Rishi Tea

Backlogging. Sunday afternoon.

Three tasty steeps reminded me how much I like this tea. =)

But the more exciting news is why I no longer have to “ration” (tea really good, don’t have much left) this tea. My mom told me last Friday that she’d brought me a large tin of Harney and Sons’ Earl Grey for $2.99 on sale at William and Sonoma (it turned out to be an 8oz tin, which I will be splitting with grandma and her as that is waaay too much tea for just me). She told me she’d brought it about a week and a half ago and didn’t think there would be anymore left but that there was a lot of loose tea on sale. I happened to be going nearby the William and Sonoma on Saturday morning and thought that it wouldn’t hurt to look in case there was some left. Indeed there was! I got two tins of this one, Rishi’s organic Earl Grey, Rishi’s organic Emerald Lily, Harney and Sons’ Tower of London, and Harney and Sons’ Canton Green all for 50-75% off. Quite the exciting tea sale find!

1st steep: 3 min.
2nd steep: 3 min 15 sec.
3rd steep: 3 min 30 sec.

4th steep! This is the first time I’ve done a 4th steep on any tea, I think. Yay tea! It’s good. I may do a 5th steep. I may not.

Clearing off my desk again is not good. Didn’t I just do this on Monday? Where did all this stuff come from?

I love smelling tea. Both the tea itself and the tea leaves. Sometimes I just sniff at it. It might be weird. But I bet other ‘steeps’ here do it.

This was a lovely, light, slightly dry cup. So good that I immediately started resteeping it. It’s steeping right now actually.

GreenTeaSteve pointed out that white tea actually has more caffeine that green after I lamented to him that I had a hankering for green tea but needed a pick me up and felt I should have a black instead.

Edited to say that Steve disproved himself with Google. Green tea does have more caffeine than white.

Not too long ago, I didn’t think I liked white tea. I hadn’t really drank it much. Now this tea is one of my favs and half the canister is gone. I’m also surprised to find that I can actually tell if I made the tea badly. Water was a tad to hot. Tea was a bit too brewed. But still yum.

Small robin’s egg blue teapot. 2 tbsp.

New cream pottery with dark brown speckles teacup that I brought from the farmer’s market just this morning.

Getting rid of a slight headache finally. Enjoying this tea for the second time. Yum!

Deep blue pottery mug. 1 tbsp.

Second brewing. 5 minutes 30 seconds.

Headache all gone now. Enjoying a nice salad of romaine, spinach, spring mix, cumber, scallion, radish, tomato, and ginger dressing.

Third brewing. 6 minutes.

This should tide me over until dinner is ready and my husband wakes up. He’s on nights for the next two weeks so later dinners to let him sleep a bit more. This might be the best brewing of the batch.

I didn’t think I liked white teas. In fact, I didn’t think I liked this tea. But two days ago, I had it again for the first time since I started paying attention to water temperature. Delish. Light, grassy/vegiteal, and easy to drink. I’m adding it below the oolong on my this-is-all-I-want-to-drink list.

Standard mug – blue pottery. 1 tbsp. gently steaming water. 5 minutes.

Second brewing. 6 minutes.

I was hoping to try a third brewing but I fear I might be tea-d out for the evening.

The picture doesn’t lie; this tea looks like a Crayola box. There’s certainly a lot for the eyes to feast upon. And it brews into…well, they call it ruby. I don’t think it’s quite that rich in hue, I’d call it more of a dusty rose. But I’m probably splitting hairs at this point.

The smell is just about as loud as the color. It reminds me of Blow Pops. Or bubblegum. Specifically one of those old school brands like Bubble Yum or Fruit Stripe Gum [who remembers that?]. The kind of gum that loses its flavor 5 minutes later. It is fruity. I mean, it is FROO-TEA. This tea is SO fruity… [HOW FRUITY IS IT?] This tea is SO fruity that it belongs at a male burlesque show. In fact, if teas were people I think that Plum Berry would be a drag queen.

And a rather fabulous one at that.

The smell is somewhat dampened [no pun intended] when the tea is wet. The actual liquid smells like something very specific that I can’t put my finger on, but it isn’t fruit. I’ll think of it in a week.

The tartness of the hibiscus is quite obvious, but I don’t mind that flavor, so I’m enjoying it so far. However, they list an entire encyclopedia of ingredients on the bag and . [I mean, schizandra berries? Are those for real? They sound like something Neil Gaiman would make up. Do unicorns eat them?] I’m somewhat disappointed that I can’t pick them out, but the aftertaste is rather hectic – there’s a lot going on. Once the novelty of this wears off, perhaps I’ll be able to separate the flavors more easily. Or perhaps once it cools.

