The Sip Tip

Big Cup of Sencha

2012-02-23T18:52:00.001-05:00

Pictured above is a recent teaware acquisition, which has become my go to winter cup for a big cup of sencha. So much so a 70% full cup full pushes my little kyusu practically to the brim. I have learned to like going back to some of these full mugs of tea. While I completely understand the desire, and sometimes necessity to go small, the fact that I can drink for several minutes without needing to fuss with pouring or timing something.

As wonderful as it is to enjoy these giant steaming cups of sencha, when still doing those multiple steeps, after drinking 4-5 9oz steeps of sencha in an hour, you start to feel more like a water balloon than an actual person. Also the larger the steeps the more tea you use, which has me glad that Sencha is one of my favorite teas in the sense that its easy to get good sencha at a much lower price per gram than you can usually find in Oolongs.

So drink up, and remember you do not always need to be drinking your tea a half ounce cup at a time. Sometimes it is just great to have a nice big steaming cup of tea!

Trying to "get" Puerh

2012-02-18T14:29:00.000-05:00

Puerh is just one of those teas that it seems you either get it or you do not. For awhile when I was starting out I thought I understood puerh, only to find out I really really did not. Since then I have drifted away from the cakes sold almost by the pound, in part because I like to consider myself practical, and in the while I had been drinking puerh, I had somehow amassed enough tea that under my typical consumption rates would last me at least a decade. ( Honestly not that much as I do not view puerh as a go to tea).

So about this time last year I sent out quite generous samples of some teas to a few friends, just to help make the "puerh box" a little lighter. Lately feeling as though I might actually be missing out on something that has kept so many people enthralled, causing people to not only invest in thousands of dollars worth of tea, but go even further and spend thousands of dollars to try and create the correct storage conditions, has me baffeled.

A small note on puerh, as while certain people like the amazingly caustic new sheng cakes, puerh in my mind is meant to be consumed at an older age. But even then having tried some dozen or so aged Puerh tea's I am not completely sold on all of the fuss.

But rest assured I am trying, in the past 3 weeks I have dipped into the puerh chest 5-6 times, which is 4 more times than I did the previous 2 months. Todays challenger is one of my favorite puerhs back when I was drinking, although it has been known for causing incredible palate fatigue after the first 5-6 infusions or so. Its Changtai 2005 Yiwu. It definitely seems to have mellowed since I have gotten it, which I believe was summer 2010.

Korean Tea

2012-02-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

I have grown incredibly fond of Korean tea ever since I first tried it. Although looking back some of the very first Korean teas I had were quite bad, since then I have found a few quality vendors of Korean Tea, but I will not list them as Mattcha has an amazing list of Korean Tea Vendors. What amazes me the most is how absolutely versatile Korean teas are even though there are relatively few styles compared to thier Chinese counterparts.

When brewing tea we all imagine teapots, teacups, and you go through a series of steeps doing almost an endless dance transferring water from one vessel to the next trying to not let it get too cold, before you get a finished product. While this has endless variations as to how you can brew it, it honestly does not hurt to experiment a bit. I have found Korean green teas, to be far more forgiving than their Japanese counterparts, and to a lesser extent their Chinese counterparts in terms of brewing temperatures. So much so that with Korean teas you can often get good tasting, though incredibly different cups from the same tea, just by altering the parameters. Getting away from the realm of green teas, going with Balhyocha, you can start out cooler at 190F or so for smooth medicinal cups, and ramp up the temperature bit by bit getting consistent cups of tea, or you could start out at full boil, far shorter steeps, and get less steeps of tea that are loaded with intense flavor.

As with most teas, you can ditch that whole concept of brewing entirely, and just put leaves on the bottom of a teabowl and add hot water and drink. While being able to do this is not exclusive to Korean teas, it is one of my favorite methods to brew Korean teas. I can only guess as to why, but with Korean greens, there never seems to be a problem of an abundance of leaf not sinking after having hot water added. There also are usually far fewer broken bits than one could find in other teas, so no more gagging on a mouth full of leaf flakes.

Many people talk about eating used Gyokuro of Sencha leaves, and honestly I have never been too fond of doing such. Yet with Korean greens, I munch away like there is no tomorrow.

Gaoshan and other Green Oolongs

2012-02-12T12:21:00.004-05:00

I know I was late to the Taiwanese Gaoshan party, but let me just say I am glad I found my way there eventually. While I have not fully explored Chinese Tie Guan Yin either, and the Gaoshan is different than the best Tie Guan Yin I have had, I feel these green oolongs have certain incredibly obvious traits which show if they are or are not high quality/ fresh.

For the longest time I stayed away from these greener oolongs as I felt they offered up a slight hint of bitterness, that was incredibly out of balance compared to their otherwise lighter honey, butter and floral flavors. But when you find a green oolong that avoids that bitterness they can be absolutely sublime.

Having delt with a decent bit of those slightly bitter green oolongs in the past, I realized they can often be pretty darn tasty when brewed almost western style. I have consumed quite a bit of those bitter green oolongs with 6-7 grams (one packet if it comes in little individual serving packets) for 11-12 ounces of water, and get several nice steeps out of them.

For the good stuff though it is gaiwan all the way, I am toying with the idea of a Yixing but not entirely sure yet. The hardest part for me with brewing these Gaoshans is not adding too much leaf. that thin layer on the bottom doesnt look like much until the 3rd or 4th brew when its packing your entire gaiwan.

Tea helps...

2012-02-07T17:47:00.001-05:00

Tea helps people in so many ways it is ridiculous. I won't touch upon any of the health ones in which a new and sometimes conflicting study seems to be released every month or so. I will talk about how with tea, its just that much easier to come up with the right word or concept, its that much easier to not get overly worked up about one thing or another, its just that much easier to function. I've noticed all these things lately as I have been drinking tea more often compared to last semester and that when I do get to have tea it is a major relief.

I think the Zen Buddhists had the right idea when they made tea part of their day to day life. Tea does many things that people consider Zen, in part because drinking tea is often done in a calm and controlled environment. Honestly, just sitting in a calm and controlled environment for an hour or so a day would do many of us good, but for the few who are overly worried their mind would run away down one or many different thought paths at once, the act of being given a process to do helps quite and focus the mind. Many people view sleep as necessary to give the mind rest, I find that in sleep you loose too many of your mental faculties, and can not control your mind should a wild dream occur. So it also helps to have some time each day to work on quieting the mind, in which the problems that have been plaguing you are given more of your spare brain power to work out in the background without you being focused on them.

Tea is the most wonderful time to quiet the mind, and like I said earlier having to go through the process of making tea is enough to focus the mind just enough to not let it run wild. My best tea sessions are when I am the most relaxed and collected, as I personally do not mess with timers, nor themometers, or most other technologies. I like the phrase the Silence is deafening, because when I am overly focused on tasks, even if I am specifically waiting to pour out the freshly steeped tea, when I am not calm and collected I ask myself a series of weird questions while staring at the pot. "Has it been 30seconds or just 2?"

Possibly the best side effect I have noticed with tea, which can and can not be linked with a zen state of mind, is spontaneity. While I honestly hope to meet a Zen master some day, from the stories I have heard, they can often be quite fun in unexpected ways. They can realize when it truly is a good time to smile and be happy. I find that often with tea in my life, I have those days where I can't help but get all these good and happy thoughts flooding to me, I try and keep them controlled, but it would be ignoring the moment if I couldn't at least smile giddily like a fool.

Tea helps with all those things, it helps with your mind, the mind helps with the tea, and good tea helps you enjoy life. I would honestly hate to meet someone who does not want to enjoy life.

Always Amazing

2012-01-28T11:21:00.002-05:00

I had for the longest time thought that there were just some types of tea I was not that fond of, and I would never be able to like. One by one they are not only being deemed drinkable, but they are suddenly being catapulted onto the list of types of tea to always try and have on hand. The most recent of which is Taiwanese Gaoshan, I am half way through an order from Stephane at Tea Masters and I am hooked. I had a few Taiwanese Oolongs previously but for the most part I think I just brewed them poorly.

