February « 2017 « Art and Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! With my tea choice this morning, I’m traveling to the island of Java, the largest in the string of volcanic islands that make up the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia.

This tea was grown on the Malabar Tea Estate, located in West Java, near Mount Malabar, a stratovolcano built up from many layers of lava, pumice and volcanic ash.

This tea estate has been in existence for over 100 years. The well-known and beloved planter and philanthropist, Karel Albert Rudolf Bosscha, managed the estate for many years until his death in 1928. Sometimes called KAR Bosscha, he traveled to the Netherlands Indies in 1887, working at various jobs such as gold exploration and mining before he took on the management of Malabar in 1896. The son of a Dutch physicist, he carried on his family’s science interest by developing an astronomical observatory as well as a Cancer Center in the nearby city of Bandung. A lot of interesting history there.

I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes in boiling point (212F) water.

As I removed the infuser from my glass teapot, I detected a strong aroma of peppery spice and aromatic wood wafting up from the very dark tea liquor.

My first sip had a caramel-like sweetness, very smooth, which wrapped around the spicy, woody notes. The liquor is quite robust with an interesting flavor that draws you in like a magic spell. It’s the kind of tea that intrigues your palate with its aromatic spicy darkness. My first cuppa went very quickly!

If you’ve never tried an Indonesian tea before, I encourage you to give this selection a try. It’s definitely hearty enough for milk and sweetener.

My day will be spent wrapping tiny knitted things, preparing for my daughter’s baby shower tomorrow. Yes, I’m so excited to share that I’m going to be a grandma again! Life is truly filled with many blessings.

Happy sipping!

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.

~Vincent Van Gogh

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Good morning, dear tea friends! I was greeted by brilliant sunshine streaming through my windows as I padded down to my kitchen to prepare my morning tea. The days are getting longer as we march towards spring, and it’s exciting to have my path home from work now illuminated by the last light of the day. What’s in my cup today? You wouldn’t know it from my photos but I’m enjoying a pot of China Pu-Erh tea. This is very light for a Pu-Erh tea, you say? That’s because it’s a Sheng Cha, or “raw” Pu-Erh. There are 2 types of Pu-ehr, raw (Sheng or Qing) and cooked (Shou).

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Pu-Erh teas technically start out green but have a tea category all of their own because of their unique processing methods. Some people use the word “fermentation” when describing the oxidation process that turns tea leaves dark. In this instance, the correct term is “oxidation.” Pu-Erh leaves are truly fermented, in the sense of the word, because various components are introduced during processing that allow the leaves to ferment. This process is a long held secret. Leaves and tips (buds) are harvested and sun dried, much like white tea, and then the magic happens that creates Pu-Erh tea.

I used 180F water and steeped the leaves for 4 minutes.

The aroma is sweet and earthy with a pronounced dried apricot note in both the wet leaves and the liquor.

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Even the tea liquor is a golden apricot color, giving this selection a stone fruit theme, for sure. The flavor is sweet, tempered by an earthiness and suggestion of tobacco. The stone fruit note is still there, however, not as strong as in the aroma.

This is a great choice to start your exploration of Pu-Erh teas, if you haven’t tried them yet. Better yet, try this alongside some cooked Pu-Erh so you can enjoy the pronounced difference between them. And they all amazingly come from the same plant!

Tomorrow is a big day for us football fans here in New England. Our beloved Patriots are headed to the Super Bowl once again. Go Pats!!!

“If you ask me how I want to be remembered, it is as a winner. You know what a winner is? A winner is somebody who has given his best effort, who has tried the hardest they possibly can, who has utilized every ounce of energy and strength within them to accomplish something. It doesn’t mean that they accomplished it or failed, it means that they’ve given it their best. That’s a winner.”

~Walter Payton