To The Future

It seems that my name is really getting passed around. It makes me very happy, because then I don't have to put up posters. I was asked the other day to do tea for a hall event, which I've just come back from, and tomorrow I'll be doing tea for a general student body event! It was a lot of fun. It was a henna event so naturally that meant masala chai with milk and sugar. Yummy!

I find it really funny though that everyone keeps saying I know so much about tea, and then asking me about tisanes. I don't know almost anything about most tisanes! For one, there are just basically too many. I know a little about catnip, ginko, and ginger, but that's seriously the limit of my decent tisane knowledge. I don't know what most of them taste like, I don't know how to make each of them to best bring out their flavors (not all tisanes like boiling water for five minutes!), I don't know what to look for in terms of sourcing them, I don't know the latin names of them, I don't know where they all come from, I don't even usually know which of them are from trees or shrubs or grasses! There are so many more tisanes than there are teas, and that's saying something considering how many teas there are! So I feel really bad when people say, "So! Tell me about this tea!" and I have to smile and say, "Well, this is actually a red rooibos base spice blend tisane!" when I know they're expecting me to get as passionate about it as I do with teas. Maybe I really should change the tea club to the "Classic Pure Straight No Flowers Or Spices Real True Tea Club". Hahaha.

So I have some studying to do before tomorrow night for the event (never a bad thing to do in the first place). And I'm bringing a real tea so that I can actually gush and go on and on about something that I know about.

My club holds meetings about twice a week and there are about 2-3 people who come to every meeting and several others who come either once a week or once every two weeks or so. And then getting invited to events also makes me very happy. This semester's goal has been to get people to attend, next semester's goal will be to legitimately establish ourselves as a club to get funding and to better organize special events such as tastings and educational workshops. Of course, the ultimate goal all the time is just to enjoy the pleasure of drinking a lot of good tea.

Another very awesome thing happening next year is that I've been accepted into a research lab here where I'll be able to do my own research on tea! My project isn't finalized yet, but I have a general idea about what I'm going to do and we'll just have to see how it goes. Woo! Super excited!! This also reminds me that I should post another review of an article or two here, since I did say that I wanted to do a lot of these for this blog.

Last of all, my very dear grandmother just passed away a week ago today. My mom and I lived with her for a year or two when I was around 5 years old and I would stay at my grandparent's house for a week or so at a time every summer since I was around 14. She called me about every other week and sent me a care package every month since coming to college. We were very close. She was so healthy and doing so well that it was a huge shock when my mom told me she was doing terribly in the hospital all of a sudden. I hurriedly bought a ticket to home and went to see her before she passed away. It's been a very rough week, I still have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to call her this week or anymore in the future, but I have no regrets when it came to my grandma and know that she loved me and that she knew I loved her, so at least there's that. Time keeps passing on anyways, so I figure I'd just better appreciate those around me that are alive while I have the pleasure of being around them. My grandfather already passed away two years prior, so at least they're not apart anymore. 

Rest in peace, Grandma and Grandpa. I love you two very much and will do my best to take care of your daughter, my mother, and my little brothers like you always told me to. Sleep well and don't let the bed bugs bite.

White Whisperings of Peace at the End of the Semester

Hello, everyone! I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've last posted. Things became very hectic this semester at school. It was very stressful for a while and somehow that made me put off tea a little (still drank, just not as much). But I've made some changes and am very happy to be reunited with drinking tons and tons of tea and being much more stress-free.

For those of you who are unaware, it's the final two weeks of the 2012 fall semester here at Mount Holyoke College. To summarize before I lose sight of how this semester went after my classes finish, my favorite classes ended up being all of them. Haha. I've learned so much and feel that I've grown so much this semester. It's been difficult, and while I don't think any printed letters on my transcripts will show anything stellar this semester I've still learned a lot and have been having a lot of fun. (I'm afraid some of you may be going, "Oh my gosh, what on earth did she do?!" right now, but really, I just bomb-dived in one class and finally dropped it, but not after doing some damage to my work in others. ;^; Haha)

Right now I'm listening to the song on the left, Tears of the East by Phillip Wesley. I absolutely love this pianist. He artfully manipulates my feelings through the delicate and thoughtful way his fingers travel the keys.