It has me reflecting on tea in general, it might just be that I have an incredible fondness for the C. Sinensis. Moreover when processing it honestly doesn't matter if you are fully oxidizing it, pan frying it, steaming it, or roasting it, when it is done with care the end result will always be delicious. Some people know I have bashed puerh quite a few times in the past, and while that is possibly the tea I am least likely to order more than samples of ever again in the future, there are still some puerh's that are phenomenal even for me.

So as I sit here this morning pondering what tea to have to celebrate my brothers engagement, I am mostly having such a hard time deciding because they are all good.

Get him on a Theanine Drip Pronto

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

Thursday night into Friday I did a bonehead move, I ordered Chinese food at 11pm, then felt so uncomfortable the rest of the night I didn't even consider going to bed until after 3 am. So Friday was not a fun day at all, and in general I felt sluggish, and overly tired. Friday night I went to bed around my usual time and slept in on Saturday morning, but things still were not right. Thats when I decided to implement the Theanine drip.

In my mind no healthy session of Theanine is complete unless it involves matcha, usually as a starter just to make sure you are awake, and ready to go through the rest of the marathon tea drinking session. But I needed theanine bad, so for my second tea, I turned to Gyokuro. Matcha and gyokuro is such a wonderful combination to have back to back, and wow you feel calm, cool, and collected after drinking those, but ready to do anything you set your mind to.

Big revelation I had today, is that over time through lack of practice with matcha I had moved to brewing it with too high of a temperature. Although matcha is a bit tricky, it is made with leaves shaded like gyokuro, so you think go cool, but the froth from whisking does not come out properly if it gets too cool. Its a tougher act to carry off than brewing gyokuro, as matcha infuses completely near instantly, matcha can not be reconciled for too cool of a water temp by simply letting the bowl sit longer after whisking.

Current thoughts on Tea Freshness

2012-01-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

There are some large name Tea vendors in the united states, which I would encourage people new to tea to check out for pretty standard teas (red/ black teas, and perhaps some oolongs, and if I can't convince them otherwise flavored teas). I will not name those vendors here, because this is not exactly a favorable post for those vendors. The biggest window into the tea world in my eyes comes when you start to realize its not just your (UK nationality) Breakfast, or Earl grey, at the same time you get into loose leaf teas.

Based on what some of these ultra large tea companies carry, I am slightly surprised that so many people stick with their transition to the wide world of tea. With all the health promotions out there, most peoples step away from black/ red tea would be a green tea, which is a lot more "time sensitive" than most black/red teas. Green teas are one of those teas that when slightly out of date can absolutely ruin the whole tea experience, making it exceedingly bitter, and often causes it to lack the sweetness green tea can have (gyokuro, and certain other green teas when carefully aged excepted).

I thought it would be interesting to post my thoughts on how time sensitive certain teas are when being kept.

In decreasing time sensitive order ( lower means stays fresh longer under most conditions).

Japanese Greens*
Chinese Greens
Korean Greens
Green Oolongs
Med Roast/ oxidized oolongs
Heavier roast/ oxidized oolongs
Black/red Teas

Not listed: White Tea, or Yellow tea as I do not have enough experience with them.

(*) Japanese greens are an oddball, based on how most of them are packaged they can stay fresh for far longer than Chinese greens, or Korean greens if they remain sealed and stored away from extreme temperatures. But once opened they tend to loose freshness the quickest.

Cold days and hot kettles

2012-01-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

My favorite part of winter, and least favorite part of summer, are the exact same thing. The heat that is generated while brewing tea. So as the weather really turns ugly outside, I am once again incredibly fond of turning on the kettle to do long marathon brewing sessions. In terms of tea selection, I naturally seem to gravitate more towards the teas that require boiling water to prepare and drink, except for the really odd ball out multiple times a week cravings I get for gyokuro.

