Saturday Morning Tea

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Good morning, dear tea friends! Enjoy this oldie but goodie…

This morning the air had such a presence when I walked out onto the back deck. I strongly felt its steamy thickness pressing in on my body. Everything is air conditioned these days – my car, my house, my work, the stores – so it is almost a shock when I walk outside. All that said, I much prefer this thick heat to what lies ahead in about 3-4 months from now.

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With tender buds and full leaf sets, this morning’s tea is called Huo Shan Yellow Buds, a yellow tea from China. In touching the beautiful intact leaf, I imagined women moving through a tea field, their picking baskets strapped to them as their delicate hands reach out and pluck the tender new growth from each tea bush. Women are chosen for this task for their small hands and graceful movement.

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I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water.

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How does yellow tea differ from green tea, I wonder? From what I’ve researched and read, it is processed very similarly yet varies in the heating/firing steps. These steps are much more time consuming in producing the yellow tea in that the tea leaves are gently steamed with moist heat and then wrapped in some sort of material. This process is repeated several times. It produces a tea that tastes more like a white tea than a green tea. Such an art form. You can read about it here.

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Just like the air outside, this tea has such a presence in my mouth. That is called a “full mouth feel”. It is very apparent with the first sip of tea. It is not thick like an Assam tea but more buttery and silky.

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The tea liquor is quite pale with just a hint of color in my teapot. The aroma is soft and the flavor is slightly sweet and peppery/spicy. Very delicate and subtle.

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The tea is so light that it shows off the speckled inside of my teabowl to perfection. ahhhh..

Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly.

~Joseph Murphy

Saturday Morning Tea

Jul30

This morning I’m enjoying another tea from the Jun Chiyabari estate in Nepal. Called Himalayan Oolong, it reminds me very much of a tea I reviewed about a year ago in this post.

The leaves look very much like an Oolong tea, large and rolled, yet there are some differences in the taste, creating a tea, in my opinion, whose flavor notes are a melding of Oolong and Darjeeling. As I said in a previous post, their Himalayan Oolongs are created with a secret process resulting in a black tea with the characteristics of a Silvertip Oolong tea. True Silvertip Oolong teas come from Taiwan (Formosa).

The dry leaf gave off a sweet cookie aroma as I spooned the leaves into my glass teapot. Since they’re so huge, I used 2 teaspoons per cup. I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes at a water temperature of approximately 185 degrees F. Based on my experience several weeks ago, I’m trying a longer steeping time initially. After steeping, I detected a light floral aroma in the wet leaf, a faint whisper of a green Oolong’s (like Spring Dragon) floral characteristic.

As you can see, the tea liquor is a lighter amber color than the Himalayan Oolong I reviewed last year. It’s also lighter-bodied in the cup. The flavor is rich and fruity and quite smooth. I might try steeping for 5 minutes at the lower temp and see what happens.

Isn’t it fun to experiment with your tea and see what happens? Some wonderful surprises and some….well…I guess that didn’t work. But then you know and you go on from there.

Some people like to stick with a tea and try different steeping times until the flavor suits them and others don’t want to be bothered with the “fuss”. One’s not right and one’s not wrong. They’re just different ways of approaching something. I think you can tell which way I am. Which way are you?

“It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.” ~Rebecca West

Saturday Morning Tea

Jul23

Good morning, my dear tea friends. This morning I am headed out to my monthly polymer clay guild meeting in Rhode Island. I have resurrected a tea post from back when I lived in Upton. It’s a review of one of my most favorite Oolong teas. Enjoy this blast from the past and I’ll see you back here next week when I review a brand new tea!

This morning there is a very cool breeze coming in my windows. As I gaze out over the treetops, I see a variety of reds, oranges, maroons and golds blooming amongst the greenery. October is one of my favorite months because I love so much about this autumn time of year – the aroma of dry leaf as it dances across my path, the explosion of color across the landscape, the crisp, tart taste of a just picked apple, the bright orange pumpkins displayed in wooden carts along the side of the road. This morning, however, I am feeling wistful as the memory of summer slips away. So, in light of my mood, I have brewed up a green Formosa Oolong called Spring Dragon.

After plucking the new growth (2 leaves and a bud), the leaves are spread out to dry and oxidize. They are shaken periodically during this drying period to bruise the leaf and release its volatile oils for flavor. This also helps in the oxidation process, the turning brown process of the leaf. This Oolong is only lightly oxidized so it is carefully monitored during this time. Once the tea master judges the oxidation to be sufficient, the leaves are pan roasted to halt oxidation. Then they are rolled and dryed some more.

