Cha, Cha, Chai

I apologize for the paragraphing, Blogger is misbehaving again.


Another gray day in the neighborhood, but I see on the weather map we are about to have snow. It smells like it and the fur persons have been running in and out. There's an air of waiting outside and in spite of the gray, it is very bright.

We are in that awful period between ordering the plants and seeds for the spring and when you can start some seeds inside. It is always so heartening to see their little leaves poke up through the ground and amazing that these tiny 2 inch plants will become an 8 foot tomato vine. However, I have to wait until the end of February.

Today I am having a lovely tisane, sent from my friend Elizabeth in Canada. She is a fellow chocoholic and the tisane is President's Choice Chocolatey Chai. It has chicory, carob, spices, natural flavorings, cocoa shells, ginger, licorice root, stevia and cocoa, all packed in one small teabag. The bag comes in a wrapper, which has tiny pictures and written directions on how to brew this tea. It smells exactly like one of my favorite cookies - chocolate jumbles, which are thin, frosted chocolate spice cookies. It has a rich, deep aroma, which is pretty much how it tastes, with the chocolate, carob and chicory giving great depth and the spices rounding out a very tasty cup. My husband says it is very flowery and aromatic. This would be an excellent dessert tisane with some sugar cookies or pound cake.

I am making a sad comparison of this this with Golden Moon's Kahmiri Chai, made from black and green tea, cardamom, clove, cinnamon and spice oil. It smells very spicey and floral in the packet, with lemony hints from the cardamom. Unfortunately, it is very weak. The cardamom is the most forward spice, followed by the cinnamon. The flavor is well rounded and tasty. Perhaps if the sample had been larger, so the brew was stronger, I would have given it a higher rank. Compared to the other chai, this is a mere weakling. This comes from Golden Moon's sample pack of 30 different teas. My only complaint about the sampler is the samples are one cup only and kind of on the small side. However, I have had some truly excellent teas from them.

In spite of my quote a few days ago from MFK Fisher, I want no nasty comments about "boiled mice" and I am not drying this mouse to reuse it.

A Wondrous Little Bowl

Nice Dobbins, I think. The white hats keep the flies out of their
eyes and ears.

On this very gray and damp day I have finally conquered enough inertia to taste a new tea.



This one comes from Life in Teacup and was a small gift with my last order. The tea is in the form of a toucha, which looks like a small thick-walled bowl or bird's nest, about the size of a thumb nail. Generally these are Pu-erh teas, which I expect this to be. There wasn't any scent from the dry tea, but as the tea began to brew it first smelled like cherries, then tobacco, then a more earthy aroma with a sweet overlay. All that and I haven't even tasted it! It is a rich, deep amber and the little toucha, after only 2 minutes, is no more. As far as I can tell from Gingko's website, this is a Shu Pu-erh, meaning ripe, and is from 2007, Yunnan Province, China





As I begin to sip the tea, there is the unmistakable scent of white kindergarten paste, along with some cinnamon and maybe a bit of mint. At first there is a taste of banana, of all things, then white paste, dark cherries, earth. What a super interesting tea this is. You could be charmed for hours, drinking this. I let some brew for nearly 5 minutes and the color is much deeper, as is the taste, which has become more earthy, but a clear, clean earthiness. This is most definitely a good tea and well worth the money, which is only $4.50 for ten of the little goodies, enough for many small pots of interest.





Not that I have great experience,with Pu-erhs, which I do not, but this is really a good tea.





American Tea Room is having a 20% off sale until Jan 31. Their web site is http://www.americantearoom.com/ I haven't had any of their teas, but other bloggers generally rate them highly.





There are some very cute kangaroo teacups over at http://teaandcompany.wordpress.com/ . The site is in Spanish, but pictures are multi-lingual.

The Case of the Lazy Tea lady

More of that Roman ruin in mid-town Vienna.

Lazy, lazy, lazy. That's me and tea this week. For some reason I have not quite woken up any day this week and the thought of having to think about my tea is just too excruciating. I did clean up and organize my tea drawers, if that counts.

However, I will tell you that Norwood Pratt is going to be in NY city at the SoHo location of Harney and Sons Tea this Saturday and Sunday and at their Millerton, NY shop on Monday. He will be doing tea tastings and sharing some of his vast knowledge of tea. If you live near either of these places, it would be worth your while to go and partake! He is said to be a witty raconteur, so I am sure it will be an interesting and fun time.

No Mice in My Tea!

One of the tea books I got for Christmas, "Tea Lover's Treasury", was written by James Norwood Pratt in 1983 - back when we were all a lot younger. The introduction was written by MFK Fisher, a food writer whom I have always enjoyed. Part of it really cracked me up:

"My grandmother died before tea bags. I am thankful. My mother never admitted their existence. A friend has described them as boiled mice, and he is right, too, but I have some teas in little white bags for people who have never known anything else, and who are adept enough to leave the wee tail hanging over the edge of the cup. I am told that these mice are often dried out and used again..." I don't know if I can ever look a teabag in the face again.