While listening to him today, I'm finally enjoying a sample from Phoenix Tea that I'd put off for a long while. I was saving it for a really special occasion, but I've come to the conclusion that if paid attention to properly, every moment is a special occasion and should be appreciated as such. In other words I was really impatient to try this White Whisper Tea from Kenya (page 9).

When I opened the little sample pack, I initially thought that there must've been a mistake somewhere. If I hadn't seen the leaves, I would've thought there was a dried apricot in there instead. I will be the first to admit that I do not partake in a great deal of white teas (you all know me as a pu-erh and green tea person by now, I hope), but the majority of those that I have drank have never smelled like this before. Usually they're kinda flowery, maybe fairly grassy like green tea even. But like a freaking dried apricot?? On The Royal Tea of Kenya's homepage right now there is a small video about them. One of the things the woman in it mentions is that a story about a friend of the founder, Joy, who upon drinking a tea from Joy's family's tea farm remarks that drinking their tea is the equivalent of switching from black and white television to color. This tea demonstrates that perfectly.

The apricots I smelled was remarkably conserved in the flavor. The flavor was a lot more flowery than the scent though, but just when I thought my cup was done a shocking sweet aftertaste appeared. Immediately I forced my roommate to drink it with me. She really enjoyed it and described it as very refreshing.

Anyways, I've just finished my 6th brew of this, and I'm literally swaying back in forth in my chair while listening to these lovely piano tunes because I feel just so happy and serene.

And there is one last post I'd like to make in this post. I knew that technically making tea was considered a meditative thing, but I never really was conscious of that until today. But really, out of love for the tea and the art of making it, you have to be so aware of your actions when making tea gongfu style. You are aware of every piece on the tea tray, the temperature of the water and pieces, the smell of the tea, the way the stream flows as it's poured from gaiwan into chahai, its appearance in the chahai if you have a glass one like me, how it's poured, more about the scent, and finally how you drink it, its taste, and how it makes you feel. I was just reading The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh the other day (and I should mention here how impressive it is that I'm able to do out of class reading at this school), and all that above is basically like the excerpts from the manual given to the novices he talked about. I'm not directly quoting, but it said something like, "Be aware of everything as you do it. When you're walking, walking." It might sound like overkill, but this is my experience with tea and it makes it beautiful and relaxing.

Have a happy day and enjoy your cup of tea.

May Puer Tea Appreciation Club of Seattle Meeting!

Today was the month of May's monthly PTACOS meeting! We met at the awesome Phoenix Tea shop in Burien, WA and it was lots of fun! This also means I'm home for summer vacation now! Yay!

We tried a lot of extremely delicious Puerhs. Cinnabar wrote them all down, but I don't have the intention of making this a tea review blog, so I'm not going to go into great detail about that. There were a large number of us drinking today it seemed, and we had a whole bunch of great and crazy conversations that I'm sure we'll all burst out laughing about as we randomly remember the crazier tidbits later. I really love these kinds of get togethers and think that there should be more joys in life like this. While talking I learned about several different cultural and art events happening in the area, about other artists in the area, spas, and of course just a lot of interesting story telling about one thing or another. Delicious tea and interesting people and conversation, what more could one ask for? These meetings are the best and really make me want to be the Tea Hostess for my dorm again next year and have similar weekly meetings.

Then of course afterwards I finally did a bit of tea and teaware shopping that I'd been dying to do! Hehehe! I scored a GORGEOUS kyusu set from Kutani by someone named 栄峰 (not too sure yet how to pronounce this name). I'll put up a picture of it tomorrow. It's really lovely with pictures of camellias and ducks on it. As a set, it came with one cup with a lid. I am extremely happy to finally own a kyusu! Finally I can brew Japanese green tea in a Japanese pot instead of feeling sacrilegious by doing it in a Chinese one. Hahaha. And it's a larger pot, so I'll be able to do larger tea servings! Woo-hoo!

In addition to that I finally bought a nice puerh tea pick, a fine mesh strainer to pour through, and some very nice smelling rooibos chai tea. Like I mentioned before, pictures soon! I meant to get some purple tea too, but somehow I completely forgot!! Super sadness, but I'll just order it fresh in September if I don't manage to get over there again before leaving for school again.

