 hours just to be awake. The thought of having to cook and play hostess in the early morning just wears me right out. Now if it were 11 pm, it would be fine, since I am a night owl.

A Bit O' Green for the Irish

An Austrian farm chalet with hay stooks in the front yard - those
very neat orderly lumps I bit you thought were shrubs.

Sure and begorrah 'tis a grand day for the wearin' o' t' green. With a wee bit of trottin' mouse tea for me Irish Breafast from me grand friend, Ruthie Toothie and a bit of green tea for the afternoon with a wee slice o' soda bread. Actually my ancestors are all North Irish, but Irish is Irish, especially today, when for one day even a Tibetan can be Irish.





The cup of green comes from The Puritea and is their Gunpowder Green. The little pellets are so tightly rolled that after 10 minutes in hot water they are barely unfurled. They smell very "full" and rich, but I can't identify the scent. It is, however, very pleasing. What I am drinking has only been brewed for about 2 minutes and it is a bit of an odd color, a somewhat murky pale old gold of a green, if that makes sense. As I sip it it reminds me of strawberries, wood violets, earthy woods, green lawns, all at once, with maybe a bit of toast thrown in to make it even less clear. It feels very full-bodied and rich in my mouth. It is wonderful stuff! The brew from the leaves that are still brewing [fifteen minutes and still not all unfurled] taste really good also, unheard of with green teas! There is a definite sweetness and floral addition to this part of the brew. I have never had a green tea like this and I will surely buy more, it is so interesting and I just love it.

Flowers for Early Spring.

It is always wonderful to me to see the early early signs of Spring. Yesterday I noticed the moss in the woods is greening up and some is beginning to sprout the seed stalks. When I was a kid, my cousins and I would gather moss and tiny plants for terrariums. They never lasted long, as we would water them too much or not enough.

When the deer came through the yard last night I saw that their coats were getting shaggy, in preparation for shedding their winter coats and returning to their pretty red ones for the summer. They are also pretty thin, so it is a good thing there are big patches of grass showing. In the brook, some of the weeds on the bottom were beginning to get green. Best of all I heard a red-wing blackbird singing and finally saw him, high up in a tree. At the moment I am watching a squirrel's contortions to get the last few seeds out of the bird feeder. I am torn between annoyance that they can eat so much and amusement with their antics.

Tuesday March 15, 2011
Didn't get too far yesterday, did I? Today the crow state is having some sort of meeting in my backyard. I wish they would come to an agreement and move on - they are noisy buggers.

Well, I will move on then, to the tea! Today I am returning to the blacks and my choice is The PuriTea's Jasmine Golden Yunnan. I am really eager to try this as I have not seen jasmine paired with Yunnan tea before. Upon opening the packet, there was a rush of a very sweet, almost candy, almost cherry, scent. It quickly was clear it was really jasmine, backed by some of the woodsy spicy aroma of a Yunnan. I can hardly wait until it is cool enough to drink. Being the coward that I am, I am brewing it for 5 of the 5-7 minutes they recommend.

It worked, the tea is pretty good. There is a very mild base of earth, wood and a tiny bit of spice, with the flights of jasmine above it. I really would not have believed that it would, the two seem so disparate. The Yunnan could have come through a bit more, but then it may not have worked at all. As it cools, there seems to be a bit of cherry or plum in it. I think this has been done quite well, as I think it would be difficult to pair the two.

Did you know that the green teas that are used in jasmine tea must be stored for a few months until the jasmine blooms? Also, it can take up to seven times of layering jasmine blossoms with the tea to produce the right flavor and scent. Makes me appreciate it even more.

Don't Call Me a Pinhead

Overlooking the Mediterranean, on the Amalfi Way.


It is incredibly beautiful here, as the snow has stuck to the trees, in spite of the wind last night. I think there is an ice coating holding at least some of it on. And it is snowing again.





Today's tea is from The puriTea, and it is Pinhead Gunpowder. I expected the little balls to be quite tiny, but they weren't. When I compared it to some regular gunpowder, these were larger. The dry scent was floral and vegetal, with something like sesame teasing around the edges. I steeped it the first time for about a minute and it gave off a lovely floral aroma. It was a lovely pale green. The taste was pleasant, but not exciting.





The second steeping was a bit over 1.5 minutes and again, there was the floral aroma, with a sharp edge to it. Again, the flavor was pleasant, but not exciting, a mix of floral and vegetal, but without that awful fishy or seaweedy flavor. Both infusions were done at about 170 degrees.

A White and Yellow Line Up

Power lines, ugly but necessary. Look at the blue sky, maybe we'll
have some soon.

If weather were a person, I would say it was a tease. After 2 days of temperatures in the 50s!!!!!, it is now winter again, with high winds, snow and a temperature of 20. Fora while there, we were without jackets, turning our faces to the sun, reveling in the warmth. But in another month, this teaser may be realized - winter is half over, hurrah!





Yesterday I had some friends over for a tea tasting. A little better than the blind leading the blind, but not too much, as we were sampling whites and one yellow. As you know, this is a whole new area for me, as my palate has barely expanded enough to be able to discern at least some of their nuances. Until very recently, white and yellow teas were only made in China and were rare and expensive.





