ashmanra

Well, once again I am perplexed. But this is fun! The man at the Chinese buffet gave me tea, so last week I took him some Mengku Palace Puerh from Teavivre. I photocopied the label which has Chinese and English on it. He looked at it for a moment and then said, “Oh, puerh! This is the tea to drink when you want to lose weight!” I told him it is also very tasty.

Well, he insisted on sharing his tea with me again. I could not understand what he was calling this tea but there is a remote chance he was saying Dong Ding. I will try to find out soon! Here is a pic of the wrapper and leaves. If anyone can read the Chinese, please let me know what it says!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8092641514/

The tea came in a little foil pouch like Teavivre’s Tie Kuan Yin. Inside the pouch the tea was also enclosed in a little poly baggie. The leaves were a mix of dark green and black. They were tightly rolled. I guessed it must be an oolong and prepared it accordingly. The little pouch made a few leaves that didn’t even cover the bottom of my tiny gong fu pot.

I did a fifteen second rinse and then steeped for three minutes. I am no further along in knowing just what I am drinking. It is a dark oolong for sure. There is a “rock” or mineral taste, but also wisps of fruit flickering through my senses. At first, there was a somewhat sour taste, such as you find in the “palate clearing” teas. I steeped this tea five times, and by the third steep my tea pot was full to bustin’ with leaves. Seriously, I don’t know when I have seen leaves swell so incredibly. That is probably a clue as to what kind of tea this is.

I am trying to pick what tea I will take next time I go. Perhaps a Huang Shan Mao Feng.

I am going to share my experience with this one today for the benefit of all who are experimenting with matcha and lattes. I really let my immersion blender go for it with that first matcha latte today. As I said, there was one cup of milk and two cups of froth. But the froth never went down! I waited, and waited. I finally ate it with a spoon! LOL!

I wanted MOHR!!!! This time I used a cup of skim milk like before, a bit of sugar (okay, more sugar than before because I was really having cravings today, first salty, then sweet) and the same amount of matcha, about 1/4 to 1/3 teaspoon. But this time, I just hit it with low speed briefly. Much better! I only got one cup of froth! There was plenty of yummy liquid left for me to slurp down.

I am going to be needing lots of matcha energy this week as we are tearing our kitchen apart to move the location of the washer and dryer, and everything has to be birthday party ready by Thursday!

Tonight I made a recipe from Pinterest called Creamy Garlic Pasta. It is creamy and also very easy. As usual, I did lighten up the calories a bit though I am sure it still had plenty!

After I ate it, I really wanted a milkshake. I have been craving something rich and chocolate-y all day but have abstained, so I guess that just rolled over to milkshake this evening. I decided instead to have a matcha latte.

I poured one cup of milk into a Pyrex four cup measure. I added a heaping teaspoon sugar and about 1/3 teaspoon matcha. I mixed it with my Bamix immersion blender and the top of the liquid level rose to three cups! That’s right, this made two whole cups of froth on high speed! I am letting it sit a bit, though I have sipped it, because I want the froth to go down a little! The froth on top is so thick it reminds me of when we made butter once, or when we made home made whipped cream and beat it a little too hard and too long!

What a great dessert! Eight ounces skim milk, about 20 calories worth of sugar, and I assume the matcha adds zero calories, yet I have a twenty ounce glass full of rich vanilla flavor. I can’t wait to try their chocolate flavor!

I am finishing my China Keemun sample from Zen Tea this morning along with a cherry vanilla bagel from Panera – the ones shaped like a ribbon for breast cancer awareness month. Since I had breast cancer last year, I am particularly attached to these bagels, especially since a friend came to have bagels and tea the day after my surgery! :)

This is a very good Keemun, it has the strength to pull off being a morning tea, the chocolate flavor to let me know it is a Keemun, and the smoothness to still drink it plain. I can’t say that about all Keemuns! This is one that would also be great with milk and sugar if you are so inclined. It won’t shrink under the additions, but may be even heartier.

Thank you, Zen Tea, for the opportunity to try your tea! I can’t wait to order the black bamboo matcha whisk, the scoop, and the sifter. I think I am going to get the Earl Grey Cream as well since I have never had one and they get such great reviews on here.

