Various Artists

This tea is a sample given to me by an aliexpress seller. She left no particular identification on it except to say it’s a Dian Hong so I can’t identify which particular one it is. The tea is a broken leaf Yunnan and is quite smooth and less bitter than might be expected for a broken leaf tea.

The tea smells of apricot, leather, bready notes, barley and cream.

50s the tea has mild sweetness tempered by a mild tart bitterness. The flavour notes were of barley, malt, cocoa,leather notes, cream, and apricot. It tastes relatively smooth and dense.

2 min similar to above with a little more density and stronger fruit and leather notes.

3 min. Apricot, honey, cream, tart plum, a hint of barley and light malt.

This tea could easily manage another steep. It is a pleasant and easy to drink everyday tea,but I am not interested in it enough to ask for it to be identified.

Experimenting again with Kashmiri Chai/Pink tea/ noon tea again. This started out as green tea. If you add milk to it it will go a pinky brown colour.
http://instagram.com/p/qkNVkzmK3K/

I TSP kashmiri green tea ( an assamic green)/ 2 cups of tea.
Extra water or milk.
Baking soda 1/8 TSP per 2cups of tea salt
4 cloves of cardamon
Peppercorns
1 inch piece of cinnamon.

I used a variation of this recipe

http://www.lifensuch.com/noon-chai-salty-tea-pink-tea-kashmiri-namkeen-chai.htm

Mine was a little bitter today because I was impatient and didn’t cook it long enough. But I like the spicing today and I added a little sugar and a bit of pistachios. It’s amazing though how smooth a tea this process can make when it is done right.

1 TSP dried rose buds
@9 leaves of lemon balm
200ml water

Dominated by lemony flavour of lemon balm.
Rosebuds lend a peppery taste and a coolness and thickness to the base and probably augments the citrus notes.

Drinking what I believe is some Random Yan Cha, scent as a replacement from an aliexpress dealer as a replacement for a tea I ordered. I can’t particularly recommend this dealer. It was my first buy from them, but they listed my order as shipped then told me it was out of stock and tried to foist year old green tea on me as substitution. Then they said they would refund me by PayPal, instead of waiting for the end of the delivery period or me making a dispute, which did not happen. Finally especially since it was a really small sale I just gave in and let her send me a random black tea. The tin is really cute and the tea smells like creme caramel.

Brewed so far it tastes like creme caramel with a tart fruit compote on top, with hints of cocoa. Later steeps are spicy. It’s actually kind of nice, but I doubt I’ll deal with this seller again.

I sprig of tarragon
6 or 7 peppermint leaves
2 cardamon pods

Scent is an equal balance of tarragon and peppermint.

Peppermint dominates the taste with the tarragon adding a slightly licorice toned sweetness. Cardamon is slightly there but barely noticeable.

2 parts cocoa nibs
2 parts sour cherry tisane
1 part rooibos chai

Too much cherry tisane it overpowers the cocoa and the spices. I’m not sure if I would want too much more spice, maybe a little more, and the cocoa nibs are probably at the right level. The tisane could use a little something to sweeten it. I might prefer this with cinnamon instead of chai. Otherwise it is a tart cherry chocolate with a cardamon vanilla tint from the chai with a touch of cinnamon and cloves.

When I was trying to find out more about the Lopchu white tea I bought, I happened upon this article while searching Lopchu Chai http://www.indianfoodfreak.com/2013/04/making-perfect-cup-tea/
Non of the chai recipes are the spicy mandala chais we think of here, but rather they are simply the participants favourite tea or tea blend recipe, preparation and additives. Someone suggested a blend of Lopchu Darjeeling and a CTC black and seeing as I have a ton of both. I thought I’d try it. I did a half and half combination and you know what it’s pretty nice.

The CTC I have has chocolate malt biscuit and dark cherry notes and Lopchu is quite sweet with brown sugar and cocoa notes among others and when steeped around 95°C you get the sugary sweetness of Lopchu black very a maltier thicker base. The flavours all compliment each other and it seems some what fruitier. Not that I need an additive for Lopchu, but at least I have away to use up some of my aging CTC.

