Various Artists

Here are some random write-ups of tea I experienced during a vacation last July to the Oregon Coast/Portland. At the time I was in the middle of buying a house/moving (yes, a terrible time for a vacation, but it had been planned before the house move!) and just didn’t have time to talk about my experiences. I’m finally pulling out my notes from the trip and my Tea Fest PDX program book to try to recall (to the best of my shit memory) some of the teas I sampled during the trip.

Portland Teacation #1: Oregon Coast

At the beginning of the trip my friend Todd and I stayed at a beach house (provided kindly for free by my Dad’s BFF, my “Uncle” Rob… who could turn that down!?) in Manzanita. We did a bit of traveling to nearby locations while we were there and had some lovely tea.

La Tea Da: Located in Tillamook, we got a flat tire on our rental car driving there from Manzanita (about a 45 minute trip when you aren’t on a spare donut!) so there was no way we were going to make our reservation in time… The shop was awesome when we finally got into cell range and could call and said we could come any time that day and they’d honor our reservation, so we could get the tire fixed as soon as we got into town. Needless to say, we had quite an appetite after that! I got the Queen’s Tea which had a lovely assortment of tea sandwiches and I was really impressed with some of the flavor pairings (I can’t remember the exact menu now, but I still remember how surprised I was that green apple with cinnamon spread and cheddar cheese was so good together!) There were also two HUGE scones and I remember they had some delicious flavorings, one was savory and one was sweet, I remember a blueberry sage scone as the sweet and some sort of cheese scone with spices as the savory one; they were so big I had to take them home! There was also an assortment of lovely petit fours desserts. That was the one day we got rained on heavily at the coast, so the tea I got with my lunch was Clementine Clove, since I wanted something with a warming spice note. It was a black tea, medium body, slightly astringent, and smelled of winter potporri spice; it tasted strongly of clove and cinnamon and had a tart tangerine note. I can’t remember what tea Todd ordered now, but I know he got a second pot that was Licorice flavored and tasted spot on for black licorice candy (something we both enjoy, even though the majority of people I know hate it!)

Mighty Thai: I had the most amazing shellfish bowl in buttered garlic at this place! Since it was a Thai restaurant (in Manzanita), I got my typical iced Thai tea. What was notable to both me and Todd is most Thai restaurants have their iced tea “pre-mixed” with the milk/creamer and Todd is Vegan; this place didn’t pre-mix their Thai tea so they could prepare it with coconut milk for Todd. It was good, but other than having a choice of dairy or dairy alternative, there wasn’t anything special about it. It was Thai iced tea!

Cannon Beach Chocolate Cafe: This chocolaterie in Cannon Beach had a small selection of Octavia teas available. I had three delicious chocolate truffles (I remember trying a chai spice and a lavender one… I think the third was likely some sort of sea salt caramel?) while sipping on a cup of French Breakfast tea, which I have reviewed here: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/396706 . We came back later in the day to get some of their pre-brewed iced tea as well; Todd got the Wild Blueberry (a white tea), and I got the Peach Nectar (an oolong). They were both excellent, though I think I liked the Wild Blueberry I sampled from Todd’s cup a bit better than the peach oolong, just because it felt a little more thirst-quenching and we’d been in the sun a lot by that point.

Sweet Basil’s Cafe: A Cajun restaurant where we had dinner in Cannon Beach… I’m a spice wuss so I got the (not spicy at all) crab cakes, and they served sweet iced tea. I had to drink a lot of Pure Leaf bottled ice tea on the go during the trip, and having a fresh-brewed sweet iced tea was wonderful.

Tomorrow I finally close on my condo and move! HUZZAH! It’s felt like such a long time coming! A stray cat showed up at a coworker’s house about a week ago and because her cat is a “one-cat household” sort of cat, she asked me if I “needed a cat” and I was like, “Yes, but I still don’t have my house yet!” I told her I would in about a week to two weeks and she said she couldn’t wait that long and was going to take it to the shelter, but then she discovered that it came from a very abusive household on her street, so she decided to foster it in her backyard until I’d have my home, and then I’m going to rescue it. It’s a completely black shorthair, presumed female (could possibly be a neutered male?) with green eyes. My coworker says they are extremely cuddly/affectionate and putting on weight well, but does have the stray cat issue of overeating to the point of vomiting. I can’t wait until I can have a comfort animal again!

So this was the other free tea I got from the Tao of Tea booth at Tea Fes PDX. It was a green tea blend, and since I didn’t take a picture of the booth I have no idea what was in the sachets, as it wasn’t one of their sold blends. I’ve just been soaking the sachets as iced tea while my tea collection has been boxed up. I assumed it was probably a Moroccan Mint sort of thing, but it didn’t smell minty, and I thought that might have been because the green tea bags were in the same freebie bag as their hibihip tea bags, which had a much stronger aroma. But this doesn’t taste minty at all. It tastes much more citrusy, and there is something very green, quenching, and refreshing tasting… and I’ve only tasted that particular taste once, when I tried a moringa blend. Could this have moringa in it? Seems a rather strange ingredient to include in freebie teabags, so I doubt it, but the flavor does remind me of it! So a bit like fresh pond water, a vegetative, earthy/plantlike quality, and a bit of citrus, perhaps a bit of herby lemongrass and a little of the punchiness of tangerine. Nicely quenching.

I feel like I still have so much that needs thrown into boxes here at the 11th hour that I’ve had out as living necessities for the last two months, but just no energy with the constant migraines to deal with it. Meh.

I still haven’t had any time to talk about my Portland vacation or Tea Fes PDX… and to be honest, probably will not until after the move (I can imagine writing a bunch of notes during the interim that I’m stuck with no internet between the utilities switch, and then having a bunch to post after that… ugh. Not looking forward to that…) But when I was at Tea Fes PDX, the Tao of Tea booth had a wheel you would spin to “win” tea bags, though it was really just a farsical thing to add to the “carnival” motif of the booth, since no matter what number you spun, they would absolutely stuff a bunch of sachet freebies into your bag. There was a green tea and a hibihip herbal, and both blends seem to be originals and nothing I could match off their website. I’m upset I didn’t take a picture of the booth, since now I have nothing to match ingredients from.

I’ve been making these hibihip bags as cold brew iced teas and have finished them off today; quite handy, as all my tea has been packed in boxes for months now and I’ve just had the boxes of bagged/sachet teas in the kitchen cupboard still unpacked. I could tell there was hibiscus, rosehip, orange peel (or at least some sort of citrus peel), and allspice in the blend, not sure if there are other ingredients in there as well. The flavor reminds me a bit of those spiced hibihip Christmas blends, though less strong on the spice elements than those tend to favor. Since the blend isn’t fruit-forward, I get strong tart cranberry/stewed tomato flavor I get from straight hibi, and there is definitely a pop of orange citrus and a mild, non-lingering spice note. It’s been quite refreshing… at least if you are like me, and enjoy drinking iced hibiscus tea by the gallon-full.

Day #3 of my teacation was spent mostly at the San Francisco Tea Festival!

Hobee’s: Since my knowledge of the Bay Area is not ideal, I can’t recall if we ate at the Cupertino or the Palo Alto one on our way to San Francisco that morning, but I’m pretty sure it was one of those two. I love this place for breakfast and pretty much always want to go there at least once when I visit my friend, and I normally love their house tea on ice (it’s an orange cinnamon CTC black tea) and I even have some in my stash at home, but they had made it super strong this particular morning and the spice was killing me. I was dealing with some acid reflux and that was definitely not helping. I definitely don’t make it that strong when I brew it myself at home! I should’ve asked for a glass of water to try to cut it back a bit but didn’t think of it at the time. I don’t recall it ever being that spicy in the past. If I were to make it like this at home I’d have to add liquid sugar to even out the spice, but when I make this same tea iced at home, I don’t even need any sweeteners because it’s just right. They must use a massive amount of leaf… I wonder if that is how the average person prefers it, burning their mouth off?

San Francisco Tea Festival: My first tea festival! First, I will get out of the way what I felt were some weak aspects of the festival. I was a bit shocked at the lack of space dedicated to the vendors versus the amount of people; I go to a lot of sci-fi/fantasy/anime/fandom type conventions, and there is always waaaaaaaay more space dedicated than there was here, even just within the dealer’s room and artist’s alleys and not counting panels/events/etc. So this felt really conjested. I also was really displeased they didn’t allow re-entry, which I think would’ve helped spread the conjestion a bit; because of my migraines my body really needs to “eat proper meals” on a schedule, and since I had to skip lunch at my normal lunchtime and go all the way to dinner, I developed a migraine that night, which reeeeeeally sucked. I think the organizers of the Tea Festival should be a bit more flexible to allowing people to pop out for a meal and come back to the convention floor if they have their paid ticket, especially because there were tons of restaurants just downstairs, as well as seating (my feet were killing me being on them all day, as I also have plantar fasciitis!) and they had also offered next to no seating for attendees within the festival space, too. So while the vendor selection was great and the vendors were very friendly, the actual organization of the festival/crowd control/their no re-entry policy really bothered me. Also, someone pilfered my souvenir tasting cup while I was being rung up at a pu-erh vendor. I’m still sour about that. * sad face *

Now, onto the more awesome stuff!

I started off with a panel on Japanese teaware. I did know about the types of teaware, but enjoyed getting some history/areas of Japan famous for its production and other additional facts thrown in, as I love anything/everything I can absorb about Japanese culture. My friend is really into that sort of thing, too. I really love looking at pictures of pretty Japanese teaware, too. If I had more space in my tiny apartment, I’m sure I’d have more than I do (currently just a simple clay shiboridashi and a lovely ceramic dobin, both of which get a lot of use, and a fairly cheap matcha starter set which I’ve yet to attempt to use).

Then my friend Todd and I met up with Steepster-user Derk to explore the vendor floor! Thank you for meeting with us Derk, it was super fun! (And thank you so much for the sample of Whispering Pines Alice!)

So, let’s see if I can remember some of the teas and vendors that really stood out to me. I’ve been down with a migraine today, so my memory may be more shoddy than normal, but I’ll do my best!

Nepal Tea – I really liked the tea at this booth. I remember I quite enjoyed a cold-brewed oolong, and there was a white tea that tasted remarkably like a green that I enjoyed. I bought a sampler set that had eleven tea sachets in it, featuring a wide variety of blacks, greens, whites, and a few blends, and it came in this gorgeous zipper pouch which I think I’ll use to pack my teas in when I go on vacation. I don’t have very many Nepalese teas in my collection so I’m interested in sampling these.

Tillerman Tea – Every single oolong I tried at this booth was amazing. I didn’t buy anything here but will defintiely be adding them to my bookmarks to be trying out their stuff later!

Waterfall Tea Company – While I don’t normally do instant teas, I’m not opposed to it, and I actually really like DeDe’s instant Thai tea… and the instant chais these guys make are really good! The masala was fine, but the ginger was great because it wasn’t just “GINGER BURNING!” and the lemongrass was amazing, it smelled like Frootloops and even had a slight Frootloops milk taste to it! I may have to pick up a bag of that sometime, especially with snowy cocoa weather approaching.

Jade Chocolates – OH MY GOD, these chocolates were so good! I bought a Genmaicha chocolate bar, and Derk bought me a Coconut Paradise Green Tea chocolate truffle. (Tea infused chocolate! GENIUS!) It was delicious!

TeaCrush – Oh man, I got a tea crush on TeaCrush hard, and now I have a tea broken heart, because they are only in the Bay Area. No shipping anywhere. I spent a small fortune shipping three glass bottles of this iced tea home to myself (that I picked up in a local grocery before my flight home), and once they are gone… I don’t want to think about it. There are three flavors, Matcha Pineapple Coconut, Turmeric Ginger Pear, and Ginger Lemon Cayenne. They are all good, my favorite is Turmeric Ginger Pear with Matcha Pineapple Coconut a very close second. I absolutely adore this stuff! Anyone in the Bay want to start a side business selling this stuff on Amazon? I’m serious.

Tsuru no Maru – Had the best darn sencha I’ve ever tried. A nice vegetal flavor but wasn’t overpowered with seaweedy flavors, some hints of butteriness… just so good. Except they apparently aren’t selling it yet, they were using the festival to see how it would go over on the American market. The blend isn’t even named yet! And the website is still being worked on for sales. Boo! I have one sampler bag of the stuff. I would easily purchase this sencha! Hopefully they’ll get the website open for commerce and make this available, it’s amazing!

Denong – Probably the second thing that will revoke my tea license… I’ve never really like pu-erhs. I continue to try to warm up to them (and I will continue to do so) but somehow they just always end up “tasting like dirt” to me. But I really liked the ones at this booth. Even the really earthy shou was quite good. And the sheng here was probably the first sheng I’ve ever had that I liked (I’ve had some bad sheng experiences… they always end up tasting like swamp marshes or really smoky to me). I bought a 2018 sheng here called Cherishing Destiny and 30g of a black tea that was so good (oh man was it good), 2016 Denong Black Tea (it’s in such a pretty sakura floral canister, too).

Harney & Sons – Shoutout to H&S for being the one vendor with paper cups so I could keep tasting teas after someone stole my tasting cup when I was being rung up at Denong! Also, their Victorian Earl Grey was so good! I’ll have to pick up some sometime! Love the vanilla/lavender notes, but then, vanilla/lavender EGs is sort of my thing.

Esteemed Tea Collective – I really liked the tea at this booth, too! I got to sample the Four Seasons Oolong and the Honey Black Oolong and really liked both! Will have to keep them in mind (or at least those tea types in mind!)

Soba SF – I have had Soba mixed with green tea and really like it, it’s like a sweeter genmaicha to me, this is my first time trying plain soba tea, and it tasted like peanuts! Pretty nice. I’m a little sad they don’t sell a bancha/soba mix on their website since they did have that available for sampling at the Tea Fes, and ordering that within the US would be cheaper than me restocking it from Yunomi. Suppose I could always get the soba from them and blend it myself with a green tea, though… but it was surprisingly nice plain, too!

Wize Monkey – Another tea I’ve wanted to try for a while, coffee leaf tea! It was also quite nutty, it didn’t have the strong coffee notes of say, roasted barley (mugicha), but had some slight roasty coffee-ish notes, and I found it a bit like hazelnuts. I really liked it!

Young Mountain Tea – They had a black tea, Nepali Golden Black, that was really great! My friend actually bought this one, and he doesn’t horde tea like we all do, so you know it’s good! I’m definitely adding that one to my list for when my collection isn’t so crazy, because I wouldn’t mind having some myself… honestly if I hadn’t just bought the Denong Black Tea, I probably would’ve.

And as we’ve established I love Japanese things, there was a beautiful book there, The Bilingual Book of Japanese Tea by Per Oscar Brekell, which I purchased and got signed by the author. I like collecting tea books, but my library of them is still quite small and growing. This is a really nice book because it goes into all the cultivars of the leaves, something I’ve been trying to find more information about! (And will prove incredibly useful when shopping on Yunomi, no doubt). I really love it~ It is super informative on all types of Japanese tea, not just the “typical” ones, and it gets into some of the science of how Japanese teas get their particular flavors and some other geeky stuff like that. Lots on growing/production regions, teaware, if you like Japanese tea it’s great!

Also got a goodie bag with lots of samplers in it, which I will certainly get to in due time.

Gott’s Roadside: Had dinner here with Todd and Derk after the Tea Festival, and just wanted to mention I got an Arnold Palmer that didn’t taste like crap, as they typically always do when I order them in a restaurant, all syrupy and weak like the Iced Tea Lipton and generic lemonade that come off a soda fountain. It tasted like proper lemonade and the iced tea wasn’t super watery like I’ve run into before, and the proportions were good. Nice and sweet too.

My Tea Festival haul was admittedly rather restrained (a book, some pu-erh, and a Nepalese tea sampler bag), with most of the tea I got this trip being some small bags of herbs/teas from the co-op where I could control the sizing, an ounce from DAVIDsTEA, and probably the least restraint shown at Lupicia where I picked up five bags. All things considered, I’ve done much worse on other vacations, hopefully it won’t kill the cupboards too horribly!

Day #2 of my teacation in the Bay Area was spent in Santa Cruz!

Om Gallery: Not a tea shop, but I did find a really beautiful mug in this gift shop. I have collected coffee cups for years, and I also collect mermaid things, so naturallly I’ve wanted a mermaid-themed coffee cup for some time. Finally I found one! It’s this really pretty cup that is a jade color in a solid glaze, with a mermaid handle, and it’s a larger size, while most of my mugs are a typical 10-12 oz. size. I don’t have many of the 16 oz. size so it’s a nice addition. (And I don’t care how “unclassy” it is that I prefer to drink my tea out of coffee mugs, it’s just what I tend to do most of the time. Not pretty British teacups, or little Asian gong fu sets. Plain ol’ coffee mugs. You can revoke my tea license now.)

Buttercup Cakes and Farmhouse Frosting: Had another Afternoon Tea! (Why would one be enough?) They have a small dessert Cream Tea or a larger Savory Tea option available. We both got the Savory Tea (and they did have several vegetarian/vegan options available for my friend). You get a scone or a crumpet at the beginning of the tea (they let my friend substitute with a vegan muffin they had in their bakery) and the scone they had that day was pumpkin spice so I opted for that, and you can pick three items to go with your tea off their savory menu. I picked the Itty Bitty BLT (candied bacon, butter lettuce, tomato, mayo on French bread), their hand pie of the day (it was a butternut squash and kale in seasonings, and one of the best things I’d ever tasted; I bought another from the bakery front on my way out!), and a bowl of their soup du jour, which was pumpkin and tomato bisque, which was divine!, and you get one of their speciality cupcakes from their huge cupcake menu (I picked the chocolate with hibiscus frosting, but I wanted to try so many that I bought several more from the bakery storefront on the way out: orange with earl grey frosting, carrot cake with spice ginger frosting, and horchata). Their tea menu wasn’t as expansive as Lovejoy’s, but they did serve their tea in the pot in bags, which I appreciated, as that meant I could remove the leaf after it was steeped, so I didn’t have a bitter pot late into the tea. I got a darjeeling tea that had a nice light body and decent muscatel notes. The food here was really amazing!

Hidden Peak Teahouse: One of my favorite tea shops! It offers Asian teas (blacks, greens, oolongs, pu-erhs) and you can order a full gong fu service, a gaiwan, or a small Asian teapot with a steeping basket inside. There are also tons of snacks on the menu (and they are all vegan friendly, which my friend appreciates). Some of the pu-erhs are ridiculous price-per-serving, but mostly everything is very reasonable. The teahouse is a tech-free zone and meant to be reflective and for visiting with friends. I got a gaiwan serving of the Lotus Brick (2000) shou pu-erh. I found the taste very earthy, a bit mineral, but there were lots of nutty notes.

Pacific Thai: Had some bubble tea here with my dinner. I got lychee flavor and it was great! Lots of flavor and boba, it was very nice! My friend got iced Thai tea made with coconut milk and was quite happy with that, as well.

I have just returned from the San Francisco Bay Area in California where my best friend lives (he’s in San Jose) where I spent some time in San Francisco/San Jose/Santa Cruz over three days doing tea shopping and going to cafes, as well as attending the San Francisco Tea Festival. I’m having my haul shipped back to me and it should arrive today or tomorrow, but I figured I’d try to jot from (my admittedly abysmal) memory some thoughts/impressions of some of the places I visited.

Day #1 was mainly spent in San Francisco, with a few shopping excursions in Palo Alto and San Jose.

