The case of the strange but wonderful Darjeeling

Yesterday I tried some Autumnal Flush Risheet Darjeeling SFTGFOP1 Wiry 09 from Thunderbolt Teas, one of the samples Benoy kindly sent with my order. The dry wiry leaves are a pretty brown with bits of gold buds and green leaves scattered throughout. The scent reminds me of Cracker Jacks, roasted corn and fresh tomatoes just starting to cook, all scents I really like. I brewed up about a teaspoon with boiling water for 3.5 minutes. The brewing tea smelled even more of roasted corn and was a kind of dull yellowy brown. I have to say that it also tasted mostly of roasted corn and was not to my taste. It did not seem to have any of the fruitiness I would have expected from an autumnal flush. Very disappointing. But wait!
Today I tried the Risheet again, using water from a different kettle and a different teapot. It is wonderful. Still with a roasted edge, but very grapey, with a prettier color. It is still a mild, gentle black, just right for those who don't like the heavier or more assertive blacks.

This all brings up the importance of water. Tea is 99% water and if your water is weird, your tea will be, too. I am not sure what caused the very great differences in these two cups of tea but here are the facts: the tea was from the same sample; the water was straight from the tap through the filter I always use; day 1 was from my new Panasonic water boiler in my Adagio Giant cup and saucer; day two was with the water boiled in my old electric teakettle in my Teavana Perfect teamaker. I am going to experiment some more. I don't think it was all the problem of the water boiler, as I had made a cup of Devonshire Earl Grey from Upton's with it yesterday as well and it was superb. And today I had a Ceylon I felt so-so about before and it is much better than the last time when I used water from the electric kettle. Maybe Darjeelings are pickier about their water or their pots. I'll keep you posted. Maybe it is just the innate perversity of matter.

Day 13 of snow, early this am. But now there is SUN!

After the tea, the class

Now, that is one classy candlestick! It is about 5' tall and at least, gold-washed.

I got a sample of the Republic of Tea's Cranberry Blood Orange Black Tea from one of my tea swap friends and I must say, I was disappointed. It seemed to have almost no taste and not much smell. I used 3 teabags in a 14 oz cup of boiling water for about 3 minutes. There was a faint scent of sweetness and there was a bit of taste to the water, but that was it. I even tried adding a bit of honey, thinking it would bring out the flavor more. Alas, it did not.

Tea 101: Did you know that all tea – black, Oolong, green, white, or yellow comes from the same plant? I am not talking about herbal teas like peppermint, Rooibos or Honeybush, they are not tea, even though we call them that, they are tisanes. All real tea comes from a tree or shrub named Camellia Sinensis, which is related to the beautifully flowering camellias in some of our gardens. . There are two main varieties, Camellia Sinensis sinensis, the Chinese one, which grows best in colder climates and Camellia Sinensis assamica, which grows best in more tropical climates. There are endless crossings and recrossings of these two varieties, as farmers and tea estates try to find the best plants for their particular climate and soil. There may even be ones from Java and Ceylon (SriLanka) that are named varieties - there is some conflict about that. But they are all camellias.

Tea plants do flower and their flowers are attractive, but it's the leaves we all want, from barely withered as a white tea, all the way up to the very fully processed blacks. You can purchase tea plants and tea seeds on line, a search will yield several sources, and even make a cup or so of tea from the plants. Just don't expect great tea from your efforts.

I neglected to mention that it did indeed snow yesterday - very late in the day and now it is really, really snowing. It's almost over kitty height and the smaller ones of us are bored, driving the larger ones of us crazy. So is that 12 days of snow now?

Brigitte's Blend in a Giant Cup and Saucer

Now this would be the way to see a beautiful city, quietly, gently.