Hope for 2012

2012-01-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

A bit late for a resolutions post, but some of these are already in action, so I am rigging the game slightly. In 2012 I hope to continue on with the Green Tea Challenge, most notably trying to hit a lot of the Chinese greens when they are fresh. I also hope to explore Taiwanese teas in a lot more depth and detail, to fill one of the large gaps in my tea knowledge and tea experience.

These are all well and fine, but its going to be a bit tougher to balance this with my rejuvenated interest in roasted oolongs, and my love of Japanese and Korean teas. Though in terms of Yancha and Korean teas, it may be too early to completely know what is in store for them, as weather effects on the harvest quality and quantity can really mess things up. Most notably with Korean teas whose year last year caused a few of the vendors that regularly carry Korean teas and sell it to the west, to carrry less teas, or not carry them at all. If they did carry the teas the prices were substantially higher.

Celebrate 2012 like...

2012-01-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

I'm celebrating 2012 like it's in the 1960's, with a tea from the Mandarin's Tea Room (their 1960's Shui Xian ) to be exact. I love tasting these tea's, even though I can not do it often it is always a surprise. Most surprising about this tea, it seemed to have been getting better each subsequent day (finished day 3 earlier today). During the first day I suffered a problem that occurs to me with certain strong teas, and aged/ semi aged puerh. That problem is taste bud fatigue, when everything seems to taste the same or have next to no taste at all. But through days two and three they lightened up and started becoming incredibly delicious. I have already enjoyed 14 infusions, and hope to get at least 25-30 before I call it quits.

What else amazed me about this old tea, is its dry aroma reminded me more of an aged puerh than any sort of Wuyi yancha. In fact there was next to no roast aroma, not incredibly surprising as the tea has had more than enough time to mellow out.

Now I am not sure I would repurchase this tea, while it is certainly a wonderful tea, its just one of those things that I am not sure I can justify the price for my enjoyment of it. While I enjoy great tea, a good deal of my enjoyment in tea, is just taking the time to make tea, as a bit of a time out from the hustle and bustle of life.

Tea and Sickness

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Every time I get sick, I somehow always have one person mention to me "I am surprised you get sick at all, you certainly drink enough tea." I try not to let it get to me, but for some reason it does, everyone gets sick, its a fact of life. I am sure even those with the healthiest diets imaginable get sick occasionally. I am certainly not one of those people that are super healthy, in fact the healthiest thing I do regularly is walk to and from campus, and drink tea.

I will say one thing, without tea, I honestly feel I would have a hard time recovering as quickly as I do, and I would also have an incredibly hard time staying as alert and on top of it as I do when I am sick. I go as far as to recommend tea for anyone who is sick, because I truly believe it is a great way to go about recovering. Tea in my mind does some huge things which help people recover from illnesses, especially colds.

Tea is mostly water, while there have been misguided claims that tea contributes to dehydration, most teas, especially those brewed at a lower leaf to water ratio, will help keep you hydrated.
It is well known for helping promote awareness, and has caffeine to help keep you awake. So should you be sick and still need to get stuff done, tea may not make you 100% but it will help you be a little closer to 100%.
Its warm, and steamy, the warmth and steam can help clear up any clogs you might happen to have in your sinus passages.

Again I am not claiming tea is some sort of miracle drug, and I am a firm believer that tea can not stop you from ever getting sick, but when you are sick, I most certainly believe that tea will help you recover quickly, or if not, at least make you feel better on your way to recovery.

No break is complete without tea

2011-12-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. My readers are well aware that in late October, all of November, and early December, posts and photos were nearly nonexistent on my part. I have written a few posts alluding to reasons why, and in part it was just that I was not drinking that much tea, and when I did drink tea it was more going through the motions than anything else. In fact I had cut back on drinking tea so much, that for break between semesters, which I am spending at my parents house, I had honestly contemplated not bringing home any tea or teaware.

Thankfully, I came to my senses enough when I had to really make those decisions and go about packing, and I actually brought a decent variety to my parents house. That being said, in these past few days I have started to fully realize what I have been missing. It has me hopeful for the spring, (along with a new more tea conducive schedule).