DAVIDsTEA: Since I’ve been coming down with a cold and my insomnia problems keep persisting, making fighting it off even harder, I was really hankering for some warm ginger or licorice root tea that morning, and I also really wanted to restock the Oh Canada! tea I’d sampled recently in my collection. So we stopped at the Palo Alto location on the way to San Francisco. I was heartbroken to be told that Oh Canada! tea was discontinued by the person who worked there?! I mean, I checked their website before I left and it was listed, and… it’s still on their website. But they didn’t have it in store. SIGH. It was like, the one thing I wanted. So I bought an ounce of that Cardamom French Toast everyone talks about instead (I’ve never tried it… hope it lives up to the hype). I also got a cup of Throat Rescue to go, since I really wanted that hot licorice root (cue the groans of 99% of Steepsterites here) for my throat. The fennel was a very dominant flavor, and quite tasty, with the licorice root having a strong finish. It was pretty much what I was craving that morning.

Lovejoy’s Tea Room: Went here for a High Tea lunch. I splurged on the Queen’s Tea because I wanted all the foods (and I ate them all, too!) while my Vegan friend got the Healthy Tea because… well, he’s Vegan and can therefore Have No Fun™. My tea came with two sandwich choices (I got ham and English mustard, of which I discovered that English mustard will put some friggin’ hair on your chest, that stuff is hot! and their daily special which was a delicious cranberry, nut, and turkey sweet sammy), a coleslaw style salad made with cabbage in a caraway cream, an organic spring green salad that had a lot of fresh leafy spinach and tangerines that was really nice, a selection of fresh fruits, and for desserts there was a scone with jam, a crumpet with really tasty lemon curd, a tea biscuit, and you got to select a petit four off a large dessert tray (I got a chocolate filled with a chocolate mousse that was delicious!) The tea is served “traditional English style” (not my favorite since the leaves go bitter in the pot since you can’t remove them from the water and I’m not typically a “milk and sugar” person, so I did have to add milk and sugar to later cups) but I got a black Lavender Vanilla tea that is a house blend and it was very tasty, a nice mix of lavender and vanilla flavor. Again, I wasn’t too crazy about how bitter/astringent it gets later into the tea from the leaves sitting in the pot, but that’s just my personal preference, making me sort of wish I’d selected an herbal, but those first few cups were wonderful!

Rainbow Grocery: I went shopping at this co-op thanks to a tip from derk, thank you derk! The bulk tea and herb section here is fantastic, and I got sooo many teas and herbs for a pittance (I think I paid around $16 total?) I can’t remember exactly what I bought since I shipped my haul from my trip home, but I remember I got some peppermint leaf, hibiscus leaf, ginger, rose petal, some pu-erh tuos, an oolong, and a chocolate-mint rose tea, at least (possibly some others?) I like using the plain herbals to mix into other teas as well as to crush and infuse into cocoas, and I recently ran out of a favorite hibicus/ginger tea and figured I’d just get hibiscus and ginger and steep them together for way cheaper than restocking that particular blend. I really wish I had something like this locally, since buying online always means having to get huge amounts of herbs/teas when I typically just need a few scoops like you can get here. I also loved that they clearly labeled their sources on everything, something that teashops don’t even do, leaving me having to Nancy Drew out the wholesale source that most teashops are relabeling their teas from.

KitTea Cat Cafe: This delightful cat cafe offers four unlimited green teas during your session to enjoy relaxing tea with your kitty session. During my session there was genmaicha, houjicha, kukicha, and a green oolong available. I tried kukicha for the first time and really liked it, I’ll have to get some for my home collection sometime! It was such a sweet, clean, smooth green tea. I also really liked the oolong they had. The cats were having naptime during our 4pm visit which was actually great for me, as I find sleepy kitties super relaxing; it makes pretty much all the cats really accessible to just go up to them, plop down, and pet their sleepy bodies and it’s just really calming. The mix of petting the cats and drinking tea was about to lull me into naptime! There was one kitten asleep under a table that Todd and I were petting that kept rolling over, belly up, like, “Here please! Belly access!” and the more we pet it, the louder his little purrs became. It was sooooo cute! Loved my time here!

Lupicia: Did some shopping at the Lupicia store in the San Jose Mitsuwa grocery after getting back to San Jose, where my friend Todd lives. I’ve always wanted to visit there! Since I’m shipping back my tea haul my memory might be shaky, but I believe I picked up the Imo Kuri Kabo (Halloween seasonal), Chocolate Earl Grey, Genmaicha Soybean Matcha, Rose Royale, and Caramel Rum. I also picked up a Houjicha Latte Mix from the Mitsuwa grocery section.

So, I will preface this by saying I have very little experience at all with pu-erh. I’ve mostly just had pu-erh as the base in flavored blends, but have only had a few generic undated shous from various vendors that I only ever steeped western style. I’ve never really dabbled in pu-erh, certainly not the way the real pu-heads do. I have no knowledge of what is considered good, or expensive, or rare, and what isn’t. That’s why I signed up for Liquid Proust’s really awesome pu-erh sampler program this year. I really don’t need any more tea right now, but it is the one tea (followed by whites) that I just haven’t really tried much of and have any opinions on. So thank you so much to Liquid Proust (and the group of volunteers that helped break up cakes and package up the tea)!

