afitting

Hmm… I was expecting this to be the point where things started getting seriously astringent/bitter. Its astringent, but not terribly so, and finally a bit more malty (though still not what I expected). I may need to repeat this one since the actual amounts where different (3 cups and a heaping tsp of tea vs. 2 cups and a level one). I actually got out of bed early enough to have breakfast with Q. Q is now reliably able to distinguish this tea from green. That’s a big step for us, and its only 7. Who knows what else the day may hold.

Today I added 30 seconds to the steep time. There’s a bit of astringency that wasn’t there yesterday. I was expecting more malt, but I can’t really detect it. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing these tests first thing in the morning.

I really enjoy the malty honey taste at breakfast. This tea seems a better fit for my daily oatmeal than the heavily spiced Sadaf. I’m going to experiment with steep times this week. At three minutes, its very honeyed, no bitterness at all.

This is ideally a tea to savor with dessert and a bit of sugar. However, I’m having it straight with oatmeal in the morning. At least I put three cardamom pods in. The taste of actual tea is in the background at this point, behind the cardamom and bergamont. This ok since the tea is pretty one dimensional. It seems like this may be a good candidate for chrine’s London Fog recipe so I will probably try that sometime this week.

No notes yet.

I’m not quite sure this is the right place to put this. Ten Ren sells several grades of black tea both loose and in bags. What I’m drinking is the loose second grade black tea. Its slightly astringent and slightly smoky. I’m sure that there are correct words to describe the rest of the taste and I am sure they are not ‘refined’, ‘pleasant’, or ‘fancy’. But I don’t know what they are, so that’s what you’re getting. This tea plays the BMW to my normal morning Assam’s Camaro SS. They’re both quick of the line, but one is much more poised (and expensive).

No notes yet.

Its Spring. The peas are beginning to attach their tendrils to the trellis, the lettuce is sprouting. The sword ferns are dying (oops, that wasn’t supposed to happen). Its light later and I’m biking to and from work: tired, light and surrounded by green. Perfect conditions for drinking this slightly ridiculously named tea: noticeably astringent, lightly colored and quite vegetal.

Today got off to such a good start, and then stalled out. After literally hours slaving over Blackberry Desktop, I’m back to where I intended to start the day: with a hot cup of motivational breakfast tea. Cryptic error messages and corrupted system files have devoured my dreams of a productive day at work and at the gym, bu they’ll never get my tea.

Its Friday and I’m running on fumes. Fortunately, they are the industrial strength fumes of Stassen jasmine tea. This tea is quite unsubtle about its subtleness. In case you’re not aware, this is JASMINE!!!! (tea). Actually, as far as I can tell, its just jasmine flowers, with some leaves that got sucked into the jasmine flower harvesting machine by mistake. Wait, there it is, just a bit of tannin tang in the aftertaste. I hope there’s some caffeine in there too, or I may faceplant on theol7u8yol. jm78y…

No notes yet.

Another day at the office.

A good hearty cup for a productive day (at least it was productive until I logged on to Steepster).

No notes yet.

According to WikiPedia, Irish Breakfast is supposed to have a good bit of Assam in it. However, this doesn’t have nearly the heft (robustness?) of the loose leaf Kalmi I’ve been drinking recently. It seems more like the Ceylon I drank this morning. That said, its not bad.

This is the end: the last Tower of London tea bag has been consumed. I’m so sad to see it go.

Two words define this one: ‘black tea’. That’s what it tastes like, no honey aftertaste, no smokiness, no vegetal-ness, no bitterness, just straight up tea. If you are still drinking Lipton, The Original Ceylon Tea is a drop in replacement: same taste without the tannin overload.

I found this in a local Indian market. It was pretty cheap and I needed some more black tea, so why not. I didn’t recognize the brand. Apparently neither does Google.

This tea is the exact opposite of the Rishi Silver Needle Jasmine Iogged yesterday. It is simply tea, thick, slightly roasty Indian tea.

It abides.

Some music pleasantly complements a particular activity like marching, dancing or running. Some music fades nicely into the background, setting the mood for a nice conversation.

But some music requires your whole attention. Sometimes it intrudes: the 5th movement of The Firebird nearly killed my while driving to Philadelphia. Sometimes it sulks: I was initially disappointed with Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill Live In Seattle because I didn’t hear the guitar at all. Then I stood right in front of the speakers and it made sense…

Um, about the tea, this tea is like Live In Seattle. If you’re not paying total attention it tastes like warm tap water. It will not complement any food. But if you pay very close attention, there are a whole variety of flavors just on the edge of perception. There are wisps of grass and wet leaves and there is the presence of flowers (it is jasmine tea after all).

Basically, this tea is like potpourri in foggy redwoods. So it complements the weather in Northern California at the moment. Maybe it will play nice with something after all.

The peach flavor is quite good. Its not overwhelming or missing or bitter. The tea itself seems very light. No malty, chocolaty or much of any other flavor that I can detect. Since I put one teabag in our teapot (which I’m sure is more than 8oz) I may try more tea next time.

Q brought this tea back from China a few years ago. It had just enough English on the bag that I was able to figure out (more or less) what it is. The jasmine smell is very strong and the flavor is pretty mild, but I’m not sure about the ‘long-standing’ bit. Like the tea in many Chinese restaurants, it seems to get bitter fairly quickly.

I’m not sure how to enter the temperature. I poured the water into the cup just after boiling (about 200°) but it quickly dropped to around 180° and stayed there. Anyway, It was pleasant start to the morning. I still smell more than I taste in this tea.

Much better with 3 cardamom pods. Mildly, but not unpleasantly astringent. I may try it a bit hotter tomorrow.

Ok, that’s far enough. At this steep time, its noticeably astringent and is starting to have a bit of a chemical smell. I can’t even smell the fruit any more. This is the end of the line for messing around with steep time. Next up, temperature.