I hate to say it but I didn't even realize how beaten down and deflated I was at the end of the semester, it took a break, and the wonderful effects of tea to revive me, and honestly now as I am writing this I am under the weather but still feel worlds better than I did only a couple of weeks ago, in which it seemed like everything I was doing was just trying to stop or slow the bleeding.

Alright so this all loosely has to do with tea, but I honestly feel for us tea lovers, no break would be complete without tea. Even more so, I am starting to think when our mood improves so does our tea brewing / our enjoyment of tea. Of nearly all the teas I have brewed in the past 2 months, the ones in the past week or so have knocked just about all of them out of the ballpark, not because I am suddenly using new tea (which I am not), water might have a slight effect, but typically I've found the water at my parents house worse than at my apartment. The only real difference I have found is I am in a better mood, and somehow that is making me enjoy my tea better.

So here is to wishing all my readers a good mood, and therefore more enjoyable tea.

Small and Simple

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

While I am not one of the tea drinkers that usually spends an excessive length of time with tea setups, adding coasters, flowers, and mats to create a serene effect, I usually do have some what noisy set ups. By noisy I mean I could easily have 4 or more items on my tea table at a single time for use when brewing. For example check the not so unusal set up below.

With some christmas gifts I found this year, I realized there is something to be said for an incredibly simple set up. I received a mini tea tray, one possibly a third of the size above ( so that set up pictured above is completely out of the question). Along with a new set of Celadon cups, but I quickly discovered that there is an amazing tea set up to be had with a simple 60 ml gaiwan, that small tray, and a single cup. No need for Fair cups, with the right teas, no need for water coolers. It's just simple.

The new set up is pictured below (ignore the other celadon pieces off the tea table). It is one of those things I am not sure I could have caused to be more perfect if I tried. The level which you see the cup filled to in that picture is the amount that came out of the gaiwan stuffed with leaves, possibly slightly high, but certainly not over flowing, or so high that its impossible to pick up the cup.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-25T22:48:00.002-05:00

Wishing all my readers a happy holiday season, and hoping they have a chance to enjoy several great cups of tea. So I will give a little update on some recent thoughts I have had pertaining to tea.

Tastes in tea have long since been documented as seasonal. Though it seem there is seasonal as in the seasons of the year, but there also seems to be seasonal as in personal mood shifts, and just general changes in moods. By this I mean last year around this time barely a day went by that I did not drink a Japanese tea. this year I am so much more willing to have Hong cha, or some sort of other oolong tea. This mood is a lot similar to how I was 2-3 years ago (before I had really discovered how to properly brew Japanese Greens).
Gongfu cups are over rated. People told me when I started drinking tea, that I would tend towards smaller and smaller pieces of teaware, and soon those 1 or 1/2 ounce cups would be incredibly typical when drinking Chinese teas. Well that happened, but what I did not expect was a bit of a backlash, after pouring from fairness cups into those small cups probably some thousand times or more over the past two years, its a bit annoying. I am now a fan of larger cups that better accommodate the size of my brewing vessels. While my brewing vessels are still small, I would rather have things that are 50-80 ml in size fit into a single cup, and pour two cups for brews that are over that size.

Again I would like to extend holiday wishes to all my readers, and hope everyone stays safe, warm, and comfortable through the remainder of winter.

Caffeination Station

2011-12-10T21:18:00.001-05:00

My regular readers of my blog may have noticed a sever drop off in frequency of posts lately. This is due to both a bad schedule for tea, and just in general being busy with school. While I could go on about that, the most shocking part is, it now makes it harder for me to enjoy tea when I do get a chance. To have this story make sense I'll give a little bit of background information on my old tea habits vs my new tea habits.

I used to have at least one solid session of tea each day. These are gongfu or similar type sessions of tea, and on weekends that would often turn into 2-3 different teas or more. It was great, the only downside is I flew through tea incredibly quickly.

Now, Monday through Thursday I am lucky to enjoy tea one time, and on very rare weeks I get to enjoy it twice during those days. Then I almost seem to try and make up for it on Friday Saturday and Sunday. On those days it would be 2-3 teas each day.

