Two Teas On The Menu

It was very, very cold (about 8degrees) last week and today it is 62.  Yesterday the weather man said we had drizzles and it was raining so hard, I couldn't see our road.  Crazy weather!  Perfect for tea. It is lovely to sit in my nice warm living room, with my Critters, Inc. to keep my toes comfy, drinking a nice pot of tea and watching the wind scour the woods.

I've had some wonderful combinations lately.  I made Julia Child's cream of mushroom soup with a mix of ordinary and woodland mushrooms - so very, very good - and had it with some of Mark T. Wendell's Hu Kwa Lapsang Souchong tea.  This, as far as I am concerned is the best of the best.  There is exactly the right balance of smoke, sweet, and woodsy and it went perfectly with my soup.

The other was an orange tart I made, with a pastry cream base and candied oranges on top, with a drizzle of the much reduced candying liquid.  It is the best dessert I've made in a while.  I know I am bragging, but I still get excited when my food turns out really well.  I had it with Culinary Teas Lady Londonderry, which is one of two fruit teas I like.  This has maybe a bit of strawberry, maybe a smidge of pineapple, a lot of flowery and it went beautifully with the tart.  If you're an Anglophile, it supposedly was Princess Diana's favorite.  It is a very feminine tea.

We went out to lunch to a new to us restaurant.  They buy as much of their ingredients as possible from local farms, breweries and wineries.  That I really like.  The food was excellent.  I ordered iced tea in honor of "hot" weather.  It was okay.  Standard ice tea.  Oh well.

A Traditional Tea

It is dark and grim this morning,  The trees are dripping with rain.  The fur persons have run out and come in with wet tails they drag across my legs and then give me a wondering look as I yelp and try to jump away.  Then, of course, they become solicitous, climbing on me to see what is the matter so that now I can be not only wet and cold, but grubby as well, from their muddy paws.  Cats!

All is not lost, however, as I have 4 new teas to try from Mark T. Wendell, who carries my all time favorite Hu Kwa  Lapsang Souchong.  They also carry several British tea company’s wares as well as some from Japan and China.  Today’s offering is from Williamson Tea, “Tea farmers since 1869”.  I am having English Traditional Afternoon Fine Tea.  The tea is grown using sustainable methods and their claim is that they ensure their workers labor in good conditions and earn a decent living.  Already, I am prejudiced in their favor.

The dry leaves are an attractive mix of browns and blacks and they have a delightful winey, oak barrel, tobacco scent, with a twist of something approaching citrus at the end.  I brewed it for 3.5 minutes, even though the tin said 2.  The resulting brew was a lovely golden brown, smelling super fresh.  In many ways this is a simple tea, but it does have a subtle, almost chocolate finish.  It is very slightly winey.  It tastes wonderful and would make an excellent tea for a party, especially for those a bit shy about new teas..  It is equally good with or without cream.  Next time, I will try it with a bit of lemon.

I am having my new favorite tea sandwich - butter and radishes - those very nice French breakfast ones.  Yum!

I have been reading a new book on raising herbs,  Homegrown Herbs by Tammi Hartung.   In it there are numerous charts, one of which lists herbs that can be used for tea.  They are agastache, anise hyssop, catnip chamomile, coyote mint, Echinacea, fennel, ginger, lemon balm, lemon grass, lemon verbena, licorice, Mexican oregano, nettle, oats, passionflower, pennyroyal, peppermint, red clover, spearmint, stevia, thyme, vervain and blue vervain, and violets.  Before you run right out and start making tisanes with these, make sure you read up on them, as some must be used with great care.  I never knew there were so many and some I have never heard of as being edible.  If you are at all interested , this is an excellent book.

I love this old doorway, from 1768.  It is just so, so old.

More gardening today - I may actually have run out of space.

Oh No! Stale Tea!

I was going to do a review of Tazo's Earl Grey, a teabag I had in my stash.  I brewed it and it had a very faint scent, smelling more like an Assam tea than anything else.  As I sipped it, it had almost no flavor.  Suddenly, the light dawned!  Stale tea!  I have no idea how long I have had this tea, I think I got it as part of a tea swap.  Therefore, no review of it - it would be totally unfair to Tazo to do so.  But it does bring up another issue, the storage and shelf life of tea.

