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Discovered yet another tea shop/cafe while out in the world. This shop sells pre made cups of chai and various homemade snacks and desserts.
I had a large cup of Masala Chai made with Kenyan tea with cardamom and milk. Absolutely fabulous.
The other day I stumbled upon a wee tea shop/restaurant here that sells healthy plates of homemade food. The noodles and rice are both made with green tea. It seems each plate includes some sort of tea food. I didn’t have a chance to eat there, but I did have a big mug of Hong-Kong style milk tea made with Orange Pekoe and evaporated milk and a bit of brown sugar. It was seriously strong and glorious. Delighted to have made this find. Lovely ambiance. Lovely human being running the place. Great art. Excellent tea. All around, a big win!
So, my health-seeking/improving journey continues. Saw a naturopath for the first time the other day who suggested, among other things, that I include coconut oil in my nutrition plan. Yeah, I am continuing the One Night in Rio and Brazilian Fruit, as in previous post, now with the addition of a bit of coconut oil. A bit odd, but it works.
Does it make the tea texture oily at all?
Yes, it creates a coconut-flavoured oil slick on the surface. Odd, yes, but fine once you get used to it. You see, I have a daily quota to uphold. It may as well be in coconut pineapple and tropical fruit tea until I can find a better way to ingest it.
Also, the oiliness is a bit different from other oils, a bit less slick-like.
I continue to play with the combination of One Night in Rio by Camellia Sinensis, Pineapple Marshmallow by 52teas, and Brazilian Fruit by Mighty Leaf Tea: two out of three, and today three out of three. The possible combinations fascinate me.
Today, it’s half Brazilian Fruit and a quarter each of One Night in Rio and Pineapple Marshmallow. I wanted the ka-pow of the Chinese black base in BF, the pineapple and coconut fruit of ONIR, and the marshmallow softness in the PM. Mission accomplished. I added a spoon of honey to bring the fruit out even more.Today’s random steeping is Ippodo Shincha over ice.
Unfortunately, while trying to make this, I spilled part of my tea caddy. However, while trying to clean up the mess, I was brought into direct contact with the tea. The feeling of the needlelike tea amazed me. The sorting that they must do to get tea to this level is incredible.
Anyways to steep I used 10 g of tea and 200 mL of boiling water (not on purpose).
I then poured it over ice and added a bit of cool water, and let it sit for a few moments.
If I could describe the experience, I would say that I was a Canadian pine
Standing in the middle of snowy winter. The taste of the tea totally matched the aroma of the needle leaves. I think intense chlorophyll might describe the flavour.
With no sugar used at all and a 2 minute steeping time
The only thing I could compare the adult taste of this drink with would
Be ice cold water vodka and water. (I don’t drink)
The essence of Japanese green tea is there.
The experience of trying this iced was totally different
Than warm.
Preparation
So today’s tea was another bubble tea.
The base is passion fruit, which is one of my absolute
All time favourite fruit teas. They also added a bit of lime,
Although I could do without the acidity.
Overall a very tasty fruit / black tea mix. I believe it is Ceylon
They use and it holds up well to ice.
Along with that, I had bubbles and lychee candy (my fav)
I could just drink this with just the tea though. So refreshing!
Flavors: Passion Fruits
A sign appeared before me like a brightly lit Christmas tree, only the presents were beautiful bubble teas.
If you know me, then you know I could not walk into a shop and resist the name
Hokkaido Milk Tea. A strong desire to visit Hokkaido, Japan, with all its famous seafood, exists in my heart. I had forgotten that they send cows up there to live and that their
Fresh milk is famous.
I ordered my Hokkaido milk tea with bubbles. It is one of the chains
Most popular sellars. Well, it did not disappoint. The cold taste of fresh milk
Along with a slight sweetness and the mildness of a green tea…
Read that last line a few times.. then you’ll understand :))
The second in a series of Kombucha, which is locally made. This one uses jasmine green tea and fresh ginger juice along with cane sugar.