Alright so, where is the problem? Well I had actually gotten used to being able to make it through most days with little to no caffeine, and as a result my caffeine tolerance dropped off a cliff. Whereas two teas in a day would often leave me feeling nice, awake, content, with no real signs of ill effects. These days if I have two teas, even when one of them is a relatively low leaf to water ratio, I often find myself wired well into the night.

I hope to be able to remedy this issue over the next semester and winter break. No more night classes, and a great chance to enjoy tea on a daily basis.

Missing Tea

2011-11-26T15:09:00.001-05:00

Lately I have been missing tea, I still drink it but no where as much as usual. It is almost as though tea has been set aside for the weekends. My schedule this semester is really bringing me down especially now that daylight savings has gone into effect.

While I would not say I am caffeine sensitive, it does interrupt my sleep if I consume it to late in the day, and as a rule of thumb I go by if the sun is up then I can have tea. This is trouble some as now the sun sets before I even have my last class of the day 4 days of the week. So Mondays through Thursdays, are almost always days without tea, unless I decide to have a little bit of sencha or something lighter and start it as soon as I get home.

Thankfully we are getting close to winter break, which will lead to many days off which I can enjoy tea. I almost wish I had some sort of Holiday tea tradition, but really just enjoying lots of good tea is a good enough tradition for me.

Do any of you have any holiday tea traditions?

Thank goodness for my... corkscrew?

2011-11-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

Of all the tools I ever thought I would use in making tea, one I never thought I would use, or be so eager to use given the situation as a corkscrew. A little bit of background, I have already talked about this tea, but it was frustrating to get at it at that time, and when I picked it up again, it frustrated me even further. The Tea I am referring to is none other than a Balhyocha Uricha.

As pictured this tea comes with a bunch of tiny twisted leaves grouped together into a ball. Its the shape that makes this interesting, as I do not have a tuo pick (which may be ideal). and only a letter opener that I use as my Puerh knife as the only "picking tool" for undoing compressed tea. This ball has no edges like Tuo chas which you can use to dig the knife into to remove the proper amount. If I were to use my puerh knife for this, I would basically be splitting the ball in two, leading me to completely break the tea into pieces.

Bring in the cork screw, when frustrated with this tea, I was looking at items I had on hand, and I realized the leaves are not that tightly compressed but still enough to not be able to wiggle them loose, and the small point on the cork screw combined with the lever like aspect of twisting the cork screw works wonderfully for digging into the Uricha in small clusters, without mangling the leaves, and without completely dismantling the ball of Uricha.

I wish I had a tuo cha to test this on too. Although I am slightly worried that the extra tight compression of a tuo cha, with the leaves not as thin and wiry might cause the leaves to break apart so much more than what happens with the Uricha.

Brewing a Bike is just like Riding a Tea...

2011-11-05T17:42:00.000-04:00

I mean brewing a tea is just like riding a bike. A long standing and overly used phrase in the United states for a skill that you do not easily forget is said to be just like riding a bike. So while I still brew regularly lately as the weather has started to greatly cool off recently its definitely time for gyokuro. But it has been roughly 8 months since I last brewed gyokuro.

When I first started brewing it again this fall, I was a little shaky, and while my first session was not stellar, (sorry Seth), it was far from bad. But after brewing it two more times I can now brew it confidently once more, and really make some great tasting tea.

I have found that with any tea I have gained some sort of proficiency in brewing, I can put it down for an extended length of time, then with minimal effort regain that proficiency. Of course there may be a few botched brews, but that is to be expected. Heck, even when I brew a tea quite often, I still mess up the occasional infusion, especially when I am not completely focused on the tea at hand.

So now that I can wake up and start to find thick layers of frost coating everything out side, and the sun starts to call it quits before I even get to leave campus, it is definitely time to bring out our favorite cool weather teas again. For me that mostly means Gyokuro and a plethora of Roasted oolongs.