This is the first sampler from that lot I’m trying. None of the samplers had any detailed information about the names/places the tea came from (I think that may have been intentional?) so I’m just going to log all of these under the Random Steepings rather than guess on anything and log something under the wrong pu-erh/vendor record. But hey, if someone actually knows for a fact on one of these (LP or co. wants to come forth and identify one) feel free and I’ll gladly move the review to the proper place!)

This one was simply labeled as “Cheap.” Yup. Just that. No year, no sheng/shou differentiation, but I guess whoever got this didn’t pay much for it! Fair enough. I never judge a tea by it’s price anyway. Taste is what’s important!

So, being new to gong fu, and pu-erh, I ended up having to do this one twice. I typically always use the OCTea app website for my tea-to-water ratio measurements, but White2Tea suggested much higher ratios for brewing pu-erh, and everyone loves White2Tea, right?! So they couldn’t be wrong! So I decided to go with their measurements, aaaaaaaaaaaand… yup. Overleafed. SIGH. Why do I always end up with overleafed, bitter, deadly-astringent gong fu on my first try? So frusterating…

So my first go used 3 grams of tea in my 50ml baby gaiwan. I went through 6 steeps before I ditched that session and started over, so what I ended up with was the following:

2.5g / 50ml / 212F / Rinse|5s|10s|15s|20s|30s|40s|45s|50s|60s|65s

The tea aroma was that of wetlands and char and smoke. When I had overleafed, the first steep was pretty much unpalatable for me; it was so heavy in a tobacco smoke flavor, with an extremely bitter sharp vegetal astringency left on my tongue following the sip, that even that tiny cup of tea was daunting. When I restarted the session with less leaf, the smoky note had been tamed back, and more of the wet earth flavor was present, and the tea only carried a mild astringency. By the third steep the aroma started to smell a little spicier, reminding me of the lingering scent of incense in the air, especially with the subtle smokiness present, and I noticed a slight spice note in the finish. By the fourth steep the tea was starting to mellow out for me, the smokiness started to taste less like that awful tobacco note that I hate and more camp fire or BBQ-like, the wet earth flavor started to become more of a rainy petrichor note, and the astrigency following the sip was noticably fading. The smoke and astrigency continued to fade while the wet earth/petrichor continued to build in subsequent steeps. Around the seventh steep I started to taste vegetal notes like cucumber, celery, and watercress.

It took later steeps to push flavors out of this that I personally preferred; the reason why I knew I needed to ditch my first attempt is it just kept getting worse and worse (it was getting ashy, tart, and sour, rather than improving at all). I felt a bit sluggish/tea full by the time the tea picked up for me, and didn’t really want to keep up with the session by the time I was starting to finally like where things were headed. I can also see myself not really looking forward to having to get through the unpleasant smoky early steeps in the future to get to more mellow vegetal/petrichor flavored steeps later. So all in all, I don’t think the mysterious “Cheap” pu-erh is my cuppa.

I am definitely glad I started here though, since it allowed me to experiment with leaf amounts in the baby gaiwan and find my sweet spot with a pu-erh I’m not very impressed with rather than potentially waste leaf from a sampler that might be freaking amazing. I’m on a big learning curve here!

I have no idea the company/source of this pure lavender, other than it came from Greece; it was gifted to me by Meowster in their cupboard destash and since I’m a huge lavender fan (I’ll drink it plain, add it to other teas, and infuse it in cocoas and lemonades) I was happy to see the purple flower buds and give them a home. Thanks so much, Meowster!

Since my head feels like butt I’m in the mood for some lavender milk tea. It has taken me some time to come up with a recipe I like so I don’t end up with a bitter cup, but this is my preferences: a measly half gram of buds (a little goes a long way with pure lavender!) and since I use a pretty standard coffee mug that holds about 370ml of liquid, I steep in 300ml boiling water. I fill my coffee cup about 1/4 of the way full with coconut milk and heat that up for a minute in the microwave, then when my lavender buds have steeped for five minutes, I add the tea to my warm milk. I add just a tiny dollap of Farmer’s Market honey, since it has a naturally floral-sweet flavor that compliments the lavender nicely.

I really love how the flavor of coconut mixes with lavender… I find the warm lavender coconut milk really relaxing. It has that nice minty/floral taste with the sweet creamy coconut base, and has no nasty floral bitterness prepared this way. It’s just warm, relaxing, soothing. Mmm.

I’ve been down with another lengthy migraine, so I haven’t had the energy to do tea journal the last few days… and the nausea has kinda kept me from even drinking much tea, too. But last Thursday night I received a late birthday package from my best friend who was in Japan during my b-day, that had a gorgeous teacup with Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service on it from the Ghibli Musuem, and a bunch of Japanese teas (mostly sakura-flavored teas, as I specifically mentioned I like those and they are hard to come by, and they are in season over there right now, as well as a few other things). One of the stranger things included was an instant plum tea packet that was found at the New Otani Hotel (I believe the Osaka location). My friend’s traveling companion said it was thick and soup-like, so he told me I might want to use it for ramen broth (he knows I use tea as a broth substitute since I can’t use the flavor packets since MSG is a migraine trigger for me). I decided to do something a little different, and dissolved it into the water I was using to make my Minute Rice that night.