Currently sipping on steeped ginger with fresh lime. Actually really enjoyable as sick as I still am. For a stronger ginger make a decoction ( simmer it on the stove for around 10 min or so) otherwise steeped is quite pleasant.

Tasted some of my teas when sick so far the jinjunmei has been the best with cocoa notes becoming somewhat more apparent but at times some of my more astringent teas have been pleasant.

Being sick, I’ve spent more time surfing the internet which resulted in a mini aliexpress buying spree…looking forward to the arrival of some new spring teas!

Feeling incredibly horrible right now, so I’m resorting to my aunts old school and probably toxic mixture of neo-citran and earl grey. I last had this when my aunt rescued me from my house during reading week when I could barely crawl out of bed!

Having fun with family history searches and found out my grandmother was alive at least 3 more years than I thought, and was a roommate with Bette Davis at Cushing’s Academy. She is incredibly difficult to track down because she had several legal and professional names and the ImDB has merged her info with another person! Otherwise I only get references to her as foot notes to my Grandfathers scandalous but exciting life.

More lavender experiments

1 TSP lavender
Few slices of ginger
Cinnamon (@1.5 inches crushed)
1/8th TSP licorice shredded licorice root.

@ 16Oz mug

Cinnamon and lavender dominate scent.

The flavour is a little thin for the amount of water I used. Next time I might add more ginger and slightly increase the cinnamon and lavender. The licorice root is perfect. However, the flavour does intensify while you drink it.

Warm slightly spicy tea, with a touch of sweetness, and a bit of brightness from the ginger and lavender. Not overly floral, the lavender and cinnamon kind of blend into each other, with the lavender only slightly dominant.

Large Pinch of dried lemongrass
4-5 slices fresh ginger
Dried coconut
It smells wonderful, a bit like lemon pound cake.
It tastes quite tart. I was going to add some licorice root, but I misplaced it. I suppose I could add sugar but its drinkable as it is. The coconut and ginger create a blend of cream and warmth under the lemony note. The lemongrass is both the first and last note when drinking this tisane but the ginger lingers.

2 tsp cocoa nibs
1 tsp soba cha,
a couple thin slices of ginger,
4 small pods of cardamon,
1cm worth of cinnamon stick
3 arms of star anise.
1 clove
@14 oz of water steeped for @6 min

Not bad and chai like but I used one TSP of soba cha instead of extra coconibs and I think next time I will use the extra tsp of nibs and then add the soba cha. I will also up the ginger next time as well, otherwise the flavours mixed well to produce a mild cocoa based chai.

More lavender experiments…

This time I used less than 1 tsp lavender
2 1cm thick slices of ginger
A pinch of dried lemongrass

Once upon a time it was easy to buy bulk herbs and spices around here in small proportions, but now if they even have the herbs you end up having to buy prepackaged bags with fixed proportions. Which is how I ended up with a huge bag of lavender. It’s a nice lavender sweet and spicy, not soapy thank goodness. But I still have tons left. I’ve given it away as sachets, drank it straight as tea, added it to my bath, and used it to flavour other teas. This is a continuation of project, move through the lavender.

Tonight I added the lavender to cocoa nibs, and cardamon.

You know what it’s not too bad. Though I think next time. I’ll use a little bit less lavender and add a little more cardamon. The lavender sweetened the cocoa and added a little bit of spice, and the cardamon was slightly detectable underneath, doing the same.

I’ll have to try it again, but lavender actually goes quite nicely with chocolate.

around 1tbsp coca nibs, less than tsp of lavender, a couple cardamon pods, sreeped in a 16 oz mug for around 7 min.

Mystery Ceylon

I’m currently enjoying a mystery Ceylon that I picked up at the Polish grocery store. I haven’t had it for a while, but I forgot how nice it was.

It has this beautiful mix of fruity blackberry, floral notes, toasted grains, hint of sweet potato, malt and spice with some slightly earthy/leathery notes and a sugary note that has a dark maple syrup tones. As it cools it remains quite sweet and citrus tones come out. The tea has a nice body and re-steeps really well.