I finally placed that order with English Tea Store! I got Lady Londonderry tea and jelly babies so that youngest can offer them to people when she is wearing her Tom Baker scarf. The tea came very quickly. Customer service was great as the jelly babies are on back order and they called to tell me so, and to ask if I wanted the tea mailed right away at no additional cost! I usually would have told them to save THEIR cost and ship them together but I really wanted this to be here when my daughter’s boyfriend gets here next week from Northern Ireland.

This is the flavor profile he really loves, and hubby likes things like this, too, so I had hubby try it out today. Both hubby and Gavin put milk and sugar in their tea, so hubby’s opinion was valuable to me.

The dry leaf smelled mouth-wateringly candy-ish, like those little Smarties, the American ones, not the UK ones. The tea has a bright berry smell and I am thinking there is probably Darjeeling in this black tea blend.

Mine was fruity and good with both the strawberry and lemon flavors sharing the spotlight. Hubby said he liked his, and the more he drank the more it grew on him. Hooray! Hopefully Gavin will like it, too. I bought a whole pound so I can send some home with him!

It is our twenty-sixth wedding anniversary today and to celebrate I wanted to…do what we do most Friday nights and get Chinese take out! LOL! i guess I am pretty low maintenance! At least, I hope I am.

I am getting low on this tea, but since the mystery Da Hong Pao from the restaurant was so good with our Chinese take out I thought we would have this again. At first I thought I should use it up since it is getting older, but I have seen some things that say that oolongs often age well, and on eBay they sell aged and pressed cake oolongs that look like puerh. I need to find out more about this.

There are a lot of notes about this one and I don’t have a lot to add other than that I now find it a favorite to pair with meals.

I was craving this last week but didn’t make it for tea party day because my guest does not like puerh tea, and she likes almost everything else. I get a little irritated sometimes when people try to get me to taste seething over and over swearing THIS one will be the one I like. I have had that happen with coffee lovers.

But this week I broke. This tea is so chocolate and so strawberry and so rich that surely no one culd object to it, no matter how much they dislike puerh.

My gamble paid off. My guest liked it and did not find it offensive like the plain and osmanthus puerhs I have given her in the past. And of course I loved it. My first taste of this tea came from a swap with Doulton, and I am sad to say that my card to her remans unanswered, so we still don’t know what became of her.

I don’t own this Keemun….yet….but the way my guest loved it today I may need to put it on my shopping list. I would love to try ALL of the Teavivre Keemuns!

This particular one is mild and smooth, with a silky, almost cedar fragrance. There are hints of sweet potato and a little molasses or honey perhaps. It reminds me a lot of Golden Monkey. This was my guest’s hands down favorite.

I think it was Missy and Dylan who compared a number of Teavivre’s Keemuns. I need to look at his reviews and narrow down the ones to try. They have several! As my guest said, “This one’s a winner.”

This was an unusual tea party day in a way. Today we didn’t do a set of three different teas. Instead we had two of the same type of tea but from different companies to compare them. We also had a flavored version of a tea my guest normally does not like. For our snacks, we compared two of the same cheddars but different ages from the same company.

The results were mixed. Both Keemuns were excellent and both went well with food, and we drank them quite easily without milk and sugar, something I couldn’t handle with Keemuns a year or two ago. The other tea being tried alongside this was Teavivre’s Organic Superfine Keemun Fragrant.

This Keemun tasted the most like what I consider to be a classic Keemun. It had rich, cocoa-y flavor and I found that it really stood up well to the salty aged cheeses we were tasting. It had the power to wash down those strong flavors without wilting.

The Teavivre Keemun was less of a “classic” Keemun flavor to me, but it was nevertheless an amazing tea. I don’t think you can go wrong buying either of these if you know the differences between the two and know what you want from your Keemun. Teavivre’s was smoother, less cocoa-y, more baked sweet potato with a hint of molasses.

Seriously, these were both so good you don’t want to miss either tea.

Once upon a time this was one of the very few teas my hubby would drink. He drinks lots of others now so this one has been neglected. I decided we had better get nostalgic and revisit it before it goes stale!

This is not only a nice, lemony Ceylon, it has a lovely floral note as well. I now take it sans milk and sugar, though in the early loose leaf tea days I took it with both, like hubby. This was a very nice accompaniment to our lunch today – bold enough to pair with food, not astringent, a little malty.