I have another new toy! Sent to me by Adagio Teas. It is their “Giant Cup and Saucer.” A very accurate name, as it is indeed huge. I think it is made from that now famous borosilicate glass. It holds about 12-14 ounces of tea, comes with a stainless steel infuser and a lid the fits over the infuser perfectly, going on to very neatly flip over and hold the infuser when you are done brewing. I love it! The infuser, filled with the tiniest holes, to hold the tiniest leaves, fills and empties perfectly and quickly, with no mess. I was skeptical about the cup, however, as it is quite wide across the top and I thought my tea would very quickly get cold. Not so! It kept it hotter, longer, than my usual mugs do. I have to buy one for my husband as well.
I didn't use an Adagio tea to try this out – bad me. Instead, I was trying a sample I bought from Harney's, Brigitte's blend. This is named for Mike Harney's wife, Brigitte and echoes the breakfast teas of her birth country, France. The tea is made up of mostly tiny leaves, predominately a soft brown with some silvery touches.. It smells very fresh with a good whiff of chocolate. It is a rich blend of Ceylon and Assam. I think it is a very well done blend as nothing really sticks out, it has a very slight chocolate taste, is very mellow and bright, and is almost sweet, but not quite. They did a good job with this one and it would be a really enjoyable drink for either breakfast or afternoon, preferably in the shadow of Notre Dame de Paris or on the “Boule Miche.”

"On the 1oth day of snowing, my true love gave to me, a very hot pot of tea" If you think you're sick of this, think of me!

Paradise in a Snowstorm

That tall lovely pillar is a single piece of malachite, one of my all-time favorite rocks. I love the way the shades of green swirl around each other. It is over 57% copper. This is one of the many sidewalk exhibits in Vienna.

I took part in a tea swap recently and received so many wonderful teas! Today I decided to try Boston Tea Company's Pineapple Paradise. It definitely smells of pineapple and there are pineapple pieces, orange peel and blue and pink flowers strewn through the green tea. Very attractive! I brewed it about 170 for about 2.5 minutes. The water immediately turned a pretty lime green. The brew tasted and smelled like ripe pineapple, with a bit of berry and floral. The water became murky looking after a bit, which was a surprise, after the fresh green color and as it cooled, it got pink. Is this some sort of mutant tea? I certainly don't know, but it did not affect the taste. The pineapple flavor faded some as it cooled and left just the berry taste, which was, for me, actually pleasant. I think berry tea people might like this one on ice, as the last bit I had was very cold, indeed.

I often mention how dry teas look, if they are attractive or colorful or pretty. I do the same with the brewing tea. The reason for this is something I learned as a caterer – people eat with their eyes first. If a plate of food or a beverage looks odd or ugly, we are much less inclined to want to try it. I actually began to learn this as a child when I made trays of colored ice cubes. The red and green ones were okay, but no one wanted the blue ones. The same is true of how things smell. If something doesn't smell right to us, we don't want it. Smell is also a huge component of taste. People who have no sense of smell can barely taste anything – it all is the same to them. If our teas look too peculiar or if they have a scent we don't like, it can be hard to try them. Thankfully, most of the teas on the market have both scent and eye appeal.

I mentioned earlier this week that January is Hot Tea Month. If you would like a list of 31 ways to celebrate, go to http://www.about.com/ and then type in “hot tea month”in their search box and about halfway down the next page you'll find it.

9th straight day of snow.

I don't resolve, but I will drink tea

This sort of looks like the sky around here, but we have no rosettes, rats. The color is pretty close, though.

It is still close enough to be the New Year, so I have a question for you – are you a New Year's resolution person or not? I am most definitely not. At least one reason is that I could never keep the silly things for even as long as the first week, sometimes, not even the next day. Yah, I know, I probably have an extreme character deficiency. But who really does make them and keep them? Are there really enough people out there making them and being good enough doobies to keep them so as to warrant even a passing moment? The mere thought is enough to drive me to drink. So I will. Tea, of course. If you are indeed one of the admirable people who keeps New Year's resolutions, I would love to hear from you. I do admire people who can do this, especially since I can't. So if you are one of the select, please drop me a comment.


