Robert Godden

Had to have another infusion. Just had to!
I wonder why I need to sweeten the first cup, but not thereafter?
Is it that the tea is sweeter every infusion?
Or am I sweeter for having consumed it?
Big questions indeed. perhaps another cuppa to help me think….

Didn’t have this yesterday. It’s been a while since I went a day without.
Nice long steep in a one person pot, then decant all of the liquor into a mug.
The aroma is so delicate that the anticipation of this tea is not in the smell, it’s in the memory. i know how good it’s going to be.
Even though it’s summer, this tea always tastes like spring. It’s like the smell of fresh pine needles after a rain; it’s a mood elevator.
Currently my laptop is playing up, and my tea is behaving. I think the answer is to enjoy the tea and worry about the work later.

Went back for another serve. Slightly weaker this time. Nice colour, nice aroma, nice taste!

Time for Clarence, a slightly bigger teapot, because it’s tea for two. Interesting mix of brown and black colours with a fair bit of really small stuff.
The liquor is reddish brown, the aroma quite Assamese.
I think it works better in my bertter half’s cup (white with two) than mine (black with oneish)
But pleasant. And my late Grandmother, who grew up in the Great Depression, would ne mighty impressed with the effort of recycling the last few grams of three teas to get more tea.
Basic tea, well made if I do say so myself!

Just attacked the espresso machine again to make this.
Made 100ml strong tea. As an experiment, I left the infiuser in the jug while I heated the milk and sugar to 70 deg C.
mmmmm, it’s smooth. I love the way the spices line up in order on your pallet. Sugar / Cinnamon/ Cardamon/ tea/ milk / aniseed and cloves. Then sip again

At this point, according to my tea log, which probably gets half my tea activity, this is my favourite. I doubt that at any time in the past my top tea would be a white or green.
This morning, it’s 6:30 and it is my first cup of the day. I haven’t eaten for two days, apart from the mildly controversial jelly regular readers have commented on.
So, it’s a pai mu tan.
I haven’t used some delicate 120ml teacup, here I have a mug the size of a handbasin. I’ve made up one Cyril’s worth – about 500ml – and I’m not afraid to re-steep.
The first sip of this, while it’s still a little hot, cools itself by burning my tongue and then slips across a very dry throat. It’s like bringing life back to the Sahara.
Never mind letting it cool, it’s into sip 2.
It’s warm and woody today. There’s a real melon taste to this brew. (In fact. I think I’ll nip out and get some rockmelon for breakfast)
After about 50ml, vitality is flowing again.
My mother is on EPO – you know the stuff athletes cheat with. In her case, she’s in her 60’s and has kidney disease. She describes the feeling immediately after she has her fortnightly injection as ‘making her want to go and jump over a house".
This feels the same. I wonder if they’ll ban it for runners?

Ahhh, Nilgiri, it’s been a while.
Popped into Kappy’s for a Keemun or Blue Mountain, shelves were all over the place while trying to find them, my eyes alighted on Nilgiri, a firm favourite for years.
“A pot of your finest Nilgiri, Please”
First bowl is a little watery. Shouldn’t be. Perhaps it needs more time.
Second bowl is slightly less watery.
I think there’s just not ehough tea in the pot.
6mins is a bit long to steep, but it’s getting biiter and tanniny without having the right “bite” for this tea. (3rd bowl)

At the end of the day, it’s a good tea, but it’s not been done justice here today. Wondering where the slight metallic taste is from.

After a crack at Taylors bagged version yesterday, decided I’d better redress the balance and have a real one.
And the difference is indeed mighty. My kitchen already smells like an open campfire. Don’t want to steep too long…
Hmmm, it’s a lovely round taste that circles your mouth. Strong enough to chew, but fades in a surprisingly dainty manner.
A great tea to take just before I head into the city for some work. Of course, my first stop is actually a tea shop.

IT has become my habit to start my day with a green or white, or two, or five, and then move through into blacks during the day. That seems to be the opposite for most people, probably because of the wildly inaccurate belief that greens have less caffeine than whites.
So, the sun is coming up, I’m working on a press release and sipping some Jasmine.
The colour today is kind of mystical, I am peering into the tea bowl and trying to see the future.
The warm tones and perky bouquet of this tea are helping me to see that said future will contain much tea.

A retrospective, I had this last night!
Yesterday was a bizarre day – I didn’t eat apart from some diet jelly (that’s jello for some reason to you in the US of A, not jam).
I did have 13 cups of tea including the milky concoction I mention in an earlier post and “gasp” 4 bagged teas – two Taylors of Harrogate Lapsang Souchongs and two Pickwick’s Pure Peppermint – as I was at a function at an aussie country pub and didn’t take an infuser because I didn’t want to be beaten up.
So last night, just before retiring and completely stuffed, I enjoyed another of these fine Darjeelings.
I concocted it in Cyril, my glass teapot, to fully enjoy the colour. And I used some 100-year-old Czech gold-rimmed tea-cups. And finally, I added a smidgen of sugar to mine.
It was a near religious experience.
As they say in surfing, you shoulda been there.

I needed reinvigorating.
I brewed this.
and lo, I was reinvigorated !

I am still feeling quite crappy after a bad night, and 4 cups of Pai Mu Tan, so here goes:
teaspoon of Superior Vanilla with pods in an ibrik (turkish coffee pot)
Steep in a little water for 2 minutes
Add a dash of honey, a shake or two of dried ginger and two split green cardamom pods (hang the expense)
Added some low fat milk and on the stove to slowly heat up.
The taste is wonderful. I’ll comment later on whether it worked

Pure Morning Bliss. 2 infusions.
I was about to shoot more on Assam but have gone off on a tangent with this.
I suffered a massive gall bladder attack last night, and rose several hours late, some what aspirin and codeine addled.
The was my saviour.
The whiteness is not exactly sweet, but yet not savoury. Like it exists outside of the normal rules.
3rd infusion highly likely!

Just made this in Cyril (my glass teapot) and it’s obvious from the colour that my palate was not lying about the Yunnan I suggested last time. It’s a great base, and then there’s some interesting tannin flavours over the top. There’s a peachy aftertaste (in both senses, if you like) that I think is the combination of the slightly brackish tannins with the naughty brown sugar I threw in!
Second cup I think, with breakfast inspired by 52teas

I’ve taken to my first cuppa being white, but I decided to kick my system off with a 5:30 am Darjeeling on this occasion.
As a treat, I used “Cyril”, my glass teapot to better appreciate what was going on.
This tea colours fast for a Darjeeling. It is a naturally light tea to look at, so if you wait for it to darken in the pot, then it’s likely to be oversteeped. Bear i mind I mean dark for a darjeeling, i.e. still quite light as tea goes.
The muscatel tone is always there, with some gum leaf – I have a koala that visits a tree in my yard, so I’d best keep this stuff away from him – but I think I have got the steeping spot on for a nice fizzy warmth. It flows from your tongue to your brain, and is the perfect adjunct to watching the son come up, writing about tea, and not doing the work I’m supposed to be doing.
Cheers, Steepsterers!

Take two- no oversteeping this time.
WOW!
Muscatel, pear flavour in a real mixed bag, Looking at the leaves, they are a bewildering array of black, yellow, green. Smooth gum leaf finish. Tannins are also smooth and full. If I was in the habit of drinking that crushed, fermented, bottled grape juice stuff other people get so excited about, I’d compare this tea to a shiraz.
Now I have a dilemma. It’s a full breakfast for dinner (happens sometimes) So, do I follow it with an Assam, or have another of these? Can it stand up to bacon? I think “Yes!”

Lunch is a Turkey, lettuce and cranberry sandwich, so a nice green is most suitable!
Brewed up nicely, with plenty of flavour. Saved the infuser for another cup.
Very fresh today, still an amber colour and plenty of flavour after not a real long steep. Picking up a grape aftertaste today
Now for that sandwich…

First crack at this, I’d had quite a bit of green and wanted to work my way back….
I oversteeped it. I was busy.
Despite the slighly tarry backtaste due to the oversteeping, this was an excellent cup of tea. Slightly redder than many Darjeelings, but with a lively red grape taste. Slight eucalyptus aroma.
Really invigortaing. I am looking forward to making a btter job of this one later today.

A lovely cup of a tea that remains a favourite despite it’s inadvertent creation.
I had to get up very early, and I’m not ready for anything heavy, but I wanted to move on from my cup or two of Jasmine an hour ago.
A mint tea can be a dessert, and I used it to follow some toast. The aroma has filled my office, and it keeps drawing me back fro another sip, and the inevitable second cup.
The green tea teases the palate; the mint smashes it to smithereens a millisecond later.
It’s the most exciting think happening in Adelaide at 5:59am, I am sure

Up at 4am for a webinar from the US!
I’ve put together a large pot of this delicate tea to keep me going.
And it’s great.
Flowery, sparkly on a dry tongue and sweet!

Hmmm, green tea with apricot flavouring and buits of dried honeydew melon. Served quite presumpively with no sugar on the side, so I drank it sugarless, it could have used a touch.
The apricot flavour was great before the water was added but disappeared in the brew. The underlying green was a little bitter, the melon covered it up. Not a bad effort for a silk baggy thing

OK, so this tea is my current obsession – I’m on my way to drop some change off to my son who is minding a small store today.
I’ve packed two japanese tea cups and a cute purple pot, plus my ever-dwindling Pai Mu Tan
We’ll be taking the water at 97% from the espresso machine, but I think the tea is unsuited to an infuser.
I’ll be commented as this Odyssey unfolds!

As foreshadowed in my last post, it’s now 6:31 and I’ve just added 250ml of boiling water to the 2grams of Pai Mu Tan that I brewed at 9 last night, and then re-steeped around 6:10.
6:33 – Leaves are sooo unfurled, just floating around. Swish the pot and they look like sea creatures drifting.
6:35 – Wisps of ginger coloured liquor are spiralling from the buds
6:37 – just went out to my veggie garden and inhaled the scent of growing tomatoes, capsicum and zucchini. Comparing the scent to the tea, but it’s not really the same.
6:49 – Has the scent of a rainforest. And it’s time.
It sparkled like a mountain stream as I poured it. And taste is delicate – like teak and oak and blueberries.
Might be my tea experience of the day!

I had a lovely cup of this exquisite white at 9pm. Drained the leaves, left them overnight and added boiling water at 6am when I arose.
Delightful. Smooth and soft, still has that characteristic gentle woody, fruity palate.
As soon as I finish, I’ll have another go. Think of the antioxidants!