Bonnie sent this tea to me a while back, but I absolutely refused to make it until I could make an event of it. Tonight I asked hubby if he would join me for tea. That always means the two of us, at the tea table, and no laptops, no electronics, just us and tea. He said yes, so here we go!

I made a plate of some new cheese I bought to try – Drunken Goat, a 6 year aged cheddar, and an 8 year aged cheddar. These were served with Club crackers, the whole grain version.

I unwrapped the lovely wrapped pillow. I love the texture and weight of the paper so I saved for an “as yet unknown” project! The pillow of tea held together but was loosely packed, which was a surprise. I have only seen the tightly compressed puerhs so that is what I expected, but this pillow was so large it would never do to put that much tightly compressed leaf in a small pot. I love how unique this is!

We steeped five times, beginning with 90 seconds and increasing to 3 minutes by the last. Each steep was flavorful. My husband is not the biggest fan of green and oolong teas but he has a few he really likes. He enjoyed this one!

The liquor is somewhat pale, and I would call this a medium bodied tea. This is very smooth and has no drying effect at all. The flavor is vegetal with a floral note overlaying it.

So I got my wish! I got to try this tea, and it really was an event – a nice, mid-week date for hubby and me! Thank you, Bonnie!

You won’t believe how I made this. I made it like matcha! LOL! I think I have almost exclusively made lattes, but this time I did a little of both! I was really worried that I had made a mistake ordering this and French Vanilla because I thought they would be almost identical. Instead, they are barely similar! What I bought: Size – small, base – classic, flavor level – robust. Buy it here:

http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/bavarian-cream-matcha.html

First surprise – out of the bag this smells very lemon-y! When I whisked a small amount in hot water it also tasted lemony. If someone had told me I was drinking “such and such a company’s lemon green tea”, I would have believed them. It was very nice that way but we all know why I bought this, right?

Usual prep – eight ounces hot milk, one teaspoon sugar, 1/4 tsp. matcha powder, plus immersion blender.

Oy vey! Ay caramba! Second surprise: I now have a European pastry with soft creamy filling. It is still a bit lemony, but the vanilla aspect comes out a bit more and the taste and texture are very creamy! This tastes like a fresh Bavarian cream, not like the preservative laden grocery store mess that they pass off as Bavarian cream. I only know this because many years ago a German family opened a bakery in our town. When I went in for the first time I purchased a pastry to share with a friend, and the friend did the choosing. She picked a pastry filled with Bavarian cream, to which I thought, “Yuck.” Then I tasted it and it was so good!

I told the owner how different it was from any I had tried before, and he said that it was because his son comes in at four a.m. every day and makes it fresh. It is kept chilled. When they sell out of what was made that morning, it is gone until the next day. And sell out they do, every day even now.

This is that good.

At last! I have reached the point where I am buying matcha flavors especially for ME! So far I have chosen flavors based on the preferences of family members, and in a way this one is influenced by that – I want to add this to hubby’s Carnation Instant Breakfast in the mornings so he will get his protein and vitamins along with the caffeine boost and antioxidants in the matcha.

When I opened the package, the aroma was wonderful…but not exactly what I expected! I thought it was going to smell sickeningly sweet, like a whole bakery full of cupcakes covered in fatty, sugary frosting, although I believed it would taste great. Instead, I am picking up an aroma that I normally find in a super fresh, newly unsealed pouch of tie guan yin. I don’t know if I am smelling the matcha base this time, or if oolongs have reminded me of vanilla all along and I just didn’t put a finger on the smell accurately. Any way you call it, this smells GOOD. There is nothing sickening or cloying about this, even in this Robust flavor level, at least not for me.

I wanted strong vanilla flavor, so I chose French Vanilla over Madagascar Vanilla and I ordered Robust flavor level. I knew I would love it so I ordered the large size, of course!

Here is where to get it:
http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/french-vanilla-matcha.html

Oh my goodness! I am so glad I got the large! For this first tasting I just added 1/4 tsp. of matcha powder and one teaspoon sugar to eight ounces cold milk. I used an immersion blender to mix it up and get some froth.