Tomorrow the hunt is on for some possible cups, some possible green tea, and some possible fun things. WITH A FRIEND! Ahhh, exciting times!

*eyetwitch*

Just finished my last final about 4 hours ago. Not allowed to talk about it until after the last final tomorrow morning for the entire school. So I'll just leave that at that.

Will you forgive me for being absent for so long?

I had to pack my stuff the other day. My poor sweet German baby is in storage. So guess how I had to made tea the other day?

Yes.

I have sunk to the lowest of the low.

I actually boiled water in mason jars in the microwave.

Yes.

Yes, I did.

And these weren't just regular mason jars.

Nope. These were old spaghetti sauce jars.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yes. I am indeed a poor, poor college student indeed.

I can't wait till I get back and get a real water boiling thing and my big tea pots and infuser mugs. <3 But I will sorely miss my baby in the meantime.

And I also made the last of my Gyokuro today. I know, it's been miraculous how long I've stretched it out for. It was really at the end. But it made it one last brew, and then it was gone. And guess how I made it? Yes, in a plastic bottle with cold tap water. Hahahahaha. Oh my goodness. Whoever said making tea was hard? Hahahahaha.

Necessary Study Break Quick Comment (Library tea, Mother, Oolongssss!!, and the great Japanese Green Tea Shortage of 2012)

My mother thinks me caring so much about how to make tea is ridiculous. Hahahaha. I posted a status on facebook about how while they had good Sencha leaves at the coffee shop in Mount Holyoke's library (FREAKING AMAZING LIBRARY, by the way, except that it exceedingly reminds me of something you'd see in The Shining and is a horrendous maze for about the first 5 weeks...), but that they were going to put it into too hot of water before I requested ice to cool the water down (thought about just asking for hot tap water, but alas no matter how much I want it to be, sencha is not gyokuro), and then in addition to then almost ruining the whole point of putting in the ice they poured in the hot water directly on the tea leaves (which they put into a bag, but I forgive them for that) and didn't even bother to tell me how long to let it steep. *rambles and rants about why people mistakenly think green tea tastes horrible and bitter* But anyways, so my mother then comments something to the effect of "Whatever. Add water, let sit, drink." Hahahahaha.

Dearest Mother,

You are mistaking tea with instant coffee. Please note that not only are the two spelled differently, they come from different plants, are different parts of the plant, taste completely different, are biochemically almost completely different, and are definitely prepared completely different. Would you bake a salmon the same as a black berry pie? Never!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Your Adoring Daughter

Also, three amazing teas arrived from Phoenix Tea for me yesterday! They had a really cool opportunity that day at just the right time where I received not only my tea, but two awesome samples! I'll let you know what arrived tomorrow hopefully. I've been two busy today to try them, but I will let you know that I received two DELICIOUS smelling oolongs and one 2007 sheng pu-erh! But really, I've been starting to crave oolongs like the ones I ordered for a while now, so I'm super happy that I received two of them!

And as most of you may know, the Japanese tea picking season does not begin until next month.

...

NEXT MONTH.

Argh! Why did my Japanese green tea supply have to run out now??!!! Because now it's more economical for me to just wait than it is to buy some older stuff! But I'm so addicted to delicious Japanese green tea!!!! I suppose I should just save up my money in the meantime and splurge on more gyokuro. But I also really want some of the special green tea at the New Century Tea Gallery in Seattle, and I want some sencha this time too... Though maybe I should go for a fukamushi instead. Fukamushi was the first Japanese lose leaf green I ever purchased. Sadly, I had no idea how to make it or what made it special, so it was overwhelmingly wasted now that I look back on it. But maybe I should try it again now......... Too many choices!!!!! Also, the place I wanted to buy my new stocks of Japanese green are in South Hadley, and next month I will be in Seattle. Oh well. I'll stock up on the other smaller things I wanted while in Seattle and save a larger supply purchase from them in September so that I don't have to worry about shipping and hopefully they'll be better at storing than I have the ability to be. Haha.

I'm really a crazy tea fanatic. Hehehe. Loving it~~!

