Author Archives: artandtea

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends. It’s great to be sharing a cup of tea with you once again. On this brisk, blue sky morning, I’ve brewed up a pot of a broken-leaf Assam from the Daisajan estate. As you can see, the broken bits of leaf are fairly large with a sprinkling of tip (the yellowish leaf).

I’ve read that this estate’s name derives from the Assamese words “Doichha Jaan”, meaning “the river with two heads”. It’s located in the Doom Dooma district in the northeast tip of Assam in India, an area once covered in jungle and populated by elephants.

I steeped the leaves for 3 1/2 minutes in boiling point water. As I lifted the infuser from my glass teapot, I noted a rich malty aroma with nuances of red wine. The aroma hinted a stout cup and, to me, that usually means astringency, the kind you can feel in your teeth. Boy, was I surprised.

I was amazed at the silky smoothness of the tea liquor. All of the broken-leaf intensity was there with a fullness suggesting incredibly dark chocolate, the 88% cocoa kind (my favorite).

So dark yet so amazingly smooth. Notes of malt and red wine mingled with the dark chocolate fullness.

If you enjoy milk in your Assam, I would recommend experimenting with pushing the steep time on this one, perhaps 4 minutes or so.

This is a great selection for coffee drinkers who want to transition over and explore the world of tea. Now, I don’t drink coffee anymore because of my sensitivity to its caffeine but I remember that bitterness in a cup of coffee that isn’t quite astringency but could be likened to the bitterness of dark chocolate or a really dark beer. To me, anyway. That is present in this cup but I don’t want to use the word bitter because, in tea, it is used to describe oversteeping. Forgive me if my description falls short of clarity. The bottom line is I love this Assam, in fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s my current favorite.  And for this Darjeeling fanatic, that’s saying a lot!

Enjoy your week and your tea!

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”

~Maya Angelou

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning dear tea friends! It’s beginning to look a lot like a New England winter around here. Up until this week, we’ve been blessed with mild temps and…should I speak the words?….oh dear…no snow. There. I said it. Well, it’s finally happened and the white stuff is gently falling from the sky, blanketing everything. Compared with our last winter though this is nothin, folks.

Ok, on to tea. This morning’s tea is a good solid everyday broken leaf second flush Darjeeling from the Margaret’s Hope estate. Some folks like to avoid the broken leaf Darjeelings because they steep very fast and if you don’t catch it in time, tend to get quite bitter. As opposed to a tea like a China black say, where you can oversteep with no bitter consequences.

Do you know how this tea garden got its beautiful name? Story has it that in the 1930s, the garden was owned by a Mr. Bagdon who, with his two daughters, sailed from England to India to visit the garden. The younger daughter, Margaret, fell in love with the estate and hoped that some day she could return. It was not to be, however, as she became ill and died on the return voyage home. In her memory, her father named the estate Margaret’s Hope. What a poignant story.

Both the wet leaf and the tea give off a mild fruity aroma. There’s not much complexity to this tea but I think that it’s a wonderful value for a Darjeeling tea you can drink everyday.

The flavor of the deep amber-colored liquor is rich and full with hints of fruit. What strikes me the most about this tea is how incredibly smooth it is with no lingering bite. As long as you go easy on the steep time, this tea delivers a flavor and smoothness I’ve not experienced in most BOP Darjeelings.

I think this selection would also make a wonderful iced tea for all of you lucky tea lovers who are not gazing out onto a world of snow and ice as I am right now. Another one to place on my list to audition for iced tea when the weather warms up.

Ok, time for another cup and then it’s time to think about going outside and picking up my shovel. Next Saturday is my art guild meeting so I won’t be able to review a new tea, however, I’ll be sure and repost another oldie but goodie for you. Have a wonderful week and stay warm and dry, cup of tea in hand!

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday Morning Tea

Tea.  Earl Grey.  Hot.

I’ve always wanted to say that but, between you and I, I’ve never cared for Earl Grey tea. I’ve always thought it to be too perfume-y for my taste. I’ve since discovered that perhaps I was being a bit too hasty in my judgment and it had nothing to do with Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Well, maybe a little.

Several months ago, a dear friend was in the hospital for a month. Each day that I would go to visit him, I would stop at the small cafe on the first floor on my way up to his room and get a cup of tea. The selection wasn’t extensive, to say the least (I know, I’m spoiled), and I found myself reaching for a cup of Earl Grey tea. And I liked it. Wait a minute, what? Granted, I laced it with milk and a little sugar but I liked it and found it quite comforting given the circumstances.

