Sweet Rosy O'Grey

Old Swiss Architecture, showing the house on the right connected to the
barn on the left. Very handy in an area of great cold and snow.

Speaking of which, we had snow yesterday, while the sun was out and it was raining. Of course, it didn't stick, but it was an interesting weather phenomenon, especially since it was only in one small area.

Earl Grey is often mixed with other flavors and there has been a lot of experimentation with it. The newest, to me, is Teas Etc.'s Rosy Earl Grey, from a lot I bought this summer. They describe it as jasmine green tea, black tea, flavors and pink roses. As you can imagine, this is a very pretty tea. It also has an almost overwhelming scent of very sharp bergamot. Oh oh, I hoped this was not what it would taste like. As it brewed, the smell softened considerably and I hoped the taste would, as well. I love Earl Grey, but you can have too much of a good thing.

The proof is always the taste and this one excelled. It was a very nicely balanced cup of rose enhanced Earl Grey that was smooth and full. I couldn't detect any jasmine in the brew. You could taste the tea base and while a bit bland, you need to remember it's the over all blend , not just the base. If the base tea is too far forward, there would be no point to the blend. For myself, I would prefer to make it a bit stronger than a level spoon full and perhaps only brew it for 3.5 minutes instead of the recommended 4. I chilled some of this and it is very good chilled, as the roses come out a little more. I didn't add either cream or sugar, so you will have to experiment with that on your own.

If you are an Oolong lover and would like to learn about them, http://www.teafromtaiwan.com/ has a lot of information on its site. Click on Wulong tea information. Oolong, Wulong and Wu Long are all the same tea.


Here is a little ditty that has been running through my head for far too long:

I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
It makes my peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on my knife!

I Like My Tea With Honey

One of the many artisans at Ballenberg museum. She is bringing
bread "to market"


Owego, NY is supposedly the"Coolest Small Town" in America. I'm not sure who says so, but it's fun to know, as this is now my hometown. We are fortunate in having several places in town where you can order well-made hot or iced tea and 2 merchants of loose leaf tea. One of the latter is the Briar Patch, where the tea is not only loose, but blended in Owego. I bought a few samples yesterday and today I am trying one. I have one complaint, however. The shop is quite small and filled with scented things and I noticed that when I got the tea home, the bags all smelled of the shop. It is probably impossible to do anything about it, given the size constraints. The teas themselves did not seem to be affected.


This delightful tea is Honey Lemon. When I opened the sample, I was really bowled over by the scent - wonderful wildflower honey with enough lemon to keep your feet on the ground. Just an amazing aroma! The leaves are mostly black, but some look green and there are chunks of lemon peel as well. I could hardly wait. I was rewarded for my patience, such as it was, with wonderful flavor of honey and lemon with some floral overtones. The tea was really smooth and very full feeling with a slight tang from the lemon, but no bitterness, which can be a problem with lemon peel. The taste lingers just long enough to be really appreciated, but not too long.

My only problem with this tea is that as it cooled it became far too sweet for me. You sweet tea folks would probably love it.

If you want to see some fancy tea pouring, go on over to http://tavalon.com/blog and scroll down to the second entry and click on the picture. If you want to learn to do this, I would suggest you do it outside. I know I am too much of a klutz to attempt it, but I will do what I do best - appreciate.

Local Tea!

I went out to find the post office this morning, and there it was, right where GoogleMaps said it would be. I have driven down that street several times and not seen it; mostly because I was too busy looking in the store windows or trying to find a parking space.

I decided I would do a bit of pre-Christmas shopping and also see if I could find the spatula I want. Flexible, the right size and with a slant on the end, for use in non-stick fry pans. To do so, I had to go to 2 stores that also sold tea. Now there's a hardship! They both offer small samples, so I got a few to try. I will be reviewing them soon and also doing an interview with one of the shop owners, who blends her own tea and writes a tea column for our very local monthly paper.

So, got the stamps, one Christmas present, a bit of tea, but no spatuala. I found the right shape and flexibility, but it would only be usable in a giant's frying pan. Sigh, I have been looking soooo long and I am really afraid the one I have is going to die on me. It is only about 30 years old.

Tea Mystery

Ballenberg Museum

The interior of a small typical Swiss mountain home, about 150 years ago. The stove on the right would keep the whole house warm. Usually these homes were quite small, as many of ours were.

A gray, misty, rainy day, good for tea. I have some Nilgiri Chamraj Oolong from the Silver Leaf Tea Company. The leaves are very long, twisted, and dark. Their dry scent is perhaps pine and citrus? I honestly can't really tell, but that is the closest I can come.

I brewed this up for about 1.5 minutes for the first infusion and 2 for the second. There are a lot of stems in the tea and it is much darker than Oolongs generally are. The scent has shifted to a balsam. I can't describe how this tea tastes. Brown, with maybe traces of nuttiness.

I did better with the second infusion as it was clearly nutty, with some sort of candy edge to it, but not really sweet. I think I would have to put it in the just okay column for now, but I will come back to it at a later time and see how we do.

