Various Artists

Tea 102: Regions of The Tea World – Lump Post…

I don’t have the energy to write out a post for each of the three weeks of class that I’ve had, and I’m kind of dying on the inside right now because of the events that took place during class tonight (the third week of class) so instead here’s a lumped together jumble of notes from each week…

Tea 102: Week One (CHINA)
- Teas: Pai Mu Tan, Silver Needle, Dragonwell, Light Oolong, Keemun, LS, and Pu’erh
- Great class for this week! Got to talk in depth about yixing and gaiwans!
- Sadly, the teas came late (the day before Week Two’s class)…
- So, the cuppings weren’t done on time…
- Overall, pretty tasty! I liked pretty well everything except the Dragonwell
- LS tasted a little weak, not sure why…

Tea 102: Week Two (JAPAN)
- Teas: Sencha, Gyokuro, Matcha, Hojicha, Genmaicha
- Sencha was the most disappointing of the five teas, but none were bad
- In particular, I quite liked the Genmaicha and Gyokuro! Very fresh!
- Matcha was very lumpy/chalky, but not a bad flavour
- Going through the Japanese tea history makes me want a new tattoo
- An “Ichigo Ichei” tattoo!

Tea 102: Week Three (INDIA/SRI LANKA)
- Sri Lankan Teas (that I had): Kandy, Dimbula, Nuwara Eliya, Rahuna, Uva
- Indian Teas (that I had): 1st Flush Darjeeling, 2nd Flush Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri
- This week was a MESS
- 1/3 the Sri Lankan teas were not included in my package
- And one of the Indian teas was missing as well
- So couldn’t do cuppings for those teas
- Because of freezing rain, there were frequent outtages ALL day as well
- I literally finished the cuppings ten minutes BEFORE class started
- From Sri Lanka, my favourites were Kandy and Uva; a sweeter, less harsh profile = yum!
- I loved getting to try the different regions
- Odds are I’ve had ‘em before but not known the specific regions I was drinking
- As a lot of Ceylonese teas are JUST called “Ceylon”
- Indian cuppings were nothing new: obvs the Assam wasn’t my favourite
- Did probably the MOST unproffesional thing I’ve ever done in class though
- I ACCIDENTALLY sent a link to a tumblr post to the whole class
- The link said “I need to know how many donuts you can fit on your erect penis”
- And then my connection immediately cut out…
- So… fuck!
- How do you recover from that!?
- Anyway; I missed class almost all of class, and fuck my life.
- So that’s how this week went…

Here’s the infamous post that’s caused the headache…

http://stability.tumblr.com/post/138064167226/i-need-to-know

I may be done drinking tea tonight; switching to alcohol to numb the pain…

A few days ago I drank the exact same Arnold Palmer drink from this note…

http://steepster.com/roswellstrange/posts/318778#comments

Only difference is this time I really didn’t enjoy it. Just making a note here for myself for future reference. DO NOT BUY IT AGAIN!

Tea 107: Week Six Exams

Well, Cooking With Tea/Tea and Food Pairings is a wrap now! I have to say, so far this has definitely been my favourite one so far! I just feel like so much of what I learned is stuff I’m going to be applying practically on probably a daily basis. It was a really fun class.

Following the trend of past modules, this was a three part exam. Part one was an online test with 50 questions based on the course material. So far, that’s the only part of the final that I have the mark for (probably wont get the rest of my marks until after Christmas) but I absolutely nailed it and got a score of 48/50 which is the best I’ve done yet! From there I moved on to part two which was a blind cupping of six different teas.

For the cupping, I had to identify the tea and country of origin and then because this was the food pairing module I also had to list a food I’d pair the tea with. I think this probably would have been very straight forward except for one hiccup: one of the teas used in the cupping was definitely Lapsang Souchong and since all the teas for this cupping come in a sealed envelope for someone else to prepare for me that Lapsang had over a month to sit and get all of the other samples nice and smoky. So, every single cup had a smoke note to it that made the rest of the flavours hard to decipher.

Ultimately, I’m confidant I got all of the non black tea cups correct (three of the six) but when it comes to those other three I’m a lot less sure. One absolutely had a more potent smokey/ashy note which I said was the Lapsang. My options for the other two were either Darjeeling, Assam, or Keemun and neither cup tasted like ANY of those options because of the flavour contamination.

The final part of the exam was a presentation! We had to create our own afternoon tea menu for a fictional restaurant/tea house/hotel or what have you. The menu had to include dishes prepared with tea and dishes to be paired alongside tea. The avenue I went with, and had so much fun doing, was a creamery which I playfully named “Scoop of Cha”. I had things like an Apple Icecream with a Darjeeling, Pineapple Sorbet and Lapsang, Fresh Mint Icecream and Assam, and a Rougui with a “Poached Peach” frozen yogurt. It was an absolute BLAST creating the pairings and it really made me feel like that’s something that in the future I really want to be doing in some capacity or another, be that in making tea blends of my own, working in a tea house or restaurant doing the food pairings, or some other form which I maybe haven’t tapped yet.

Tldr; best module so far. Wish me luck on the tests I haven’t gotten marks back for yet.

Tea 107: Week Five Pairings!

Normally, for class, I write out a giant post of my thoughts on whatever we were doing but to be perfectly honest I took a MOUNTAIN of notes for this week’s chocolate and tea pairings so I’m essentially just going to copy and paste them because I really don’t feel like expanding on that many notes…

Earl Grey and Milk Chocolate with Acai and Blueberry fruit chunks

- Definitely a very sweet pairing: full bodied and jammy from the citrus and berry
- The milk chocolate is creamy and compliments the black base
- Not a lot of “contrasting” flavour with this one but it’s still lovely!

Pu’erh and Dark Chocolate

Pu’erh and Dark Chocolate is the flip of things: it’s all about contrast
- The Pu is very brothy with gamey/meatey notes and mushroom notes
- In addition to the normal earthiness
- The equally rich/full bodied dark chocolate matches the flavour level
- But the sweetness of it contrasts very nicely!
- Finish has a berry like quality from the chocolate which works with the earthy Pu!

Matcha and White Chocolate

- Surprisingly I quite enjoyed the matcha and white chocolate!
- Which is weird ‘cause I HATE DAVIDsTEA’s Matcha White Chocolate Bar
- But the Umami of the matcha was the perfect contrast to the creamy, sweet chocolate

Genmaicha and White Chocolate

- Genmaicha and white chocolate was a comparable pairing to the matcha
- Same umami/savory and sweet chocolate contrast
- But with the added roasty element which was kind of nice! Really enjoyed this one!

Assam and Milk Chocolate

- Assam and Milk Chocolate seemed obvious and straight forward to me
- You’re pairing two similar things and matching the confectionary elements

Jasmine Green Tea with a citrus (orange) chocolate

- I really dislike the jasmine tea provided but the pairing made it better
- The orange elevate the floral notes and matches well with the green base
- While at the same time kind of hiding some of the potency too

Also worth noting, with the exception of the chocolate used in the Earl Grey pairing, all of the chocolate was Lindt brand. My favourite pairings overall were probably Genmaicha and White or Pu’erh and Dark Chocolate. I genuinely didn’t expect the Pu’erh to work as well as it did!

Tea 107: Week Three Pairings!

I’m about to start my pairings for Week Five of Tea 107, and I just realized that I’ve written about what I did for Week Four but I still haven’t logged the pairings for Week Three…

Week Three’s theme was “Tea and Cheese Pairings” which is the most excited I’ve ever been for a week’s assignment! When I worked at Sobeys, I took full advantage of the large selection of cheese’s we carried and the fact I was quite good friends with the cheese ambassador’s in that department. The Sobeys I worked at had the largest number of different varieties of cheese in any one location within Western Canada (not the greatest net quantity/weight though). Over the six or so months I was there I tried over a hundred different kinds of cheese! And I don’t know why, but throughout all that fancy cheese tasting it never occurred to me to do a tea and cheese pairing in a more formal sense.

So, here was the line up for the week:

- Keemun and Mature Cheddar
- 2nd Flush Darjeeling and Brie
- Lapsang Souchong and Blue Cheese
- Hojicha and Smoked Gouda
- Long Oxidized Oolong and Hickory Smoked Tofu (the one non-cheese pairing)

So, just going down the line…

Surprisingly, the Keemun was my favourite overall pairing despite the fact I’m actually not a huge fan of Keemun in general. And honestly; cheddar is one of my least favourite kinds of cheese as well. I think what really worked for me about this pairing was that the cheddar in combination with the cheese really exaggerated the jammy, fruity notes of the tea instead of the smoky, raisin notes that I dislike so much about Keemun. And on the flip, the dryness of cheddar was balanced by the sweeter, more full mouthfeel of the Keemun.

Next up was the Darjeeling and Brie; at first this pairing made no sense to me and I still wasn’t really into is taste wise after trying it. If anything, I thought it kind of dulled some of the muscatel notes. However, while it may have lessened the flavour a bit to me, what it did really well was counteract all of the harsh astringency/tannins and that bit of bitterness you always get with Darjeeling. And of course, that’s because of the super high fat content and the creaminess of the brie which negate/counter balance those harsher/dryer qualities of Darjeeling. The brie I used for this pairing was a double cream brie, and I do wonder if maybe I felt the flavour was especially flat because I was using a cheese so much more fatty/creamy on top of what a normal brie would be anyway.

Then Lapsang Souchong and Blue Cheese, which I wont expand upon because I wrote a whole tasting note about it under Butiki’s Taiwanese Lapsang Souchong since I drank that Gong Fu with my yixing pot right after these pairings.

Next up, was the Smoked Gouda and Houjicha! I did like this pairing a fair bit; the flavours here complimented each over very well. The roastyness of Houjicha of course just goes very well with a light smoke flavour, and the natural sweetness of both the gouda and the Houjicha was drawn out but not masked since the flavour level of the tea and the cheese was well matcha. I’d definitely try this pairing again! And, I’d be interested to see the subtle changes when you switch up what kind of smoked cheese you’re using. For example, one of my all time favourite cheeses is a Smoked Jarlsberg that I think would taste phenomenal paired with a Houjicha.

Finally, the Long Oxidized Oolong and a Hickory Smoked Tofu. Now, normally the pairing that’s supposed to go here is the oolong with Prosciutto but I’m a vegetarian so this was the alternative that my instructor suggested. The idea behind this one is very similar to the Houjicha and the Smoked Gouda; you’re matching the roasty/nutty notes of the oolong to the smokey notes of the meat/tofu. However, this pairing just seemed like a mess to me. And I’m sure that’s because I actually really dislike the taste of the hickory smoked tofu. As a vegetarian, there aren’t a ton of brands that carry ‘veggie meats’ so I’ve tried a lot of what’s out there and available including this brand of veggie friendly cold cuts. I just think however they’re (the company) doing the “smoke” flavour is AWFUL. It’s not natural tasting at all; it’s almost as if they just basted the tofu in liquid smoke. The whole pairing was ruined because the tofu messed it all up. Nothing against the brand itself: the carry some really great products. But any of their products meant to taste “smokey” just taste terrible.

So, that was tea and cheese pairings! I’m definitely going to continue to explore this on my own: there’s SO MANY possibilities out there. In my eyes, this is even greater than tea and chocolate pairings (what I did this week) which was what everyone in class was so excited about.

Tea 107: Week Two Recipe(s)!

So, this week we had two mandatory recipes to complete, and then several optional ones. The optional ones included Laphet (pickled tea salad), a cold infused tea juice, and marbled tea eggs. I didn’t make the marbled eggs though I may in the future though I did make the Laphet and tea juice. However, I’m going to post those tasting notes separately because they used tea from my own personal stash instead of the tea we’re set for class so I know exactly which teas were used.

Here’s my break down of the mandatory ones, though…

Earl Grey Creme Caramel Custards

This is definitely the tastiest thing I’ve made these last two weeks, and I’m not ashamed to say that I ate three out of four of the custards from this recipe in the span of like four hours. The fourth, my mom ate but had she not I’m sure I would’ve finished it too.

I know you can make Creme Caramel Custards from scratch but because I don’t have super wonderful cooking/baking skills I just picked up an instant mix from the dollar store and used that. In the future, I would like to try doing it by hand though ‘cause I’m sure these would taste better from scratch. To infuse the EG into the custard I just stuffed a tea filter with loose EG and added it to the sauce pan while I was boiling the milk. The tea just did its thing and steeped into the milk, naturally giving the custard a smooth Earl Grey flavour.

I will absolutely be making this again because it was just so easy to do and the flavour was so satisfying. I’d love to test out how other teas would pair with this as well: a malty and sweet assam or good Chai could probably be equally satisfying.

Matcha Icing

Matcha is so easy to cook/bake with, and anyone who’s been following me on Steepster for a while now knows that this is definitely something I’ve done in the past, but with RLT’s flavored matcha. I wont get into great detail about this one for that reason alone; it’s not something new to me. Suffice to say, I made a straight up matcha icing (no flavouring other than the icing itself) for some sugar cookies. Tasty, yes, but not as much as a RLT matcha.

Tea 107: Week One Recipes!

So, I just started my next module started last week and the ‘theme’ for this one is “Cooking with Tea/Tea and Food Pairings”. It’s one of the classes I tried to sign up for before (instead of The Business of Tea) but at the time not enough people were registered. Now, it’s the class with the largest amount of students in it that I’ve had to date! The first few weeks of this module are dedicated to cooking with tea, and after that there are a few weeks of tea and various food pairings. So, here are the recipes from week one!

Matcha Infused Ice Cream

This is something I’ve often wondered about doing many times before; I drink a lot of matcha and it’s no secret that I like to combine it with other things, such as baking. Imagine mixing any of RLT’s flavoured matcha into vanilla icecream! The possibilities are endless, right?

That’s kind of what we did, though I used a plain cooking grade matcha provided by class instead of any of my large personal collection. We were meant to pick out a vanilla ice cream and just blend in the matcha and then refreeze it. In this class, we’re encouraged not to follow the recipes directly and instead make substitutions as we see fit and get creative, so instead of a ‘normal’ vanilla ice cream I used this as a chance to try something really new (since I’ve had green tea ice cream before) and I bought a vanilla goat’s milk ice cream.

This was the easiest recipe to make so far: I just measured out 2 tsp. of matcha into a bowl of ice cream and stirred it all up. Then, because I wanted to try it right away I just ate it instead of refreezing and doing it later. The only problem was that it melted faster but the taste was great! Very smooth and vegetal. This is absolutely something that I’ll make again in my own time but probably using a RLT matcha because the flavours appeal to me more so and I know the quality of the matcha from RLT is better.

PS. Goat’s Milk icecream is pretty good on it’s own too. Definitely has that distinctly “tangy” sort of taste you get with any product made with goat’s milk. If you like goat’s cheese or stuff like that this’ll totally appeal to you though!

Lapsang Souchong Cheese Spread

This one was a little more challenging to make, but only because it involved grinding up a tablespoon or so of Lapsang Souchong and I neither own a mortar and pestle or a food processor so I spent forty minutes grinding the tea by hand with a spoon while watching Netflix so I wasn’t completely bored.

The groudn tea was then mixed into 1/2 container of Phillie Cream Cheese (just the plain one) along with whatever spices we wanted to add. All I added to mine was 1 1/2 tsp. of garlic powder. The result was the perfect light, smoky cheese spread/dip that everyone in my family enjoyed – even my brother which was super unexpected. We ended up trying it with potato chips and on bagels. The only real downside was that it had a grittiness to the texture that was very unpleasant. Had this been properly grounded, I think it would have been much better though. If I had a better way to grind the tea, I’d totally make this one again too.

This was the recipe I got to talk about in class as well; everyone had to discuss one of the three recipes in depth and how they made it and this was the one I chose to talk about. My instructor was surprised to find out how much I like Lapsang in my ‘normal life’; she said normally this is the most polarizing recipes in the course because people dislike Lapsang so much. I can see that, as my friend Kandyce (who works at DAVIDsTEA) says, “The only people who order LS are stuffy middle aged men”. I’m definitely not one of those…

Genmaicha Soup

I don’t drink/eat a lot of soup: it’s just really not my thing and the idea of using tea as a stock/broth doesn’t overly appeal to me either so this was definitely the recipe I was least looking forward to. It did turn out to be my least favourite, as well.

Basically, I brewed up a pot of very intensely strong Genmaicha and then heated it on a stove top with some vegetable bouillon mixed in (we had the option of using vegetable or chicken and as a vegetarian I obviously went with the vegetable route). I also added in chopped onions: white, red, and green. But when all was said and done the soup just tasted very thin and bland (apart from the onions). I mean I certainly could taste the green tea and the roastiness of the brown rice in the blend but it just didn’t wow me.

I wouldn’t do this recipe again; or at least not this way. I’d be open to trying other tea based stocks with soup again but some things would definitely have to be switched up for this to really appeal to me.

Tea 108 Cuppings: Week Four/Five

So, I’m not behind on actually doing my cuppings but I am behind on writing about them so I’m lumping these two weeks together because the line up of teas I had to drink were the same. Here’s the list:

Pai Mu Tan
Silver Needle
Mao Jian
Gunpowder
Sencha
Gyokuro
Lightly Oxidized Oolong
Kenya Orthodox
Ceylon (Kandy region)
2nd Flush Darjeeling
Keemun
Pu’erh

Yeah, twelve teas in total…

Week four I made the mistake of doing three after work one day and then lumping the other nine together on the day of class and doing all nine cuppings in the span of around three hours. I was so motherfucking tea buzzed; I felt all kinds of warm and floaty and light headed. And the caffeine rush was insane. Week five I was incredibly smarter, and broke them up into three teas a day groups. Not much to comment on the teas themselves; interestingly the Chinese greens really stood out to me as enjoyable, and the Pai Mu Tan tasted way more fruity than I normally find it (notes of strawberry leaves!?).

Class itself was alright; the module is “The Business of Tea” and it hasn’t caught my attention the same was “The Science of Taste” did. Probably because such a great deal of this class is studying statistics and numbers. Yawn; totally not my thing! Week Four we looked at statistics of tea drinking within a restaurant sitting.

Basically, what it boiled down to was that tea drinkers in a restaurant setting a GREATLY dissatisfied to the point where the majority don’t order tea at all (30% just get water which means restaurants are actually losing money in sales in that area) but 70% of tea drinkers would ABSOLUTELY order tea at restaurants if there was a guarantee it would be quality. The biggest restaurant complaints are: (1) That tea often isn’t displayed on the menu or, if it is, it’s done without listing the options/kinds which deters people from jumping through the hoops of asking to find out/order, (2) It’s bagged/poor quality, (3) It isn’t treated with the same respect as coffee.

I also found it interesting that the two LARGEST purchasing groups of tea in restaurants are Millennials (my age group) and Baby Boomers, who have such a drastic age gap. However, their “wants” are quite different. Millennials favour variety and flavour options whilst Baby Boomers want ‘traditional tea’ (EG, English Breakfast, etc.).

Week Five, the focus of conversation was on what legally much be displayed on Nutrition Labels for tea products as well as packaging. I found this really boring, to be honest. But things that have to be on packaging are stuff like a net weight (g or ml), the common product name (in this case tea; labeling something “Constant Comment” wouldn’t cut it), the company and their address, ingredients but ONLY if the tea contains things other that pure/straight tea, and the appropriate nutrition information. You also CANNOT make any health claims on a tea product with ONE exception. The only thing you’re legally allowed to make a health claim about in regard to tea (keep in mind a health claim is different than a wellness claim) is this:

[Consumption of 1 cup (250 ml) of*] green tea has an antioxidant effect in blood [or on blood lipids].

And you can only make that claim in regard to green tea.

That was basically it! And next week is the ‘final’ for the module. I don’t have a blind cupping this time around; instead I have to design a tea based product and present it to the class. I’m still figuring my idea out but right now I’m leaning to one of two things:

1. A ‘mock’ line of Tea Infused Soda (Strawberry Earl Grey, Silver Needle Cream Soda…)

2. A collection of blends targeted specifically for men, since women are the higher percentage of tea drinkers.

Help/thoughts/suggestions welcome.

So, the other day on the way home from work I picked up a drink from 7-11 labelled “Arnold Palmer” that was 50/50 Iced Tea and Lemonade. However, not only is it not in the Steepster database but I can’t seem to find the product online either…

Well, that’s not entirely true: I found a picture on Google Images of the can:

http://www.blueridgebeverage.com/site/assets/files/1358/arnold_palmer_blk_lg.286×0.jpeg

Has anyone ever had this? I drank it while eating Dill Pickle chips and watching Stand Up and it seemed a fairly appropriate pairing for the ‘meal’ I was consuming, though not really the highest quality ‘iced tea’ either. But I’d probably buy it again to eat in similar situations: I liked that it didn’t scream “I’ve been sweetened to the point of instant cavities to make me appealing to the mainstream tea drinker”, unlike Nestea or Brisk.

I’m not making an entry specifically for a food/snack, especially since it’s not even tea infused but I wanted to record my thoughts on DAVIDsTEA’s Apple Wafers anyway. I picked them up a few days ago on a whim, and I have to say they’re pretty decent though maybe just slightly overcharged for the amount/quality? The apple taste is really defined and clear though and there’s also a light cinnamon note to them that rounds them out a little and makes them seem a lot more season appropriate. On their own, they’re a little dry but they’re AWESOME for dunking in your tea.

https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/wafers-2

My giant Camellia Sinensis order arrived today!

There were so many goodies in the box, that it was incredibly hard to decide what to start with but I ultimately ended up using my new tea tray for the first time as well as the glass Gaiwan I purchased. The choice of what tea to Christen it with was very hard to make: I felt like it should have been one of the Camellia Sinensis teas I ordered or one of the samples they included but I couldn’t make up my mind so I instead went a very different route.

A little while back a tea friend here on Steepster, who wishes to remain unnamed for the purposes of this tea, sent me a sample of a greener oolong which I sort of then forgot I had until today when I was searching through samples to try. My bad.

I decided to drink that today; and since I don’t work until 4:30 I had plenty of time to have a nice informal Gong Fu session whilst watching some Gotham on Netflix. I’m not really a huge DC fan but I’ve always loved the very well written villains in the Batman comic universe so that aspect of the TV show really intrigues me. Harley Quinn has always been my favourite, but I have to say I REALLY enjoy the portrayal of The Penguin and The Riddler.

This is a gorgeous tea though! The stems are monstrous; the largest I pulled out of the infused leaf is longer in length than my hand. Damn! However, the leaves are a wonderful bright shade of green and have this really eloquent floral aroma that makes me think of fresh linen and the end of Spring/beginning of summer. Mmm! The steeped liquor is a lively yellow green just slightly heavier on the green side of things.

This is definitely a super floral tea; but in a natural, fresh and sweet way. And as much as I tasted wonderful floral notes (some sort of amalgamation of peony, magnolia, and gardenia perhaps?) and a super light almost bamboo-like vegetal sweetness I also tasted a lot of fruit notes. Something like fresh, sweet grapes, and almost a peachyness too. It was very enjoyable; and the most infusions the more I seemed to notice the fruit flavours as well.

I’d love to see this particular tea paired up with a “darker” kind of berry flavour. Something like blueberry, Saskatoon berry, or maybe blackberry? And perhaps white peaches. I can only imagine that would be divinely tasty.

Also here’s a link to some pictures!

https://www.facebook.com/EyeLikeCookies/media_set?set=a.10205892864334695.1073741829.1051291635&type=3&pnref=story

Pictures are of the things from the Camellia Sinensis order as well as the steeping of this oolong from earlier in the day. I’ve also got pictures thrown in there of the rabbit tattoo I had done a few months ago and some other assorted tea related things…

Photo quality is kind of crappy; I used my cell phone.

Tea 108 Cuppings: Week Three

These cuppings were from the week I was super, super sick and basically not drinking any tea so they didn’t go over all that well (I’m feeling so much better though) but alas I guess I’ll write about them anyway.

Similar to the idea behind Week Two’s cuppings, this week I sampled four different bagged Green teas each of which was from a different company. I actually did this part of the week’s cuppings probably at the height of when I was most sick and I was so sick and so heavily medicated that I have no recollection what so ever of what each of the teas tasted like, though I did fill out cupping sheets for each tea just like I do with every cupping for class. Highlights from those cupping sheets include such vague and non descript notes as “Buttered grass” and “Teabag is trapezoidal”. It was honestly just so hard to do that set of cuppings – I was drained of all energy and ambition, and couldn’t taste/smell at all on top of that. At least my instructor was very understanding.

The last part of the week’s cuppings was a side by side of two different jasmine scented greens. I was pretty well on the mend when I did this cupping, so I got much more thorough notes for it. Jasmine greens really aren’t my thing, but these two were alright. The first was very potent but a little harsh in just how jasmine-y it was. It began to taste very chemical. It was also fairly smoky tasting. The second somehow felt “deeper” and had other floral notes like orchid. I definitely preferred that one.

Question: when other people drink straight up jasmine green tea do you get grape notes at all? It’s something I’ve casually observed before and not thought much of but both of these cuppings had really intense grapey notes to them that through me off a little bit. Though, I really enjoyed it in the second cupping because they were almost “black grape” notes, and that’s my favourite kind of grape.

Tea 108 Cuppings: Week Two

Man, I’m so behind on tasting notes…

This week was a little different than other weeks I’ve done in various modules: I did two comparisons, essentially. The first was a side by side comparison of four different bagged Orange Pekoe teas from different companies (which were unnamed) to see what taste differences there were between them all. It was interesting because it really forced me to look closely at the flavour profiles of generic bagged OP and I found that across the board I found all had a rather strong nutty profile which I’d been fairly blind to previously.

My favourites was the 1st – I wish I knew the company, but alas that’ll remain a mystery I suppose. The 1st had a distinct sweetness (like maple walnuts) and smoothness that set it apart from the rest of the set. The 2nd and 4th both tastes horribly bitter and astringent to me. The third was interesting; I’d wager it was from Tetley given the distinct shape of the teabag that differed from all of the others. That’s only a guess, though. This one started off smooth enough, but evolved into a very sour/acidic tasting tea; an unpleasantness that lingered way too long.

The second comparison was of two loose leaf Earl Grey blends. Visually, the dry leaf was very contrasted – the first was finely fragmented flat pieces of brown/rust coloured leaf and the second was longer, wiry off black leaves with cornflower petals throughout. Visually, the second appealed to me more. Not because of the bright splashes of blue, but because of the leaf shape. The first EG was definitely stronger; it had notes of bergamot/citrus (obviously) but was also quite floral. However, a stronger flavour isn’t always a good thing and it did wind up tasting a little rough with some astringency. And, while the bergamot packed quite a punch it was also fleeting. The second had less floral notes as well as a bergamot flavour that was more gentle. On the flip side, while the overall taste was milder it was also cleaner/smoother and more long lasting. Personally, I preferred the second EG though there’s strong pros/cons of both.

Tea 108 Week One Ramblings:

So, I was supposed to be taking Tea 107 as my next module; which is Cooking with Tea and Tea and Food Pairings but the class didn’t have enough people in it so they asked if I’d like to have my money refunded or transfer into a different class. I’ve gotta do them all eventually, so I just transferred into the one that was at the closest time: Tea 108. This module is all about the ‘Business of Tea’. Honestly, I think it’s one of the ones I was least looking forward to but it’s going alright…

Teas I had to cup for week one were the following:

- Pai Mu Tan
- Silver Needle
- Mao Jian
- Gunpowder
- Sencha
- Gyokuro
- Lightly oxidized oolong
- Kandy Ceylon
- Indian Orthodox (probably Assam going off the flavour profile)
- Keemun
- 2nd Flush Darjeeling
- Pu’erh (Not specified what kind)

That’s twelve whole freakin’ teas so I wont break them all down; I’ll just say my favourites were the Silver Needle, Gunpowder, Gyokuro, Oolong, India Orthodox, and the Pu’erh. There weren’t actually any in this round that I disliked though.

One cool thing about this course is that the testing at the end is different: I don’t have to do a blind tasting and instead of a Skype presentation privately with my instructor I have to come up with a tea ‘product’ and market it in front of the whole class which is unique. I don’t have any really thought out ideas thus far, but I think it’ll be fun regardless.

This weekend my Mom and I had to drive into Saskatoon to finish packing up my stuff there and clean the suite – after that was done but before we drove back to Regina we stopped at Prairie Ink for supper.

Even though I was tired and would have preferred going through a drive through on the way home I was happy we wound up there. Prairie Ink is my favourite restaurant and I’ll miss being able to easily walk over and get a bite to eat. Their Pear & Blue Cheese salad is simply the best salad I’ve ever had and they offer so many other great healthy, vegetarian friendly dishes. Since this is my last time eating there for, most likely, a long time I got the Pear & Blue Cheese salad and ‘Grown Up Grilled Cheese’ (Brie cheese, arugula, tomato, caramelized onion) since those are my favourite dishes and a fresh pressed “Zest of Life” juice which I hadn’t tried before (Grapefruit, Orange, and Lemon juices). My mom ordered the same food but the house iced tea they serve. Shame on me, I’d never tried it! I actually ended up trading drinks with her – we liked each other’s drinks better.

The iced tea was really tasty; both lemon and orange notes were quite prominent and refreshing. It was actually a little like a mellow, less over the top sugary creamsicle, but with a mild black tea finish. Honestly, the tea component was a bit of a stretch – but the drink was nice overall. I can’t believe I hadn’t tried it.

After supper we browsed the book store, since the restaurant is attached to a McNally Robinson. There weren’t any new tea related books of interest, but I did buy a jar of cranberry infused Manitoba honey which turned out to be delicious and I got myself a “Little Miss” mug that I’d been eyeing for a while. This one, actually:

http://cardsgalore.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/MrMen_LMTroubleMug_MRM166_HI_CLOSE-UP.png

Isn’t it cute?

Yesterday my Mom helped me do the blind cupping for class. There were a few differences between the one for this time and the one for last time, though. Last time had to identify five teas. I couldn’t look at the tea leaf, steeping instructions or infused leaf and just had to identify the broad type of tea, which was SUPER easy. This time around, I got to look at the infused/steeped liquor but I had to identify the specific type of tea (ex. High Grown Ceylon) for eight samples and it was A LOT harder.

I’m sure it didn’t help that somewhere between my teaching her to use the equipment and the first cup she accidentally changed the mode on the scale from grams to ounces; and so the first three tastings I did were ‘2 oz’ of tea which is just DREADFUL. It was little taking a slurp from a cup of pure bitterness/astringency. I had mentioned with each cup that something was clearly off, but it wasn’t until the third one we realized exactly what that was. And then we barely had enough leaf left of each tea type to actually properly do the cuppings so I’m almost 100% sure something is going to be wrong/incorrect there. The last half of the test was a breeze though; the fifth and sixth teas were obviously the lightly oxidized oolong and and darker one and the final two were definitely the Kenyan CTC and orthodox.

And thankfully, I only need to get the cupping half correct to pass that portion of the exam; now I just get to study tomorrow for both the Skype presentation and written test. Wish me luck, guys! I’m also crossing my fingers that this cupping was only so hard because it was the one for the module specifically about taste – and maybe the rest will be a little simpler.

My final answers/guesses:

1. 2nd Flush Darjeeling
2. 1st Flush Darjeeling
3. Highgrown Ceylon
4. Low Grown Ceylon
5. Lightly Oxidized Oolong
6. Dark Oxidized Oolong
7. Kenyan CTC
8. Kenyan Orthodox

Week #5 of Tea 103 PT2:

So, despite having A LOT of shit going on on Tuesday (that was moving day), I still managed to find time to do all five tea tastings I had left for class, as well as set aside an hour for the class itself. I wish they were recorded for us too, though – my mind was all over the place and I think I probably only retained half of the class information. This week, aside from talking about the cuppings, we talked about the ideas behind tea and food pairings. That’s something that’s really new to me – and I do look forward to learning more about it. Actually, the next class I signed up for was Tea 107 which is food pairing and cooking with tea!

So – five tea tastings!

- High Grown Ceylon (Same as earlier in the month; again not a big fan)
- Low Grown Ceylon (Ditto to the above)
- Indian Orthodox Assam (Tried this one too; but really liked it)
- Chinese Keemun
- Nilgiri

This last year I’ve done a fair bit of exploring of Keemun tea; enough exploring to know that I don’t like Keemun. So when I saw it in the package for week five I was not excited at all. It was very typically Keemun. Smokey, raisiny, kind of a “rye” flavour, and a stonefruit sweet finish. I’d call it a good quality Keemun, actually. I still hated it though.

The last one, the Nilgiri, was optional – but since so many this week were teas we’d done in previous weeks I really wanted to do it too.

The Nilgiri was a lot better; I’ve had a couple Nilgiri teas before but not enough that I’ve really ‘learned’ the agreed upon flavours for that growing region. On one hand that’s good because I didn’t have any preconceived notions for what the tea should have tasted like but on the other hand it’s annoying not being able to compare to see how accurate what I’m tasting is. What I did observe, though, was that this tea tasted really bright and round with a crisp citrus note and maybe a little bit of a pithy, bitter flavour. Pleasantly so, though. I also thought there were weaker, less distinct floral and malt notes and an overall feeling this was a very Autumnal tea. Not quite a full bodied tea. I Immediately after finishing the cupping I looked up the agreed upon flavours to see how well I did, and an overall citrus-y liquor and medium body are all common descriptors! So good on me! I really, really am learning!

Week #5 of Tea 103:

This week in class, the reading has to do with tea and food pairings but the cuppings are fairly unrelated to that. Again, there’s eight of them so I did half today and I’ll do the other half before class on Tuesday.

The first set of cuppings was a Mao Jian and a Sencha – the idea being to notice some of the differences between steamed Chinese greens, and pan fried Japanese greens. I don’t like green tea much, so this pairing didn’t excite me – but it wasn’t awful. The Sencha was very ‘trademark Sencha’ with the marine/seaweed notes. The Mao Jian (which was possibly the first time I’d tried one?) was interesting; very sweet and grassy, but kind of a rough, bitter aftertaste. A little… Meh.