I wish I know for sure where the tea came from. It is a large leaf ceylon, with broad twisted leaves. I suspect it comes from this company as they have supplied teas to the store in the past.

http://organicteacup.com/products.aspx,

but there are several other local companies it could be from.

I really need to try more unsmoked or lightly smoked zheng shan Xiao zhongs because I love the one I’m sipping on right now. The dealer I bought this one from is in the process of re-setting up his e-store or I’d direct you there because I’ve loved all the wuyi blacks I’ve had from him so far.

This particular one smells like dark chocolate with some grain notes when dry and has thin shiny dark leaves with a few red brown leaves. It is best brewed between 80-90*c. I prefer brewing it at around 80 because then it is buttery like an oolong and the chocolate and caramel notes it has dominate.
It has notes of cocoa, caramel, and honey note’s over sweet potato, cinnamon and some grain notes it has some fruity citrus lychee notes and dark crust toast notes as well as a hint of vanilla.

When brewed at a higher temperature the lychee/citrus and sweet potato notes become stronger.

This tea holds up to 5+ brews when brewing 1tsp/200ml.

Really nice tea, so I hope I can get it again. If not I’m going to have to experiment with more sweet and un-smoked teas of this type.

I am sick once again, sore throat ( for some reason when I get sick this tends to be where it concentrates), runny nose etc. To doctor my self up I made a tisane of ginger, sage ( full leaves from last years garden), cardamom, ginger, cloves and honey. It actually tastes quite pleasant, herbal, but not overly medicinal. The brightness of the ginger tempers the earthiness of the sage. Sage and honey are both known to help sore throats and the other ingredients are also known to help fight infection so hopefully it’ll help. At least it’s soothing on my throat!

I decided to do a comparison between two supermarket earl greys.

Twinings and Ahmad Special Blend.

Cost Twinings between 5.49-6.99 CAD for 100g tin.
Ahmad 6.99 454g box

Dry Leaf
Twinings The bergamot smells more of baked lemon with soft powder floral accent, bop leafs are larger and coarser than Ahmads with a light baked goods smell to leaf.

Ahmad The bergamot is slightly lighter and smells of fresh lemon rind with a floral accent(lavender and rose), and ginger, dry leaf bop ceylon blended with other black teas.

The teas both brew to the colour of maple wood.

Scent of brewed tea

Twinings bergamot(lemon foral) over slightly woody, slightly orange scented black tea smell including rind with a hint of ginger and a cinnamon like scent.

Ahmad strong scent, of malty lemony tea with deeper lemon scent with a hint of ginger, and floral notes.

Taste Twinings Tea is slightly vegetal, with slightly malty tone underneath a citrusy top note. Hint of lavender present, mixed with lemon rind taste, It brews lighter than I remember with less of a rich tea taste. This tin tastes like it is using the same base as Lady Grey.
It is thin bodied with a spicier bergamot. I like the spiciness but I wish there was more citrus. It is a light tea. Relatively smooth and relatively insensitive to steep time. It leaves a spicy floral with hint of citrus aftertaste.

Ahmad This tea has a malty undertone, with hints of red fruit mixed with orange (almost a shirley temple cocktail note), not quite as spicy on the tongue as twinings, with a hint of cooked lemon mixed with orange and rind, rose, and lavender. This tea is more tannic. The tea has more depth than twinings. I would like more spice. It benefits from a shorter steep time as it risks getting bitter and astringent. It leaves a citrus aftertaste.

Both of these teas lack either the rich sweetness of the tea base in the cjay earl grey http://steepster.com/teas/cjay-tea/36148-earl-grey or the bright citrus of the big active tea http://steepster.com/teas/big-active/35256-essence-earl-grey-superior-with-rose-petals.

I’ve been a little under the weather today so I’ve been experimenting with various versions of Chai.

So far I’ve done one with Bai Mudan, one with a cheap darjeeling and two versions of Kashmiri Chai made with Samovar green tea, next I’ll probably make ginger tea with an assam.