And now back to my work. I've put at least 8 hours into this now, and looking at examples from other classmates, I think I've put in too much effort already. Hahaha. Oh well. Hopefully that means this will turn out amazingly and my professor will be so impressed she'll finally stop giving me an exceedingly large number of +'s after my B's and finally give me an A on something. Seriously! How many +'s does it take to turn a B into an A??? Hahaha. But anyways. I know what I need to do, but without my green tea supply it's super difficult to do! Hahahahaha. Now! Homework!

Chai Masala Party! :) And my preliminary theory on the occasional metallic taste in cooked pu-erh.

As the tea hostess of my dorm, one of the fun things I get to do is host tea parties! Woo! Last night was the first one. I wanted to make sure people would definitely like what they tasted there, so I made my super delicious Chai Masala. I don't have a link for this one, since I got it from Uwajimaya and don't really care to go through their product list right now to find it if they even had a product list (I don't think they do). It's certainly very delicious though, using mustard, cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, pepper, and ginger to spice the Indian black tea. The mustard, pepper, and ginger create a wonderful heat that spreads through your mouth and lingers in the back of your throat. When you add milk and sugar (which you're supposed to do while making it, but in case anyone had lactose intolerance or didn't like milk I left it out and left the sugar out separately too so that people could decide how sweet they liked it), it tastes like spicy chocolate milk to me.

This chai is my favorite winter drink. It's not winter right now, sure, but if you were kidnapped one day and kept in a dark box for so long you lost track of the days and was then released into South Hadley right now you would think it was. Hahahahaha. We heard there was a risk for snow this weekend. SNOW. IN MARCH. And not even the middle of March, the VERY END! Crazyness. So spicy chai it was.

I have some pictures, but I need to either get permission or edit people's faces out of them first before I put them up. Forgot about asking about that last night. Oh well. Hahaha.

We all had a great time and I got to teach even more people about the differences between herbal teas and actual ones. Haha. I really need to add an oolong to my collection though, because I really only have pu-erh and green tea. I don't have a white tea either, but I don't really like white tea, so I consider my white pu-erh and pu-erh buds to be good enough. Hahaha. And my chai is the only black I'm ever going to keep in my collection, thank you very much. Ugh. Black tea just tastes so horrible to me. It tastes like orange peels! But not as sweet! Maybe I've only had bad black teas, but black tea is really not my thing. I think I had the purple tea from Phoenix Tea's as a black tea though, so maybe I do like one kind of "black tea" (all these colors and confusing me now hahaha), but I might've had it as an oolong instead. Either way now that I'm thinking about that one I need to add it as well. Haha

I think I need to make a graphic about the different kinds of tea here soon. It seems that enough people read this. And on that note, yay! Thank you all so much!! It makes me really happy and encourages me to keep writing. Hehe.

Today I am drinking my special little 2008 Menghai Hong Yun. This was the first pu-erh that I bought, and I was lucky that it was especially delicious, so that's why it's special to me. It's not the best shu I've ever had, but it's been really kind to me. Interestingly enough, sometimes it tastes better than others. Most times it comes out dark ruby red, and it's earthyness is sweet and smooth. But sometimes it gets that accursed metallic taste! UGH! I hate it so much.

I thought at first it must be because of the water, but changing to spring water didn't help. So then I thought maybe I had ruined it by improperly storing it somehow, but then it came out good the next time. Today I thought it might be because I made the chai in my Breville last night (it's essentially a pot, so I use it like it and even make spaghetti in it hahaha), which left a distinct chai smell to it that I thought I'd gotten rid of until I boiled some water in it and smelled the water after I noticed the tea tasting bad. So I washed it again (both the Breville and the tea haha), and the tea tasted better!!!

But five washes! Five!!! They were all very short, but FIVE!!! I might as well go for the full seven or something now! Hahaha. I say that because I was told by a Chinese friend of mine here the other day that the usual number of washes was at least three, and if you wanted to be really traditional and ceremonial then you'd do like seven or something. I can definitely taste the chai in my tea now though (terrifying!), so I'm going to do a super cleanse on my teapot and boil lemons in it twice or so. That works really well and makes it look really pretty.

