Maples and Frogs and Orchids, Oh My

An Italian port, Sorrento

I should have saved yesterday's picture for today, the grays in the picture would match today's sky color. But I don't really care as nature has begun the wild swings of temperature and weather that say very very early Spring is here. Bertie is already trying to find frogs in the ditch. I wish him well, as I am sure they are well buried in the mud under the 18 inches of snow.

Very soon the maple syrup folks will be festooning the trees with buckets and lines and the boiling down of sap to make that wonderous sweet confection. We are fortunate that we live where it is produced. In fact, friends of ours make it and have won countless awards for the excellence of their product. You can find them at http://www.bakersmaple.com/ It is never cheap, as it takes boiling down, day and night, 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. After the sappers are done, then they turn to making maple sugar, maple candy, maple-covered nuts and other yummy sweets.

Today we are turning to Aura Teas for our daily cup. It is Formosa Alishan Jinxuan Oolong. Some of the best Oolongs in the world come from Formosa. Dry these leaves have a sweet, orchid like smell. They look as though someone sort of pleated them and then twisted them into a ball shaped pellet. I brewed up my whole sample in a large gaiwan, with water cooled a bit from boiling. I then quickly rinsed the leaves to awaken them. The first infusion, of a minute was a delicate pale yellow, smelling and tasting of orchids and hay. The second was darker in color and more of the orchid came out. The third was definitely an orchid flavor, with the hay back again. It was smoother and rounder tasting than the other two. I am sure if I had continued I could have gotten about 3 more infusions fom the leaves, which did not fully unfurl until the third. They are fairly large - a bud and 1 or 2 leaves, with the leaves having little delicate bug bits along the sides. The tea plant gives off an enzyme in reaction to this, which results in the lovely orchid aroma and taste. In this case, we can say Hooray for bugs!

Ooh La La! Mes Amis!

I had good intentions on Monday, but here it is, already Wednesday.

As I gaze out at 6 new inches of snow, which is beautiful, but still - more snow!, I am reminded that one of the farmers at the farmers market is right now grafting tomatoes so that by May 30 we can buy really tasty, fresh, ripe tomatoes. Also, in a few short weeks, the tea harvest will begin in China and we can look forward to a lot of wonderful new teas. The weather in both India and China has been good this year, so the farmers are looking forward to a good harvest.

Some of the trees in the meadow look like thin ladies dressed in very full ball gowns and there are a multitude of animal tracks, although some tracks are just big blob marks where the cats can only leap instead of walk.

If you like interesting tea breads and would like to make a really cute Panda Tea Bread, please go on over to http://antiquesandteacups.blogspot.com/ for pictures and a link to the recipe.

You lucky folks in the Chicago areas of Naperville and Skokie are in for a treat. On any Tuesday you can go to the local Adagio tea shop and pick out one of their teas for a free cup of tea. The Skokie shop is in the Old Orchard Mall. Definitely a nice way to advertise and help us broaden our tea horizons at the same time. Our local teashop, Briar Patch, does the same thing.

Today's tea is from Culinary Teas, from Gay Paree - otherwise known as French Blend. And it certainly is a blend! Ceylon, Nilgiri, Assam and Kenya Black teas, "Cream of Vanilla Earl Grey", Jasmine, Rose and Lavender flowers. That's a lot going on in one small cup.

Dry, this is an attractive tea, with all the flower petals and the different leaves. To me it had a strong citrus scent with floral and perhaps lavender overtones. I brewed it for the usual 1 teaspoon, 3.5 minutes with boiling water. As it brewed, I could catch the aroma of the Earl Grey and the rose/jasmine combination, one I especially like. This is a lot more delicate than I would have expected, and I did not catch much of a Cream flavor. Nor was I able to discern any lavender, but the rose and jasmine were very good partners with the Earl. After trying it both plain and with cream, I decided the latter is better. Probably a bit of sweetener would be good, but I am always leery of anything sweet in my tea.

Black From the Blues

More of my favorite topography, mountains.

First of all, the wind has stopped blowing! This may not seem like much to you but after 21/2 days of howling, screaming wind that blew up huge clouds of snow, we are happy to have a day off before the next "mixed winter weather" arrives tomorrow. That it comes with lovely sun is a big, big plus. Those two days of spring-like teasers have some people discouraged that we will notget Spring. But it comes every year and some of the joy of it is anticipation and feeling rewarded for facing down another winter. Take that! Smack, smack!

