Oolong

I’m thinking the store may have switched up—or mixed—the leaves in my favorite cheapie bulk bin oolong. This batch wasn’t as large and stemmy as I usually expect, but still a nice green-and-brown blend. Yard mulch. Steeped up light and nutty for a morning-long writing session yesterday; the rest wasn’t bad chilled. And still 31 cents an ounce, bless the store. Can’t beat that.

This anonymous family favorite is launching my first excursion into cooking with tea. We found a lookalike recipe for P.F. Chang’s oolong marinated sea bass online and it’s soaking in the fridge right now. Well, cod instead of sea bass…availability and frugality caused that substitution. (The beauty is the fact we haven’t tasted the original yet, so we won’t know if it’s way off the mark!)

This was one of the first things I picked up on my first re-stock the pantry run to Fox Farm (local health food and goodie store). Price hasn’t changed for months. Just a good, tawny, tasty oolong. And I still haven’t remembered to ask what the brand was…

Still haven’t unearthed the brand of this nice (and wonderfully inexpensive!) bulk tea from favorite local store, though I see big ol’ 25-pound bags on their shelves with characters I can’t deciper. It looks a little leafy and woody and stemmy dry, but is still a good pantry staple, especially on days when you want to be tugged awake instead of booted out the door.

This still continues to be my favorite cheap-keep-the-canister-filled-at-all-times tea; someday I shall ask to see the bag so I can actually see the brand. (Yeah, I’m sure the store clerk will enjoy toting a 50-pound feed sack off the top shelf just to entertain the customer…)

In the meantime, I played a bit this morning and did 2 parts shaved unsweetened coconut chips to 1 part of these oolong leaves. I believe I’ve found a new favorite blend-in. Coconut and …. any suggestions?