Since I only had one packet and I was making a double-serving of rice (which uses two cups of water), I was expecting it to be a little “weak”, but was hoping that the rice might take on a slight plum flavor as it soaked up the water. Ehhh… the experiment didn’t quite work out that way. The rice did have a noticeable taste to it, but it was a very salty flavor! Every now and again I thought that perhaps there was a hint of something slightly sweet or fruity to the taste, but it was extremely subtle; over all, it just tasted very salty. It certainly wasn’t anything to complain about, as it was more interesting than plain white rice, as soy sauce (fermented soy) is another migraine trigger (sigh, but I miss it dearly!), so at least the instant tea powder gave my rice some much needed added flavor. But I certainly wish it had taken on some plum notes like I had hoped. Maybe if I’d had more of the instant tea packets it would’ve worked? Who knows!

Last spring around April Fool’s Day I found a glass mason jar filled with an unidentfied tea leaf in the back of my cupboards that I decided I would finally try to identify. I knew an old coworker had given the tea to me, but it was around when I’d first started working at the library — and that was in 2004 — and she’s been gone from the staff for some time, so it was going to be up to my nose, eyes, and finally tongue to identify this stuff.

I could tell from a visual assessment that the leaf was black tea leaf, and there were small chunks of something in the leaf that looked like dried apple, but a sniff test of the jar produced a strong cinnamon scent. I searched online for some images of “cinnamon black tea” and sure enough found some pictures that were dead ringers for what I had. I was more used to seeing cinnamon in stick form rather than the somewhat spongey cubes I had in this blend. But there was no denying it — I had Cinnamon Black tea, and some very old Cinnamon Black tea at that.

They say that a tea “never goes bad,” but when I decided to have a sipdown of this the other day, I discovered just how wrong I was in that belief. Bleeeh… I remember thinking this was pretty good when I tried it a year ago! Could one more year make that much difference, or has my palate just become that much more sensitive after a year of avid tea-drinking? Because this was nasty, nasty tea. It tasted old and flavorless. The base was weak and devoid of any elements of a nice black tea, with a pallid wash of cinnamon sadly trying (and failing miserably) to hide that fact.

Like milk that has gone rancid, it was time to let this leaf go.

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/tea14/

Went to a Japanese’s tea ceremony today. It was a great experience. Learned a lot. The type of tea was a matcha green tea. The tea itself was quite bitter. But the experience was very nice.

Had some tea from the local Asian fusion place today. I’m not sure exactly what kind of tea it was. Tasted like an oolong. Pretty nice flavor notes nutty, sweet, a little bit of a creamy note, smooth. May have even been a “milk” oolong.

Chai tea from Curry Kebob!

Made my own chai. East Frisian from Harney and Sons as the base. Fresh ginger, black pepper corns, cloves, green caradomom pods, star anise, and cinnamon. Yum!

A review of tea. As presented to me by L. Proust, Esq.

The lineup:

a 2012 Haiwan amuse-bouche
2004 BYH Manzhuan
1980s some sheng, rather wet stored
2004 Tejipin palate cleanser
2017 CLT LBZ upside the head
2006 Wistaria Silver Medal Banzhang, 18g in a vessel that wasn’t rated for 18 (but it was mighty fine regardless)
1965 Jing Gu brick for afters
Cigars and brandy…. ahh, who am I kidding? More tea! Lp’s favorite Kunlu and a very fine oolong I can’t recall anything about because at this point they were picking my brain matter off the floorboards a la Pulp Fiction.

Review:

It was quite tremendous. I would recommend it. In fact, I did. See upper right.

Amounts are approximated and may bear little resemblance to fact.

Drinking a Gushu Hong Cha #2 from the same vendor in Minsk that I got the georgian hongcha from. I think this is sourced from TeaSide but I am not sure, so I’ll log it here. Supposed to be from trees 100-200 years old. Wish I had bought more than just a 20g sample!

Leaves are long and twisty, gold and black.
2.5g in 300ml for 3.5 minutes.
Strong but not bitter or astringent. Reminds of Taiwan Wild Boar (strong but not bitter) but more complex with a fuller body and better mouthfeel. Really enjoyed it, good for starting the day. Some malt and wood. Sweet after taste.

Makes me wonder if I need to give Indian Assams another chance but you know, I already have 25+ hongcha ordered that I need to try.

Second steep was meant to be 5 minutes but I oversteeped. Still good and not astringent.

Georgian hongcha from 2017. Picked this up in Minsk, Belarus. Not much detail known beyond that. I tend to look up teahouses and vendors when I travel and I found a pretty nice place in Minsk that did gong fu cha and had a pretty solid selection of teas.

The vendor was rather reluctant to sell me this as he had “much better teas” and told me that while the leaf material itself was solid, it was not hand processed. Had to explain how I’ve had some other really good Georgian teas (via whatcha) and I was curious to compare them.

