Saturday Morning Tea

Mar2

Good morning, dear tea friends! Welcome to the month of spring! Here in New England, we have become weary of the cold and snow and are looking for the signs that spring is on its way. A cheery robin’s song, some pale green shoots poking up through the sodden earth, watery sunshine melting the piles of snow.

This morning’s tea, called Fujian Green Needle, is a beautifully handcrafted green tea from China. The leaf is a fine plucking of the upper two leaves and bud, processed in an artful way so that the two leaves envelop the inner downy bud. The leaves look like tiny peapods to me.

I steeped the leaf for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. Most of the leaves floated on the top of the water but some hung down vertically from the water’s surface. They looked like little sea creatures.

After steeping, the leaves stayed tight in their outer leaf so I opened one up to look inside. A perfect little leaf came out of the outside leaf, like a nested doll. There is a bud inside of that leaf but I decided to go no further because as gentle as I was, I still tore the outer leaf a bit.

The tea liquor is oh so pale – a light straw color with a faint spring green tinge. The aroma is fresh and sweetly vegetal with a hint of flowers. The flavor is delicate and sweet with a whisper of flowers and vanilla cookie.

This is not the tea for you if you’re looking for a robust green tea, however, if you enjoy the delicate subtlety of a white tea, you will love the experience of this gentle cup.

I’m making progress on my beaded necklace, whose color palette is reminding me of a visit to New Mexico a couple of years ago to meet my brand new grandson, Landon. Hopefully, I can share my creation with you soon and share that story.

Have a wonderful week and enjoy your tea!

“Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.”

~Mahatma Ghandi

Saturday Morning Tea

Jan19

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

Dec15

Good morning, dear tea friends. My heart is feeling very heavy this morning. Before I talk about tea, I’d like to take a moment to send thoughts and prayers out for the family and friends of the victims of yesterday’s horrific tragedy in CT. And thoughts and prayers that we as a nation can work together to prevent this horror from happening again. Thank you for listening and virtually joining in to hold my hand and offer your own thoughts and prayers.

This morning’s tea is called Tai Mu Long Zhu, a green tea from Fujian province in China. The tea is harvested in the spring and then the leaves are processed and carefully rolled into small “pearls”. Most of the “pearl” tea I’ve seen is usually scented with jasmine flowers. This tea has no scenting.

I steeped the pearls for about 3 minutes in 180F water. This tea tastes very smooth so you can probably experiment with a longer steep time, if you wish.

I have to say that the wet leaf amazed me. I didn’t expect it to be so large! The “pearls” unfurled gently during steeping to reveal loose spirals of long tea leaf.

As I meditated on the beauty of this tea leaf, I thought of how we can unfurl and open our hearts to face this tragedy together and, using this open heart energy, admit and accept that something is gravely broken in our country and needs to be healed.

The light straw-colored tea liquor has a sweet aroma, lightly vegetal and fruity. The flavor has a very light vegetal flavor with nuances of melon and a sweetness that lingers.

This is a great tea for those who do not enjoy the vegetal flavor of green tea. Well, time to go fill up my tea bowl again.

It is a morning to just sit quietly with a cup of tea…

“The only work that will ultimately bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.”

~Marianne Williamson

Saturday Morning Tea

Nov10

Good morning, dear tea friends! Another week has gone by, we’re into November now and Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away. Do you feel like time seems to speed up as we approach the end of the year? I’ve been feeling that way lately. Ok, on to our tea…

Well, I think I was longing for the warm, fragrant days in my garden when I reached for this tea selection from China, called Jasmine Silver Tips. To create this lovely tea, tea masters took a Silvertip green tea from Fujian province, and scented it with jasmine blossoms.

The tea leaves are plucked in the springtime, processed as green tea and then stored until the jasmine plants get ready to bloom in the summer. The flower buds are plucked in the early morning and kept cool all day. As early evening approaches, the flower buds are mixed with the tea leaves. As the night blooming jasmine flowers open, the tea leaves absorb their scent. This process is repeated every day over the course of a week. Quite a bit of dedicated work goes into creating this unique tea!

This tea is called “Silver Tips” because the tea itself has the silvery-white new growth, or tip, from the tea plant mixed in with the green leaf. After steeping, I found mostly large, broken leaf pieces but I did manage to find one of the tips, which you can see in the photo above.

I steeped the leaf for 3 minutes in 180 degree water (F).

The tea liquor is a beautiful pale amber color with a tinge of pink. As I lifted the infuser out of my glass teapot, the floral scent was quite pronounced and I felt as if I had placed my nose into a large, fragrant bouquet of flowers.

The flavor is silky smooth and very sweet with just enough jasmine flavor to enjoy without it being cloying. I can also taste the green tea in the clean, fresh vegetal undertone.

We had snow in our area from the storm mid-week, which then changed into a cold rain, so nothing is left of our first snowfall of the season. This weekend is supposed to be filled with warmer temps and glorious sunshine. I’m headed out for another hike in the woods with a dear friend. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing a cuppa with me!

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

~Anais Nin

Saturday Morning Tea

Sep29

Good morning, dear tea friends! This morning’s tea is a special, hand-crafted tea from an area nestled in the mountains of the Nilgiri district at the southern tip of India. Called Avataa Twirl tea, the name of this green tea means “fresh” in Sanskrit.

Grown at the Billimalai estate at an elevation of 6,400 feet, this tea is “specially crafted to form distinctive twirls, these vibrant golden green leaves brew to form a mildly astringent cup with a mellow and earthy aftertaste.”

The leaves are enormous and just stunningly full and intact. I steeped them for 3 minutes in 180F water.

Look at that beautiful leaf set!

As I poured my first cup, a fresh, clean vegetal aroma wafted up from my glass teapot. The greenish, straw-colored liquor has a strong vegetal flavor with a light undertone of fruit.