Category Archives: Tea

Saturday Morning Tea

Happy August to you, my tea friends, and welcome to Oolong month here at Art and Tea!  For the 4 Saturdays in August, I will be exploring various Oolong teas from both China and Taiwan.

As do black, green and white teas, Oolong tea leaf comes from various native subspecies of the Camellia Sinensis plant. The word Oolong, or Wulong, translates to dark or black dragon. Some say this is because the twist given to an Oolong leaf during processing resembles the silhouette of a dragon.

This morning’s tea is a Chinese Oolong called Wuyi Golden Guan Yin. Grown in the Wuyi mountains of northern Fujian province, the leaf is dark and very bold.

Traditionally made from larger tea leaves plucked as a bud with a set of up to 3 leaves, Oolongs are the most complicated tea to manufacture. This is because of the greater number of processing steps over a longer period of time from plant to cup. There is a great advantage to this longer processing time, however, as it gives opportunity for more personal interpretation, or artistry, when creating the tea.

Unlike fully oxidized black teas or unoxidized green teas, Oolong teas are semi-oxidized. Some say that Oolongs are a cross between a black tea and a green tea but this is not the case at all. They are their own unique category of tea.

It’s amazing how such a dark leaf can yield such a light golden liquor. As I lifted the infuser basket from my glass teapot, a honeyed fruit fragrance filled my senses. The flavor is quite sweet with a distinctive woodsy character. Notes of apricot and a hint of chestnuts round out the flavor.

As I sip from my cup of Oolong tea, a cool breeze dances through my windows, beckoning my outside for a long meditative walk.

Join me next week as I continue my explorations with a cup of Oolong tea from Taiwan (Formosa)…

“The first cup caresses my dry lips and throat,

The second shatters the walls of my lonely sadness,

The third searches the dry rivulets of my soul to find the stories of five thousand scrolls.

With the fourth the pain of past injustice vanishes through my pores.

The fifth purifies my flesh and bones.

With the sixth I am in touch with the immortals.

The seventh gives such pleasure I can hardly bear.

The fresh wind blows through my wings

As I make my way to Penglai.”

~Lu Tang, poet (Tang Dynasty)

Saturday Morning Tea

Yesterday my company moved from our facility in Hopkinton, MA, where we’ve been for the last 9 years, to a new facility in the nearby town of Holliston. So, needless to say, it was a day of fixing up, hooking up, learning a new phone system and settling in to our new space. Not to mention moving all of that tea. Literally, tons of it. The good news is that we’ve been moving things over to the new space, bit by bit, over the past several months but it was still a big undertaking yesterday nonetheless. Whew!

When I first joined my company in 1995, it was a very  small operation and our packing and shipping areas were in close proximity to each other. The phones were nearby so we could stop to answer a call as we packed and boxed the tea orders. Now, each department has its own huge space and we need to take a bit of a walk to visit each other. We have evolved to have a separate Customer Service department as well as a Purchasing department in a large office area. All that said, the spirit of our company has remained the same no matter how much we grow, with the primary goal of providing our customers with the best tea and service we can. And you will always get a live person whenever you call us during our hours!

This morning’s tea is a first flush Darjeeling from the Makaibari estate. A biodynamic estate located in the Darjeeling district of northeast India, it produces some of the finest Darjeelings I’ve tasted. In all of my years of drinking and enjoying Darjeeling teas, I haven’t met a Makaibari that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed.

The leaf is resplendent with a profusion of tips which I find smooths out the crisp pungent flavor of a first flush tea. I steeped the leaves at my usual 3 minutes in boiling point water.

Look at that gorgeous color. Yum.

The fragrant aroma has a faint note of juicy citrus and the crisp flavor fills my mouth with notes of a muscatel grape.

I just had to enjoy this tea in a white teabowl so I could keep gazing upon that amazing color.

The muggy humidity has left us here in New England and we are blessed with a clearer, cooler day today. I’m going to find some time to spend in my studio, getting back to my experimentations with acrylic paint and polymer clay.

What’s in your teacup this weekend?

“Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Saturday Morning Tea on Sunday

On this hazy summer morning in my pleasantly cooled kitchen, I’m lazily sipping a Chinese green tea called Chun Mee. Traditionally, the Chinese have always been quite fond of rolling the tea leaf into various shapes and then naming the tea accordingly. Chun Mee translates to “Precious Eyebrows”. Can you see it?

After the leaf is withered and steamed, it is rolled into a thin needle-like shape with a curve like a porcelain doll’s eyebrow.

It is a very popular everyday tea in China, especially to accompany strong flavored foods because of its astringent aftertaste which clears the palate.

Upon steeping for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water, the tightly rolled leaves open slightly to reveal their curled edges.

The golden liquor has a hint of chestnuts in the aroma and a rich, full-bodied flavor. Its astringency clears my mouth and makes it feel fresh and clean. A whisper of sweet plum rounds out the taste.

Shopping at the local mall a couple of nights ago, I stopped into a tea store there and found these interesting pottery teamugs on the clearance shelf. The coppery/sage green mottled exterior is rough and textured with a smooth, pale blue interior. I love the juxtaposition of textures and the way the mug feels slightly rough against my palm. I also love finding treasures, especially those at 75% off!

I had a lovely art day yesterday with my guild. We all do our own creative thing companionably, inspiring and encouraging each other, chatting, laughing and eating goodies. A perfect day. I made a couple pairs of earrings using stone, pearls and copper wire. After I antique one pair with liver of sulphur, I’ll share photos very soon.

Enjoy your Sunday!

The purpose of craft is not so much to make beautiful things as it is to become beautiful inside while you are making those things.

Saturday Morning Tea

Today is the first day of my 9-day vacation and I am savoring the first moments of this day with a cup of dark, rich Ceylon tea from the Ceciliyan estate.

I have read that the Ceciliyan estate is located right on the edge of a tropical rain forest in the southwest Ruhuna district of Sri Lanka. This unique micro climate produces tea leaf yielding a thick caramel-y cup of tea. Its “spider leg” leaf style, designated as FBOPF Ex. Spl., results in a tea that has notes reminding me of a China black tea. I’ve written about another “spider leg” tea here.

Steeping the leaves for 4 minutes in boiling point water produces a deep amber colored liquor. Its syrupy sweet aroma greets me as I lift out the infuser basket.

Interesting. The wet leaf has an aroma of artichoke and fig.

With my first sip, I taste bitter chocolate with hints of a dark, tart berry. Its lively astringency fills my mouth and lingers there.

Either a shorter steeping time, say 3 minutes, or a dash of milk would smooth out the astringency, if you prefer.

As I drink my second cup, I listen to the music from the Pride and Prejudice movie soundtrack and I am whisked away to another time. A time when ladies wore long dresses and sipped tea from tiny, fragile teacups. I love Jane Austen’s stories.

Happy 234th Birthday to this great nation of ours. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

“We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” ~last paragraph, Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson

Saturday Morning Tea

This morning’s tea was actually started last night. In honor of my visit to the Rhode Island Polymer Clay guild meeting today, I steeped up some iced decaf chai tea to share with the group. I talked about this flavored spice tea and made the hot tea version here.

First, I started with two 10-cup Chatsford teapots. I love these teapots. They come in 4 different sizes, each with a plastic and very fine mesh infuser basket. This largest size is perfect for steeping tea for a crowd.

Taking into consideration the later addition of ice and possibly milk and also because I wanted the tea to be extra spicy, I used a heaping teaspoon of leaves and spices for every 6 ounces of water. After inserting the basket into the teapot, I spooned the tea into each teapot’s infuser basket and then added cold water. You want to add water up until this line. Any higher and the tea leaves could possibly spill into the teapot through that notch opening and defeat the convenience of the basket. Place the teapots in the fridge and wait til the next morning.

This morning I removed the baskets. Now how simple is that?

I saved an empty gallon water jug and just poured the tea from both teapots into the jug.

I placed the jug into a cooler with a small plastic bucket of ice, a bit of milk in my Kleen Kanteen and agave for sweetener and I’m ready to go!

At the meeting, my dear friend, Judy, will be showing us how to make ATCs using polymer clay, paint, rubber stamps, colored pencils and glitter. You can see her tutorial here. A fun Art Day!

“When indeed shall we learn that we are all related one to the other, that we are all members of one body?” ~Helen Keller