This is really good. When I was a kid I had milk with Nestlé Quik almost every day, but on special days my mom would let me make vanilla milk. Back then, that meant a few drops of vanilla extract and lots of sugar stirred into a glass of milk. I would put so much sugar that my vanilla milk would crunch – it was actually gritty, though I loved it.

This is taking me back to that drink, but with far less sugar, lots of antioxidants, and a bit of caffeine to kick me into gear. I can’t wait to experiment with it. This is going to make a marvelous hot vanilla drink, too.

Oh la la! It is still chilly (okay, it is about 52F outside but compared to the eighty degree temps we were having, that is chilly!) and it is completely overcast and drizzly. We have lots of geometry to do and it is puppy sitting day and I had Mountain Dew at supper last night (stupid, stupid, stupid) and hardly slept a wink last night. Time for fortification!

Most of the time when I set out to make tea, I know exactly what sort of thing I want. Today it took a few minutes to figure it out, but I sure picked a winner. I had five pearls remaining from my free sample and that is what I am finishing here, though I did get my own order of it last week, thus I get to click “Add to Cupboard.” :D

These five pearls have given me four eight ounce pots of tea. It is cocoa-y, smooth, and…manly. I don’t know how else to put it. It isn’t strong as in astringent, biting, or drying, yet it has a lot of presence. I am taking it plain, but I think it would hold up well to milk and sugar if such was your wont. It is very good with sweets.

I was pretty surprised today when I made a pot of this tea, gave it a sniff, and realized that I was in the same boat as GMathis. If you put this in front of me without telling which of my teas I had, I would be hard pressed to tell if it was Marco Polo, Tower of London, or Anna’s Blend.

The big difference comes in the sip – this base is more like what I think of as a French base, though not all French teas have it. It reminds me of the base for Rose Congou from Upton. I am finding that since I no longer take milk and sugar, I prefer the Harney teas like ToL and Paris, or Anna’s Tea from Tin Roof Teas, to this one. I am going to make an effort to finish this tin soon as it is getting on up there in age.

It is a very good and I may come back to it, but for now I am preferring Anna’s or ToL.

Everyone is going to be so jelly! My kids and my husband all went off, it is the first chilly day we have had, and I have the house to myself for at least an hour with TEA! And not just any tea, but very exclusive boooo-long tea!

This tea was a surprise gift from GMathis, and it came in the CUTEST CARD YOU HAVE EVER SEEN!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8067387501/in/photostream/

The dangly spider even MOVES! I squee’ed when I got it! :)

And on top of that, I get a yummy oolong tea. (It was labeled boooo-long. Now how cute is that?)
This is a dark roasted oolong, not a green, and has that baked flavor and heft with a mineral quality that I enjoy, the very thing that makes me crave dark oolongs.

Thank you, GMathis! It is a perfect cup for this rainy, chilly day!

The Da Hong Pao I had Friday and Saturday had me hankering for more! I remembered that I had a bit of the H&S version left, so hubby and I shared a pot after exercising together this morning. (Before you get the idea that we are svelte triathletes, let me say we were mostly doing stretches from physical therapy and there was a bit of groaning and grumbling.)

This is a dark roasted oolong, but it is not heavy at all. It is so smooth that it really goes down fast concept it is cool enough to drink. I am realizing that this is yet another tea that I want to have on my shelf at all times. It is great with food and great by itself, a nice contemplative cup if you wish, or great to share with a friend.

Update on Doctor Who scarves – you saw the one for youngest, now behold Samwise! He is really rockin’ the scarf! We ordered jelly babies for my daughter to carry so I guess we will have a little bag of milk bone minis for him to pass around!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8065212053/

This is the last of my sample from Teavivre, and once again a sample has caught me in its nefarious snare. I will probably be buying this one on my next order.

I got three steeps from this today and possibly could have made more, but I was cooking lunch and needed to get moving. This is so smooth. The leaves are very dark presteep. This is a dark oolong, not a green oolong, but it doesn’t have the mineral punch of a monkey picked (which I love big time, just saying it for comparison) but there is a lot of nutty smooth flavor.

As requested, I am posting a link to the pictures of the newly completed Tom Baker Fourth Doctor season 16-17 scarf, the largest and longest of the entire series. A scarf for Sam the puppy is now underway.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8060458307/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8060460390/in/photostream/

If anyone is afraid of puer or even actively dislikes it, but wants to drink it, here is the tea for you.

