News With Tea

Beauty can be found in many shapes.

Contest Lovers -Teavana is having a contest for those who like to blend their own tea. Create the best summer blend to win new Teavana iced teas and accessories. Go to www.teavana.com/contest for details.

Over at http://www.teatable.com/ there is a new blog article about the mechanics of taste from the seminar they had at the World Tea Expo in June. They are also having a sale on teas for ice tea.

I discovered an interesting site http://tea4two.blog.co.uk/ . It is primarily a British site, but often carries US news as well. It has tea and tea shop reviews and recipes too.

The Tea Trekker has just announced that Korean green teas have arrived in their shop. They have 2 kinds available. These are the folks who wrote that excellent book The Story of Tea, a Cultural History and Drinking Guide, plus 3 others, all top notch. Their teas are excellent as well. http://www.teatrekker.com/

At the moment, however, I am going to turn to Upton Teas ZK95 China Keemun Mao Feng Imperial. What an aroma the dry leaves have, strong, mellow, roasted, like curing tobacco, with a slight floral edge. I did 1 teaspoon for 4 minutes and the scent shifted somewhat to an earthy, roasty, vegetable one. Sadly, for me I didn't think this had much of a Keemun taste, it seemed like it had been over-roasted. I was so busy being disappointed I didn't really taste it for itself, but I didn't like it. I shall have to try again and see what it's like without expectations, if i can manage it.

Twenty Cups of Tea

Market Day in front of the town hall in Durlach, Germany. My many greats grandfather emigrated from here in 1750.

My friend Leon, who is a well-known rosarian in NYS, is also a middle school teacher. He does something with his homeroom kids that I think is wonderful. He likes a cup of tea to start his school day and his kids asked if they could have some, too. Now all the kids have brought in mugs from home and have a cup of tea before starting the day. It's a time for community building, relaxation and just a good time. Isn't that a great idea?

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I am still trying to recover my bird feeders from the bear. I am trying them in big pots filled with grave, sand and water. So far, so good. Now if I could just convince Mr. Ernesto Poosey-Kat to quit jumping up for birds, we'd be in business.

Gardening is going slowly. We only have about 4 inches of heavy clay topsoil over gravel. Oooh, hear the gardeners swear! The builder, who is a very nice man, keeps telling me that the gravel will turn to soil as the roots work it. In about a 1,000 years. He is not a gardener. Obviously

I had the sample from the Tea Table of their Yunnan Superior Golden Tips today - all buds and first leaves, all golden, very attractive. It smelled of floral, earth and spice notes.However, in the cup it was just ok, with nothing special to it. I am fairly sure this was last years, which was not a really good Yunnan year. However, their Tsarina Blend was quite good.

Coconut Shy

What would picture taking be without shots from the train window? This is far eastern Switzerland. No mountains, only hills.

There are a grackle and a starling having a loud discussion over a suet feeder. Go grackles! I really dislike starlings. I don't mind this one too much, as it is only one, but a flock of them will decimate your bird feeders and leave a big mess. Speaking of which I read a book recently about bird feeding and I don't think the author really liked birds. Most of the book was about which birds were messy and which ones ate too much and how to avoid feeding messy birds.

It is a stunningly beautiful day. The sky is a perfect blue, with big puffy clouds and, ahem. ahem, SUNSHINE. It also has finally gotten green up here and the birds are singing their little hearts out.Maybe it will dry out enough to plant something soon, but not now - the lawn is squishy again.

On this fine day I am having a new tea - a sample from the Tea Table I got with my order. It is Coconut - black tea blended with coconut pieces. And I am sure there is coconut flavoring there as well, because it tastes like the coconut muffins I make when I slip up and put too much flavoring in.

It is an attractive tea, with the white fruit offsetting the dark tea. It smells wonderful, from sack to cup. I am sure most coconut lovers would like it, but it has too much falvoring in it for me, so I need to give it a thumbs down. Sigh, I was hoping. My husband loves it. We are so different in our tastes.

Chocolate + Tea = Bliss

Today I seem to have my brain connected to my hands and managed to get the tin of Twining's Darjeeling Tea - Classic, no less. It is a blend of teas and when I opened the tin, I was a bit disappointed, as the tea was such tiny bits. It is not the hard core pebbles of many CTC teas, but tiny, nevertheless. It smelled kind of hay like, but heavier, almost toasted. It was clearly a mix of black, brown and silver bits.

