A C Perch's

Once upon a time I found a very sweet note in this tea. As if sugar had been added to it when I hadn’t actually put anything in it at all. I’ve been trying to find that sweetness again, but I just can’t. I feel a bit like Sophistre in the quest for caramel notes in her Jackee Muntz from Andrews & Dunham. Only not yet as frustrated with the lack of success.

Keyword here is “yet”.

How the heck did I do that?

I do hope I’ll figure it out. I know it’s there. I know I didn’t dream it up. I’ll just have to play with temperature and steeping time a little more. I’m beginning to suspect the secret lies in the temperature, because altering the steeping time hasn’t really yielded any results. Or, actually, that’s not true, there has been some results. A fair number of yummy cups, yes. Sweet notes, no.

If the temperature is indeed the key to this puzzle, then I guess I’ll have to invest in a thermometer of some kind. Just… counts money Not right now.

In the meantime, I can bypass the frustrating hunt for sweet notes. Yes, I know this pinch of cane sugar is cheating, but it gives me (almost) what I want without the hassle. So sue me.

::Sips::

::Stares at cup::

Sugar? O.o I did not add anything to this cup, where did that come from? In a lapsang?

::sips again several times::

Yes, there is an undeniable sweet note there. I didn’t brew it differently or anything. Weird. It wasn’t there before, I could have sworn! Or was it, and I didn’t notice?

I’M SO CONFUUUUUUSED!!!

(I’m also a bit over-tired at this point just in case you hadn’t guessed.)

ETA: Also, I did not ask for that bit to be in italics, what’s going on? O.o
ETA again: Evidently you can also make italics by use of double ?s…

After steeping fail on both teas I’ve had today, one of which I’ve documented, I just needed a proper cup of tea. One that can’t go wrong. I had a funny feeling that it was a specific one I wanted but it wasn’t until I saw the tin that I knew which one it was.

It’s funny with this one. When I was first introduced to lapsang souchong, I thought it was a really harsh and rough sort of flavour with smoke all over the place.

Now, the more I drink it, the milder it seems to become. The aroma is still the same. All rough and tough and smoke and manly. But the taste seems to have smoothed out for me.

If I pay attention and seek it out the smokyness is there in spades. But it seems to be a bit shy. If I don’t speak to it first, it doesn’t speak to me. The rest of the tea seems surprisingly smooth and mellow and with a round sort of feeling to it, as if I had added milk. I haven’t actually added anything, and I’ve only used the cup for the white pomegranate earlier today and rinsed it out in between.

You all remember my black powder blend, the one I recently bought a huge amount of. I’ve filled my tin at work with that so I have a good amount of that four days a week. It has lapsang souchong in it, the smokyness of which I think is part of the reason for the name of the blend, so could it be that I’m getting so conditioned to lapsang now that I’m having this experience of it?

The first time I had lapsang souchong, after I had first got into the black powder blend, I found it strangely lacking. Watered down. I was expecting the fuller flavour of the blend, not just one of the ingredients in it. I was afraid lapsang souchong as a plain tea had been ruined for me forever. I’m pleased to say that this is definitely not the case, as what I’ve got here tonight is an extraordinarily pleasant cup of tea.

Oh my Steepster account, I hearts you like air. And like tea. And like my LJ account. Which says a LOT. You inspire me to do experiments with long forgotten samples like today, which is loads of fun, even when largely unsuccessful in finding undiscovered diamonds. And on top of that I get to babble about each one at length which makes it even more fun. Never leave me.

Right, so I’ve made an emergency pot of Lapsang Souchong. I need it on top of all this experimenting. Especially that last one there which I think must have been the worst of the lot. (Especially because it could have been avoided if I had not stupidly decided reading the info on the package regarding contents was unnecessary)

This is a stable. This is always a great cup of tea. Smokey and rough and JUST right. Enough experiments for me. I’ll stick to this for the rest of the evening.

I haven’t logged this one before? WHUT?

I likes me a good Lapsang. Don’t get me wrong there. But the lack of logging (ha! say that ten times fast!) might have something to do with the fact that I bought this one primarily to give my boyfriend when he’s here and secondarily for myself.