A follow-up to the tea tasting. My husband was afraid we wouldn't get our moneys worth from the tea leaves, so he put them all together and brewed a big pot of tea. Surprisingly, it was very good. Smooth, sweet, floral. Who'da thunk it?

Today, however, we are hopscotching to the very southwest of India, to the Blue Hills of Nilgiri, right to the Iyerpadi Estate to try some of Upton Teas' Nilgiri Orange Pekoe, which is organic. Orange "Peck-hoe" refers to the leaf style, not the taste. The dry leaves are a very attractive mix of many shades of brown and appear to be chopped. They smell wonderful, fresh, sweet, woodsy, floral. I brewed it up for 4 minutes and while it was brewing, it filled the room with a really pleasant aroma of newly dried leaves on the forest floor. The tea itself is very smooth, with a nice full body, a little sweet, a little astringent, a little woodsy-dry-leaf. Truly pleasant stuff. It holds up to cream and sugar, but it is just fine on its own.

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.

Cherries Wild!

St. Francis Monastary in Sorrento, Italy.


I am doing a tea tasting this afternoon with some friends. We are going to do three white teas and a yellow. Having nver had yellow tea, I really don't know what to expect. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.



This morning I had some tea which was quite different from yesterday's. I had bought it locally, in the Briar Patch in Owego, NY. The owner got this from a wholesaler, it's not one she made up. It is called Wild Cherry and it smells exactly like Smith Brother' or Luden's Wild Cherry Cough Drops. It's pretty strong, with an earthy not at the end. But I brewed it up as usual for black tea - 1 teaspoon, 212 degrees for 3.5 minutes. It still smells just as it did dry.


However, the proof is in the taste. Oh boy, tastes just like cough syrup. I tried it with milk. Oops, swampy cough syrup. No sugar with this one, it is very sweet. The best I can say is I hated it. Some of you may really like it, but it is not this lady's "cuppa"


A paraphrase of something my husband read to me - You don't see a cardinal in snow-covered winter, your gaze concentrates and distills and concentrates and distills to the one essence of the red bird.

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!

I've Got a Blog, You've Got a Blog...

A very beautiful German altar

Shall we rain or snow or shine the sun or sulk? It's been one of those days when you really have a choice. The snow is melting a bit, refreezing. Very undecided. The not-so-dear deer are now raiding the birdseed and peanuts in the daytime, not just the evenings, so I guess I will have to get after them.

Before I get to my tea I want to tell you about some websites that you may enjoy. The first is http://the-leaf.org/ , which is an online tea magazine. It is primarily concerned with Chinese and Japanese Tea culture and is very informative and interesting.

There are 2 tea review blogs that I can highly recommend, very different in character. The first, Rate Tea at http://ratetea.net/ is the brainchild of Alex Zorach. Anyone can sign up to rate teas they have tasted and then go on and read his very interesting and thoughtful blog. The second is http://www.teareviewblog.com/ in which teas are rated by staff. You can sign up for a weekly review of the best teas of that week and you may even win a gift certificate for some free tea.

There are some blogs which participate in Teacup Tuesday and Teacup Thursday. These are days when folks show off their pretty china and some is lovely, indeed. You can get to the former by going to http://www.friendshiptea.net/ which is a very nice blog all on its own, as is the one for Thur days, http://www.missspencersblog.blogspot.com/ . Make sure you put in the three "s".

On to the tea! Today I am going with an old favorite company, Upton Teas. I am having their #TK40, Milima Estate Kenya FBOP1, a black tea. If you recall, the FBOP1 stands for Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe, probably Best - the 1. The leaves are broken and there are golden buds amongst the small black leaves. Dry, there isn't much scent. I brewed it for 3.5 minutes with boiling water. There is a definite, almost earthy aroma that I finally can identify as chestnut before it is roasted. The tea is strong with a solid nutty taste and something that reminds me of wet tree bark. I made it somewhat over-strong as I wanted to use up my sample, but it is a gentle giant, and not overwhelming. It is a smooth, appealing tea that compels me to keep drinking. It takes cream well and Frank thinks it is fine with sweetener. It is wonderful to see that Kenya is finally getting her good teas back.