The second pairing was the same oolong one from last week – so I wont elaborate on it again, but suffice to say it was still amazing.

Week #4 of Tea 103 PT2:

These cuppings are from last Tuesday, I just felt too tired after class to break them down here on Steepster after going over them more in depth during class. Remember, the “theme” for the week was ‘pairs’ – so the last two pairs I had to cup were a lightly and darkly roasted oolong, and a 1st and 2nd flush darjeeling.

Starting with the oolongs; I think this was my favourite of all four cuppings that week. Both the light and darkly roasted oolong tasted absolutely phenomenal! The lightly roasted oolong was one I’d done during a previous week and my observations about the taste were basically the same thing. Umm, notes on that here:

http://steepster.com/roswellstrange/posts/313816#likes

Obviously, the visual difference between the light oolong and dark was the most noticable; from dry leaf appearance (beautiful forest green twisted leaves to a more mulched up, flaky roasted brown) to the infused liquour. The taste contrast was huge too; the darker oolong actually reminded me a lot of Butiki’s 1991 Da Ye Aged Oolong just not quite as nice but it had those wonderful petrichor, wood/bark, butter, dill, and roasted peanut notes I get from the Aged Oolong. Not gonna lie; that kind of tea could maybe be a bit of an aphrodisiac for me. Screw chocolate and wine!

The oolong pairing was the one I got to discuss in class too; so my teacher and the other students got to hear me wax poetic about oolong in probably just slightly too much depth for too long a time – but damn that pairing was wonderful. For exam week next week we have to do a presentation comparing and contrasting a ‘pair’ of teas (could be the Ceylons, Kenyan Teas, Darjeelings, Oolongs, or Chinese and Japanese Green teas) and this is the one I’m leaning towards doing, though I think it might be the ‘obvious’/easiest one just because of how drastic the difference is.

The last pairing for the week was the 1st and 2nd Flush Darjeeling; and to be honest I know Darjeeling teas I supposed to be very prized, but I just didn’t like this pairing. In fact, it was my least favourite of the week. However, I think I also learned the most from it – I wasn’t aware not all Darjeeling has that ‘praised’ muscatel note to it, and that’s actually a trait associated with 2nd flush Darjeeling. Visually, I don’t think I’d be able to differentiate the brewed liquor from one another but I was impressed with myself that I could tell the difference between the dry leaf: the 1st flush had greener leaf than the 2nd flush. Honestly, I thought I was reading into things too much with that observation but after the cupping I read the ‘follow up’ notes we had and that was the correct visual indicator, so go me. The first flush was my least favourite of the two (though not by much) – according to the readings from class most people find it to be the ‘superior’ flush of Darjeeling but the simple floral and mildly earthy flavour kind of bored me. The 2nd Flush was very raisiny – probably why I didn’t like it much either to be honest. That favour just doesn’t appeal to me. It also had some acidity, and a note that made me think of rye bread.

Also got more details about the blind cupping we have to do next week: this time I’m allowed to see the steeper liquor (I wasn’t for Tea 101) but I have to identify more than just the generic tea type: I actually have to pinpoint the variety and what makes it different. So, basically, I have to be able to say “Kenyan CTC” or “High Grown Ceylon” and not gonna lie I’m slightly stressing. I just hope my palate is good enough to pick up on the subtle differences.

Week #4 of Tea 103:

Aside from the bagged/loose English Breakfast homework assignment there are eight different teas to do cuppings for this week – and the focus/‘theme’ of the week is “pairs” so those eight teas are split into four groups. Today I did half of them, and I’ll do the other half before class on Tuesday.

The first set was Kenyan Teas; a CTC and an Orthodox. About 5% of tea Kenya produces is Orthodox, and the rest is black CTC for commercial use. My understanding is that while ‘tea’ is a fairly large industry in Kenya, there’s not much of a “tea culture” between the people themselves? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong – I just found that fact rather interesting.

I found the flavors of this pairing were strikingly similar with one major difference; while both shared major flavours such as raisin, citrus, and malt the orthodox was more naunced and had other flavours such as baked bread, cinnamon, and honey and was sweeter overall. The CTC on the other hand didn’t quite taste ‘bitter’ but was much more intense and focused on those three initial flavors that nothing else was present except for an almost vinegary sourness/acidity. It was also fairly astringent. I did prefer the orthodox for the nuances but both teas were in my opinion quite well done with very rich flavours. I think this CTC may be one of the best ones I’ve tasted; certainly within class but I think in a broader sense too.

The second pairing I did today was a high and low grown Ceylon tea. I wish I knew the specific region (for example Uva or Dimbula for the high grown or Rahuna for the low) but I don’t; I’m gonna inquire about it in class on Tuesday, though. This pairing definitely wasn’t as good as the Kenyan in my opinion; but I did find it interesting how big the visual difference in dry leaf appearance was; the low grown was much more wiry/spindly and a more uniform, even colour while the high grown was broken into smaller leaf pieces and had a greater colour range; it also opened up MUCH MORE when steeped while the low grown stayed very spindly but got longer.

The highgrown tasted so boring to me; it had a very light fruity sweetness as well as some light malt notes and a much greater, but still quite delicate, floral flavour. I can see why it’s so often used in blending/for flavored blends. It was just too thin tasting for me though, and I was eager to move on. The low grown definitely tasted richer and more full bodied to me; it still had floral notes but was more malty and sweet with a nuttyness that reminded me of walnut. By far my favourite of the two infusions.

My Dad and my nephew were in town yesterday, so before work they took me out for tea/brunch at my favourite restaurant in town – it’s called Prairie Ink and it’s located inside a McNally Robinson’s which just makes it infinitely better in my opinion. What’s better than tea and books?