Tea goes stale!  The less a tea is processed, the shorter the shelf life and the storage conditions need to be as ideal as possible.  The whites, greens, yellows and some Oolongs have a shorter life span than black teas, but black ones can go bad as well.  There are some Oolongs that are kept in perfect storage for many years and then drunk as very special teas, often re-roasted gently before drinking.  I just reviewed one recently, from the 1960s and I thought it was one of the best teas I've ever had, full of flavor and nuances.

By the same token, I have some 6 year old Hu Kwa from Mark T. Wendell, which is a Lapsang Souchong, which I swear gets better and better.  Puerh is another category of tea, which is really made to be drunk both new and after long storage.

However, the storage conditions for Puerh differs greatly from all other teas.  Puerh is kept in a humidity controlled dark environment to age, much like fine cigars.  Often people will break off a small hunk of the stored tea to see how it is progressing.  Our other teas like the dark, the dry and no air circulating around them.

A relatively cool spot on a shelf or in a cupboard will do, carefully separating out flavored teas from the others. I find tins with air-tight lids to be perfect and I have a large collection of them.

Matcha, that lovely powdered green tea, is often recommended to be kept in the refrigerator.  It has a very short shelf-life and this seems to extend that a bit.

Let's turn to tea bags.  Tea bags are generally made from very tiny bits of tea.  Because of this, they brew up very quickly.  However, they also go stale very quickly.  They should also be kept in the same manner as other teas - no air, no light, no damp.  You need to be aware they have often been on the shelves already for a long time, so if you buy them, do so in small quantities.  Better yet, try some loose-leaf teas from a reputable company.  Many of you only have ready access from grocery stores, so buyer, beware.  I live near a small town and while there is a wonderful Wegman's not too far away, I do most of my tea buying on line and have come to figure out, at least a little, where to get the "good stuff" that's within my price range.

Speaking of which, if you compare prices of teabags versus prices of  good loose leaf teas, you will find the latter are cheaper, unless you are using the very, very expensive teas.

Another Swiss restaurant in Darstetten.

Good grief, the blue jays are having a hissy fit about something!  Such squawking and swearing!  One of this year's babies was yelling at a red-bellied woodpecker to either feed him or get off the suet, but was ignored.  However, his papa gave him a couple of thunks on the head to hush up and behave.

Finally, we have had something like the rain we need.  It rained most of the afternoon and night and some this morning.  We surely needed it.  It wouldn't hurt to have more.

 Have you ever seen a sphinx moth?  Officially known as a Hummingbird Hawk Moth.  They pretty much like the same flowers that hummingbirds like and their wings beat in a blur, like the birds and they also hover and fly backwards.  If you are not close enough, you can easily confuse the 2.  We have them both around our bergamot and sweet spice bushes.  It's so interesting to watch them.

In World Tea News I learned that the Japanese government is going to compensate tea farmers in affected ares for their losses due to radiation. I am reminding you that last year's Japanese tea is fine and any of this year's must pass stringent incoming inspection for radiation.

I brewed some of the Enchanted Forest tea I didn't care for hot as an ice tea and I must say, it really is improved.  The flavoring is softened and smoothed, so it isn't as assertive.  This I could like.

I just got some Nilgiri Tea from Mark T. Wendell and thought I would try that today.  The large twisted leaves are a pleasant combination of brown and black and smell wonderful, like fresh, earthy tobacco.  Nilgiri is in Southern India's Blue Mountains.  I brewed it for 4 minutes with boiling water.  What huge leaves!  The brewing scent was very roasted and baked, with a hint of honey.  The liquor was a lovely deep honey shade.  The flavor is very smooth, earthy, with a hint of citrus. It is nowhere near as deep as the aroma would indicate.  I can imagine this as a nice counterfoil to some afternoon tea goodies.

