Roughage

Roughage drank White Temple tea by A C Perch's

I first had this at my brother’s in Copenhagen, when we visited him last year. We enjoyed it so he sent us some for Christmas and now it is in the regular line-up of teas in our house. The best bit is being able to experiment with how I brew it, instead of relying on my brother’s Philistine ways with tea! ;-) So, I started the pot with two teaspoons of the tea in my 250ml glass pot and brewed it initially for two minutes at 80 degrees. Not enough flavour came through. It was pleasant and a bit bubblegum, but not as nice as I remembered it. After a bit of experimentation, I finally got it right for me. Between 75 and 80 degrees was the right temperature and a 3-4 minute steep brought out the flavours nicely. All the fruit came through, but delicately enough not to be overpowering. I did not notice much of the white tea, except as a background to the rest. Still, it was very nice and perfect for when I want something sweeter to drink. I wonder if it will be sufficient to counter my addiction to jelly snakes and jelly dinosaurs?

2012-01-22 17:32:58 -0500

175 °F / 79 °C

3 min 30 sec

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I am a professional Vikingologist and I like tea! To be honest, I have always liked decent tea, but in 2011 I started working at learning what good tea really is. I am busily expanding my tea horizons quite significantly, much to the chagrin of my wife, who despairs of my enthusiasm. My favourite teas are Darjeelings and sheng puerhs, but I struggle to find black teas (other than Darjeelings) that really float my boat. My absolute favourite teas at the moment are Anji Bai Cha and Dong Fang Mei Ren both from Canton Tea Co, neither of which are shengs or Darjeelings. Seems odd, but that’s the way it is. I do wonder if the scores I give out actually reflect my predilection for Darjeelings and shengs.

I am slowly adding to my experience by trying as many different products as possible. I like to think that I am developing my palate and becoming more learned about tea, but I suspect that may be wishful thinking!

I find rating the teas difficult. Often a particular tea will appeal to me because of my mood, even though it does not get a top rating on here from me. As a general guide, I use the following ratings:

0-25 Undrinkable
26-50 Really not to my taste
51-75 Ok to good
76-99 Always welcome in my pot
100 – There ain’t no such thing as a perfect score!

As I rate teas, I try to revisit my scores and check that my old scores are in line with the new ones.