Sunday, November 15, 2009

Elaine's Blend

One of the many samples I bought from Harney’s this fall was Elaine’s Blend. This tea was created by and sold in honor of Elaine Cogan, “one of the early founders of the modern tea revolution.” One of the things I like about smallish or family companies are these little tidbits they include about their teas. It is a black tea blend, but I don’t know which ones.


The dry leaf had no discernible scent and the leaves were, of course, a mix of greenish, black with touches of gold. The wet leaves gave off a pleasant tea scent with a whiff of leather. They were very mixed, with some appearing chopped and some small whole ones. The tea tasted of very pleasant cooked vegetable with a hint of old, sun-warmed wood. It was a pleasant tea, but not exceptional. I may get more, however, as there are lots of times when all you want is a pleasant cup that doesn't require anything from you.


My husband and I have been trying to brew tea a different way, We got this brand new 4 cup drip coffee maker and decided to do tea in it. We tried some huge ice tea bags – even he thought it was awful. We tried some smaller ones. He thought it was passable, I was polite. We tried some of that enormous, overbought stash of CTC tea from the Indian market. Almost okay, for morning tea, for someone else doing it reluctantly, on a not very good day anyway, on a remote hill in Turkestan, on.... Well, you get the picture. I am all for scouring it out and using it for coffee. He wants to try some more. Dear Friends, do not try this at home. Even so, we are still married.

Bits of news: I read a number of tea blogs every day and I just saw the cutest tea pots ever, from a very serious tea merchant – the Imperial Tea Court. Scoot over there and check out their blog and the pots. Http://cameliasinensisblog.blogspot.com My favorites are the lucky mice, although I wouldn't turn down the other two. I also was reading the UK Tea Council blog and they said that 98% of people use milk in their tea, but only 30% use sugar. I wonder if that is true in the US as well.

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