But back to the tea. I think I need to start exactly timing how long each of my washes are for, if not the temperature of the water too. Sometimes I think cooler water (190 instead of 200+) works better, but that doesn't exactly make sense to me. Hahaha. That doesn't mean it isn't true though. So I guess I'll have to test for that as well. But I definitely want to know what it is that makes that taste and how to avoid it because I really want to do a pu-erh tea party next, and nothing is more of a real tea turn-off than metallic tea.

Maybe I should start with green tea instead. Hmm.

By the way, RACHEL MADDOW IS COMING TO MOUNT HOLYOKE TONIGHT! Aaaaahhhh!!!!!! It's so exciting! I love Rachel Maddow. She's really straight forward with her opinion and puts together a lot of complicated pieces that others don't seem to do. Plus she has a sense of humor. Sometimes I think her analysis of what some people mean when they say things is a little too simplistic, but I like how on top of the non-mainstream things she is and the direct points she makes about all things politics, and she is always stunning at analyzing the consequences of what people say. From what I've heard about her book, Drift, it sounds very interesting and I'm excited to see her tonight not just because of her, but also because of what she'll be talking about. But all of that is besides the point of tea, so don't worry I'll stay out of politics here except for this one little post. Hahaha. Unless they have to do with tea, which economic related things might, but I sincerely doubt it for now, and I've already basically signed this blog up to do so many things that I figure that unless I take a class about the politics of the tea trade, politics really can stay out of this blog just fine. Hahaha.

Library Green, Basil Sheng

First off, I would like to mention here that if I could drown in any spice, my choice would be that of basil.

I. Love. Basil.

Basil is the heart of food. A world without basil... is chaos!

And sadly my school does not use basil very much in anything but soup it seems. And even then, it still doesn't use as much as they should. So I bought my own thing of basil. And now I'm making split pea soup from scratch (it was a mix, but a mix of scratch ingredients! Lol), and it has a ton of basil and is making the entire first floor smell absolutely wonderful. I love it so much!!!! I just want to bottle this scent up as perfume. Hahahahaha. Eau de Basil. Or something like that. I speak not a word of French, sadly.

Speaking of languages, I need to decide which one to learn. It's almost definitely going to be Mandarin, because an extraordinarily amount of research now days is coming out of China, especially in areas I'm interested in. So that should help me there. Also, there are economics programs in China, so if I double major in Biology and Economics, then I'll have a program I could go study abroad with and get credit for! But on the other hand, more countries speak French or Spanish, and I really also want to learn Korean.... But that's alright. I will learn them all one day!!!

Anyways, on to the purpose of this blog. Haha.

Today was like 80 degrees out. Way too hot! I like it 50-60 and cloudy. At 80 and sunny my eyes are blind! Blind! I need clouds. Otherwise I look like I'm about to unleash the fury of the seven hells on everyone and everything around me. Hahaha.

So I brought my portable tea tasting set, a clean water bottle, and some green tea with me. Hehehe. And then I filled up my water bottle with the filtered, cold fountain water at the library, and made delicious green tea for me and my macroeconomics study buddy. I'm very happy to announce a new tea convert!! Hahaha! She thought that green tea was normally bitter. Augh! The anguish! So I had her try my Gyokuro (yes, its been a while since I got it now, its on its very sad last legs, but its still good for at least 3 brews!) and she loved it! Yaaayyyyy! So that was fun. And I got to explain all the different kinds of tea to her, so we had a good time. And then we studied macroeconomics, and I had even more fun. Haha.

Then I went home, and decided to try my new sheng pu-erh. That's right! I finally have a sheng in my possession!!!

On Wednesday my friends and I decided that we wanted to escape the clutches of campus. I love Mount Holyoke campus. It's beautiful and peaceful and quiet and pressure free. Other people though tend to see it differently it seems. Many of my friends refer to it as a "bubble" and always talk about how bored they are and how much they want to escape the bubble. Haha. I don't like going shopping because it reminds me of money I do not have, so I don't really mind staying in a pretty much store free bubble where there are lot of events to go to and clubs to take part in and people to talk to. Sometimes the food gets kind of dull, but I just need to hit up Goodwill here one of these days and pick up some pots and pans and things and sneak over to the Big Y too so that I can get some ingredients and just start cooking to alleviate that stuffiness. If I have things to do, I'm a very satisfied person. Boredom is the worst thing in the world. I'm saving up my money to go back to Japan here soon, and I'm making sure to bring some sleeping pills with me this time because there is no way I'm riding that 11+ hour flight conscious again. Never never never never.