Right now though, I’m having the hardest time focusing on NaNo and I need a bit of a kick in the rear. Caffeine me. My green semi-spree is not going to cut it here. I know the amount of caffeine is the same, but the black tea just feels like it has more. Also this place, with the introduction of comments and liking and interaction, has became bloody addictive! Just the other day I discovered that on the front page that you get to when you’re not logged in, there are featured posts and featured users if you scroll down! I’m a featured user, apparently! It made me go WEEEEEE!!!! and immediately add all the other featured users to my follow list. You lot are all to blame if I don’t reach the 50K this year, I swear. Either that or I’ll start counting words on tea posts and include them.

The leaves smell all nice and smokey and with a hint of tobacco, which is something I’ve just recently learned to pay attention to in aroma. I get inspired when I see how you others describe these hard-to-describe things. The steeped tea is less smokey in scent and it has an underlying note of something sweet. I want to say caramel but I’m not really sure that’s the best description for it. Definitely tobacco too. Now that I’ve noticed, it’s really clear.

I think I’ve understeeped it a bit because I got impatient, but I made it good and strong with more leaves than usual. The flavour doesn’t have so much of the smoky flavour in it, but I expect the next cup with be better on that aspect. I think I might be getting the ‘pepper’ though. A sort of prickly flavour at the very back of my mouth like black pepper. But again, it might be because I used more leaves. This may not have been the most ideal brew, but it’s one of my black favourites, and aforementioned boyfriend is a good excuse to keep stocked up on it.

Right. I have my caffeine kick now and I need to get back to my pretense at novel writing. I’m going to take 15 concentrated minutes of writing and then I can slack off for a couple of minutes more. (This doesn’t sound like much, but it totally works. A short spurt of concentration, a couple of minutes break. Easy to over-look. Not so scary. And if you disregard all typos you can get a decent amount of words out in 15 minutes.)

I’m posting this at 6.28 pm my time. If you see any activity from me at all before fifteen minutes have passed, come by and kick my butt.

The genmaicha that wasn’t genmaicha! I could have sworn it said ‘genmaicha’ on the label at the bottom of the tin when I got it, but now it says Japanese Emperor Blend. Odd. I can’t understand why I didn’t initially add it as such. It never even occurred to me to go to their site and see if they had a regular genmaicha as well or not. Which, as it turns out, they had. That should all be taken care of now though. This is the genmaicha with matcha powder in it.

This one is also in the to-be-finished pile. I got the tin as a free present from A C Perch’s when I bought their book because I ordered on the day that it was released. I didn’t even know they offered this, so that was an awesome surprise. Anyway, I used it sparingly and eventually forgot about it, which was stupid, because it’s A C Perch’s! It’s not like I can’t get more.

Down to one more serving of it though. I thought that was what I had left before making this pot. I’ll never get through that pile…

Second steep of the leaves from last night this morning.

You know, I think I really like the first steep better. It was much more buttery this time around, and rather too much so. Not nearly so far as to be greasy or nauseating, but definitely headed in that general direction. The chameleon colour shifting is gone too.

I will say this about it though, it has a certain snacky quality. For me it works remarkably well as a way to avoid those naughty little snacks during the day. Chocolate, biscuits, popcorn, pudding, whatever. Have a cup of this instead. It doens’t work every time when I’m craving something, but it’s close enough.

A ton of people posted Genmaicha or Genmaicha-type teas and it reminded me that I still had this tin which has been untouched for a while, so I thought I’d join in. It’s been so long that I have to do a post about it with all the details in it.

It’s magic colour-shifter tea! Immediately after brewing and pouring, it was a brilliant sun-yellow. After a few seconds of standing in the cup untouched, it’s turned that funky radio-active green colour. It’s funny because if you remember the blustery-day-on-the-beach kind of green tea bag I had the other day, that one was the other way around. Neon-green first and then yellow.

The name, Genmaicha, is actually misleading in this one, because it’s one of the ones that also contain a small amount of matcha powder, so I know from experience that it should have a short steep. I counted 30 elephants.