Update

An amendment to my review of Mark T. Wendell's Russian Caravan from last Wednesday. Today I brewed it with less tea and it is much better. It is still very slightly smokey, dark and very roasted tasting, but now there is more of a hint of sweetness and freshness about it. Goes to show- sometimes, you have to play with a tea until you get it the way you like it. This time I used about 2 teaspoons of tea in an 18 ounce pot, for 3 minutes and now I like it. I think I still prefer Upton's Finest Russian Caravan, but having 2 to choose from is good.

Keeping Cool

More Swiss flowers - at Spiez Castle on Lake Thun.


Are y'all hot enough today? We're expecting temperatures in the upper 90's and maybe hitting 100. I am very thankful for air conditioning. For once, even the cats think it is a "cool" idea. What are you doing to keep cool? One trick I learned, when I was in NYC in my first job, was to take cold baths. As cold as you could stand them. Now I might amend that to cool baths. Drink lots of liquids.


It is very easy to get dehydrated in such hot weather and one way you can tell if that is beginning to happen is to pinch up the skin on the back of your hand. If it goes back quickly, you're fine. If it goes slowly, drink a large glass of water (or ice tea).


Speaking of tea I was trying some Mark T. Wendell's Russian Caravan. It smelled good in the tin, slightly smokey, slightly sweet. It was very dark and seemed to be a very mixed bag of leaves and dust. Because of the dust, I only brewed it for 3 minutes, using 1 teaspoon per cup.


It was not a success, it was far too strong and not very tasty. Adding cream didn't improve it. However, I rebrewed the leaves and turned the whole thing into ice tea. It is still too strong and I like strong tea! I can see I have to play with this one - I'll let you know the results. I have to say I am disappointed, as I have had others of their teas and they have been quite good, especially the Hu Kwa, their marvelous Lapsang Souchong.


Did you know that Teavana is offering its stock for sale? At about $15 a share, some of you may want to invest in this tea company that is apparently doing quite well.

Kitchen TLC at http://www.kitchentlc.com/ has a wonderful selection of tea infused products - jams and jellies, scones, chocolate. How can a tea person go wrong? From what I can see on their site, their prices are reasonable. They even have a black bear creamy jasmine. Do you suppose if I set some out for the bears, they would leave my suet alone? Maybe I should get some.


Another company that has wonderful jams and jellies is Marmalady's Tea at http://www.marmaladys.com/. She has a nice selection of books, aprons, apron patterns and tea cosy patterns as well.

Experiments

A brand new house in Switzerland. You can tell because the wood is so light.

By the end of yesterday, I really needed a cup of tea, so I brewed up some of Simpson and Vail's Bolivian Black, Large Leaf. I had forgotten how very nice it is, strong, floral, astringent. I was so glad I had it. And it makes a refreshing ice tea as well, which I had for lunch today. I reviewed this more fully on Nov 29, 2009.

Today I decided to try 2 teas using the cold brew method. The first is Teas Etc. Orange U Slim, a dark Chinese Oolong with pieces of orange and orange essence. The dark I assume refers to the Oolong being one that has oxidized quite a bit. Oolongs vary in oxidation from about 10% to 80%. This one definitely appears to be on the upper end of the scale. The two times I have tried it it has not been a winner, so this is absolutely it or into the mulch pile for sure.

The second is one of my favorites, Hu Kwa, a Lapsang Souchong from Mark T. Wendell. That means it is a smoked tea, getting much of its flavor from the smoke of smoldering pine branches. People either generally hate it or love it. I am in the latter category. To date, it is the best one I have had. I have not heard of anyone trying this as an ice tea, but I thought, why not? If you had this as ice tea, please tell me about it in the comments.

Well, the great experiment was a total bomb. Orange U Slim was its usual tasteless self and the Hu Kwa was just plain awful. Mulch pile for the first and back to hot tea status for the second.

I am in no way connected with the PUR water filter people, but I have to say I like their newest on- faucet-filter. It goes on easily, although you may need to use 2 washers to make the connection solid, it swivels back under the faucet so it is out of the way and it makes a big difference in the taste of your water. I found that for my amount of use – two pots of tea a day, pot of coffee for Himself, a filter lasts about 4 months. They are available at most big box hardware stores, as are the filters. Go for the slightly more expensive ones – the cheapies are just that – cheap.