It’s surprising to me, well, one that this gets steeped for this long. The only thing I steep for 6 minutes are pu-erhs, maybe the occasional herbal. But two, I’ve never had a white tea be this strong. I prefer my white teas to be more delicate – more of a pinky-up affair. I’d really call this an herbal more than anything else, but they say there are white tealeaves in it. Not sure what the point of it is, because anything from those leaves is surely put into a choke-hold by what I am coming to affectionately think of as the crunchberries.

One last thing that I’m really noticing about this tea is that it’s leaving me with a bit of a dry mouth. Is it tannins that do that? I’m not sure. Anyhow, it’s not unlike that sensation you get after drinking lemonade. I’m having to chase it with water, which I’m sure my bladder will be protesting later.

So, Plum Berry is sassy, a little sweet, and maybe just a touch overwhelming. Like a game of drag queen bingo, this isn’t something I want to visit every night, but it’s going to be fun every now and again.

Oops. Accidentally forgot about this and let it steep for an hour. It tastes like sour rotting fruit. DO NOT STEEP FOR AN HOUR! What a waste.

Surprised to say, I love this. Makes my whole office smell like blueberry muffins. I do not like blueberries or fruit tea, but somehow rooibos has saved another concoction. On second steep I taste more of the hibiscus, so I’d avoid that unless it’s your cup o’ tea.

I’ve been surfing on a crest of mucus for the past couple of days. [I know. Lovely.] A sore throat and that dull full body ache have also invaded, so when I read a tasting note the other day from @Britt Wight mentioned that honeybush is an expectorant so it’s been ALL ROOIBOS ALL THE TIME here. With the exception of the masala chai I had the other day, all the tea I’ve been drinking has either been this or Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom.

Great for the mucus.

Not great for my energy levels.

If you ever want to make someone tired, deprive them of caffeine and make them try to read physics. Instanap!

The tea is good. Still makes me feel like a giant blueberry, but I find the taste pleasant. [Then again, I also like rooibos.] It’s sweet but with a tartness. It could be that my tongue is playing tricks on me because of this cold, but it’s a tartness that doesn’t remind me of hibiscus. [While I don’t mind hibiscus, I am beginning to tire of it being used in everything under the sun.]

A few hours on the deck, with a steaming cup of this, and the BLESSED, BLESSED SUN had me feeling better than I have in days. Now I just need to get some caffeine in me. Shouldn’t be a problem. The physics, on the other hand…

You wake up to the sound of your alarm, and reach over to hit the snooze button. But you realize that your alarm clock is a blueberry. Confused, you sit up and reach to turn on the light, except that the light is a blueberry. You reach to pull back the duvet, only it has been replaced by a sheet of blueberries. Panicked, you run into the bathroom to look in the mirror, and…YOU ARE A GIANT BLUEBERRY.

Open the package and take a whiff, and it’s like every single entity in your realm of consciousness has been replaced by blueberries. The scent is strong, young Skywalker. Luckily, I like those little blue pellets, so this is an enjoyable experience for me.

The scent continues to waft up sweetly when the tea is brewing. The taste is a similar to the blueberries as well – slightly tart, but with an unmistakable sweetness [if you get good ones, that is]. The sweetness in this tea arrives in the finish and lingers in the aftertaste.

For me, the rooibos in this is almost unrecognizable. When I do taste it, it’s in the aftertaste, but it’s not strong.

I’m curious to try this iced.

So far so good, Rishi. You’re two for two. Can you keep it up? CHALLENGE EXTENDED.

Brewed it this morning.
Tasted floral and of corn.
Still quite delicious.

Brew it once, then stop.
Does not hold up to re-steep.
Well, for me at least.

I do not know why
This came out in a haiku.
Refrigerator.

Well, being honest, this is in homage to a shirt/hoodie Auggy found.
http://typetees.threadless.com/product/623/Haikus_Are_Easy_But_Sometimes
I wants it.

Anyhow, I ran out of what I had of this, but they had it in Williams Sonoma so I grabbed a tin. I find myself craving it somewhat often, so this is going to be a tea that I replenish for sure. I like it a lot. Giving it a ratings bump.

It is harder for green teas to stand out to me, because I have a lot of them and within their subtypes their flavor profiles tend to be pretty similar. But not with this one.

What can I say? I just really freaking like this tea.

The sweetness from it is, for me, just perfect. Almost…juicy? When you add that it’s well-balanced with the other flavors that are floating around in the cup, it makes it memorable.

Sometimes you need to drink something that’s just…GOOD, you know?

When I got home, I was greeted by a package from Rishi on the doorstep. If only all things in life could be timed so perfectly.