The aroma is primarily popcorn and just a little bit of nut-like sweetness. It’s funny how it can smell so strongly of popcorn and taste completely unlike same. It tastes like rice, but with the sweetness from the green tea. I’m also getting a strong hazelnuttish note from it which completely blindsided me. I had not expected anything like that. No notes of saltwater or seaweed which had been feared given the colour.

Again, it’s showing some chameleon-ish tendencies. Colour is now back to yellow, but a darker, warmer and more brownish sort of shade. I wonder what sorts of colours it might turn if I left it long enough.

I’m in a green mood this morning. A lot of healthy stuff comes in the shade of green. That’s why call them greens. :)

I was originally amused by this one. I’d never seen a genmaicha before where puffed rice were all coloured green. I thought it looked hilarious, but figured it might have been done for the decorational value. Next, it surprised me by being very sensitive to steeping. If you brew with the leaves floating loose in the pot like I do, it MUST be decanted after steeping, because it will turn ridiculously bitter if left to its own devices.

Over on LJ, though, a resourceful person known as Iguanahey looked into it a bit and found that it was actually a variation of Genmaicha called ‘Uji Genmaicha’, in which a measure of matcha was added to the usual mix of sencha and rice. This would explain the mildness of flavour and the sensitivity to steeping.

I think I prefer the ‘usual’ Genmaicha that I had before, but this is really really nice too, and I’m dreading running out.

I think I should have let the water cool a bit more before brewing today. The rice of course have a toasted flavour, but it seems a bit more burned than usual this morning. Eh well. That’s what you get when you don’t have a thermometer and go by gut (and memory. Many’s the time where I’ve had to boil new water because I’d forgotten the kettle and it had gone way too cold) when brewing green and white.

I’m very fond of Genmaicha. It’s one of my favourite greens. This one is from A. C. Perch’s in Copenhagen and a completely unexpected addition to the cupboard. I bought a book from there, which I think I mentioned in my previous post. It’s partly about tea in general and partly about the history of the shop. Apparently, as I discovered when I got it, when ordering the book on the publishing day they added a tin of Genmaicha. Freebie tea! I’m a fan. :D

It smells lovely. A delicate fragrance that smells more of tea than it does of rice. It’s been a while since I’ve had any Genmaicha, so it might be that my memory is playing tricks on me, but it looks to me like there are more unpuffed rice in this one. I’m rather amused by the fact that the puffed rice are actually green too in this one. Never seen that before. It looks funny. :)

The steeped tea smells more or less like the dry leaves. Delicate and mild and more tea-like than rice-like. I like that. It rather pale in colour too.

The flavour seems very mild to me. It’s been a while since I’ve had any green, or white for that matter, so my tongue is probably temporarily ruined by black, oolong and pu-ehr. After a few sips, I stareted getting over that, though, and I started picking up a little more flavour. At first it’s mostly just the flavour of the tea, and then when swallowing the rice comes into play. It can’t under any circumstances be allowed to over-steep though, because it turns bitter really quickly.

I like this Genmaicha a lot, and I’m very likely to come back for more. And I’m not just saying that because it was free and came in a nice tin. Win!

Also, it feels absolutely wonderful for my mysteriously sore throat. Double win!

Good morning Steepsterites.

I’ve made this a bit unpleasant today. The tin I keep it in is tall and narrow, so it’s a bit difficult to get the scoop in and get a proper spoonful of leaves. I think I used too much leaf today. I tried to compensate with a shorter than normal steep but it hasn’t really worked. Not short enough.

It has that nutty bitterness that just sits on your tongue and constantly reminds you that, “I’m drinkable, yeah… But I’m not supposed to be here. Oolong, ur doin it rong!”

And that’s really distracting, you know? It makes it impossible to taste around it like you can with some other mistakes. Or maybe it’s just impossible this morning, I don’t know.

Either way, I surrender. Now I want something else.

Anything else.

I needed a plain tea after all those flavoured once earlier today. I made this one somewhat stronger than I normally do in the hopes that it might give the flavour, and particularly the aftertaste a bit more punch.

It didn’t really work.

All I got out of it was a whole lot of astringency and that kind of hay-like, flowery, prickly sort of flavour that you get when something is severely oversteeped or too strong.