So we went to Northampton! Northampton is the home of one of our little sister colleges, Smith College! (I say little sister because Mount Holyoke was the first of the seven sisters hehehe!) We obviously didn't go to Northampton to go to Smith though. In Northampton, there are a lot of really cute little restaurants and shops. So we went to go look at all of those. We stopped by some piercing places (pictures soon! Just kidding, hahaha), a frozen yogurt shop, had lunch at a Japanese restaurant (I'm feeling really homesick for Japan funnily enough), and just generally walked around and had fun with each other. At one point, just after I'd been talking to one of my friends about the virtues of loose leaf tea and being sad that there wasn't any loose leaf tea stores in the area, I caught sight of something amazing! A culinary shop that also advertised loose leaf tea! Oh my goodness. You have no idea how excited I was. Actually, you might be able to imagine. But either way, I was really, really excited. So of course we stopped by over there.

The store is called Cooks Shop Here! and the tea company located inside it is called Tea Trekker. I like their name. I also loved that what I found on their website which I glanced at briefly before going in (ah, the magic of modern smart phones), which was that they go to the farms themselves in many different countries to secure their stock. Plus, they had Pu-erh in it's own category! I should really expect that of tea stores by now, but way too many still put it under black tea. UGH! The tragedy of it all.

I was really hoping that they would be like most of the shops in Seattle and do on the fly tea tastings for my friends, but sadly this was not that kind of store. They have more scheduled tastings instead, that you sign up for online it seems. But that's alright because at least they did sell very small samples of tea for very reasonable prices, and the owner was very knowledgeable about all of his teas. Plus one sign that I really liked about his store was that he had the same Red Label Dragon Phoenix Constellation (龍鳯星座) that I have thanks to the amazing Phoenix Tea Shop. So I figure the owner's tastes must be fairly similar to what I'm used to and good. Hehehe. 


As you probably know already, I'm a really big lover of the dark earthy rich shu pu-erh. Mmmmm. Just thinking about my 2898 makes me happy. Because of this, I've focused mostly on expanding that part of my library as opposed to the sheng side, leaving me with well, no sheng. Hahaha. And this wasn't a problem when I was just serving myself and sometimes family members, but now that I'm at college where I have a lot more people over more frequently (and I'm now the tea hostess for my dorm! Strangely enough, this is a legitimate position hahaha), so I want to show them as many sides of tea as I can, which means I've come to need a sheng. 


Right before I left Seattle I did a little bit of sheng searching. I went over to Healeo since McIntosh Tea is more or less located there as far as I understand it. There I found one really REALLY great little sheng that I absolutely loved. It's hard to get me to actually buy anything though. I typically need at least 3 days before making any purchase over $15, and honestly it was just a little small for me and felt a little too high quality for something that I was probably going to go through fairly quickly in college. So I passed it by and kept on searching. Obviously I did not find my sheng before I left Seattle. But that was also a space issue. I already had so little space, there was really not a good possibility of me being able to take much more with me. Hahaha. So I figured I'd search for something in real life, and then think about what I'd tasted, and then maybe buy it online once I'd gotten into South Hadley. This didn't really happen either, so again, I was left without a sheng.


But when I stopped by Tea Trekker, I found a really nice sized sheng that was within my price range and actually even older than the shus I have! So happily, I purchased this cute little 2007 Rong's Mengku (勐库戎氏) sheng. (As mentioned earlier, I do not know Chinese, so please forgive any poor translations I may make. I'm working off of Google translator and what I know from Japanese.)

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised now that I look at the other teas by the Mengku tea factory that I liked this one. Though maybe that's not so surprising, I don't know. But either way, this is apparently the company of my absolute worst ever experience with a pu-erh. Hahahaha. I think it was the 2008 Mu Ye Chun "99801" (but don't hold me to it!) that I tried from Uwajimaya (it was the 2nd one I'd ever bought! Go easy on me! Haha) and it was HORRIBLE. Ugh. I don't want to think about it at all. It was so bad. Seriously, let's not go there right now. Hahaha.