So, this morning, dear tea friends, I introduce you to a new love of mine – Earl Grey – this one called Natural Bergamot Earl Grey.

Earl Grey tea is a tea that has been flavored with the oil of the bergamot orange, a small fragrant citrus fruit grown in Italy. If you’d like to read more about its history, I wrote about it here. I find it fascinating that way back in 2007 when I first wrote about Earl Grey tea, my photos included a new journal, too.

This particular Earl Grey has a whole leaf China black tea base. I steeped it for 4 minutes in boiling point water.

Ah, there’s my new journal. I had dinner with a dear friend last night and she gifted me with a beautiful journal. I just love a new journal. It’s a trusted friend, carried with me wherever I go, helping me to record my thoughts, my feelings, my ideas. I’ve always had one as long as I can remember.

The tea brewed up strong and hot, just as Jean-Luc likes it. The best thing about this tea is how the flavor of the China black comes through, true and rich with a hint of earthiness. The natural bergamot oil is just the right level for me, not too overbearing and perfume-y but not too light either. Just right.

I enjoyed my Earl Grey tea plain this time but it will stand up very well to milk or cream, sugar or honey, whatever you’d like to add. As my tea cools, a sweetness becomes more pronounced and lingers in the finish. That sparked an idea about iced Earl Grey with a thick slice of orange or lemon. I’ll have to give that a try when the warm weather arrives.

Do you like Earl Grey tea? I’d love to hear about your experiences with it!

“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And whoever this “Earl Grey” fellow is, I’d like to have a word with him… “~Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the Starship Enterprise, Star Trek, The Next Generation

Saturday Morning Tea

Happy New Year, dear friends! A brand new year always fills me up with feelings of hope and excitement for new adventures. So, let us sit down together and continue our adventures in tea, shall we?

This morning I’m enjoying a delicate white tea in my cup, from the Adam’s Peak estate in the Dimbula district on the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). A rare tea composed of the new tips of the tea bush. To preserve their unique style, this tea is entirely hand processed and dried in sunlight. I wrote about a previous lot of this tea here.

I steeped the tea in 160 degree F water for 4 minutes. Guidelines suggest 170 degree F water but I wanted to see what flavor would be revealed in the slightly cooler water.

As I lifted the infuser from my glass teapot, I caught the faint whiff of flowers from the wet leaf.

The wet leaf reminds me of small swords, probably the influence of my rapt immersion in the world of the Seven Kingdoms lately. If you haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s tale of the Game of Thrones, I highly recommend it.

More swords…but I digress from our talk of tea…

The pale straw-colored tea liquor is delicate yet quite flavorful with pronounced notes of sweet, ripe melon and the faint whisper of floral hints.

This is a simply exquisite white tea which shows us tea in its most natural and least processed state, so incredibly different from the dark tones of a more familiar Ceylon black tea.

Refreshing and soothing to the spirit while the cold winter winds blow outside.

“And now let us welcome the New Year

Full of things that have never been.”  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! To start the holiday weekend festivities, this morning’s tea is a decadent treat – an India black tea (my guess is Assam) with cardamom pods and cocoa and cinnamon pieces – called Melange de Chamonix. Named after the luxurious resort in the French Alps, this is indeed a luxuriant morning treat. Yum.

I think my reindeer friends approve.

The dry leaves have an aroma of spicy chocolate liquor. With the addition of cardamom and cinnamon, I thought this tea would be more like a Chai Spice tea but the cocoa pieces predominant in the aroma and flavor so it is its own wonderfully unique blend.

Look at all of those lovely cardamom pods. I love the taste of cardamom.

I steeped the tea for 5-6 minutes for a rich, cocoa flavor with warm, spicy nuances. After sipping the tea plain for awhile, I poured half a cup and then added sweetener (mine is agave syrup) and a good dollop of whole milk. The flavor is strong enough to come through the additions and I found that the milk gave the tea a creaminess which I really enjoyed. I’ll say it again. Yum.

Comet seems to enjoy the aroma of the deep amber-colored tea liquor.

As much as I love tea with nothing added to it, this lovely tea sure has “spiced up” my morning!

I am going to Michigan for the holidays so there will be no Saturday Morning Tea post next Saturday. I will return in 2 weeks with some new tea to share with you in the brand new year.

Happy Holidays to all of you, dear friends. May your days be filled with light and love and many delicious cups of tea!

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

~Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens