Oh Happy Day

Good News - Benoy Thapa from Thunderbolt Teas http://www.thunderbolteas.com/ tells us that  First Flush Darjeelings are being picked - the lower slopes, that is.  Tea Season is beginning!  Oh Happy Day!  Over at http://teatrekker.wordpress.com/ there is a schedule of when teas are generally picked and processed.  It all depends on the weather, of course, and other things, like workers striking and all the things that go into farming.

Life in Teacup http://www.lifeinteacup.com/ is taking orders for the earliest of the China greens, which may be pre-Qing Ming, depending on the weather.  I am getting a small amount of Da Fo Long Jing (Dragonwell).  Check around the different merchants if you want to be first or if this is something you really like.  I am also going to get some Arya Estate from Upton's http://www.uptontea.com/   I have been looking through my tea notebooks and have found time and again that the Darjeelings I have given the highest marks to have been the ones from that Estate.

World Tea News has been keeping track of tea trends and there are six - three have to do with green tea, one is more interest in tea-enhancing wares and the best, as far as I am concerned is that more people are interested in better quality teas!  They also are more interested in tea shops where they can see and taste the teas before they buy.  I wish we had some around here.  I love living in a small town/rural area, but I do miss some of the advantages of a large city.

World Tea Expo is coming!  June 1-3 in Las Vegas.  go to http://www.worldteaexpo.com/ and check out the offerings.  It is the 10th anniversary year, so I am sure it will be very special.  Some advance notice - World Tea East will be October 2-3 in the Philadelphia Conference Center.  I am  hoping we won't have another flood this year so I can go to it.

That's all for today - I am going out to garden!  I'm not taking off my snow tires until the end of the month, though - just in case!

A Visit To Darjeeling

These beautiful windows were buried and hidden during WWII.  I am glad, as they are very beautiful in all their 90 foot tall splendor.

Yesterday we had a huge platter of corn for lunch, with the first of our own tomatoes.  The platter reminded me of summer meals at my grandmother's when my cousins were home and there would be 10-15 people for lunch or dinner, with big platters of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and what ever else was on the menu that day.  Such good times.  Lots of political and religious discussions.  Never sex, not in that WASP household!  The discussions were often loud, someone was always "dead wrong", but respectfully so.  You learned to stick up for yourself.  Today we had fried green tomatoes and corn pudding.  I do love summer food, that sense of great abundance, made better when it comes from your own garden, or the famers' market.

It is warm and quite humid today, as we await Hurricane Irene, reminding me of the weather in India.  So, I thought it very appropriate to have an Indian tea today.  This is from the Silver Tips Tea Company, http://www.silvertipstea.com/  in Tarrytown, NY.  It comes from the new Steepster Select program.  It is Makaibari First Flush Darjeeling and indeed, is loaded with silver tips amongst the black and brown, smallish leaves.  In the packet, they smell quite peppery.  I follow directions and brew them with boiling water for three minutes, hoping they are right.  I have often found that first flush teas do better with shorter time and cooler water.  For those of you new to tea, first flush refers to the first new growth of leaves after the winter hiatus.  Akin to new dandelion greens, the first radish, the first baby lettuces. It is often the most highly prized of all the teas.

A lot of the pepper dissipated with the brewing, but it is there with a faint vegetal aroma and something like roasted tomatoes.  The liquor is a pleasant golden amber, just a few shades darker than our Bertie, the long-hair.  Ooh, good tea, a taste of citrus, some pepper, definite green.  An excellent first flush. Often firsts are too astringent or too lacking in body for me, but this has only the slightest astringency, which is the citrus, and the body of the tea is full and round.  However, as it cools, it does develop a bit more astringency, so I would either make this one cup at a time or fiddle with the time and water temp, so it is good to the last drop.

Tea is a very individual drink and we all have to play with it a bit to find what we consider the optimum.  We should use the company's guidelines first, and then adjust them to suit ourselves, as we gain experience.

If you are new to tea and want to expand your horizons, drink a lot of tea.  Experiment, see what you really like.  Fool around with your teas until you know what you like.  I have found keeping a notebook helps and then I can go back and get more of what I really like.  Trade tea with your friends.  I have found that good companies like Simpson and Vail, Harney and Sons, Tea Trekker, Life in Teacup, Upton's and others have samples or sell by the ounce, so that for not too much money, you can try a wide variety of teas.  Buy a good filter for your water or use something like Poland Spring bottled water to make your tea, it makes a difference.

Oops, sorry Darjeeling

Another lovely day. After a very rainy summer we are all
appreciating these sunny warm days.

I got my big order from Teavana today. This is a shipment I won
in a drawing for subscribing to newsletter. Being one of those people who doesn't win things, this was really exciting. I got 5 teas, a big glass mug and one of those pots that brews your tea and then you set it on your cup and the tea comes out the bottom, leaving the leaves behind. Most of what I got I had not tried before but I did get one Darjeeling that sounded really good. It is called Darjeeling Viyaranya Black, supposedly with a "crisp muscatel flavor" That's as far as I read. If I had read to the bottom of the description I would have seen "first flush". First flush and muscatel do not generally refer to the same Darjeeling. First flush is just that, the very first leaves that are plucked. Muscatel most often refers to the taste of the heavier second flush shading into autumnal Darjeelings.

I now have a new 2 part mantra - "Read the whole description, all the way to the end and when brewing, look at the tea, not the directions"

Assuming this was a black Darjeeling, in spite of its greenish looks in the dry leaf and barely discernable scent, I went right ahead and brewed it as if it were black - 212 degrees for 3 minutes. Oh boy, ick. Bitter, tannic, just awful. My husband offered to finish it if I put sweetener and cream in it - the only way he will drink tea - even iced tea - yuck. So I did, taking a sip as I gave it to him. Wow, what a difference! It actually tasted almost good. However, by then I was too yucked out to brew it up again, so I settled for very plain iced tea and called it a day. "Read the whole description, look at the tea you are brewing".



Today's picture is the gold altar in the Liebfraukirche on the Rhine that I mentioned before. It actually means Beloved Lady's Church.