So of course now that I have this sheng, I have to try it out and share it! So I made it while making my basil crazed split pea soup, which I didn't really get to eat with it because it took freaking two hours to cook and by then I'd given up on eating that soup and just ate some leftover udon and drank my tea. Hahaha.

I was really surprised by the first brew, because it was a lot smoother and sweeter than I expected. In fact, I really didn't consider it to have that much taste at all. But it did smell wonderful! Haha. But then, in the second brew, helloooooo sheng! Yup. That's when it finally woke up. I don't think I washed it well enough maybe. Either way, the next few brews were really delicious. I got at least 3 more good ones before I started to need to keep it in for longer, and eventually I got I think 6 brews out of it before I decided it was done.

Those 4 after the first one were wonderful. This was a mellower sheng, but it still had a what I will always associate with as tobacco zippy spicy flavor that I really enjoy. I don't like smoking though! Once I tried to convince my mother to make a bet with me that if I could go through high school without doing drugs then she'd have to give me a few hundred dollars. She laughed and said, "Yeah right, like you'd do drugs." And it's true. Hahaha. I don't need anything to make me more outgoing or happy so there's no desire to use them and adding on the fact that I like using my lungs too much makes it even less likely that I'd ever do anything like that. But I still like that smell and taste in my tea! Haha. One of the girls I was sharing it with described it as smelling like henna too! I was really surprised, but it makes sense because henna usually has tea tree oil in it (from the melaleuca plant, not camellia haha) which has the same sort of spicy kick to it that this did. It was also slightly sweet and reminded me of spring sunshine.

I actually like it so much that I'm considering getting one to let age. But I'll keep drinking this one for now and we'll just see where that goes.

Now comes a big question, should I try this one out in my Yixing pot or not?

Midterms are over!

Yay! With my last Macroeconomics midterm today, my midterms are now over! I feel so accomplished! Now I can finally do that scientific paper review for you guys! It's either going to be on caffeine content in tea (because I am unsatisfied with source citing on other resources about this), or L-theanine, my favorite amino acid ever.

But more importantly, my fairness pitcher finally arrived today! It took a while because I bought it from China on ebay. I would have bought it locally, but I don't know where any local reasonably priced and quality tea shops are in the western Massachusetts area, so ebay was my next best choice. Please keep in mind that I'm also a very poor college student (who probably unfortunately loves tea more than money). Either way, it's really funny because I'm glad I know Japanese! Since all the care instructions for it are in Japanese on the box. Haha!

Also, I finally got to try Gyokuro brewed by ice! MMMMMMMMM. This is why I love Gyokuro so much. Oh my goodness. It was like walking into paradise. Or rather like paradise slapping me in the face. It's such a shocking taste, really. Haha. But sooooo gooooooooood. And my friends really loved it too. ^^ You know though, this was actually difficult to do as a college student, because of the problem of ICE. Haha. I'm really lucky my roommate has a mini fridge, but that really doesn't provide me with a lot of ice! And ice is horrible about absorbing scents and things, so there was a moment of panic before I knew my roommate's mini fridge had an icebox when I thought my only option would be the communal fridge's ice, which had BROWN THINGS in it. Why would ice have brown things stuck in it??? What do these college students do??? Hahaha. But really. It was extremely disturbing. But then I found out my roommate's mini fridge could make ice, and the rest is now history.

It Was Raining!

I am from the Northwest. Born and raised, I love the rain. I love, love, love, love, love, love, love, LOVE the rain! The rain is so soothing! The sound of it as it grows from a silencing mist to a pitter of small drops to a rumble of larger ones on the roof, then the splats as it falls off the edges of the gutters on to the cement, and then the inconsistent plops as the clouds fade away, but the water remains and runs down into the dirt or drains or wherever. And then the smell! Did you know it has a word?? Petrichor. Look it up. I learned it on Doctor Who. Yay for British Sci-Fi!!!! (But seriously, Doctor Who is AWESOME)

So anyways, it rained today here. Normally it's either dry and cold, or snowy and cold, and I've been told it's supposed to be even more snowy and cold than it's been this time of year, but today it was like 40's and raining! Very NW weathery. I felt nostalgic, and gave up my normal super warm eskimo coats for a super West Coast represent hoodie. And of course, I did not use an umbrella! Because umbrellas are for wimps when it's not raining hard enough to make them useless anyways. Hahaha. (It was only misting anyways, but I still saw people with umbrellas and hoods up! Haha!)