I didn’t even bother to take my bags to my room. I dropped them in the kitchen, began to heat a kettle, and sliced open the box. I pretended to ponder over which package to open first, but it really wasn’t a choice. I had read too many favorable logs of this tea to not try it first.

Oh my god.

No, hang on, wait for it…

OH. MY. GOD.

Can we talk about the name for a second? When tea names use words that I am familiar with [unlike things like genmaicha or sencha which previously had no place in my scope of knowledge] they tend to conjure up images that the tea itself rarely lives up to.

I read something like Ancient Emerald Lily, and here’s what comes to mind. Trees that have been around longer than any people I know, which grow so high that you can’t see where they end. The unseen sun makes it presence known by rays of light which pierce through the foliage. Small particles of dust and earth shift and float aimlessly in and out of the columns of sunshine, swirling occasionally when swept into in an eddy of wind. The floor is littered with stones and roots. Moss blankets patches of ground, and the occasional flower, striking against the palette of greens, greys, and browns, stretches towards the light. The forest breathes and swells. Quiet sounds echo through consciousness.

My mother always told me that I had an overactive imagination.

But therein lies my problem. These are the things that I think about, and how can a tea compare? This is the closest that a tea has come to keeping pace with my brain when it goes into overdrive. The taste is clean and fresh, with a hint of something roasted or toasted or some other -oasted type adjective [the roasted aspect is also apparent in the scent]. It has a sweet finish. Not sweet like sugar, or sweet like honey. It’s a more subtle sweetness, like honeysuckle, or when you bite into a particularly excellent ear of corn.

The tea leaves themselves, wet or dry, do not portray any of the aforementioned qualities. To me, they smell mainly vegetal, with a sweetness that’s closer to brown sugar – very similar to most other green teas I’ve had. But the taste is rather singular. It almost reads like a white tea.

The description on the bag eludes to wild orchid and toasted chesnut. I don’t know what orchid is supposed to taste like [are they even edible?] and while I’ve seen many an orchid I’m not exactly sure what they smell like either. Nor have I ever had a chesnut, roasted over an open fire or otherwise, but if they’re anything like what I’m pulling out of this tea that’s going to have to change this season.

In a sentence – Rishi Tea Win.

The July TeaLog Catchup ! (Last one!)

So it’s been a long time since I’ve had this Wuyi oolong. I can’t quite remember why I picked to have it that day now. Part of it was that it sounded soothing though. But I did remember that I had tried reducing the steeping times with success last time. So I looked up my tealog for it. Indeed, I had. It looks like a bit more reduction might be warranted for my tastes still. So I tried that this time with very good results. 4 very enjoyable steeps were consumed.

2nd steep: 3mins 45 secs, 190 F.
3rd steep: 4 mins, 195 F.
4th steep: approx 8 mins, 200 F.

Backlogging. 3 days ago. Tuesday afternoon.

I haven’t had an oolong in forever and it sounded like a good thing that day. This met my need and it was like I remembered it, yet it wasn’t. The first two steeps were stronger than I would have liked. So maybe decrease the steeping time a bit. And the third and fourth were quite good. Overall, I liked drinking it that day but it didn’t quite live up to my memory of it.

The first two steeps I had right after each other in the afternoon, the third right after dinner, and the fourth right before bed.

2nd steep: 4 mins 15 secs
3rd steep: 4 mins 30 secs
4th steep: 5 mins

Oolong is SO good. I don’t know why I don’t drink it more often. Two steeps before dinner, two steeps after dinner. Stopped resteeping because it was time for bed and my previous tealogs said that the fifth steep was on the weak side. Again, steeps three and four were the best.

1st steep: 4 min.
2nd steep: 4 min 30 sec.
3rd steep: 5 min.
4th steep: 5 min 30 sec.

These steeping parameters worked well.

It was a stormy afternoon perfect for oolong drinking. I did another smaller 6oz cup series of steeps. And again with this tea, it worked quite well. This time, I increased the steep time by 15 seconds each steep, which also worked well.

1st steep: 4 min. Yummy oolongy goodness but nothing to remark on.

2nd steep: 4 min 15 sec. This one was like drinking an old library in a good way.

3rd steep: 4 min 30 sec. This one reminded me of drinking toffee coffee. Not sure it tasted like that but that’s what I was thinking of when I drank it.

4th steep: 4 min 45 sec. Lighter toffee coffee. Again, the 3rd and 4th steeps were the best ones in my opinion.

5th steep: 6 min 45 sec. Increase steep time by 2 minutes for this steep. Before steeping today, I’d read in my previous tealog for this tea that the 5th steep was where the tea became more watery than tea. Even with the much increased time, this was again the case. This steep is still drinkable though.