Roses in the Sunshine

The monastery porch at Kloster Arnstein, in Germany. The abbot was
sent to die in the prison camps in Hitler's war, and there is a memorial to
him in the garden on the other side of this passage.


Woo wee, yesterday's mail was a treasure trove. I got some money for Christmas and spent it on tea books and some Swiss cookbooks at www.alibris.com I got about 6 of the tea books yesterday, as well as an old mystery from the 1930's - "The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy". How could you possibly go wrong with that for a title? I love classic mysteries, especially the English ones, with manor houses, afternoon tea, a lord or 2. I also think many of the classics were better written - they relied on stories rather than violence.

I shall have to have some tea while reading my new whodunnit, before I go on to the more serious business of tea books. I am having Culinary Teas' Rose Congou Emperor Tea. It is a pretty tea, with quite black, small leaves with a bit of a sheen to them. They are offset by tiny rosebuds and rose petals. The tea smells just like tea roses, which have a slight lemon scent, overlying the rose aroma. This a a very nicely done tea, as the rose holds throughout the 3.5 minute brewing process and by the time I was sipping, it still smelled of roses, as well as the taste being accented by them. I thought a bit more of the lemon came out in the cup, but this is definitely a rose tea. I really appreciated the fact that neither the scent nor the flavor disappeared upon brewing. If you go to their site - www.culinaryteas.com - you'll find they are having some sales this week. Culinary Teas is also one of those companies that lets you buy 1 ounce samples for a small amount.

Never go for a cold walk with a cat who thinks he is a prince of the Orient and should, therefore, be carried. Bertie Baby threw himself at my feet about every other step, so it was either carry him or fall on my face! Once in his perch, he was quite happy, and I am sure I benefited aerobically from carrying his hefty little self.

Earl Grey Times Two

Keepers of the keys?

It was sooooooo beautiful this morning - sun shining on the 4 more inches of snow we got in the night. It was still stuck on each branch and the sides of the trees, so it was delightful.


I've had such a good week at our local "Sal's Boutique" aka Salvation Army aka Local Mission Store. I got a really pretty tea pot with a ring of roses around it's fat middle, a gorgeous Italian plate and a covered vegetable dish that almost matches my grand mother's rose strewn china. I always have to go for the "almost matches" as I have never seen it anywhere, but that's ok. Roses are roses.

Today I mixed two teas I like - both Upton's - Lavender Earl Grey and Earl Grey Blue Flower. Wow, I really like this combo! The bergamot seems perfectly balanced, strong, but not over-whelming, aromatic, but not perfumey. Just right. Plus, the two tea bases merged to give a deep solid cup that is very, very satisfying. I might just make up a can of this stuff, I am so happy about it.

Tea party - the real tea party - people unite. We must take back our name and stand up for civility in life. There is so much anger and hate-filled rhetoric floating through the air, it's wonder we aren't all dead. We really can't go on this way. We need to recapture politeness and ways of speaking which make a point without nastiness. It really doesn't matter where you are politically, religiously or any other way, being civil in all we do and say has to help, even if it is only a small way. There are lots of ways to express anger without going over the top. I should know, I am quck to anger and have had to learn how to say so without blasting the universe.
So, raise a cup with me!

Ginger Up

I think we are having an ice storm today, or trying to. The temperature is hovering around 30 and it snows a bit and then mists. Anyway, it is that sort of cold that burrows right through your clothes and your flesh until your bones are cold. I even decided not to go for a walk and all the cats thought that was very smart as they settled in for a "long winter's nap".

My tea friend Stephanie lives way the other side of the country in Washington state and their crocuses and daffodils are pushing out of the ground and it is 50! today. The weather people expect us to go below zero by the weekend. I comfort myself that it is even grayer there than here.

I am having a new-to-me tea from another tea friend, Elizabeth. It is Bigelow's Ginger Snappish. It smells divine, so gingery. It is really an herbal tisane, made from lemongrass, lemon peel, cinnamon, ginger, lemon verbena, rosehips and natural flavorings. Whole lotta good stuff in there. It does smell like ginger snaps and it is pretty much the color of them, too. I don't think I have seen this one on the local shelves, but now I will look for it. It seems perfect for such a raw day. Oh yumm, it is so good. A bit sweet, definitely gingery, but not overwhelming and a lot like a gingersnap. The lemon flavors really just play a supporting role here and I am hardly aware of them. I don't think it needs a bit of sweetener and I may not even put cream in it. Warm hands from the mug, warm face from the steam, warm heart from a friend, and a warm tum from the tea itself. I can't ask for more than that.

I was reading a new cookbook I got from www.alibris.com , an excellent source for cheap books, and found a recipe for Matcha flavored madeleine's. I love these wonderful little tea cakes and I think I need to buy some cooking grade Matcha so I can make some. There are at least 2 grades of Matcha - the more expensive, which can be $30 or more and ounce, is for tea ceremony use. It is lovely stuff and the ceremony is equally so.