Up in the Mountains.

Pretty spring flowers.


Which is my tea for today certainly is, very floral. It is Adagio's Ali Shan and comes from the highest peaks of Taiwan. In the can it smells like a flower laden heaven, it is so sweet, not sugar sweet, but that of nectar. The tea is almost green, tightly wrapped in little balls. I rinsed it with boiling water, waited a minute and then added the water and infused it for 1.5 minutes. The resulting brew was a soft gold, with the same wonderful aroma, slightly muted. The tea feels thick and full with a great orchid floral taste, grounded with a vegetal edge.

The second infusion was 2 minutes and had more of a vegetal character, but not green - more in the neighborhood of squash. It remained thick tasting and as it cooled, more of the floral character came out.

Since I was playing around with another tea, I did a third infusion of boiling water. The color was nearly the same gold and the more floral aroma had returned. The taste was weaker and I would say the floral edged out the vegetal by a good bit. Altogether a really tasty interesting tea.

The tea leaves, which started out less than a quarter inch in diameter, unfurled to be quite large. One was 5 inches long! They were pretty green when I finished and you could see where the bugs had chewed the edges, which forces the plant to produce an enzyme that produces good flavor, in addition to the tea master's art in production.


My second tea was an Oolong from Nilgiri, but you have to wait until tomorrow for the review.

The Tea Giveaway will close Sat. Nov 6 at 2 am. Just in time for us all to turn our clocks back and get 1 hour less sleep.

Vietnamese Tea Table

Still in Ballenberg museum. We only visited the buildings from
the Kanton Bern, where my family came from, and it took most of
a day. That was about 1/8 of the total structures and it felt like we only skimmed the surface.

Today is a beautiful day, with lots of sunshine, although it got off to a grim gray start. We went for a walk and the sideshow of Bert and Ernie followed along, racing up and down trees, playing "kill your brother" and finally, being carried, as befits a prince. We are such suckers.

I have generally liked Simpson and Vail teas. I think they were the second merchant, after Upton's, that I bought tea from. One of the things i have liked about them is their willingness to try teas from countries that are just getting into the better tea market, like Bolivia and Vietnam.
Today's tea comes from Vietnam and is simply called Vietnam Black. I think I told you a while back about an article I read about Vietnamese tea growers. Most are very small, sometimes just a backyard. Often the leaves are processed at home, using an old industrial clothes drier. Sometimes there are cooperatives that process the tea. This is all done primarily in the north, where the mountains are.

I like the service I get from this company and I especially like the fact that the bags for the tea are bio-degradeable. I can use them as brown matter in my compost pile.


Dry, the leaves are smallish and twisted, definitely black. They smell faintly medicinal. As they brew, they give up an amber liquid that smells somewhat malty, a little sweet. I followed S&V's recommendation of 3 minutes with boiling water. They also said this is a tea that would blend well with others. Kind of like the good kid in kindergarten. This something of a gentle tea, having both malty and nutty notes. I think I can detect a little spice and maybe a high note of citrus here and there. It's not really exceptional, but it is pleasant and I could see how it would easily blend with other black teas.

Don't forget the tea giveaway mentioned yesterday.

TEA GIVE AWAY

Same barn, different view.




I misled you yesterday. When the tea cooled the second infusion was every bit as good as the first cup. Hot, it was blah, cool it was not.



So, how was your Halloween? "Rescue " some good candy from your kids? We were told we'd have less than ten but we had 18. Our whole side of the road is retired pastors and the development across from us is mostly retired too, so there aren't a lot of kids to show up. The best costume was a banana and a Sylvester "puddy tat". Sadly, the kid didn't know Tweetie's song about him.





**I have a super abundance of tea. Therefore I am going to do a Give Away. The first 5 people from the USA who leave a comment will receive a bundle of tea in the mail. Please tell me if there are some you really hate and I won't send those. Most of the teas will be black, with some green and some flavored.**


Today's tea is from Kenya. A lot of tea comes from Kenya and most of it winds up in teabags or some nondescript blend. Several years ago there were some excellent full-leaf teas appearing and then, due to a number of people factors, it was hard to find good Kenya tea. However, in the past 18 months, most of the teas I have had from there have been excellent. This looks to be one of them. Again, I have raided my Upton's stash to bring you their TK30 Bold Leaf Superior Golden Kenya TGFOP [Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe]. The smell is exquisite - tobacco, floral and a sharp note of perhaps citrus. The leaves are about medium size, with 1/3-1/2 being gold tips.

I brewed it for 4 minutes with boiling water and the aroma just continued, only with that "fresh wash on the line" scent on the edges, and more citrus. It is a surprisingly light golden brown. The citrus really comes out in the flavor, which is medium light and sweet, but not at all sugary. There seems to be a strong component of berry present also. Altogether a very good tea. I would use for afternoons, or for people new to "real" tea or a tea party, as it has a special taste without being so "out there" that few people would enjoy it.