Seeking Simplicity

2011-10-27T00:53:00.001-04:00

I know many of my more intense tea drinker readers may object to this, but while I know there is no replacement to a solid session or two of tea, in which you really get all you can out of the tea in many steeps, sometimes simplicity is the answer. I personally am not a morning person, so any time I do have tea in the mornings it is what can I do with minimal effort. The answer is in just about every case "Grandpa Style".

So what exactly is the beauty of Grandpa style? For one steep times are nearly optional, as it resorts to adding hot/ warm water to the cup/glass/bowl full of leaves and tea, and drinking. Then repeat until the tea seems to be little more than colored water. Even better is as its usually a lower leaf to water ratio, the temperature of the water you introduce to the leaves will either cool quickly enough to not extract the incredibly bitter components that can come from too hot of water exposed for too long of a time in a Gong Fu session.

In my personal opinion your feelings towards the vessel you use to brew "Grandpa style" will significantly alter your total enjoyment. Such as if you love to watch the dance of the leaves, then perhaps a glass vessel is ideal. I do not care as much about the dance of the leaves, and I like to see how a piece is progressing, so my Celadon teabowl is ideal in my opinion, as while the inner cracks are quite stained, the cracks on the outside of the bowl are slowly staining.

When busy I find it is so much easier to stick to simple types of brewing than working about fitting in entire gong fu sessions with teas that require a lot more attention. While certainly those gong fu sessions produce excellent tea, well worth the effort, when you really love tea, you want to enjoy tea in any way you can.

Making it work

2011-10-23T13:12:00.003-04:00

So recently I have had the chance to try a good quality Taiwanese tea, and for my regularly readers you may have noticed or remember me at one time mentioning that I just do not do Taiwanese teas. Not because I do not like them, but rather I just have not put forth any effort in exploring them. As such I perhaps have slight holes in my teaware (shocking I know).

But in regards to this, I was told for this tea heat retention was key, so a thin gaiwan could not be used. This had me rattling my head, as for all more delicate teas that are not heavily roasted or heavily oxidized my go to vessels are Gaiwans. But determined to make it work, I realized I have a Seong-il pot which is bulbous in shape, holds heat quite well, and is glazed on the inside so I shouldn't have to worry about much interaction.

It was certainly an experience, while this was not a super green high mountain taiwanese oolong, it was actually labeled as being traditionally fired, which I learned upon opening the package that traditional fire in Taiwan means a whole different thing than traditional fired for Hong Kong. The leaves were still decently green, but the taste was quite interesting, I would have almost guessed this was a midway aged tea, that was not in an "off stage." There were some interesting flavors of darker fruits most notably plum, but also a lot of nice greener and fresher notes.

If Taiwan offers many more teas like that I might just have to give in and start placing some orders.

Seeing Triple

2011-10-15T22:40:00.001-04:00

What else can I say other than when looking for decent quality on a budget, in a size that is rarely offered in stores that cater to English speakers, options get quite limited quite quickly. While I honestly do not know how many of these little 50ml brown yixing's Zen8Tea has sold, but quite a few people I know that have bought one have not stopped at just one. I recently purchased two more bringing myself up to 3 of these little guys. They might not be the greatest quality but they seem to work wonderfully with stuffed pots of roasted oolongs.

My biggest problem was how would I keep these straight, as one was to be used with high Quality Yancha, the other to be used with High Fire TGY, and the 3rd a switch hitter who is to fill in the gaps if I ever want to do a side by side brew/comparison. I realized a simple wrapping around certain parts of the handles could greatly help. So while I currently do not have string available, I did mark one in an interesting fashion with some dental floss.

Having used them quite a bit,I will say they do not hide what they are, but for giving you the ability to brew in a teapot, and one that does pick up a little bit of patina, instead of a gaiwan. I love gaiwans but the ones I have are absolutely horrible in terms of heat retention and even when having the gaiwans half submerged in hot water, I feel like I am fighting a loosing battle with heat. Not to mention fighting a loosing battle in terms of water.

I must say this is the first item of teaware I have ever bought multiple of that is not a cup to create a matching set. I am still unsure how I feel about that.