Brewed this up western style, 2.5g in 300ml for 3minutes. As I sat down with a cup of this I got preoccupied and my first sip had me a bit confused as to what I was drinking. Very soft and smooth, almost creamy in the mouth. Rather monodimensional and not as interesting as say the Phoenix Georgian hongcha from what-cha, but a pretty nice and easy cup with no astringency at all.

I have another georgian tea on hand that I haven’t tried yet, via thetea.pl’s tea club. Will be interesting to see if that also fits the pattern of really smooth and easy drinkers.

This probably doesn’t count but I just wanted to yell into the void that I put some lemon vodka in a bottle of “Pom” brand pomegranate honey green tea and it’s doooope

Tried the 2016 Yibang Mao Cha from chawangshop today. This tea was in very limited supply and is now sold out. It was quite expensive at $1 per gram. I got a 12g sample. It was an outstanding tea. Very complex; fruity, bitter, wild tasting. It gave me hot flashes, which is very unusual. Took me by surprise. Does that happen for anyone else?

This is a rather unusual tea, its a tea from Kenya. I got this at the world tea expo and Ive been really curious to try it.

I started this by brewing it in a glass teapot at 205, 2.5 grams in a 160 ml of water. I got a very clear dark liquor, bit darker than the Ceylon tea. Its also slightly sweeter and lacking the citrus flavor. Its more like dark wood or dark chocolate. There is also a hint of creamy flavor as well. The aroma wasnt quite as powerful though.

I actually like this.. there is a bit of astrigency and bitterness, but its not overpowering at all.

Recomended

Adorned in red by mandala tea.

Another sampling of the shou bag in the puerh plus box. I brewed up 5 grams of this in 80 ml of water. Quick rinse given and then brewed with about 208 water, just short of boiling. I find it works a little better than bringing it all the way up to boil for shou tea.

This tea is smooth, sweet and chocolaty with a hint of vanilla, its not nearly as strong as the one packed in the orange. Just a hint of it at the end, its also got a stronger chocolate flavor.

This is a perfect after dinner tea..

Recomended

I’ve been taking and studying for finals for the past few weeks, and though it didn’t go as I expected in the end it was alright. But, sadly at my school even if you have a 90% in all of your classes, if even one assignment is not 90% you will not get the credit. So, I will have to remediate my finals during the 3 days that make up “summer school”. In the end I don’t mind that much, for, I know that this semester was the first semester where I was proud of my work, and proud of what I have accomplished, even if that wasn’t enough.

Enough of my complaints let me talk about the tea! I ate a huge meal before fasting at a time called suhoor. After this meal I was absolutely stuffed, but I thought that having a cup of puer would definitely aid my stomach in the ordeal that it is going to face. This tea session was my most brief, and I think I am going to take the leaves and dry them with a paper town to save for the end of the day. I only had around 30 minutes to drink, as it was 4:00 and the start of the fast was 4:30.

In this time with myself sitting in the dark, this tea gave me so much more than it did when I first tried it. When I first tried it, I was so excited as I just received a box full of puerh, and was eager to taste what I have been hearing about for weeks. At first I only tasted pine apple, and nothing else. But, since then I think I have grown into puerh as this time I got so much more. I got apple, stone fruits, a black tea bitterness, it was absolutely wonderful. This tea is very enjoyable, but I wish it wasn’t so much of a mystery! It was very smooth aswell, with a nice cooling aftertaste. As I have found with many raws there is a bitterness at first that lasts for the first 2 or 3 steepings. However, this tea’s bitterness was more than tolerable, and it was actually something that I enjoyed in the tea. Just when the session was getting nice my alarm went off, and it was time to fast.

Ramadan Mubarak to anyone else who is observing the fast. Please, if you have any questions about Ramadan, feel free to ask!

This tea was labeled 2013 Mystery Raw from Yunnan Sourcing.

I did a wash and brewed up the first infusion. It tasted very very fruity, with tropical fruits being the main taste. But, the main fruit that stood out was pine-apple. It tasted very much like pineapple with a peach and mango blend hiding behind it. It was a very nice tea, I enjoyed it very much.

It lasted about 6-7 infusions, with the fruity taste going behind and a grassy taste going in front, but the weird thing is, is that these two tastes sort of switched. One infusion I would taste a very fruity taste, but for 2 infusions that died down and I tasted a fruity hay. But then the pine apple returned until the session was over.

Today I also realized what being tea drunk is. I am super tea drunk it seems, as I am ridiculously calm, and really struggling to write this tasting note. I also feel really really up lifted with sort of a light feeling in the head and arms.

Overall, a very nice first puer, and I am excited for tomorrow to try a sheng!

7572 from the Here’s Hoping TTB. Don’t know what year.

This is probably one of the most boring tasting notes I’ll ever have, but all I wrote down for this tea is that it tastes like shou. This being the classic, defining recipe that it is, however, I suppose that isn’t too surprising. Kept a very consistent and predictable flavor profile throughout the entire session.