The ginger definitely gives it a spicy taste. I don’t notice as much of the jasmine.
I like the very small bubbles. The low amount of sugar definitely lets you taste
The ginger. However, a bit of honey in the bottom of a glass along with small pours transform the beverage to something more ambrosial.
The cost of each bottle brings me back down to Earth, however.
Today’s random tea is not so random.
West Lake Long Jing (Dragon Well) from David’s Tea and China.
I can’t sat if it’s this years spring harvest.
The tea is a bit broken up. Small long leaves, otherwise.
The most striking this is th aroma. It reminds me of the spice they use for chicken restaurant gravy in Canada. A little spicy. Delicious.
Price up to 14 cdn per 50 g
Today’s tea was a Rasberry Green Tea Kombucha. The ingredients were green tea that had been fermented to be fizzy and mixed with organic sugar and raspberries.
It was a decent drink with a semisweet mild flavour. As a soft drink type of drink
It would be great. However, there wasn’t anything green tea like or raspberry tea like.
At $4 a bottle, it was expensive. The alcohol level is 1% too, which is twice that of juice.
The other day I had a cup of Assam with a frozen raspberry jelly donut. Now that was yummy.
I get cravings for peach tea.
I decided to make my own this time. A second steeping of Assam, which made the tea less tannic. I added a left over bag of Celestial Seasonings peach tea.
It worked out really well. Good peachy flavour, nice background. Could have used one less teaspoon of sugar, though.
Today’s random steeping was a Genmaicha. The tea was served after a meal. It was a mix of genmaicha with a bit of matcha in the tea bag. Overall it had a bit of a confused flavour. I definitely got the toasted rice, just not the balance of the green tea.
The tea cup was awesome though. Imagine a cold, rainy day and you search for warmth. The cup is round and rough to fit your hands and the material is stone like and transfers the heat to you. :)
Today’s tea was a bit of a mystery. Ok, I assume it is a Ceylon, but the mystery was how to drink it.
At first, I just found that it brewed a super weak cup of tea. Forget about a second steep from these leaves!
However, I tried to up the amount of tea used to three small tea spoons. The flavour was now a good ceylon. Although I still couldn’t get resteeps out of it. The tea was a real orange colour in a clear cup or a rose colour in a darker cup.
I think the lesson here is that you need to experiment with your teas to bring the best out of them. Price is definitely a factor in teas you need to use more of. $10 / 100g is a good price, $20 is not!
Today’s random steeping is an Earl Grey from Singell Estate in Darjeeling. The bergamot flavour is light enough to be enjoyable. The scent is milder. Bergamot is a type of orange, but is a little different. It is neither like the lemon or lime that I have freshly squeezed in my tea. The tea itsslf is a black darjerling. I believe the use of this tea as opposed to a more full bodied tea lets the bergamot shine through. The colour is closer to a lighter ceylon.
This is the green tea that I picked up for $10 for 100 grams. I decided to try strong brewing it, so I weighed out 10 g of the tea. 200 mL of water was used at a cooler temperature, around 150 to 160 F.
The tea had a shimmery golden appearance. The taste was vegetal. With sugar, it brightened up, but still was on the oceanic vegetal side.
The second brewing was also vegetal. Although this time there was a strong vegetal / mineral smell. Quite unusual.
By the third steeping the tea had mellowed in flavour.
Dry Leaf:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJnj8TGBNTM/
After reading about Russian Caravan Tea, I decided to try making a blend. This is probably not caravan tea though.
I chose these three to blend:
Darjerling Black (Unknown)
Oolong Supreme (Davids Tea)
Lapsang Souching (Unknown)
I used 1 teaspoon of each tea for my cup. I mixed in 1 table spoon of honey and 3 teaspoons of sugar (roughly). I also added milk.
I was surprised at how incredibly smoky this tea was. It is like the other teas are enhancing the smokiness and enabling me to appreciate the flavours of the wood.
The body of the tea is a bit lighter. The honey rounds it out.