My favorite time of year

2011-10-02T14:14:00.002-04:00

There is little better than the cool crisp days that come with the oncoming fall season. To me it is the ideal weather for warm tea, and lots of it. I also relish the cool weather days, as the weather is ideal where I do not feel like having a kettle on is counter productive to my comfort, or to my air conditioner. In fact I almost feel like it is an added bonus, I get to heat my apartment while getting the added benefit of preparing beverages I love.

It remains to be seen what my teas of this winter season will be, but due to my schedule I definitely feel the need for teas I can enjoy while doing other work. As such I almost feel Hong Cha is a must, for its wonderful ability to be brewed Grandpa style with little effort but often delivering a very drinkable and warm broth. But for some reason the desire to drink gallons of tea when it is cold out often has me turning to Japanese Sencha, which while not consumed at such a warm temp as say Hong Cha or most Oolongs, still on those very cold days is warm enough to make me happy.

I think it goes without saying that the roasted oolongs most notably High Fire TGY and Yancha are ideal cool weather teas, which if budget were no issue, would be my consistent go to tea.

Then of course there is the winter classic in Japan, which somehow is the tea often consumed the coolest of them all ( when making tea with hot water), is gyokuro. I think it has to do with the strong umami presence, and the extra soup like characteristics of this tea that make it incredibly ideal for the winter months.

So my question to my readers is, what teas are your go to winter teas?

Tea as an Art

2011-09-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Gong fu cha has been translated in the past as "tea with skill." We can view tea as either a science or an art, but for those of us that have spent time dealing with sciences, know once you go beyond just the standard calculations, the distinction between science and art are quite obscured. Just like trying to become proficient in any area, practice is key to mastering anything. With that in mind I often hope to practice brewing each type of tea at least once a week, and when trying to become proficient in a type of tea much more than that.

I learned when I rarely touched Yancha for nearly a year, that even though I had once been able to almost absentmindedly brew a very drinkable series of infusions of Yancha, and when I really gave the tea my full attention it was often wonderful. Since then I switched to Sencha, which for some reason seems slightly more like an enigma, possibly because patience comes much more into play when trying to get the right water temperature for each infusion, and not just keeping track of somewhat short steep times.

While my tastes are shifting back towards Yancha, and other roasted oolongs these days, my goal is to try not to let any my sencha chops fade into the abyss. While I honestly hope to stay on top of my brewing skills for the types of tea I brew regularly, I always want to keep on exploring new teas. It honestly seems like walking a thin line trying to brew Sencha, Yancha, High fire TGY, and Hong Cha at least once a week, and that is when I do not have some Korean greens to fit into the fold too, or in the winter when I want to have Gyokuro regularly. I am honestly trying to figure out how I could fit Taiwanese Gaoshan oolongs into my routine, or try to recover my ability to brew a cup of puerh that I honestly would rather dump.

Schedule Changes

2011-09-24T16:40:00.000-04:00

Those of us who participate in Gong Fu cha or similar type methods of drinking tea, know we often need a solid hour or more close to our tea gear, with hopefully minimal distractions to drink our tea. As such we tend to create a schedule where we insert those blocks into our day and stick to them. The problem though is a changing schedule. My regular tea drinking schedule has been thrown for a bit of a loop lately with the weekends being just about the only reliable time to enjoy drinking tea.

My schedule has always been to enjoy tea shortly after dinner or shortly before depending on the time I could get back to my place. This would energize me for the evenings and allow me to tackle my work in the evening, but have the caffeine wear off enough by the time I would need to go to bed. Worse now is Monday through Thursday I have evening classes and often do not get home till 6:30 and its often at least an hour later or more by the time I finish dinner and could start to be ready for tea. Even worse is on most nights I need to head to bed earlier than usual as I need to make sure I am awake an aware to teach morning classes.

So this major shift in my schedule has left me in a bit of a pickle when trying to decide how to fit tea into most of my days. Now that I am a bit more used to my schedule I will try and resume posting regularly, the cold I have had for the last week certainly isn't helping either.