A Pox On Flavored Tea Bags!

This is a picture of the church in Dickshied, Germany, where many of my

 ancestors were christened.  It is sided in part with small sheets of stone,

about half the size of my palm, that is about 2 inches by 4 inches. 

There are very few windows and they are very small. 

 I would love to know when it was built.  I can trace my ancestors there

back to about 1560.

I had a meeting today at a friend's house and had the opportunity to try 2 new teas.  She even had a kettle, so I could have cooler or hotter water.  Only teabags, but you take what you get when you forget to bring your own,

The first was Lipton's Island Mango and Peach White Tea.  The tea came in a nice large bag, big leaves and additions.  I brewed it around 150 degrees, for about 3 minutes.  It was a delicate pinkish yellow - peach or mango color, surprise, surprise.  It had a vaguely fruity taste, pleasant for what it was.  However, I considered it basically tasteless and surely a waste of money.  I am not a great fan of white tea, being more a black tea person, but I can easily appreciate their delicate flavors.  I really do not understand adding any flavoring to it - there is no possible way you could discern the gentle flavors and aromas of white tea.

The second was a tad more successful.  It was Stash Tea's Ginger Breakfast Black Tea.    I used boiling water, 3 minutes and was rewarded with a fairly decent cup.  The tea was strong enough to have some flavor and the ginger was not overwhelming.

Much as I appreciate my friend's efforts to have tea for her non-coffee friends, (and I really do) this was just another nail in the coffin of tea bag teas, as far as I am concerned.  Maybe I should say flavored tea bags, because I do find PG Tips and Typhoo to be pretty good.  In fact, I got some Typhoo Decaf from another friend and I must say, for having 2 strikes against it, it was quite decent.

Yippee! - Spring is really going to come - the sun is finally shining in my kitchen window.  As it makes it swing through the seasons, I hate to see it disappear from there and rejoice when it is once again dancing across my counters.

Whisper To Me of Whiteness

For those of you of the Orthodox faith - a happy and Holy Easter to you all!

Not many of us think of Kenya when we think of white teas, but I think we will have to change our minds.  Today I am drinking Royal Tea of Kenya's White Whisper.  This can be purchased from http://www.phoenix-teashop.com/   I wasn't sure how to treat this so I brewed it for 2 minutes using water at about 175 degrees.
But let me back up a moment.  The dry tea is only long delicate buds, with the softest bud hairs covering them.  They have a faint, slightly sharp floral odor.  I used about 2 teaspoons for my 8 ounce cup.

The brews up into the softest, gentlest ivory green.  It has a somewhat full mouth feel with the barest hint of mint, then spring green and then some peachiness.  This is a tea you white tea drinkers have got to try.  The people at the World Tea Expo raved about it, and so do I.

As always, RTK's teas are all pesticide free, grown by small scale farmers and  processed through a farmer's co-operative.

We are actually getting some rain today - we need it badly.  The nueseries are beginning to open, so of course, I had to buy some plants.  Let's see, how many addictions is that?  Tea, good food, gardening, mysteries, laziness.  Obviously, I'm beyond hope.  Guess I'll go do a second wash on White Whisper.

Ah lovely Sorrento, Italy, with mist over Vesuvious.











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Tea and Pears.

An old chapel and bell tower belonging to the church my Swiss grandmother was baptized in.

A good day for a walk. There are piles and piles and piles of wood chips from our trees. I covet them and will indeed use them as mulch, with lots of high nitrogen fertilizer. We saw a small stand of spotted touch-me-nots too, with their odd orange/yellow/brown flowers, somewhat similar to an individual hanging snapdragon. We even spotted a pretty pink mushroom and some no bigger than my pinky finger nail.




Farmers’ market day again. The local grapes - Concord and Himrod are in, as well as Ginger Gold apples. These are wonderful, but they don’t keep their flavor long and from the grocery stores, they aren’t worth much, so I will enjoy the moment, while I await the Winesaps and Northern Spy which generally arrive in October. We are close to the Cornell University farms and can get all sorts of apples from them. They let you taste before you buy, which is really nice. I got a pair of Alpaca wool socks, too. They are so soft. Amazing what you find at the market - everything from socks to fruits and veggies, flowers and pasture fed beef and chicken.


I also bought some pear nut bread, which I am having with some Pear Spice White Tea from Gay Grace Teas www.gaygraceteas.com . It is organic and contains star anise, helichrysum flowers and pear flavoring. In the packet, it is very pretty, but the tea looks overwhelmed by all the flowers and other bits. It seems some of it is bits of chili pepper. It smells rather medicinal, but also pear-like. It has a sweet taste, with some spice, but not much pear. I think it would appeal mostly to you herbal tea fans. Personally, it is not to my taste, although it seems to go nicely with the bread..

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.

Moonlight in My Cup

What a gorgeous day it is. Tuesday was, too until about the middle of my walk, when the wind came up and it was COLD. The temperature dropped 10 degrees in an hour.

I am having white tea today - specifically Jing Mai Moonlight White, from Yunnan, China, via Life in Teacup. It is so pretty dry, with some little round dark leaves and lots of silvery buds and bigger leaves. Some of it looks like it was dried in a flower press, the leaves are so precise. It has a fresh green, almost sharp smell. I follow Gingko's instructions and brew it with boiling water for a minute for 3 infusions, in my new little glass pot. The leaves don't unfurl a lot, they are as they are. She says it can go for 7 infusions, but I can't.

I am totally surprised by the color of the brewed tea. It is so much darker than I expected. The first infusion is nutty/vegetal tasting. The second, which is almost the same color is also nutty, with perhaps a very slight metallic edge. There seems to be an aroma of raspberries, elusive, but present. The third is still going strong on the color and is beginning to taste a bit like raspberries. Very faintly, but as the tea cools, this flavor seems to come teasingly to the fore, along with a sort of hazelnut hint.

This is a quiet, unassertive tea which could be sipped all day. I am finding I really enjoy teas that have so many different nuances to them, especially if they can be spread over a day, so each of them can be savored more.

Oh, I had another of those green tea chocolates, which by the way, are called Green Kiss. They do grow on you. I think personally, I would like a little more chocolate in them.

Where's the Blog?

When I posted my blog on Monday, it was all there. I wonder what happened to it? I can try to recreate it for you from my tasting notes.


The two teas I tried were White Tea from Golden Moon and Upton's ZW80, China Yin Zhen, Downy White Pekoe.

Golden Moon claims they were the first company to import white teas. White teas are fairly rare, as they are almost unprocessed and usually from the finest early pickings. This particular tea has chrysanthemums in it, which I had not noticed at first, so it isn't really a test of white tea for me, as I was planning to compare 2 plain ones. Oh well. The leaves are chopped, unusual for a white tea and there is indeed, a small dried flower in them. At first the leaves almost smelled like roses, but this aroma dissipated as it brewed to a light amber, after 2 minutes at about 180 degrees. I think the color came from the chrysanthemum, as did the flavor. It was very pleasant, but if there was an additional taste from the tea itself, I could not detect it.

The Upton's sample was quite different and more what I expected form a white tea. The leaves and buds were whole, a very pale green, overlaid with the silvery hairs of newness. There wasn't a whole lot of scent, just a bit of greenness. I brewed this for 2 minutes at 180 also, using about 2 teaspoons of leaves, as they are quite fluffy. The brewed tea also did not have much aroma. The taste was a mild, soft green nutty flavor, which lingered in my mouth. I thought I would get some more as it would be so pleasant to have at night when I want some real tea, but not much caffeine.

Showered with Flowers

Ballenberg Museum -A small chalet that was used by the cowherds in the

summer high mountain pastures. I have a small bell that my grandfather brought from Switzerland that had hung from the neck of one of his cows. All the cows, goats and sheep have bells and it is a lovely sound to hear.

I just got the nicest gift from Alexis at www.teaspoonsandpetals.com/. I put my name in for a drawing and received a beautiful silk neck pillow stuffed with tea. It smells wonderful, like a good Oolong or green tea, with a whiff of rose. It has a lovely rose and magenta silk covering and is shaped perfectly to fit my neck. Thank you, Alexis!

It's a sunny day! I am always excited to see the sun, as it is such a treasure as we move into winter. I felt a little bad about skimping on yesterday's tea, so I had some this am and came to the same conclusion - pleasant with cream, but not exciting.

Today I am going to try some more white teas. I have several bits I either bought or was given as samples, so let's see what we can try.

A Fabulous First

Another Swiss mountain hut.

We're off to China again today, with a white tea from The Tea Spot, named Snowflakes. I hope it is not the precursor to the real things. This is my first white tea prepared properly. On their site, The Tea Spot says this is a single estate tea. It has the highest amount of antioxidants because it is the least processed of all the teas. They go on to say it has the least amount of caffeine, but there is some argument about that.

The dry leaves are a pale green with abundant silvery hairs. I cannot detect a scent. I brewed it up with 175 degree water for about 6 minutes. As it brewed I couldn't catch any aroma, other than a vague floral. The brewed tea is a very pale yellow and has a delightful floral taste, very delicate, but lingering.

My first time with white tea it was brewed in a microwave and I thought, hunh, this is just expensive water. The second time it was flavored with licorice, not a true test, so I really count this as first, and it is good, indeed.

I have led you astray. I told you the Korean teas I have reviewed were from the Korean Tea Company. They were not, they are from the Hankook Tea Company and are distributed by Good Green Tea. My apologies. You can visit their site at www.GoodGreenTea.net