Tag Archives: tea review

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

Saturday Morning Tea on Sunday

I am craving more comfort this morning, this time in the form of chocolate. Chocolate Earl Grey tea, that is. I know, not my usual choice in a cuppa but I am always intrigued to try new types of tea. To close your mind and your palate in saying that you wouldn’t enjoy something before you try it is not the way that I’d like to approach life.

Not only does this black tea Earl Grey contain chocolate pieces and cacao beans, it also has lemongrass, lemon peel, corn flowers, jasmine flowers and sunflower blossoms in the blend.

A very colorful mix indeed as you can see in my photo above!

I steeped the tea for 4 minutes in boiling point (212 degree F) water.

A chocolate aroma wafted from my teapot along with tangy notes of bergamot and lemon. Comforting and refreshing…

This tea was a delight to photograph with all of the little colorful bits mingling in with the tea leaves.

It’s a crystal clear day here on Ramble Road. My jewelry show yesterday was a wonderful success in that it gave me the opportunity to share my work with many visitors to my booth. It’s always gratifying to receive positive feedback and appreciation for one’s artwork.

While I find many Earl Greys to be too “perfumy” for my taste, the addition of chocolate and lemon gave it such an interesting combination of flavors – the light tang of the lemon along with the deep, rich flavor of the chocolate.

What a perfect gift for the chocolate lovers on your list!

Today will be spent moving art supplies over to my new place and setting up my studio space. Have a lovely Sunday, my dear tea friends.

There is much beauty in a simple cup of tea…

Saturday Morning Tea

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Now that all of the leaves have been swept off the trees, the weather has turned much quieter, with only the slightest movement of the stark branches that reach up to the deep blue sky.

Today dawned bright and brisk, just like the morning tea I’ve selected to share with you. Kenilworth estate Ceylon is a black tea from one of the best known tea gardens in the Kandy district in Sri Lanka. This 700-acre estate lies in the heart of Ceylon, at about an altitude of 4,000 feet above sea level.

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I’ve made it known before that Ceylon black teas are not among my top favorites. Some are too astringent and not particularly complex for my taste buds. That being said, they can be perfect for an everyday tea because of their reasonable price when compared to Assams and Darjeelings. They also make a fabulous iced tea as well because of their good strength and lemon flavor notes.

This particular tea has interesting complexity, a delightful surprise.

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My backyard deck hovers suspended in the gorgeous amber color of this tea.

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I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes in 212 degree F water (boiling point). As I lifted the lid from my teapot, a tart lemony aroma greeted me.

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The brisk liquor wakes up my mouth to taste the intriguing notes of toast and lemon, cedar and sweet raisin. While this tea is full-bodied enough to enjoy British style with milk, I prefer it plain.

With a corn muffin.

KenilworthBOPTeacup110709This weekend will be spent moving bookcases over to my new home and choosing a marble for the vanity top in my bathroom. Something warm, to go with my copper sink. Originally, I was going to go with a granite top but I much prefer the interesting vein/cracking formations of marble than the “speckly” look of granite. How about striations the color of my tea?

Have a great weekend and happy tea drinking, my friends!

“Tea! thou soft, sober, sage and venerable liquid;- thou female
tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate”

~Colley Cibber (English actor and playright, 1671-1757)

Saturday Morning Tea

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The bronzed leaves are rattling across my backyard deck like dried bones as they welcome this last day of October, All Hallowed Eve. Pouring rain and wind this past week have swept clean most of the leaves from their trees to create an autumn carpet laid across the lawns and streets. As I drove home last night, glowing jack-o-lanterns brought memories of carving pumpkins, and I inhaled the woodsy smell of fallen leaves as I got out of my car and made my way up the path home. I love this autumn time of year, perfect for cozying up with a hot cup of tea.

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As promised last week, this morning’s tea is very special. Called Zhang Ping Shui Hsian (or Xian), its leaves are finely plucked, hand processed and compressed into small bricks. Each “brick” is then exquisitely packaged into a shiny red, black and gold vacuum sealed packet for freshness.

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This Chinese Oolong is grown in Fujian province and lightly oxidized to create a greener Oolong tea, similar to a Jade or Tung Ting. I gently broke some leaves off of the brick for steeping.

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Because the leaves are not as oxidized as a darker Oolong or a black tea, I decided to steep at a green tea temperature and time, 180 degrees F for 3 minutes.

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As the leaves steeped in my glass teapot, they swirled and floated downward, reminding me of the dance of the leaves outside.

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It might be fall outside but it was like a springtime garden in my kitchen. A sweet lilac fragrance drifted up from my teapot as I removed the infuser basket. Mmmmm…

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The tea liquor is a pale gold brown with very distinctive floral aroma and flavor notes. A sweetness fills my mouth and gently lingers after each sip.

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I am sipping my tea from a gorgeous coppery red teabowl, generously lent to me by a colleague/friend at work. Thanks Rebecca. She purchased it at Target. I’ll have to go check out the teaware at Tar-zjay.

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The bronze leaves compliment the darker glazing on the bowl. After the Color Workshop I attended last weekend, I notice color everywhere! And, after looking through my tea leaf pictures, I’m not surprised that I chose green and orange as the color palette for my collage in the workshop. My life is steeped in tea leaves…

Happy Halloween, everyone!

“Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker.”

~Linus from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown