Category Archives: Tea

Saturday Morning Tea on Sunday

Well, I scurried around all day yesterday and gathered as many acorns as I could amidst traffic jams filled with many other squirrels doing the exact same thing. And now I sit quietly, cup of tea in hand, watching the snowflakes fall. What a difference a day makes…

On this cold, snowy morning, I’m sipping an Oolong tea from the other side of the world, Thailand.  Called “Gue-Fei” which I have read, interestingly enough, translates to “concubine tea”. It has an interesting story from Taiwan.

In 2000, there was a devastating earthquake on the island of Taiwan and the tea farmers in Luku township concentrated all of their efforts on rebuilding their homes. The tea bushes were neglected and an insect known as a “tea leafhopper” set in and munched on the leaves. When they finally were able to harvest the leaves and process them, they discovered that the leafhopper had activated the plant’s natural defense system which changed the flavor of the leaf, unexpectedly and delightfully yielding a liquor with a distinctive floral, honey-like quality.

Wow, what a silver lining there.

You can read about the history of how tea came to be grown in Thailand here. Not only is Thailand’s terrain and weather very similar to Taiwan, their tea bushes originate from there.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 190 degree F water. The aroma is lightly floral with sweet notes of honey.

The honeyed color of the tea liquor holds promise of what is to come – rich, sweet, nectar flavor with notes of flower blooms and a light caramel finish.

The white world outside lights up my teabowl as I watch the snowflakes fall and dream…

There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest
clothed to its very hollows in snow.
It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray,
every blade of grass, every spire of reed,
every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.

~William Sharp

Happy solstice, dear tea friends!

Saturday Morning Tea

Hello dear tea friends. I hope you had a marvelous week. I had a glorious sleep in this morning. That is definitely at the top of my list of ways to get your balance back during a busy, frenetic holiday season. A lovely way to start the day, if a bit of a late start…

This morning’s tea is a wonderful aromatherapy experience. Conjuring up images of gardens and armfuls of just picked fragrant blooms, it is a green (pouchong) jasmine tea called Jasmine Mao Feng. The long tea leaves are twisted into wiry threads as they are processed as a green tea. Mao Feng means “Fur Peak” or “Hairy Mountain”, a reference to where the tea is grown and harvested. You can read more about another Mao Feng tea here.

The leaves look like a black tea when dry and then lighten up to a gorgeous olive green after steeping. I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water.

The tea liquor is the color of a golden sunset.

Once the jasmine flowers bloom, the flowers are plucked, in the case of this tea, all organic blooms. They are laid out with the dry tea leaves so the leaves will absorb the scent of the flowers. Mmmmm…

When I first opened the packet of tea, it smelled candy sweet with a strong aroma of jasmine. However, after steeping, the aroma changed in favor of the green tea’s fresh, vegetal fragrance with just a whisper of floral scent.

The flavor is sweet and lightly jasmine with an interesting pungency that causes the floral taste to linger in my mouth.  A very pleasant sensation.

As I have been packing up more of my things this past week, I came across my gratitude journal. Picking up my pen every night before bed, I have returned to this practice of writing down 5 things that I am grateful for. I can’t begin to describe how this one simple act can so change your perspective and thus your day to day life. I’ve written about my gratitude journal before in this post.

See what happens when you change your focus. The above 2 photos are identical save for one thing. I changed the focus on my camera.

It changes everything.

Have a wonderful week and happy tea drinking!

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”

~Henry Ward Beecher

Saturday Morning Tea

The month of December blew in this week with a tropical rainstorm. Wait a minute, this is New England, right? The following morning, the wind hurried the clouds along to reveal a brilliant blue sky and temps soaring up towards 70. Hmmm, New England? Today snow is in the forecast. Ah yes, New England.

This morning I am sipping from a cup of green tea grown in the Northern Highlands of Vietnam. The tea is called Shan Tuyet Snow Green.

As Vietnam borders Yunnan province at the north, tea trees have been growing wild there, as in Yunnan province, for thousands of years. More formal tea cultivation started in Vietnam at the beginning of the 20th century. You can read more about the history of Vietnamese tea growing here and here.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. As I lifted my teapot lid, a rich floral aroma wafted up from the leaves. The liquor is a warm, buttery hue with a hint of fruit and malt in the flavor. I didn’t detect any vegetal quality at all, unusual for a green tea. The cup is quite smooth with an interesting pungency which appears and then lingers in the finish.

The dry leaf is highly twisted, only opening slightly when steeped. The wet leaf above is clinging to one of my Picasso marble stones. I love their striations.

The liquor is crystal clear and quite pleasant as it cools.

I am really enjoying my first experience with a Vietnamese green tea. Time for another cup!

Something opens our wings

Something makes boredom and hurt disappear

Someone fills the cup in front of us

We taste only sacredness

~Rumi

Tea and Cheese Pairing

As a prelude to everyone’s Thanksgiving feast, we had a tea and cheese pairing at work last Wednesday. The cheeses were carefully chosen to represent a variety of offerings, from mild to strong flavor, representing different countries.