Notes: Starting at 4 min and increasing the steep time by 15-30 sec each steep works good. Water temperature is also good. 5th steep is noticeably weak, but drinkable.

In light of the recent pair of user-caused green tea fails and the weak oolong a week or two back, I decided to try something different today. A 6oz cup. I hoped to manage multiple steeps so not to feel bad for “wasting” tea by only doing one steep. I hoped to trick myself into thinking I was drinking less tea and therefore, drink more tea. I hoped the tea would be tasty. Oh wait, I always hope the tea will be tasty. =)

The 1st steep was back to the yummy oolong I remembered. The first few sips I thought I was in for the weak oolong that I got last time I had this. Cooling a bit changed it back to good. Could be a bit stronger though still.

2nd steep: 4 min 20 sec, 200° F.
Darker in color. Stronger in taste. Good.

3rd steep: 5 min, 200° F.
Wow, this one is really good. I noticed the difference in taste immediately. Roasty woodsy drinkability.

4th steep: 5 min 30 sec, 200° F.
Another really good one. Hints of the 3rd steep, reminiscent of a good cigar. I thought this was going to be the weak time-to-stop-steeping steep on the first few sips. But it was not.

5th steep: set timer for 6 min, forgot to start, unknown long time. 200° F.
Water with essences of steep 4. The time-to-stop-steeping steep.

This is one of the most times I’ve steep a tea. And I’m not really sure how much the time should increase between steeps. I picked 30 seconds cause that seemed like a good noticeable increase in time. Maybe I try 15 seconds next time. I know it doesn’t need more than 30.

Well, the 6oz cup worked on all three counts. I look forward to trying a green this way.

I must confess that I’ve been hoarding my Wuyi Oolong. You see, I only have the one and the tin is already half gone. But I’ve been craving oolong for several days. Late yesterday afternoon, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to drink but knew I wanted more tea. So I fell back to the fact that I’d been wanting oolong recently.

Maybe I should have listen to my instinct at that time and ponder a bit more before I chose what to drink. Because not having run the dishwasher yet, I was down to a few mugs left. None were good choice to steep a single portion of tea and I didn’t want to waste my precious Wuyi Oolong steeping a double portion when I could get multiple steeps from it anyways. I chose an oddly shaped moose mug, which I love, but holds two cups. I thought I could just steep one cup in it. But I went to put the infuser in the mug, after heating it and getting the water to the correct temperature, when the oolong malfunction occurred.

The infuser would not fit deep enough into the mug and only a 1/2 inch of water barely wet the tea leaves! I’d brewed this mug less than full before! Possibly a cup and a half full though. But the infuser had sank deep enough and the leaves were covered with room to spare. PANIC!! My leaves are wet! My water is cooling! I don’t really have enough time to wash a mug. I quickly look in the cupboard for a glass cup that my infuser will fit in. They are all too narrow! I grab my Pyrex liquid measure cup. You know the one. The one with the handle that measures two cups. You most likely have one. I heat the Pyrex with the water from the moose mug then add water from the kettle. Check the temperature, add the infuser. It fits!

Four minutes later, the resulting tea looks rather light. But it’s been awhile since I’ve had oolong so perhaps I just don’t remember. I pour it back into the moose mug for drinking. It’s good but weak. A bit too weak. I drink it anyways, knowing I can make another steep right away. I make the 2nd steep in the Pyrex and pour it into the mug. A bit stronger but more of the same mostly. I am not inspired to try a 3rd steep. I think the oddness of preparation resulted in the less than enjoyable oolong last night rather than a downturn in my liking of oolong. I will try it again with a suitable mug and perhaps slightly hotter water. It might be awhile though.

2nd steep: 5 min, 190° F.

Steep #2 went into the bath with me while I read the October Believer. It was drank quickly.

Wuyi Oolong, I haven’t had you in awhile and you’ve just been sitting there in your tin on the top shelf of the cupboard, getting bored perhaps. You sounded like you’d go good with a Jonagold apple and natural almond butter for a snack.

When I poured hot water on the leaves, the smell was very strong: roasty, toasty, and grain-like with some dusty and earthy. It reminded me of something but I haven’t been able to place it and I’ve been sniffing at my cup as I drink. The taste is much as I remember and quite nice, although probably not the best paired with this snack.

My yummy Wuyi Oolong seemed different this morning. It was not as yummy as I remember it being. It seemed stronger, more bitter, and more dry. I shall have to see how subsequent steeps fair.

Yay for PMs!

I had another pot of Rishi Wuyi early this afternoon. Just as delicious as the two pots I had yesterday. I had hoped it would fortify me to make a large Target run. But alas, a poor sleep last night won out over leaving the house. I did triumph over two loads of laundry though and a nice bath.