The white chai included bai mudan 3 pods of cardamon, 1/2 inch of cinnamon stick, white pepper cracked, 1 arm of star anise, and ginger. I added two much cardamon this time, but otherwise it was pleasant, but mild and smells of baking.

The darjeeling chai had similar spicing but tasted of lemony mild ginger and pepper with gentle spice, the tea base underneath left hints of almond and peach, lemon and a bit of malt and was faintly floral.

The Kashmiri Chai was spiced with cardamon and cinnamon, I added a pinch of baking soda and salt to experiment with pink tea. I made it two ways, steeped to which I added crushed almond and boiled.

The steeped tea brewed to a peachy green colour and tasted of crushed
almond, bitter spinach ,a faint hint of sweetness from the tea base, cardamon and cinnamon. It tastes light on the tongue, especially at the front of the mouth. It does not taste of salt and soda.

For the boiled tea I added the tea, spices and water appropriate to amount of servings, and a pinch soda and salt. I boiled the tea so that 1/4 to 1/3 of the liquid was lost, I then added back the
lost water and boiled it 2-4 minutes. The boiled tea is a dark, opaque, browny red. Taken of heat if you add milk, it goes pink. The tea is smooth and looses the heavy tanic feeling of the steeped tea. I was surprised how dark and red the tea goes considering this is
made with green tea.

Sometimes when I’m craving something sweet but not too sweet I like to mix Teaopia/Teavana Caramelissimo with a light to medium bergamot earl grey(this time CJay teas option). This time I blended them 2 parts earl grey to 1 part Caramelissimo. What you get is citrus caramel blended with a hint of nut from the hazlenut brittle in Caramelissimo, over a ceylon/assam blend base which is both citrusy and bitter/earthy. It’s really nice, but add some sugar or increase the proportion of the caramel tea if you prefer a sweet tea. As it is this blend has an aftertaste that is a little like eating an earl grey dark chocolate truffle.

I added about 1 part lavender buds to 4 parts of a light roast Dong Ding and the went really well together. The oolong is very floral with acents of gardenia and carnation and the lavender helped to increase the intensity of the floral spice and sweetened the tea while adding just a hint of lavender flavour.

So, I didn’t feel like making a new tea page for this tea. I got a really great ginger root herbal at Apple Hill last weekend. It’s so tasty! Has a lot of bite to it, more if you let it steep longer. I tried my first cup at a 5-minute steep and tonight I’m drinking a 6-minute steep and it has a lot more bite and heat. Yum! I also put in some fresh honey, also from Apple Hill, and it’s delicious! I really was never a fan of ginger, but that seems to be changing. I think once I’m done with these teabags, I’m going to experiment making my own from fresh ginger. Should be fun!

We had a tea party today! I always have small ones with just a few people and we keep it casual. Everyone enjoys trying stuff out of my cupboard. Haha! I decided to introduce them to puerh today and steeped up special dark by Mandala. Everyone liked it and it was actually everyone’s favorite of the day! We drank lots of different teas. I personally drank snow view by Lupicia, special dark, TeaVivre’s white tea cake, and caramel & rum by Lupicia. It was a great chance to rediscover teas I had forgotten about. We had quite a spread too. My caramel apple scones were a hit, and we had goat cheese, shallot, and habanero sauce tea sandwiches, caprese kabobs, strawberry and goat cheese on crackers, and a lemon curd macadamia nut crust tart. Here’s a pic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97273956@N03/15621636997/in/photostream/

So fun! :)

So, I’m on work travel in Arizona, and I just can’t get a good cup of tea around here! I even brought some teas from home, mostly sample sachets from Lupicia, but drinking tea out of styrofoam cups really ruins the flavor. I should have brought a travel mug, but I wasn’t sure if it was okay to take that on the plane. My coworker said he’s done it, so next time, I’m totally bringing one! Also, the tap water around here has a funny taste. And to top it all, I tried to make tea in my hotel room with the coffee pot, but even after two “rinses” of the pot, it still had coffee residual taste. That, coupled with the funny tasting water and a styrofoam cup…oh man, I should just give up! One more day…I can make it!!!