This also spares me trying out that uber-long steeping, or stewing rather, of oolongs. I sincerely doubt it would be something I would like.

And now I suddenly realised WHY I’m doing my backlogs out of order.

This is from this morning on the way to work. I was feeling really tired and in an oolong-y mood, so I made this for my travel mug today.

This tea is not suitable for travel mugs. I couldn’t smell it at all and when you don’t get the full experience, you just get a tea that has an annoyingly sour taste. It was drinkable, but suddenly, without the smell, it just turned all blah.

And here’s the reason for the out of order backlog.

I’m having second steep now. I saved the leaves mostly because I didn’t have time to clean out the pot before leaving, so I figured now that I came home, I might as well just steep them, having already learned that they can easily carry a second steep. I needed this. It’s just much much much better when I can get the full experience, and when I’m not putting two thirds of my attention into trying to wake up properly.

Fourth steep while watching Midsomer Murders. Only ten minutes left of the episode and I STILL think they ALL did it. Gah!

It’s hard to believe that this is the tea that initially disappointed me with lack of flavour. I must definitely have brewed it wrong the first time, because today I’m founding an astounding amount of flavour. It’s a bit weakened but not that much. Yes, I added a few fresh leaves to the third steep, but not remotely enough that they could carry two whole steeps all on their lonesome.

I’m beginning to change my stance about how much I think it lives up to the high price. Tastewise, not really, but… I can’t think of the right word. Like… the endurance of the leaves? How many times they can be used successfully? In that regard, it is definitely worth a purchase. I still think it’s very expensive, but it gained a little more worth in my eyes.

(OMG the vicar did it??? But but but but but he was the nicest person around! I did NOT see that one coming.)

I’m having a resteep of this with my dinner, so it’s the third steep. I added a pinch of fresh leaves to the pot to give it a little extra kick.

I know I said the aftertaste gets cancelled out when you’re eating something too, but there you are are. The leaves and the pot were already there and I was feeling lazy.

Inspired by the post about it earlier today though I also boiled some broccoli in salted water with butter, and I smelled the steam as it boiled. I was right. That was EXACTLY the note I found in the tea this morning. I feel all satisfied with myself for having noticed that.

It seems very similar to the first two steeps, but I think if I hadn’t added a few fresh leaves it tastes sort of like it might have been a bit faded. I probably ought to not have added it in order to get a ‘clean’ third steep, but I thought it might just get weak. I’d rather have an inaccurate third steep than a weak clean one.

I was so disappointed by this the first time I had it. It was really expensive, nearly 100 kr for 100 g, which is a price you normally see in white teas and flowering display teas. And then it had so little flavour. It was almost unbearable.

Today has continued to suck, involving the local tax authorities who are trying to trick me into paying the same bill twice. I wouldn’t be so irritated by this if it hadn’t been for the fact that paying this bill last month is a major contributing factor to november having to be stingy-month. growl

I needed something soothing and I haven’t had a pure oolong in ages, so I’m going to revisit this one. My expectations of it aren’t quite as high this time, so I’m going to be starting over. Hopefully I can shift the rating up a bit too, because ‘30’ is just… I feel really bad about having rated such an expensive tea so low. So let’s pretend that this is the first post I make about it.

The leaves are large and twirly. They’re a bit on the darker side, although not as dark as a black tea. Some of them have that golden in-between colour. Pretty in the in. They have plenty of aroma. Sweet and with a note of tobacco.

(so far so good)

Once they have been steeped, the leaves turn a nice light green again. I’ve never noticed that before. I’ve given it a good long steep to get as much flavour out of them as possible. A C Perch’s recommend eight minutes, so that’s what they got. Actually they got nearly 15 minutes because I forgot to pay attention. In the cup it has a nice golden-ish red colour, like autumn leaves just before they fall off the tree. I’m using a fairly tall mug and I can just exactly see the bottom of it. The aroma of the brew is sort of reminding me of broccoli that has been boiled in lightly salted water with a small lump of butter in it. I wouldn’t say it’s a broccoli note, but when I smell something vegetal with a weak butter note and a weak salt note, broccoli is the thing that first comes to mind.