There aren't too many other people from the Northwest here, but one of my good friends is and as I was putting up news posters around the dorm she came in from the outside, SOPPING WET. Hahaha. (It apparently started to rain a lot harder after I'd gone inside a few hours earlier). We laughed for a bit and then she had the greatest idea ever, "Hey, do you want to go out and have a mud fight?" Hehehehe.

Mud fights are wonderful. It was really hard to find good mud, but eventually we found something that'd work and went at it for long enough to cover us with mud. Hahaha! So much fun!!! But it was getting colder, so we were freezing and decided to go take some hot showers, and then regroup in the common room for tea. :)

Because tea always just adds an extra perfect touch that finishes off a great evening of mud flinging on a Friday evening. ^^

Something I Made While Obviously Not Procrastinating

Welcome to College Tea Time!

Hello everyone,

My name is Miss Myr and I'm an extremely proud student at Mount Holyoke College who is a true aspiring loose leaf tea connoisseur. I first discovered the delights of loose leaf tea a little under three years ago on a high school choir tour of Victoria and Vancouver in Canada. We stopped for a small performance and visit at the Vancouver Chinese Garden, where in the store I found a bunch of absolutely adorable little tin boxes. They were so cute! I noticed that there was tea in them, and so I got a nice Jasmine one that I knew I'd like, and then noticed one that I'd never heard of before: "Pu-erh". "'Pu-erh'? What on earth could that be?" I wondered. And so I bought it. Some of the best things in life come from following your curiosity, and this was definitely one of them. I tried this tea, and it was so delicious!!!! I was shocked! I'd never had such delicious tea in my entire life!!! Then I started doing research on it online, and discovered that it was basically the best tea ever for a student, because you didn't have to care about the temperature of the water and could more or less steep it for an indefinite period of time (unlike the super finicky green teas). Thus started my journey into the world of fine tea.

Now, nearly three years later, I attend the oldest women's college in the United States, Mount Holyoke College. It's a paradise here. I absolutely love it. The academics are challenging and rewarding, the students interesting and extremely diverse, the professors approachable and caring, the policies and respect for students high and comforting, the dorms homey and beautiful, the campus huge and stunning, and there are so many things to do!!! It's crazy. Four years will not be enough here. Haha. But also while I'm here, I really want to introduce quality tea to all my friends and acquaintances here. It was really funny because when I first found out who my roommates were going to be and was in the process of emailing them, one of them told me she liked tea too. Then we met and she now laughs basically every time she looks at my collection and refuses to show me her's because she didn't realize just how much I loved tea. Hahaha. I have so much tea ware and tea. And hopefully I'll be getting even more soon! Hehe. Drinking tea every day really depletes your supplies, you know? Now if you know anything about tea you might think, well, it doesn't deplete it that much if you get all the brews you can out of your leaves. But I do! Part of my problem is that I share my tea. Hahaha. I have some really good brews that I just love to share by grabbing people from my dorm's common room and being all "Hey! Get in here and have a cup of this!" It's lots of fun, and then my friends leave with a new appreciation for tea which is the best thing ever. <3 Spawn my tea addict minions! Spawn! Just kidding. Hahaha.

The purpose of this blog is to post about various aspects of tea and being a young tea connoisseur in college. I hope that this will reach a lot of my friends here at Mount Holyoke and anyone else in college or interested in tea!

By the way, my posts may not be too frequent. I DO go to Mount Holyoke College, number stupid freaking 12 on the list of most rigorous colleges in the US, 5 rankings above Harvard College. Haha. Why do I go here again? Oh right, I actually wanted this kind of academic rigor. Haha. (Sighs) :)