I can’t really pick out any strong flavours. Though the front of my tongue is tingling with unami.
I think traditionally you want to go heavier when mixing with a smokey tea. However, I think this experiment showed that blending with lighter teas can enhance the smokiness.
Now if I had only made some toast and jam to go with this. Ok, second steeping too light and smokey. Tried the toast and jam too.
Today’s random steepin is a food pairing of Humpty Dumpty Cheese Sticks (Puffs really) with Japanese House matcha.
The matcha was prepared with 120 mL of water and one teaspoon of powder.
I choose the cheese puffs based on how long the cheese flavour lasted. You get a real salty flavour.
Reading the ingredient list there is real cheese and also msg which should be interesting with matcha. The idea is to alternate tea and snack as opposed to drinking them together. This makes the matcha super refreshing, but also shortens how long it lasts in taste. You will also feel like you want two bowls instead of one. It goes quickly.
I also like to add sugar to my matcha. I got the acidity of the green tea for sure. The lovely greeness contrasts the orange colour of a cheese puff. There was definitely some good flavour in the matcha, and I do believe the contrast brought it out.
This matcha has been sitting for about a month since it was opened, and I think it may be moving towards a vegetable flavour.
Next time I might try a spicy Dorito. :)
Today’s random steeping is rather unique. Firstly because it uses well aged Bai Mu Dan. And secondly, because of the advanced brewing technique. The idea is to use ice to super cold brew over a long period of time. Simply place the ice in a large bowl along with the tea and cover the bowl. Come back 6 to 8 hours later. The tea is done when the ice is melted.
10 g of aged Bai Mu Dan tea was used to produce only 200 mL of tea.
The resulting liquid had an orange colour to it. There was a definite floral / tea aroma from the bowl. Evrn though the colour waa orange, the tea was smoother than from hot brewing.
You may want to prepare some simple syrup for sweetener. I decided to use honey that I warmed up in the microwave.
Afterwards, I tried to see if I could still make tea. Using 200 mL boiling water on the ice cold leaves extracted maximum flavour. I got the most wonderful hay / grass like tea. It was like a farmers field right after harvest. The tea was orange coloured as well.
The final brewing with hot water gave a more traditional tea taste.
The advantage of this method is that it supposedly brings out the natural sweetness of the tea I think somewhat like icewine brings out the flavour of the grape. I look forward to trying it with green teas in the future.
This morning I decided that I would start the day with two bowls of matcha and a plate of watermelon. I then followed this with a couple of cups of Long Jing and some toaster waffles with syrup.
I really like the combination of matcha with sugar, prepared traditionally, and watermelon. You take a sip of one and then later a bite of the other. I have yet to try it with many other fruits, I am sure it would work well, though. This mornings matcha was dark green and the froth was lighter colour. It contrasts so well with the red of the watermelon. You can also reverse the order with supersweet fruits and leave the matcha unsweetened.
My taste buds were primed by the time I had my first sip of Long Jing. I was in a sort of sudden matcha enduced calm, as well. It was sweet and brothlike with plenty of umami. Really delicious.
I look forward to many years of drinking tea. It has opened up quite a world to me.
Today’s random steeping isn’t so random. In fact, for once, I know exactly what I am drinking.
I actually went out to buy chinese bud tea. Looking at the $15 price made me think twice though. Instead, I picked up 1 KG of raw Ontario Grade 1 honey.
I figured that this would go a lot further than 40g of buds.
For the third steeping of David’s Long Jing, I cranked up the heat to full, and dumped the hot water in 4g of tea.
The brew came out yellow, and I mixed in a tablespoon of honey. If you put in too much honey, it will sour your tea. So what I do is add a couple teaspoons of sugar. You get sweetness plus the florals of honey. Unfortunately this particular honey didn’t overwhelm me with floweriness. Tasting the honey, I get a caramel like flavour with delicious sweetness, it moves to hurting the throat. On the other hand, it does provide quite a bit of taste in the cup.