Rich, decadent, dark chocolate aroma fills the room and courts your tastebuds. Then fruity, grown up strawberry flavor follows, not candy like, but think of real dark chocolate covered strawberries. The puer adds a dark, rich note without being being musty and absolutely not fishy – not even a bit.

Tunes: Accidentally Like A Martyr, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner – by Warren Zevon.
(Perhaps I should explain – we were listening to Roland to help my daughter remember some facts about African history, though there are several errors in the song, and it made me remember the other song, which I used to love!)

Okay, don’t get on my case. No need to throw stones.

I really wanted some bubbles after lunch. After eleven years of being on Omeprazole I am trying to get off of it. Rebound reflux is trying to get me. But I also wanted matcha. LIGHTBULB!

I mixed 1/2 teaspoon of black cherry matcha in a little bit of cold water, whisking it well with my plain metal kitchen whisk. This was then poured into ginger ale! Now I have my bubbly cold drink and my matcha at once!

What does it taste like? Have you ever had a ginger ale and sherbet float? I love them. We usually use lime sherbet and pour cold ginger ale (kept in refrigerator) over it and wait just a second so ice crystals form. That is the kind of flavor treat I am having right now!

The fruity cherry flavor goes great with the ginger ale, but I bet the lime flavor matcha would be a dead on match for my lime sherbet floats!

I have been holding this sample until my cold was lots better, and I think I am finally getting there! A Bi Luo Chun requires additional attention from me because I have had only a few, so I wanted to really get to know this tea.

This is a free sample provided for review by Nuvola Tea. The dry leaves are mostly dark green and curled – lovely! I was surprised at how much they swelled during steeping. I didn’t remember this type of tea doing that. It smells wonderful!

I must say I am really pleased that I have this today because it is delicious! This has the wonderful oat taste of Bi Luo Chun, but it also has a great warmth and fullness of texture. I am drinking fast because it feels so good going down – think of the expressn “slaking your thirst” and you will know just where I’m at! I feel like I can see “amber waves of grain” as I drink this. K S once pointed out a Bi Luo Chun tasting like original Cheerios, and that is an apt description!

The first steep was so refreshing, and then I oversteeped the second one because of poor multitasking, but it did not ruin it! It was still quite good.

I am on the third steep and this is still going strong.

Thank you, Nuvola Tea for this delightful sample!

I really wanted Lupicia’s Chocolate Strawberry Puerh today, but my guest really doesn’t like puerh. I really think she would like that one because the puerh flavor is really muted and all you taste is rich desert-y chocolate covered strawberries. I mixed two of my teas to try to get the flavor I wanted.

Did I succeed? No. My guest loved the resulting tea, and I liked it fine, but it really was just strawberry tea and I could not smell or taste chocolate. I guess if I try this again I will go heavy on the chocolate flavored tea and just use one teaspoon of strawberry black. It did not satisfy the longing, but it was good with our cupcakes! (And cookies, don’t forget the cookie plate!)

This was the final tea of tea party today, but I am posting it first because it is the easiest! One of the teas was a blend from two different companies that I put together, the first drink wasn’t a tea at all, but a spiced cider!

This was very good, and my guest enjoyed the jasmine flavor even though initially she was afraid it would be too floral for her from the aroma. I taste the green base in this one more than I do in the Dragon Pearls, and it is a more assertive base.

I have been serving this to hubby as a warm latte type of drink, but today was obscenely hot and muggy and then he went to the gym tonight. I thought a cold drink might be in order. I asked if he minded having it cold instead of hot, and he said he didn’t want to mess it up because it was so good, but I told him I thought he would like it fine!

I put two scoops of Lactose Free Vanilla Breyer’s Ice Cream in a bowl and added about a cup of skim milk and maybe two teaspoons of sugar. I plopped one half teaspoon of matcha on top of that. Yes, just that easy. Then I mixed it all up with my immersion blender and wowzer were there ever a lot of big frothy bubbles on top!

There was enough to pour his 13 ounce glass full and still have a little five ounce cup for me. This was delicious. Yep. Both are already down the hatch, and hubby thinks it is just as good cold as it is hot. It is unbelievable that 1/2 tsp. of matcha powder can pack that much flavor into a milkshake. Amazing!