Saturday Morning Tea

Sep13

Good morning, dear tea friends! I’m back from Michigan and happy to share another cup of tea with you. Today’s tea is a green tea from An Hui province in China. It’s called Huangshan Mao Feng.

The Mao Feng (translates to “Hairy Mountain” or “Fur Peak”) leaf style is long and wiry, created by twisting the leaves during processing. I have read that Huangshan is another name for Mount Huang, located in An Hui province. It’s a place of granite peaks, hot springs and beautiful sunsets and sunrises. An optical phenomenon known as Buddha’s Light occurs a couple times a month there with the sunrise. Sounds like an amazing place.

These huge leaves are always tricky to measure so I usually take a pinch rather than use a measuring teaspoon. I used a couple of pinches per cup and steeped for 3 minutes in 180F water.

You can really see the twisting of the leaf in this photo after steeping. Beautiful.

The aroma has a distinctive fresh floral note, like walking through a spring garden after it rains. The pale greenish hay-colored liquor is smooth and light with a harmonious blend of flavors – floral like lilacs, vegetal like fresh peas and a whiff of pipe tobacco in the finish.

I am absolutely in love with our new tea glass. Even though the tea is hot, the glass is cooler to the touch because of the double walls. The tea looks like it’s floating on air, so lovely and elegant. I’m imagining a cupping with these glasses lined up so you can enjoy the beautiful colors of a range of different teas. I love color!

The day started off without a cloud in the azure sky but now a bank of billowing gray clouds have moved in, bringing with them some much needed rain for my garden. It’s a perfect day to stay inside and curl up with a good book. I’m reading a great fantasy story, called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. What book can’t you put down these days? Tea and books go so well together, don’t you think?

See you in 2 weeks!

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ”

~C.S. Lewis

Saturday Morning Tea

Aug9

Good morning, dear tea friends! It’s great to be back and share a cup of tea with you. My vacation to Michigan was restful and restorative, very welcome after the challenging times of this past spring. As I gaze out my window, I see the lush green world of high summer. Rich, ripe vegetables are being harvested. Flower gardens are vibrant with hot color. My morning tea reflects this colorful time of year with its own bright green color. A spring harvested first flush Sencha from Kagoshima prefecture in Japan, it’s called Sencha Saemidori Superior.

Saemidori refers to the specific cultivar (tea plant variety) this tea comes from. Developed and created in the 1960s from two other cultivars, it gained recognition in 1990 when it was added to the official Japanese tea cultivar list.

When this tea was processed, it was deep steamed to stop the oxidation of the leaf and keep it green. That deep steaming helps the leaf to retain an intense green color, a dark lustrous green dry leaf and a rich kelly green wet leaf.

I steeped the leaf for 3 minutes in 175F water in my new glass teapot.

The wet leaf smells like freshly steamed spinach.

While this tea has a beautiful leaf, what I think is most distinctive about it is its intense spring green tea liquor. My photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s even greener than that. Some customers ask for a green tea that is a true green color when steeped. Most green teas steep up more of a yellow or brown color than green. The deep steaming helps to retain a true green color in the liquor, too. What do you think?

The aroma in my cup is of fresh steamed vegetables, like broccoli, and sweet seagrass.

The flavor is fresh and sweet and smooth as silk with only a hint of tang that doesn’t linger. The notes of vegetables and seagrass are there but much more subtle than the notes in its aroma. As I drink this tea, my body feels lighter and more alive as if its “greenness” is permeating every cell. For those of you looking for a green tea for health, this is a great selection, I think.

Thanks for stopping by to share a cuppa with me. Have a great tea-filled couple of weeks!

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.

~Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit

Saturday Morning Tea

Jun21

Good morning, dear tea friends! Today dawned cool and bright with low humidity (thank goodness!), the perfect first day of summer here in New England. In keeping with the theme of my last few posts, I’ve brewed up another Pre-Chingming tea this morning, a green tea from Hunan province. It’s called Qing Zhen, which translates to “dark green needles.” As you can see from my photo, it’s the perfect name for this tea leaf. For you GoT fans, I’m reminded of Arya’s sword.