English tea, you can't beat it for being right up front. In a tea swap I received some Harrod's, Knightsbridge (a part of London) Empire Blend #34. It is billed as 100% pure Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri. It is, as you might expect, a blend of black, brown, tannish leaves with a few twigs and a very pleasant “fresh tea” scent. The brewed tea certainly was fresh, and it was more mild than forthright, which was a surprise. I think the Darjeeling and perhaps the Nilgiri softened the Assam. This would be an excellent tea for when you would like a black tea but a softer one than usual. It is very much an "English" tea, good with milk and perhaps sugar, if that is your taste.


You're probably sick of my kittens – animal lovers can be real ditzes about their pets – but this one I have to tell you. When we had our first snow I saw Bert playing with the snow, pushing it together and then batting it around. Noone believed me, of course. Then my husband threw a snowball at the 2 of them, which they played with and now, others have seen it – they make snowballs with their paws and noses and play with them. I truly have never seen animals do this!

January is Hot Tea Month, Hooray!

This is the main altar in the Hapsburg Chapel in the main palace in Central Vienna. The Hapsburg family was the last of the Austrian kings. We heard a sung Mozart Mass here one Sunday, after we heard the Vienna Boys' Choir in the main chapel and watched the Lipizzaner stallions across the courtyard. A true Gothic wonder!

January is Hot Tea Month. I am not sure who designates days or months as having a particular title or function, but here we are. It is an appropriate month for hot tea, at least for those of us who live in cold climates. Here, it is snowing again, for the 6th day in a row, a gentle, persistent snow, unending, building up bit by bit. The “plow guy” has been, leaving a small mound. I wonder if it will be as high as last year's – almost 8 feet tall and easily as wide. Good days for being inside. Good days for making pots of hot tea, to keep us warm in 10 degree weather. January is a time for rest, reflection, a re-gathering of forces for the year to come. Even the cats only poke out a nose, sneeze and give me one of “those” looks before turning around to their favorite nap spot.

This is a perfect time for chai. I have some new ones I got in a tea swap, so I tried the newest, Mountain Rose Herbs' Oregon Organic Chai. The instructions say it tastes best gently boiled, so I, of course, had to try it that way and a standard brew. Wonder of wonders, the gentle boil is best. The tea looks interesting with lots of cardamom pods and all sorts of bits and pieces of spices. The smell in the bag is big, full of spice and pepper. As it brews there is an ephemeral hint of greenery. The actual drink itself is on the mild side, but full of flavor, a worthy chai! http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/ I have bought many things from this company and I find them to be reliable and service oriented.

January is bearable, but we must look ahead to February, which is really a “crazy-making” month. For all its brevity, the reality of winter settles in unrelentingly and you begin to feel it will never end. Our New Year's guests and we decided we would give ourselves a break and visit our local butterfly conservatory in Oneonta, NY; wonderful, colorful, tropical, a perfect antidote for white, cold, and depressing. You can find out more about it here http://www.oneontabutterflies.com/ .

Rosemary tea

I am experimenting. I have been meaning to try Rosemary in my tea and since my rosemary plants needed a trim, I thought, “Why not?” I stripped the leaves from one branch and put it in a pot with some Darjeeling tea. I used water at 208 degrees and brewed for about 3 minutes. It certainly tastes like rosemary! I think I used too much, as a modest scent and taste would have been better. I generally do tend to go overboard – more fun. Next time I am going to measure it so I can work on it and really be a “tea blender”. Ho ho.

I am experimenting in general as I got a Panasonic hot water boiler/keeper for Christmas. I am going to be trying all sorts of my teas with this to see if keeping water hot all day makes the tea better, worse or the same. Or if I can even tell, given that mine is not the best palate in the world. It arrived just in time, as the switch on my electric kettle is giving up the ghost.

On this New Year's Day, may this coming year be one in which we all strive to live in love, truth, kindness, peace, patience, hard work and enjoy it while we do it. Let us reach out to others and be able to look back on Dec 31, 2010 and say “It was a very good year.”