It is amazing that you can see the serration on the edges of the intact leaf that I have spread out after I steeped the tea. I left a portion of one leaf still rolled up a little so you can see how it has opened up. The aroma is sweet and delicately flowery. The light honey colored liquor is also sweet with lilac flavor notes. Mmmmmmm….

Saturday Morning Tea

Jul16

I’m back from vacation and feeling rejuvenated despite a busy return to work this week. I’d like to share an interesting experience I had a few days ago. My colleague brewed a pot of a newly arrived Castleton estate second flush Darjeeling and the first word that popped into my head as I took my first sip was

PHENOMENAL!

It had a honeyed peach aroma with rich peach and muscatel flavor notes.

Ambrosia.

Naturally, we all requested it for our morning tea the following day. As I took my first sip that morning, I thought I had poured the wrong tea into my cup. While it was a very good Darjeeling, all of the wonderful flavor notes I had experienced the day before weren’t there. As my tea cooled, however, I detected them but they were very subtle.

So, what happened?

Different steeping times.

The first cup was steeped at 4 minutes and the second at 3 minutes. What a difference a minute makes, huh?

Look at this gorgeous leaf. It’s huge and chock full of tips/intact leaf sets.

Just like your water source can make all the difference in your resulting cup of tea so too can your steeping time. In light of my recent experience (and it’s happened to me before), I highly recommend that you experiment with different steeping times to find what works best for you. A tea you don’t like with your first cup could end up being your favorite tea by just making an adjustment to the steeping time!

This is the tea steeped for 3 minutes in boiling point water – a glowing medum amber hue.

The cup on the right is the tea steeped for 4 minutes. The color goes deeper and the peach/muscatel aroma and flavor are much more pronounced.

As my tea cooled, I was expecting the longer steeped tea to develop that characteristic “bite” but it never did. I might even try this tea steeped for 30 seconds longer. I like to push the steeping time to just before it develops that bitterness, that well known bitterness of being oversteeped.

So, I encourage you, dear tea friends, to experiment with the steeping times for your tea. That being said, however, I think that it’s best not to change the water temperature or the amount of tea leaves used per cup. Those should remain consistent.

For this tea, I used 2 teaspoons of leaf per cup since the leaf is so huge and boiling point water.

Do you have a story similar to mine? If so, please share!

Enjoy your weekend!

Saturday Morning Tea

Jun25

Good morning, dear tea friends! This morning I am on my way out the door to my polymer clay guild meeting, travel mug in hand. I leave you with a post I did to welcome in spring, with the lovely Magnolia Blossom Oolong. Enjoy!

The crocus I planted last fall are pushing their way up through the earth and their leaf blanket. As the days lengthen and warm, they are drawn to grow and burst into bloom. A big welcome to Spring this weekend!

To celebrate the first day of Spring, my morning tea is a scented tea from China called Magnolia Blossom Oolong. Grown and processed in the Guangdong province in South China, this tea is often described as “Orchid Oolong” as the flowers come from a tree that native Chinese call “yulan”, meaning jade orchid. Despite its translation, yulan is actually a type of magnolia tree (Magnolia denudata) which originated in southern China.

The leaves look very much like a Jade Oolong to me, rolled into compressed shapes. I steeped them for 3 minutes in 190 degree F water.

The shapes released as they steeped, giving off a wonderful fragrance. As I lifted the lid from my glass teapot, it was like putting my face into a bouquet of freshly cut flowers!

I find the floral flavor to be similar to a jasmine tea. The flower notes are very strong and sweet but not cloying. The flavor of the Oolong tea comes through the scenting, adding a fuller, silky smooth mouth feel. It doesn’t have the delicacy of a jasmine tea though.

I was able to find out more information about my Hawaiian teabowl. Created by Clayton Amemiya on the Big Island, it was fired in a traditional Japanese kiln called an anagama. Clayton’s work combines Japanese tradition with the unique style of the Big Island. What I thought was glaze on the bowl is actually ash and wood. From his brochure:

“No glaze has been used. A glazed appearance is made by the firing process. Flying ash and wood particles fuse to the clay as they draft through the kiln. Because this is done by the fire, no two pieces can ever be the same. Individual woods have many of their own firing properties. This understanding gives Clayton the opportunity to collaborate with a force of nature.”

Knowing this makes my teabowl that much more special to me. As tea drinkers, we also collaborate with nature when we steep our leaves and transform them into a cup of tea.

Happy Spring!

“All you need is deep within you waiting to unfold and reveal itself. All you have to do is be still and take time to seek for what is within, and you will surely find it.” ~Eileen Caddy