I ended up getting a pot of a loose blend called “Ruby Chai”; since McNally’s has this huge Tea Forte display I incorrectly assumed that it was a Tea Forte blend but I just checked both the Steepster database and Tea Forte’s website and they don’t carry a blend by that name so who knows what the company was, hence why I’m logging this here…

Anyway; as someone who’s not really into Chai that much I quite enjoyed this one. Probably ‘cause the clove in it was very intense, as was the cinnamon but the taste of ginger was incredibly mild. It also used a rooibos base which I wasn’t expecting (but I suppose is probably where the name comes from) though I do think it provided a nice change from the little Chai I do drink, which is typically black. It was a relatively simple blend overall though and just right for brunch with family before work.

Summary of Tasting Notes from the last three cuppings for Week 3 of “Tea 103”:

The final three cuppings I had to do were an Orthodox Assam, 2nd Flush Darjeeling, and a lightly oxidized oolong. Regarding the oolong, my ‘prof’ said she wasn’t 100% sure what kind of oolong it was, but that the flavour profile was very similar to Tung Ting. I actually liked all three of these teas, which means when combined with the Pai Mu Tan I did earlier in the week there wasn’t a single tea I didn’t like – though I’d definitely say the darjeeling was my least favourite and the oolong my favourite.

The Orthodox Assam had very generic Assam notes; malt, cocoa, honey, etc. so nothing really particular to note with that one.

The Darjeeling displayed characteristic Darjeeling notes; a muscatel/raisin note which was really pronounced with this one and some spicier/cinnamon type notes. But the most note worthy thing was the strong metallic taste – it reminded me of pennies. When I brought this up in class today I was told I was probably interpreting the astringency and the way it made my mouth feel as metallic – and honestly I kind of felt like that generalization devalued my taste experience. I’m familiar enough with ‘astringency’ to know it when I’m experiencing it, and this brew wasn’t actually really astringent at all. More than that, what we’ve learned in class is that astringency differs from bitterness because it is a feeling and not a flavour, and I not only tasted those metallic notes but I could smell them too.

The oolong was really lovely; the quality of some of the leaves/teas we’ve cupped have been a bit questionable (I’d call out the black teas over anything else, to be honest) but this was definitely a very nice oolong. The leaves were very long, and finely twisted up and were this really beautiful dark green colour. The flavour was initially very floral, but transitioned into a smokier toasty finish with really pronounced buttery artichoke notes. Absolutely delicious! And, I get to taste the same tea again this week so I’m really excited for that.

Had my second class for the current Tea Sommelier module I’m taking, Sensory Development, this afternoon;

The instructor for this module is definitely pretty interesting; while the Tea 101 instructor was great he didn’t do much of anything to engage the class in any sort of discussion, in fact we were all muted in our online meeting. Instead, in this class we were actually called upon to discuss some of the different tastings we did this week (olive oil, water, chocolate, and coffee). In particular, I got to discuss this week my observations with the chocolate tasting; and one of the things I learned this week was that despite always thinking of myself as someone who “doesn’t like dark chocolate” my favourite I tried was an organic, fair trade 85% dark chocolate that, thanks to all the practice doing this with tea and a crash course on professional chocolate tastings, I was able to break down as having a berry-like fruitiness to it which was very enjoyable.

And now I’m finally into the part of this module where I’ll be actually doing tea tastings! We’re tasting four different teas this week, and I’m quite happy to see that they appear to be a step up from the teas tasted in the Tea 101 module; we’ve been given more information about each of these teas we’re tasting, and the varieties of tea are a bit more specified from things other than “Pu’Erh” or “China Green”.

I still have three of four teas left to taste, but I started after class with the cupping for a Pai Mu Tan. The recent, albeit small, journey of ‘self discovery’ I had with white and yellow peaches and my relationship with both couldn’t have come at a better time – with the tasting of this tea I found it to have very strong hay/straw notes and a floral quality and sweet peachy finish in line with white peaches that I felt I could better appreciate now, after that discovery, than I would have been able to appreciate prior to that breakthrough.

I also feel like my understanding of why people tend to describe the fruityness of white tea (or even green tea and less oxidized oolong) as “peach” more than any other fruit was strengthened after learning that white peaches have a more naturally floral flavour to them. If these are all teas that taste relatively floral then it makes sense for the fruit they’re tied to/compared with to have a more naturally floral taste to it as well.

I still prefer Yin Zhen/Silver Needle to Pai Mu Tan/Bai Mu Dan though.

So this review is for the Twisted Tea “Hard” Iced Tea alcoholic drink…

I did search the database to see if it was there, but I couldn’t find it and I decided I didn’t really want to create an entry for an alcoholic drink though I still wanted to review it.

http://www.twistedtea.com/sites/all/themes/twisted/images/flavors/original_bottle-flair.png

My Dad, I guess, bought one of the six packs of bottle when he found out I was coming up for a few days – and since getting up he’s been asking me at just about every meal if I wanted to try one; each time I’ve denied and opted to drink the tea I’ve brought with for the trip. But today is my last day here so I’ve caved and am now having one with lunch.

It’s… Not really my thing.

You can’t taste the alcohol at all; and I don’t know whether that’s necessarily a pro or a con but the “tea” taste is weird. It’s very sharp with a sour note to it, and incredibly sweet. Like Southern Sweet Tea with lemon I guess. Except, there’s barley and ‘added malt flavour’ in the ingredients list and I can taste both of those things as well and I feel like the really shouldn’t be here.

Oh well; I guess it’s cool that my rather conservative father was alright with his “little girl” sharing a drink with him. I know I had my first drink around him when we went to see Cirque de Soleil and that was kind of weird ‘cause I’m the one who ‘broke that seal’ (or whatever you want to call it) by ordering it. This is almost weirder though ‘cause it’s him offering it?

I’ll stick to my personal favourites in the future though; Gin and Schnapps.