A variety of teas to compliment the cheeses were then chosen and prepared to offer each participant the opportunity to see which pairings appealed to them the most.

All of our cheeses were purchased at Wasik’s in Wellesley, MA.

Teas:
Wang Pu-Erh, Formosa Oolong Spring Dragon, Hao-Ya ‘A’ Superfine Keemun, Organic Australian Lemon Myrtle, Organic Lapsang Souchong Gao Ji, Japanese Premium Fukamushi Cha, Sree Sibbari Estate SGFTGFOP Cl., Namring Upper Estate FTGFOP1 First Flush (EX-1).

Cheeses:
Camembart Le Rustique (Normandy, France), Gorgonzola Dolce (Lombardy, Italy), Wasik’s Mountain Harvest Goat Cheese (Vermont, USA), Brie de Lyon (Lyon, France), Swiss Gruyere (Swiss Alps), Goudden Kaas (Holland), Vermont Cheddar (Vermont, USA), Wasik’s Equinox Goat Cheese (Vermont, USA).

Armed with my notebook, I fully intended on trying each cheese with each tea, all the while taking copious notes to share with you. Unfortunately, as it was during a workday, time didn’t allow for me to do this and the reality was that I tried all of the cheeses, 4 of the teas, in random order, and took no notes at all! That being said, here are my thoughts on my favorites.

The strong musky flavor of both the Wasik’s Equinox Goat Cheese and the Gorgonzola went very well with both the malty Assam and the smoky Lapsang Souchong. I especially enjoyed the mild, buttery flavor of the soft cheeses: the Brie, the Camembart and the Mountain Harvest Goat Cheese, with the crisp flavor of the Namring first flush Darjeeling. I also liked the combination of the salty, earthy Gruyere with the very earthy Pu-ehr.

For my very first time partaking in this wonderful experience, I found the prospect of 8 teas and 8 cheeses very daunting indeed. If you would like to try this, I would recommend starting out with only 3 or 4 choices. Perhaps a mild, a medium and a strong flavor, both in cheese and in tea. Try pairing the same flavors together at first and then mix and match to your own taste.

Here’s a great post from a tea lover who was much more organized in his approach than I.

I don’t think that there are any rules here, only room for a lot of fun and enjoyment!

Saturday Morning Tea

A most Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you all!

While the wind howls at the eaves outside, I am inside cozily sipping from a cup of this exquisite Formosa white tea. I watch the empty tree branches bow and sway and think about how resilient they are. While outside forces seek to move them, they simply go with the flow of the wind and then bend back to their original shape. Having strong roots and an inner core helps ground them against these forces.

The trees have much to teach us about life and change.

Tea is firmly woven into Taiwan culture, with tea houses or “tea-art” shops located all over the island. Its old fashioned name, Formosa, is Portugese for “beautiful island”. Many Taiwanese families collect teaware in the form of unglazed clay pots.

This excerpt from Wikipedia:

“Traditionally, “raising the teapot” at home is a way of life in Taiwan. Teapots are used to brew teas intensively so that the surface of the teapot becomes “bright”. This process is called “raising the teapot”, which enhances the beauty of the clay teapot. Tea stores are virtually everywhere in Taiwan. In big cities like Taipei one can easily find tea for sale on nearly every city block.”

Sounds like my kind of place. I love that they refer to their tea shops as “tea-art” shops!

Most tea grown on the island is processed as Oolong tea, or Wu-long tea. That’s what makes this particular tea very unique as it has been processed as a white tea. White tea leaves are allowed to dry slightly first and then heated up right away to prevent oxidation (darkening of the leaf) from occurring.

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

The aroma is fresh and delicate. The words I would use to describe the taste of this tea.

Clean. Fresh. Soft. Buttery. Smooth. Fruity, just a whisper.

Unlike the teas I have reviewed lately, this tea is crystal clear, a pale, straw color.

About 10 years ago, I attended an arts and crafts show locally and purchased a set of teabowls and a teamug. This is my favorite piece. I remember how the potter told me that she dreamed the symbols she painted on her teaware. I love the road running through this one.

The road of tea, one that I am most happy to be on.

I can’t recall the potter’s name. I think that she was from Colorado. If anyone recognizes this work, please do let me know as I would love to contact her and see her new work.

Last Wednesday, we had a tea and cheese pairing/tasting at work. It was a new experience for me and introduced me to the wonderful world of specialty cheeses. So far, my experience has been very limited in that area. I took some photos and am hoping to be able to post and share my thoughts with you soon.

This weekend will be spent painting my bathroom over at my new place. Starting several weeks ago, they ripped out the ceiling, walls and floor to reveal the inner structure of the room. Now everything has been transformed with new wallboard and beadboard. I’ve been pouring over Benjamin Moore paint chips and never realized how many creams and whites there were! The theme of my new bathroom will be luminescence.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.

That will be the beginning.

~Louis L’Amour