Tea Habitat East Rising Red
Im drinking a Dong Fang Hong which I am told means "East rising Red" and the first satellite mission by Peoples Republic of China to boot, is a WuYi Dan Cong. This particular white leaf varietal is from a tree called Loa Cong. Only my first time, so not much to say about its aroma or taste
25 Grams of Silence
Im not quite sure what white leaf is. Or how one can say for sure its 4oo year old tree.... but here is a good link to some simplification on this varietal
http://walkerteareview.com/http:/walkerteareview.com/dialog-understanding-authentic-dan-cong
The gaiwan is bursting to the rim with leaves, and I'm trying to be patient between brews... but in my head, I can hear my daughter waking up, imagined. Im rushing things.
Gyokuro on Ice with Rhubarb Coffee Cake
Vegetal drink meets Vegetal Pastry
I used lemon balm instead of lemon verbena for the topping of this rhubarb cake. This recipe came to me long ago in high school from a cook book Im sure out of print from an herb farm in CT that is still very popular called Gilberti's. I cooked my way through much of this book, and in Wisconsin, many of the ingredients were hard to come by. In particular in Green Bay, lemon balm was not at your local nursury, so I ordered seed for this and used the the leaves judiciously in the fall for all sorts of tops for muffins.
Shi Lan Oolong
20 years ago, this is where i spent most of my hard earned money, Sendik's grocery run by the Balistreri brothers. Money I earned from working cutting lawns, painting houses, frying fish, and making burgers. It was right around the corner from my college apartment, and I bicycled past it twice a day en route to the university and past it again on my to work. I really had no business even affording myself the luxury of the most expensive grocer in town. But as I assess my list of expenses currently...some things never change.This is the shop I got to know the taste of a Nectarine. Every day for three years, I purchased a nectarine, a pint of fresh OJ, a chocolate banana muffin made at 'La Boulangerie', and a couple slices of roast beef. I cant say whether this was a compulsive act of convenience, or more so an absolute guarantee of being delivered satisfaction. I tend to think it was the later.
It seemed that no matter the time of year, nectarines were always ripening in the store window. Peaches can most often be mealy, but with nectarines, you get a much better shot at a decent product even well out of season. The skins too are packed with an assertive strength that I don't find in peaches. So its safe to say I know this flavor well. And when a taste is familiar, you tend to say 'Hey, that tastes like' such and such. But for most, they might look to find assimilation in the more popular peach.
All this to try and pinpoint a definitive flavor I recognize in Shi Lan oolong from the Tea Gallery. I'm not so great at finding words to describe complex oolongs. But when something hits you and you know it, I safely say nectarine skins.
Aside from this, big mineral presence. Think a metallic taste in your mouth. This tea undergoes a substantial metamorphosis in its subsequent steeping (and it will handle quite a few). It gets heavier and richer around the fourth cup, loosing some of the fruity notes.
'Jia Long' -a Honey Oolong
Just like Kid A can put me cruising in a Renault down the narrow country roads of Burgandy, a flavor profile so unique can also provoke those moods. Taste can be an excellent bookmark in your life.
When i brew a cup at home, the fragrance will fill up the room. it has a heavy mead aroma, and sweet honey tones that the title signifies. The twisted leaves have a small amount of white leaf bud in there as well, possible contributing a smell that i would link with a perfume property, but since I loathe perfume...I can't quite put my finger on it.
That all being said, it is not a tea that I will have multiple cups of in a row. Two is good for me.
The twisted leaves have a small amount of white leaf bud in there as well.
While at home, tart passionfruit bars can stand up to this tea. They puckery topping is offset by the sweetness of the tea. I decided to brulee the tops of some, which lent great color and flavor change. It tempered the cloying amount of sugar that I used to please others in the family. If left to me, I leave passionfruit almost unadorned in its natural puckery state.
Mother's Day Cometh Early...
In all its caloric glory.....
Rhubarb season could not arrive early enough for mom. So little to do, so much time. Strike that. Reverse it.
What to make?....what to make...?
That these bohemoth rhizomes burst through the snow and ice with their crimson petioles, and toxic leaves would seem a strange luxury. Stranger yet to glorify their sour and acidic properties. But what can one expect for the first "fruit" of the season.