We started with Bai HaoYin Zhen, Silver needles from The puriTea. The buds were beautifully silvery from the little white hairs on them, long and fat. Silver needles is only made from the buds. This is a early Spring tea, mostly air dried on bamboo trays and only warmed over charcoal fires at the end to make sure it is dry enough. It comes from the districts of Fuding and Zhenda in Fujian Province, China. This is a delicate, silvery green brew, very pale. It smelled sweet, with a slightly earthy overtone of chestnut. That carried through to the taste, which had a sweet floral note, again with some chestnut and maybe some honey.





The second was more familiar to me - White Peony or Bai Mu Dan, also from The puriTea and hailing originally from Yunnan Province. One source I read said this was a very expensive tea, more difficult to make and rarer. In this country I have only seen it as a cheap, everyday tea. It is air dried, then fired at 21 degrees, cooled and then fired again at about 160 degrees. It is made from 2 leaves and the end bud. This particular tea seemed to have a lot of stem in it. It was much darker than the previous and had a more pronounced flavor. It was floral and woodsy, but there was much more fruit taste and smell to it. I thought it had an almost peachy or apricot taste.





The third was from Life in Teacup and was Jing Mai Moonlight white, which I reviewed a few days ago, another offering from Yunnan Province and one plucked in the Fall.





The last offering was Chinese Yellow Buds Huo Shan, from Upton Teas. To date, yellow teas are only made in China and generally come from Hunnan or Anhui Province. They had their origin in people desiring to do away with the grassiness of some green teas. Yellow teas are somewhat fermented after they have dried a bit, just until they begin to acquire a yellow color. Then they are dried slowly, wrapped in paper, unwrapped, pan-fired, rewrapped and the process repeated until they are dry enough. It can take several weeks for the tea to be fully processed.





Personally, I do not think this was one of the best yellows. The leaves were not very yellow and I have seen many pictures where they are almost straw colored. They smelled very grassy dry and this scent intensified as the tea brewed. The first infusion was quite gentle, with a slightly grassy taste. The second was definitely in the grassy, seaweed area of taste and none of us were really taken with it. It was a fairly expensive sample and I won't be getting more.





We had a lot of fun doing this and we all learned a lot. My little glass pot got quite a work out. In a few weeks we are going to do another tasting. I really enjoyed sharing with my friends what I've learned and enabling all of us to widen our horizons. We ended the afternoon with smelling some of the more potent black teas - a chocolate chili black with pu-erh and some Lapsang Souchong, just for contrast's sake.

Wowee Kazowee, What a Jasmine

See how your eyes are drawn to the altar!

Well, my friends, today it is going to be in the 50's - in New York, in February! Who could imagine? Our Old Lady Cat, Sarah Sweetface, is celebrating by having a series of cat fits where she runs around the house, out the door, around the house and back in. I guess we have all gotten a bit sick of winter. However, lest we enjoy ourselves too much, Old Man Winter is arriving again on Saturday, so we shall frolic today and tomorrow. Maybe our 5' by 15' foot pile of snow will even melt a bit.

As taken as I am with Life in Teacup's Snowflakes on Green Lake Jasmine, I may have found a real competitor in The puriTea's Jasmine Pearl. These beautiful pea-sized green and white pearls release a jasmine aroma that will knock your socks and shoes right off. It is incredibly rich and sweet, the very essence-of-jasmine. It is such fun to watch the little pearls unroll, twisting and turning as they do, until they become quite large leaves. I brewed them for 2 minutes with 200 degree water. Oh my, the taste does live up to the promise! It is so smooth, so sweet (but not sugary) so jasmine! This is a full-bodied tea as well, which leaves a wonderful aftertaste of a jasmine wilderness in your mouth. There is almost a taste of rose in it, like the oft-mentioned Mock Orange bush. I don't know what that tastes like, I am really extrapolating from the scent. Another plus is that the bottom of the cup is as good as its beginning, without getting bitter.

Actually this is not a competitor, but an worthy companion with LIT's Jasmine. They are very very different. This is sweeter and heavier, whereas Gingko's is light and delicate. Two superb teas for different moods, perhaps.

Luck, lucky me to have some of each!

Tea and Gardens in the Snow

It is astonishingly beautiful here this morning. We had about 5" inches of snow last night and almost all of it has stuck to the branches of every plant. It is so thick I can't really see very far into any of our woods and spinneys. The sky is that really brilliant dark blue we rarely get in the winter, the sun is out and it is gorgeous! Definitely a day for an appreciative walk.

First, let's have tea. I have read much about (Big) Red Robe Oolong tea and finally decided I had better try some, as it sounded so tasty. I got some in my sampler I bought from the puriTea. The leaves are a reddish black, a mix of spirals and chunks. My first impression is it smelled like the good brown bits from homemade mac and cheese, with a bit of smoke. It brewed up to a medium amber with a kind of raisiny, floral, charred wood scent, which followed right along into the taste, which was sweet, floral and the tiniest bit smokey.

The second infusion was a bit lighter, more floral, not a bit smokey, but had more of a raisin character to it. Not sweet in the usual sense of the word, but carrying that impression. It is quite complex and as it cools it becomes somewhat peachy tasting. I found it to be every bit as interesting cold as it was hot.

This tea is also known as Da Hung Pao, "the Emperor of Tea" and comes from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian Provnce, China. The trees are over 400 years old. One of the charming myths about these trees is that a Ming Dynasty emperor's mother was ill and a tea made from them cured her. To honor and protect the trees, the emperor sent his imperial red robes to put over them.

For those of you who are Kusmi Tea fans, they have opened a NYC store. It is located at 1037 Third Ave., near 61st Street. I now have a huge list of NYC tea shops and vendors I want to visit next time I can go there.

I am going to hop over to India to review a tea I don't want to forget. It is from Teas Etc and simply named Nilgiri. If you remember, Nilgiri is named for its origin in the "Blue Mountains " of very southern India. The leaves are small and a mix of black and brown. They give off a very pleasant prune smell, which sits well with me, as I love prunes. As it brewed the scent shifted to a baked fruit and fresh outdoor aroma. The tea was definitely no disappointment. It was light and toasty and fruity and sweet. Yum.

This made me think ahead to gardens. When we first began to garden in earnest we were faced with brick-building red clay. What to do? We had read about no-weed, deep mulched gardens put forth by Ruth Stout [sister of mystery writer, Rex, author of the Nero Wolf series] and tried it, never looking back. By the third year we had deep, wonderful soil. The trick is to mulch the soil about 1 foot thick with hay and just add to it every year. We did our potatoes by laying them on the ground and covering them with hay. We'd shove the hay aside to make rows. Yes, there were a few problems. The main one was slugs, which we dealt with by going out in the evening and salting them. Considering the damage they did, we were absolutely heartless. And we had wonderful crops that we did not have to weed nor water. One garden we did have to rake clear for the ground to warm up, but that was minor.

When we were making new flower beds, we were a bit more discreet. In the fall we would lay down a thick layer of wet newspaper and cover it with a "prettier" mulch. By Spring we would've killed the grass and started the process of soil improvement. You see, not only am I a lazy tea lady, I am a lazy gardener.

Rag Balls for Tea

Our first glimpse of Amalfi


My car began to smell funny while I was out today and when I looked under the hood, there was a small amount of smoke. My mechanic thinks it smelt like baked chicken and maybe a mouse had gotten inside. Yum, baked mouse.





I am waiting for my amaryllis to throw up a flower stalk and bloom. It has been 2 months and I am eager for some color. The hibiscus are about to bloom again, so that will have to do for now.





I have had so much good tea lately. The latest is from The PuriTea and is called Red Dragon Pearl Black. These pearls are amazing. They are red, with some tan leaves and are about the size of a chickpea. They resemble those balls of rag strips people used to braid rugs. They smell mostly of chocolate. The directions say to use 2-3 balls percup. I did and brewed it for about 3.5 minutes with boiling water.





As the tea brewed there was an aroma of dried leaves along with the chocolate. The liquor was about a medium brown. It was sweet and chocolately, a bit malty, a bit acidic. It really went well with a bit of cream. You could have it either way, as the cream did not seem to make much of a difference, other than to deepen the flavors a bit. It is very smooth. This may move right up into my top ten favorite black teas. It is amazing the flavor that tea can have all on its own, with out any additions. The website is www.thepuriTea.com . One of the nice things these folks do on their website is give suggestions about what foods their teas go best with.

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! to all who are celebrating the Asian Lunar New Year. May you have joy, peace, prosperity and every other good thing!

May the doors you open lead to wonderful things for you.

We are celebrating here because the sun is shining and the sky is blue. The pines are brilliant etched against the azure sky and it's not even too cold.

Any day is a good day when you get new teas to try from a new-to-you company. I had heard so may good things about The PuriTea Company I had to order. They were having a sale on make your own tea samplers, so I did. My order came very quickly and they even sent 3 free samples. Wow.

I was going to discuss a couple of different Keemuns I have been drinking, but decided to go with another Chinese tea to celebrate the New Year. This one is from Aura Teas and is Organic Golden Monkey Black Tea. It is one of Wuyi Yen tea, [grown in spaces between mountain rocks], from the Wuyi area of Fujian Province, and is considered one of China's finest. It is a mix of black and brown leaves, heavily curled. It is processed by hand in the spring. It will yield up to 3 infusions. In the container the aroma is a fine mix of floral, sweet and a deep deep spice and wine bottom note. I did the first infusion for 2 .5 minutes and the second for 3.

The tea in the cup has a smooth, sweet, deep woodsy, spicey scent and the liquor is very, very dark. I can hardly wait to drink this! Usually I like cream in my black tea, but this is so fine, I can't do it. The tea almost feels creamy, it has such a rich body. There are so many taste sensations it is hard to sort them. It is sweet, with an almost honey flavor, then a bit earthy, then there's an elusive woodsiness, a little touch of acid to make your mouth feel juicy, along with oak. It is a wonderful tea. It is such a kick when there is so much going on in a tea.

Aura teas can be seen at http://www.aurateas.com/ They have always been very nice to deal with.