Category Archives: Black Tea

Saturday Morning Tea

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged

to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

-Nelson Mandela

Have you ever been in a situation where all of a sudden something happens, you are given a new piece of information and then it’s like something clicks into place inside of you and you’re looking at your world with whole new eyes? Well, it’s been that kind of eye opening week for me that has rocked the very foundation of my psyche. The universe is showing me a whole new direction these days. Maybe that is part of turning 50. So, after my week, this morning I decided on a nice strong cup of tea, a Ceylon black from Homadola estate.

This tea is produced in the Ruhuna district of Sri Lanka, an area located in the southwestern tip of the island, with an elevation between sea level and 2,000 feet. Most Ceylons black teas are produced in a higher elevation which gives them a lighter, brisk flavor. Most people are familiar with Ceylon tea in a teabag.

This low growing district produces very strong, dark teas that are usually accented with silver tips. Their flavor reminds me more of a China black than a Ceylon tea. The aroma is very rich and sweet with a slight hint of cocoa. The leaves are large broken pieces, some uncurling after steeping. I brewed this tea in boiling water for 4 minutes. The liquor is very rich and dark with earthy, cocoa notes. It stands up very well to milk or cream.

This tea reminds us to be strong, fill our lives with richness and be grounded in our connection to the earth.

Saturday Morning Tea

When I got up this morning, I discovered that it had rained overnight. The sky now looks like a big gray blanket, overhanging a very wet world outside. The air is very still and a few birds call to one another in the treetops. As we enter the Labor Day weekend, the official end of summer, I can feel a change in the air. Lazy, hazy is being replaced by a cooler more “get down to business” type of energy as school starts again. When I was young, I always loved the start of school because it meant a shiny new pencilcase and a bright box of Crayola crayons with the sharpener on the back. Oh, how I loved to draw and color!

In honor of this ripe, harvest time of year, this morning I am sipping a cup of second flush Darjeeling from the Makaibari estate. The Darjeeling tea growing district is located in northeastern India. When I think of second flushes, words like ripe, grape, heavy and lush pop into my mind. As I gaze out my window, I see our garden, a riot of color, a sea of golden yellow, ruby red and rich magenta.

2nd flush Darjeelings are harvested in the summertime after the tea bush has “flushed” again after the spring picking. With a rich, amber colored liquor, the taste represents the more mature taste of the leaf as opposed to the greener, brighter taste of a first flush. For tea drinkers who enjoy their tea British style with milk, most 2nd flushes offer a stronger taste that one can taste through the milk. I always recommend to try the tea plain first so you can discover what it really tastes like.

A rich fruity aroma greets me as I take my first sip. What is called a muscatel flavor note predominates the taste. Some Darjeelings are described as “muscatel”, a flavor note which speaks of the Muscat grape, said to be the oldest domesticated grape variety.

With this tea, I also detect a slight nutty note with a crisp finish that lingers in the back of my throat. The pungent character of this tea would go very well with rich food, especially a rich dessert like a dark chocolate torte or something incredibly decadent like that. Mmmmm…

Saturday Morning Tea

The last few days have been filled with tons of lightning, rumbling thunder and more torrential downpours. This certainly has been the summer of storms here in New England. I’m hoping that all of this tumultuous weather will herald in a crisp, clear fall season with plenty of sunshine.The plants are just loving this weather, especially the tropical hibiscus and plumeria on our back deck. They feel like they’re home in the rainforest, I think. One of the hibiscus plants is almost 6 feet tall!

On this cool, misty morning, I felt like something dark and smoky. This morning’s cup is a China black Lapsang Souchong named Gao Ji. To be perfectly frank, I’m not a lover of a very smoky tea like a Lapsang but I want to expand my tastes and give it another try. This particular tea is a lot milder than the characteristic smokiness. I searched for the meaning of Gao Ji and found it in a Pinyin dictionary. The translation to English is “high ranking” or “high grade”.

Lapsang Souchong tea, grown in the Wuyi region of the Fujian province of China, is known for its distinctly very smoky aroma and taste. During its processing, the leaves are dried over wood fires which impart that smoky quality to the leaf. In essence, the leaves are “smoked’ in their drying. The story goes that many years ago the tea processing had to be sped up as armies marched through that region so the villagers dried the tea leaves over open pinewood fires.

A new type of tea was born.

Chinese black or “congou” tea is also referred to as red tea. The liquor on this tea really supports that terminology. The aroma is lightly smoky with a hint of chocolate. The liquor is mild, sweet and lightly winey/smoky, reminding me of a very high quality Keemun. It is smooth with only a passing tang in the finish.

The tea appears much darker in my pottery cup. Whenever it rained, a friend of mine always said that it was a great day for a Keemun. In that spirit, I think that this is a great tea for cooler weather. As we enter the second half of August, we are still over a month away from the official first day of fall but I can feel its whisper in the air already.

Saturday Morning Tea

It’s been hot and humid this past week. Yesterday I forgot to turn the AC on in the morning so by last night, it was sweltering in the house. Looking for ways to cool off, I decided to make up a pitcher of iced tea in this beautiful Italian glass pitcher I found at Target. So, before going to bed last night, I filled the pitcher halfway with cold filtered water and added 12 grams or 6 teaspoons of a whole leaf black Ceylon tea from the Koslanda estate. I let the tea leaves steep overnight. This is the “cold brew” method of making iced tea. You can read more about it here. Some instructions call for one tablespoon for every 6 ounces but I used one teaspoon instead to make a lighter brew.

In this photo, I haven’t strained the leaves yet but I will do this with the aid of a large Pyrex measuring cup. This is such an easy method of making iced tea and the resulting brew is not bitter at all, despite the fact that the leaves are steeping for 10-12 hours or longer. What a gorgeous color!

As it was still early and cool out on the backyard deck, I decided to have an impromptu tea party. The tea is so refreshing with an interesting spicy note. I sliced up a ripe peach and enjoyed that with my tea. Yum!

Saturday Morning Tea

The white blanket sky gives me the feeling of being enclosed in a light tent as it gently illuminates our back deck and garden, bringing the gorgeous color of this morning’s tea leaf into sharp saturation. I’m sipping an African black tea from the Malaika estate in Kenya. The word Malaika means “angel”.

The leaf is dark with a minimum of tip and an aroma of sweet chocolate drifted up when I first opened the pouch. The steeped liquor is a deep reddish brown after 5 minutes in boiling water. The taste is hearty and slightly astringent with a hint of malt and a sweet lingering finish.

Tea has been grown in Kenya for about 100 years with a surge in the last 10-15 years that has brought it to be one of the world’s largest tea producers. You can read more about it here.

Yesterday my company closed for its annual shutdown so I am on vacation for the next 9 days. My parents have invited me down to the Jersey shore again where they have rented a condo right on the beach. Lovely! So, tomorrow morning I head out for the 5 hour trip down to the Shore. As I don’t have a laptop computer, I won’t have any computer access while I’m down there for the week. As I’m on a computer all day at my job, it will be a blessed break away from the electronic world. I’ll return next Saturday afternoon so my morning tea will be postponed until the following day, Sunday July 8th. I’m bringing my camera with me so I’ll have lots of pictures to share of my adventure when I return home.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday week!