Rough chop up some stalks with the skin still attached.
Toss it in a very hot pan with some simple syrup (boiling sugar syrup) and vanila bean. Dont forget to add a little salt for Mama. At the last second add a little cornstarch slurry to thicken.
Make a quick pastry creme (sugar, eggs, milk, flour) with some grated ginger or vanilla bean. Stir in a little butter at the end for good measure and texture. Add some of the cooled rhubarb to the tart shell. Top with pastry creme.
Rhubarb season could not arrive early enough for mom. So little to do, so much time. Strike that. Reverse it.
What to make?....what to make...?
That these bohemoth rhizomes burst through the snow and ice with their crimson petioles, and toxic leaves would seem a strange luxury. Stranger yet to glorify their sour and acidic properties. But what can one expect for the first "fruit" of the season.
Rough chop up some stalks with the skin still attached.Toss it in a very hot pan with some simple syrup (boiling sugar syrup) and vanila bean. Dont forget to add a little salt for Mama. At the last second add a little cornstarch slurry to thicken.
Make a quick pastry creme (sugar, eggs, milk, flour) with some grated ginger or vanilla bean. Stir in a little butter at the end for good measure and texture. Add some of the cooled rhubarb to the tart shell. Top with pastry creme.
Add some baked crumble, with cinnamon or spice........(a little more sugar and flour to boot)
And remind Mama to stop and get a the pie'ce de re'sistance, the vanilla ice cream just to make sure we've covered our bases in the egg sugar and dairy department. And get the "good stuff"
Dan Cong Pomello (You Hua Xiang)
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The Phoenix Mountains are located at the bottom of the map in the Guangdong province.
This is the region that produces the complex floral and extremely fragrant Oolongs labeled
Golden Phoenix.
Dan Cong is a single (trunk) tea tree, unlike most tea bushes having multiple branches coming out of the soil and fusing together. Generally, these trees are old, take longer for the leaves to mature, and produce a small yield per tree.
The Pomello name comes from its association with the Citrus plant and flower of this name. Roughly the equivalent of a grapefruit. You Hua Xiang is the varietal of this plant. It most certainly has at perfume and more specifically the taste of the pithy pomelo rind.
Really large leaves unfurl after at least the 4th or 5th steep.
The leaf color when dried is dark green/blue. Although reported to be leaves from a single tree, this may in fact be questionable. Even the name Dan Cong is misinterpreted to mean single bush when in fact it refers to the single trunk. This tea was from 'In Pursuit of Tea' and was bitter compared to other Dan Cong varieties I have had in the past. Its citrus flavor was pronounced yet fleeting.
Ten Ren teashop Chinatown
Over the years I had stopped at Ten Ren en route to Chinatown shopping. And like the now closed Ito En, it afforded a uninformed tea shopper like myself a large selection to choose from. The problem is that nothing here is effectively labeled. Not for you, nor the staff.
Customer service is mostly absent here, but in a strangely vague style, present in a way to make you feel that you most definitely wandered into the wrong place, and that it would be convenient for them to have you stop back in another lifetime, if you would. The bag above is a great representation about what your experience will be like when you visit the store there.
Of the 40 canisters of loose tea, or so ten are labeled simply oolong. And when you order, the best idea of what you might take home are a glance at the tea when its poured onto its lid before you, and a chance to smell what the mystery dried plant may unveil. The canisters are arranged with prices high to low, so you are to assume that the higher quality teas would follow suit to price. They slap a label with 'Green Oolong Tea' and send you on your merry way. If you enjoyed your tea at home and wanted to purchase more, you'd have no way of knowing which tea you purchased.
With 74 tea stores in Taiwan alone, you'd wonder why they have had so much success in this business model-food and hospitality.
This Yunnan Province Black tea is a relative newcomer in the world of teas (less than sixty years). Grown in the Fengqing province, it is different than other Chinese black tea because of the amount of leaf buds in the mix. Also to be noted is the low amount of astringency in this tea compared to typical black teas. Its infusion color has a golden orange hue, compared to other darker colored Chinese blacks.
The raw leaves from this harvest smell very chocolaty or maybe cocoa powder would be more fitting, as processed and unprocessed taste different, This attribute is evident in the first couple of steeps. Its pretty sweet flavored and the aftertaste is really long lasting, a great quality I like about this tea in general. Really malt flavored!
It is much better than the Harney blends i used to get. I think if i did make an iced tea with this, I would sorely miss the tannins I've come to expect in that summer treat.
The leaves come from a large leaved tree, but since these are the buds, it is not evident. The picture shows the light brown leaves on the left, and on the right the darker brewed leaves. They do not change size much
Counter Culture Arrives!
Fed Ex is usually an expedient well oiled machine infallible of even the slightest of errors. However, I can only assume that they had lost my Counter Culture coffee shipment ordered as a gift to me from Scout no less than three years earlier. Alas it finally made its way from Durham to Ma-hattan and quite happy to meet its acquaintance. I am able to announce it was worth the wait, as this easy-going small cooperative of farmers know a thing or two about patience and virtue as well. I ran this in the french press this morning and it was terrific with hardly any acid. I tend to think by the 5th of June this will be long gone, and it will have missed its chance to partake in any iced coffee realizations.
So far this company has kept its confines to the South, not letting NYC ruin its brand like Stumptown, and Intelligensia
Below is a video during our trip to Costa Rica of Doka Estates, a small coffee plantation that we visited. It was very helpful to see the process of making coffee firsthand, as with most things leaving a better way to visualize a complex and lengthy process.
Shui Xian '2 Stamp'
This heavily roasted Wuyi oolong is from 2009, and as pictured, contains leaves that visually connect the charcoal flavors both in the taste and aroma. The leaves smell weighted with smoke, though the actual brew tastes far less so.
I made an old childhood favorite of mine to go along with this tea for the afternoon, and perhaps evening if it sticks around that long. A chocolate and pistachio swirl cake usually made with jello pie filling got ratcheted up a little using some expensive pistachio oil.
BTG./ATG.
Before Tea Gallery and After Tea Gallery
This may be how I need to talk about my experience with tea from now on. Strange enough that the planet's most famous beverage, the one most commonly consumed throughout the world would be so misguided. To say that I have been brewing tea incorrectly all these years, is not only slightly embarrassing, but also vexingly peculiar. I hate to use the word 'wrong' about the methods I've been implementing all this time, because so often people deem that no way is 'wrong' when it comes to personal preference in taste. But undoubtedly, a large percentage of my teas have been mishandled victims in my hands. Leaving leaves submerged for the renowned duration of 3 minutes has stripped them of their glorious characters, and even worse, prohibited me from enjoy multiple cups of them at one sitting. Wrong is a word that convincingly is adequate when it comes to careless abandon that I exhibited before.
I knew a place like the Tea Gallery existed, but it really has taken years to find it. Manhattan would seem to hold a place for every type of person, with interests in any given field. But this has been a tough pursuit thus far, finding about about great tea, and how to prepare it. Luckily the TG services both of these needs.
A small loft space houses a collaboration of 2 companies, The Tea Gallery and Mandarins Tea Room. Tasting 'events' are offered, allowing you to focus in depth on how a tea can change so dramatically during its infusions.
My little Liu An Gua Pin
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| We made this tea in the Spring of 2010 We planted a seed, watered and helped it, and it turned out much to our liking. Ready for harvest on Jan 25, she was a little more than 75g. Now is the tricky part for the tea masters! Cultivation being finished, we must now carefully develop this little bud into a full fledged complex flavor profile. Only time will tell when this aged beauty will be complete. |
An Xi Mao Xie Hairy Crab
This is a lightly oxidized sweet oolong from the An Xi with a direct translation to 'Hairy Crab' due to its attribute of fine hairs on the outside of the leaf. It is the specific type of tea bush and rolled into the dragonfly head shape. The leaves are large and mature, and contain two or three per ball.
I baked a citrus chiffon cake with zest of lemon, clementine and lime to harmonize with the floral taste this tea provides, frosted with a milk chocolate ganache, which i rarely use... but works really well with lemon, I think reading this Pierre Herme many years ago.