I used my usual, 1 teaspoon, boiling water, but only 3 minutes, as the leaves were so small. While it was brewing, it again had that roasted hay aroma. The tea was much darker in the cup than I expected, almost black. Rats, the 3 minute steep is too long and the tea is pretty tannic. Cream does help, but I guess I had better try for 2 -2.5 minutes tomorrow.

Oh goody, the mail just came and with it my order from the Tea Table. I am very taken with their Tsarina blend, which I reviewed a long time ago. I also got a couple samples - one of which is coconut. My husband loves coconut tea and I am trying to find one I like as well.

For those of you with an iPhone, there is now a tea app, accessible at http://www.teaapp.com/ or for a $3.99 download from iPhone. There's a tea map and James Norwood Pratt's Tea Dictionery available there as well.

What Ho! Somone has finally come up with the ideal melding of chocolate and tea - chocolate tea cups! They are infused with several different teas and come in a tea tin. They come from Kitchen TLC (tea, life, chocolate). I am not sure how to order from them, but there is a place on the site for stores and to contact them. http://www.kitchentlc.com/

Chocolate Mint or Mint Chocolate

An Austrian farmstead.



Ah, more snow. It is so quiet, I can hear the snow falling and the cats running in it. They are chasing themselves up and down trees and all around the yard. It is quite pretty, with all the branches and pine needles outlined in white. However, it is supposed to go to -11 tonight, so if I want to walk, I had best go soon. I finally bought myself a ski mask so I can face the wind without pain. It is a pretty bright pink, but it still looks kind of freaky. I guess I have seen too many pictures of bad guys in ski masks.











I am really on a chocolate kick with my teas, as the one I am having today is Decaf Chocolate Mint Black from The Tea Table. The ingredients are decaf black tea, peppermint, chocolate pieces and natural flavoring. My Canadian friend Elizbeth sent this to me. As I opened the packet, the mint was the first scent out of it, with chocolate a very distant second. This continued to be the case as it brewed and in the cup as well. I used extra tea, but the cup was still weak and peppermint was the predominant flavor, although the chocolate was trying hard to make its presence felt. Peppermint is so hard to use well, as it can be overpowering. I think with less mint, this would've been better.







Oh sigh, I just used up the last of one of my favorite teas from Aura Teas - Formosa Natural Wuhe Honey Black. It really has a honey flavor on top of its lovely blackness and you can get at least two and sometimes three infusions from it, even if you make it in a big pot. I did a much fuller review back on Oct 25, if you want to read it.

Meditations with Grenadine

Today’s tea has grenadine in it, but I couldn’t remember what that was. Back when I thought I needed to impress people, I remember buying it and feeling oh, so sophisticated. It’s a good thing we grow up.

According to Wikipedia, grenadine is a syrup made from pomegranates. It is often used as the “cherry” in cherry cokes. Today it was used, along with some vanilla in my tea, The Tea Table’s Monks’ Blend. Supposedly the monks [don’t know who they are] blended this with Ceylon tea to keep them awake during long meditations.

Upon opening the package I was hit with a very strong fruity smell that seemed ultra sweet and was off-putting. It’s taken me days to finally taste this tea because of that. The tea is basic black enlivened with some bright gold flowers. I brewed a teaspoon for 4 min at boiling. By then, the scent had softened to a mellow, softly sweet fruitiness. The liquor was very dark. Sad to say, I thought this tea tasted awful, primarily medicinal, with a sweet edge. I could detect no vanilla and no taste of the tea itself. Not one I will be buying again.

In tea news, The Republic of Tea is coming out with seven new Rooibus flavors, plus a bunch of other new herbal flavors, if that is your cup of tea. I have purchased some of their black teas in the past and found them to be modestly good. I rarely drink herbals, so I really can’t say much about them, but the plain rooibus I tried I thought was good for what it was. I don’t mean to sound nasty or anything, I just have little experience in this area of tea.

How do you like the fancy doo-hickies on those horses? They are actually functional, helping to keep flies out of their eyes and ears.

A crooked door to the day

About how I feel after a very long busy day - old, patched, and crooked.

On the whole tea helps, but I didn't get much today. Some of the usual
Oolong at a Chinese restaurant and my afternoon brew from the Tea Table. This was "Earl Grey Russian". It has black tea, bergamot, lemon peel, clover, cornflowers, cinnamon and calendula flowers. The dry tea has a very intense scent that is heavily citrus, dark, mysterious. The brew smells very strongly of lemon. I brewed it in my usual black tea way. It was ok. Bergamot and lots of heavy lemon from the peel, but just ok. Not unusual, not all that good. Might be better iced with sugar, although milk helped round it out, just not enough for me to get any more.

With less color to look at, I have been noticing individual colors more and appreciating them - the gold of larches and tamarisk, the rust fading to tan of the oaks, the green of the pines, a few bold, red notes of the last of the sumacs, the amazing green of winter wheat. Then, there is the understory of bright yellow ferns. A lot to see when you look.

Damn fine tea with roses and lavender.

Now this is a sidewalk! Still in Ischia. No wonder all those old ladies are so sprightly.

I am so surpised, speaking of Italy - there is actually an "Italian Association for Tea Appreciation" I didn't know they drank anything but coffee! The English section of their website is not really up and running and I can only manage a bit of Italian, but it covers some tea educational projects and what looks like public tea tastings. Wow, this is exciting news! If they do as well with tea as they do with espresso, it'll be great. It is a real hoot to order coffee to go at an Italian rail station and be given the tiniest little paper cup with a shot of espresso. I wish I had kept it - one of those "can you believe this?" souvenirs.

A while ago I purchased the first set of the "Damnably Awesome Teas" from Andrews and Dunham' Damn Fine Teas. I keep going back to the Ceylon offering as several tea reviewers are quite taken with it. I wasn't at first, but I think I am more so now. In the can it has a lovely deep winey, almost tobacco smell. It smells lovely brewing, too. For me, it is a light Ceylon without the usual heavy maltiness. The taste is very good, winey, with that tobacco hint and maybe some berry in it. A good tea, but not superb, and really not very good cold. Nice packaging though.

I am also trying The Tea Table's "Earl Grey Rose and Lavender". In the container it has that wonderful very fresh lavender smell they do so well, with a good bit of sharp bergamot. There are some rose petals scattered throughout, so it is a pretty tea. Once wet, the petals are just kinda brown, as is the tea. The brewing aroma is definately lavender with a lemony understory. The tea itself somehow doesn't work. The lavender is there, the Earl is there, the lemon and rose are there but they are all very muddled. As it cools the flavors seem to blend better. I'll try it iced and let you know. Drat, I was really hoping this would be wonderful - my new go to special Earl Grey.

Samovar Blend Tsarina

This is another Austrian nobility ceremonial robe. Those Hapsburgs had
some gorgeous stuff.

I thought this would be appropriate as today's tea is Samovar Blend Tsarina from the Tea Table, "formulated in the late 19th century for the czars of Russia" "It is a blend of tippy Yunnan and Assam teas with hand rolled green tea pearls." Upon opening the package it smells kind of woodsy and chocolatey, a little deep and mysterious. The leaves are a nice glowing brown with long golden tips and perhaps 5% of beautiful tightly rolled green pearls. The brewing aroma is wonderful, It instantly reminded me of the smell of my great-Uncle John's cabin - a great smell of fine tobacco, deep rich cocoa, wood logs and a hint of floral. Just super.
The tea itself pours out into a deep rich brown with wonderful creamy bubbles along the edges and the taste is super fine also, with the hints of wood and cocoa, maybe a touch of leather with a bit of a light astringency at the end. My second cup I had with a spot of milk which brought out the leather and floral. All in all, a great cup of tea! Definately getting more of this.

Uncle John was quite old by the time I remember him. He lived in a small cabin on a pond near us and I loved to visit him. He would tell tales of "the old country" Switzerland, where his heart still lived and would make me cups of an odd strong cocoa while I explored the treasures he had, such as a basket make from an armadillo skin with it's tail as a handle. he always had wildflowers and herbs drying from the ceiling and it was just a great place to wander around in.