The first sip of the first steep was primarily bitter. This, obviously, has to do with oversteeping. As mentioned I was aiming for 8 minutes and forgot to pay attention so it got nearly 15 instead. They don’t say anything about recommended temperature other than ‘freshly boiled water’. I can taste very little else than the beginning bitterness, so I think it’s safe to say that pretty much ruined this. How annoying. But on a day like today, hands up everybody who’s surprised. Anybody? No?

Dumping the first steep then, and going straight to the second. In my opinion any proper oolong should be able to handle at least one resteep, so I’m not too concerned about it shifting the review. The second steep involves a kitchen timer, so as not to make the same mistake again. It’s much much lighter this time around. A more orange-y golden, but the aroma is exactly the same.

No bitterness this time. I’m thinking I must have made it up too weak that first disappointing time. It has a nutty note, some astringency if you really search for it, and a clear leafy primary flavour. Well, I say ‘primary’, but the thing is it only really comes through if you get a large enough sip. If you just take tiny little nips, all you get is the nuttiness. It’s especially brought out if you slurp a bit and get it nicely mixed with air while tasting. A very very VERY small barely there flowery note too. I can’t even find it in every sip.

To begin with this doesn’t have much in the way of after taste, but as you take a few sips, it starts to build up. If you’re eating anything with the tea though, you’ll ruin it. Every time you take a bite, you have to start over.

All in all, I’m feeling much more happy about this tea now than I was before, and I’ve shifted the rating up considerably. Is it worth the high price though? No, not really. You can get lots of similar or better oolongs at half the price this one cost.

Turns out Nepal has a tea production. Who knew? I didn’t. Apparently Nepal produces quite a lot of tea, mainly black and green, and the tea from the easternmost regions are very similar to Darjeeling (and has in fact been sold as such due to the Darjeeling name being so valuable).

Quite by coincidence when looking for something else, I came across a Nepal Top Oolong at A C Perch’s in Copenhagen which was definitely something I wanted to try. Fairly expensive with nearly 100 kr per 100 grams. This translates to about €13.4 or $19.2 for 100 grams, which was the smallest quantity they would allow me to buy through their webshop.

The leaves are relatively dark and look nicely twirled. There isn’t really a lot of scent to them though.

The steeped tea is very light and yellowish in colour for an oolong and it smells sweet and somewhat nutty. The scent of it promises so much more than it actually delivers. It’s a very mild flavour and almost no aftertaste at all, which makes it a nice tea, but it gets boring pretty quickly.

As it develops there is a little more aftertaste, but still not very much. It wasn’t until the last few stewed dregs that I really got anything of the sort, and by that time it was turning slightly bitter.

It’s definitely not a good morning tea, it’s much too delicate in flavour for that. I’d take it for a tea break later in the day and probably not while eating something, since that would overpower what flavour it has.

It’s a nice enough tea, but it’s just not interesting enough for me to get more of. Especially not at this price.

I have a countryman on Steepster now! flails Before, the closest I got, I think, was Rijje in Greenland, which… it’s close, but not quite the same. Anyway, Andreastt recently discovered ACP and had a question about this here raspberry oolong that you may have heard of. :p I tried to answer to the best of my ability, but decided it was probably better to make a cup and check that I actually think what I thought I think.

Besides, any excuse for a cuppa. :D

Since it will be a teensy tiny minority who will actually be able to read the conversation in question, let me just summarise. I mentioned a few of my absolute favourites from ACP, and I was asked how fruity-tart the raspberry oolong was or whether it was all done with essence of fruit.

I answered that it contains lots of dried fruit, but that it was probably doubtful how much flavour these gave off. It did suggest to me, though, that there was more than mere essence of berries involved here and that, if he didn’t care for very tart things, it might not be something for him.

To me, though, it is quite oolong-y at first. It’s got that wooden sort of flavour of a generic oolong, and then towards the end of the sip, there is the fruit flavour, which definitely has a bit of tartness to it. Not super-tart, but there is a small bite in it. Actually the fruit-flavour is really present throughout the sip, but I find it’s most prominent just before I swallow. As if it just needs a splitsecond longer to unfold in the mouth.

It is not, however, quite as tart as I initially remembered it.

It’s been ages since I had some of this, and today it seemed just the thing. I’m glad I picked it. Somehow it gets even yummier when had seldomly rather than when had often.

It got about twice as long a steep as I would have normally done, mostly on a whim. yu76tyggggg oh look, a cat on the keyboard. This is not a tea that I’ve had a lot of bad oversteep experiences with, and I suddenly decided to see if a longer steep (I do short steeps normally) would have any impact on the result considering how much leaf I normally use.

It turned out just as it should. Maybe even with a little more depth to it, but I’m not sure if that’s not just something to do with how I remember it. It is a good while since the last time I had any of it.

I’m on the second steep of it now, same time as the first and my normal second steep time. Less berry, as much oolong. Still very nice indeed.

I think I’ve said it before, but I feel sorry for all you americans who can’t just go and get some of this whenever you like. Not unless you’re willing to pay some probably pretty fierce shipping.

I brought a little of this with me to work to day to share with my boss. As mentioned previously we tend to drink the same tea at work, but lately we’ve grown a little weary of the Assam we usually have. That’s a good tea, actually, but at work we rarely have the time and conditions to pay proper attention to it when brewing. Besides, we thought it would be nice with something to choose from.

I showed her AC Perch’s website and asked her to have a look and see what sort of stuff she would like. This was one that caught her eye, and I could happily tell her that it’s awesome!

Normally, we make a one litre pot and have that during the day. Normally, a little is even discarded at the end of the day. Today, I made a pot of this one for us, and it was empty before noon. That really says a lot, doesn’t it?

We have now decided that we shall get a 100g bag to keep at work of this one, and I’ll be taken that opportunity to reinforce my own supply as well. It is, after all, another Standard Panel tea.

Guess what I’ve got again.

And I must have got it from a new batch this time because previously when I’ve bought it, I’ve received oolong leaves with whole black currants and chunks of raspberry in it.

This time, chunks of raspberry? Try WHOLE raspberries. And not just one or two that got through the raspberry-chunking-machine unscathed. No, there are many of them. Many many raspberries.

(It’s so hard to not fish them out and eat them!)

Still as nommy as ever. Om nom nom.

Making tea in a hurry before I change my mind again. I’m finally trying to get through what I’m behind on the dashboard and first Morgana had Kusmi’s Samovar and I thought, “Oh, I should have some of that too!”. And then I scrolled down a little more and Rijje had this infamous raspberry oolong and I thought, “Oh, I should have some of that too!” And… You get the pattern, right?

So I hurried up and made a cup of this before the confusion was complete.

The obligatory sniffing of leaves in near-ecstacy that this tea requires was a good chance to take a look at the amount of leaves. We are dangerously close to a decupboarding here. I’ll have to do something about that post-England, I think.

Yummmm nommy.

Whew 9! Days! Back! I probably ought to stop following some people and try to make it easier for myself to keep up. But I don’t want to stop following anybody. Maybe I ought to have a secondary account with the smaller following list. Angrboda Lite. Nah, it would just get confusing. I guess I’ll just have to do the unpleasant and go through my follow list. This is not working. (How did I avoid breaking my back on a ginormous follow list before I stopped trying to follow everybody????)

I felt like celebrating with Rijje today. And for that we need a good old favourite that, to my surprise, it’s been quite a while since I’ve had.

If it’s been so long since I’ve had it, HOW COME THERE’S SO LITTLE LEFT IN THE TIN, HMMM???

Who nicked it? Fess up!

Ack, I have the first niggling pokings of a headache. How annoying.

Only way to fix such things that I know of is to have some favourite tea. It’s already getting a bit low in the tin again. Granted I shared some with a couple of you, but still… I think I’ll order a bigger batch when the time comes to re-stock.

For those of you that I’ve been waving this one teasingly at, I just saw a review over on Teaviews.com today about a strawberry oolong, which you can read about here http://www.teaviews.com/2010/06/04/review-naivetea-strawberry-oolong-4/
Maybe it would be a suitable replacement when this one is only really available to people in Denmark or people willing to pay a fortune in shipping. Reading about the strawberry oolong made me think of this one, at any rate.