Oriental Beauty
I purchased this Formosa oolong from Jas-eTea and it is really wonderful. Since I'm trying to wrap my brain around the different teas, it's no help that so many of them have multiple names. Known as Eastern beauty, Bai Hao, Silver tip oolong, Dong Fang Mei Ren, Pong Fa Cha are some that I could scrounge up. It has high oxidation (above 70%) but ironically does not have the astringincy that oolongs usually favor at this darkness. This is because it is bitten when young by a tea jassid , causing an enzyme reaction that leaves this leaf with a wonderful muscatel aroma.
The leafhopper allows the tea to be pesticide free. Tea Masters Blog has a picture of the species Jacobsiasca Formosana here.
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Mostly small leaf and bud |
Tea Masters BlogTea Masters Blog
An idiom whose time has not come
If at first you dont succeed try try again... or so the saying goes. Delving into the world of cooked pu-erh teas has not been met with positive result thus far!
This is a cake of 2010 Menghai Dai ripe pu-erh that I believe will sit around in my house, while I wait for some mystic force to bestow upon it any type of pleasant taste that may be understood by all the others. I for one am not 'getting it' yet on these. I have learned however that the recommended steep time on the packaging of between 3 and 5 minutes which is quite preposterous. 15 seconds is ample
An excellent video on Pu-erh is below!
This Iconic Device
Upon visiting the MOMA recently for a special exhibit on 'Kitchens', I stumbled upon this pre-war piece of equipment thati I so often take for granted everyday. Patented in 1930, this is the exact design that I put to task 3 minutes each morning which signals a sign of regiment that has become unobtrusively routine. Listening to it quietly percolate while finishing can draw my attention rooms away.
First given to me by my mother some years ago, it was shelved for a French Press that had been broken and replaced several times. So too the Moka Express has been replaced many times, not for its faulty design by Mr. Bialetti, but for its faulty operator who tends to let its handle sit off-center into the gas flame until it smokes and ultimately drips. Its spout does however tend to drip often onto the white enamel of the stove, baking on, and having to be scrubbed with sufficient elbow grease at least once a week
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Occasionally our frothy creation can be accompanied by a raisin danish, freshly proofed in the early morning hours. But those times are few and far between. More than likely you'll find a scene on the aptly named 'coffee' table' pictured below, that features items of late, attributed to the other newly acquired lactose craving creature of our home, Emma Elizabeth.
What runs through our veins runs through hers, so we are almost a year away from our conversion to decaf espresso.
Gyokuro
Gyokuro is the highest grade of Japanesse green Sencha tea. It is differentiated by its final growth in shade. It is lightly steamed when producing a finer grade. This producer, Hishidai, was quite good and had an strong aroma and initial burst of flavor, with a less intense bright flavor than i would imagine. Slightly minty aftertaste was pleasing. It is expected to have relatively low amounts of tannins from the way its produced, and this one was true to that.
The name translates to 'Jade Dew' which refers to its infusion color, but i have seen many variations on this. Maybe because I tend to use a larger quantity of tea to water ratio, but this is how I prefer to brew this style of tea. Considering you should be using much less temperature of water than even a typical green, make sure to heat your cups so you are not drinking cold tea, just a couple of minutes afterward.
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The cup I have below shows a terrible type of vessel for this type of tea, as the surface area allows it to cool much too fast. |
Ten Ren Spring Pouchoung
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| Light yellow brew |
Pouchong tea is a very lightly oxidized and unroasted oolong that is closer to green in nature. It is produced in China and Taiwan and has twisted shaped leaves. Its name means 'the wrapped kind' which is in reference to the practice of wrapping the leaves in paper.
It is slightly bitter slightly grassy and very floral, if you have a higher quality tea. It is a delicate tea, however it produces consecutive steepings without rapidly diminishing.
The finest comes from Taiwan (specifically the Pinglin Township). It is harvested for a short time in the Spring. Another name for this tea is Bao Zhong.
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| Dried leaves change only slightly in shape and not color |
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| Fig newtons made for snack with tea |
Alishan
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| Packaging in English and Taiwanese |
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| First steep leaves unfurl slightly |
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| Dried leaves rolled up. |
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| Third steep leaves open fully |
Lady Apples
The classic stuffed apple can still be presented with mini apple lady apples. This desert has a cinnamon creme brulee', an apple roasted with pecans and brown sugar, a compote of stewed cherries, and a dried apple that was formed using a japanesse turning machine and some slow drying in the oven.
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