I steeped the tea needles for 3 minutes in 180F water. A whisper of flower fragrance drifted up from my glass teapot as the tea steeped.

The wet needles have a sweet, softly vegetal aroma with an underlying hint of tobacco.

The tea liquor sparkles a pale yellow in the morning light. The flavor is fairly robust with notes of sweet tobacco and a faint hint of melon. There’s a slight nuance of fruitiness in the finish, which lingers for quite awhile in my mouth.

The gentle breeze coming in my window is abuzz with the sounds of lawn mowers and weed wackers as my neighbors tend to their landscapes. I myself am headed out into my garden soon to see what new blooms have opened in the sunshine. Have a lovely tea-filled weekend, my dear friends. I’ll be back in two weeks!

“The festival of the summer solstice speaks of love and light, of freedom and generosity of spirit. It is a beautiful time of year where vibrant flowers whisper to us with scented breath, forests and woodlands hang heavy in the summer’s heat and our souls become enchanted with midsummer magic.” ~Carole Carlton

Saturday Morning Tea

Jan4

Good morning, dear tea friends! As the wind howls outside my windows, I dream of spring and those thoughts have led me to my morning tea – a Japanese green tea called Spring Harvest Sencha. This tea is a rare treat as a tea of this high grade is usually not exported outside of Japan.

As the name suggests, it is a spring harvest, like a first flush Darjeeling. The most well known Japanese green tea is Sencha, which is harvested after Shincha, the very first tea of the spring. With each subsequent harvest, the tea becomes stronger and darker with leaves of lesser quality and price. The exceptional quality of this tea shows that it was an earlier harvest.

Japanese teas are recognizable by their grassy, needle-like shape. The shape is attained by sending the leaf through a series of rolling machines. Paddles move the tea back and forth over metal ridges while heat is applied so the leaf is slowly formed into its needle shape.

I steeped the leaf for 2 minutes in 175 degree F water. Some Japanese tea lovers will use a lower temp and steeping time when preparing their tea. I have found that this works best for my taste.

The tea liquor is a pale spring green with a delicate vegetal aroma. The flavor is quite sweet and light with only a whisper of a vegetal note. I usually find Japanese green teas to be much more vegetal tasting than this tea is.

This tea allows me to show off my new Cherry Blossom mug, a wonderful birthday gift from my lovely daughter. It came with a ceramic infuser basket but I don’t really see myself using that basket as the holes are much too large.

I’ve been fighting off a virus this week, which has left me feeling tired and washed out. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated after several cups of this wonderful tea.

As always, thanks for stopping by and sharing a cuppa with me!

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

~Anne Bradstreet

Saturday Morning Tea

Nov9

Good morning, dear tea friends! On this cool, brisk fall morning, I’m watching an unfolding taking place. The unfolding of tea leaves to reveal a lovely rose pink carnation. I love surprises, especially when flowers are involved! This artful display tea is called Noble Madam. Watch and enjoy!

The green tea leaves are hand tied and compressed into a “pod” around the flower.

I’ve shared my delightful experiences with display teas here.

and here. As the 180F hot water soaks into the pod, the leaves open up oh so slowly…

Like a little sea creature gently reaching out…

and there is its heart.

A beautiful rose pink carnation. Gorgeous!

I’ve read that hand tied teas have been created in China for hundreds of year, however, it’s only been in the last 30 years or so that the showier teas, such as this one, have been made.

This photo shows how they bundle the leaves and tie them.

The carnation flower lends a rose tinge to the light colored tea liquor.

The flavor is light and vegetal with delicate floral notes. I think this would make a lovely gift, along with a glass teapot, to show off its steeping display.

My company has just received a big shipment of glass teapots – 5 different styles – and we’ll be introducing them shortly, just in time for holiday gift giving. Glass teapots are my favorite!

Have a wonderful week and enjoy your tea!

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

~Anais Nin