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.

One week till Japan!

That's right. You heard me, people. In about one week I am going to lose basically an entire day to airplane travel as I fly over the Pacific Ocean to the Land of the Rising Sun.

I haven't finished my travel plans yet, but for the most part that's perfectly fine with me since I just want to go out and about to as many places as possible. Some others who travel there frequently have suggested that I just get on a train and go to a more rural spot to walk around instead of visiting only the big cities, and I think that sounds like a fun idea. I almost definitely want to do this in a tea growing area too. But we'll see, we'll see.

My roommate has already left for her winter vacation so I'm stuck drinking my tea all alone tonight. I have three new plants that I love and adore. I haven't given them names yet, I suppose I should wait to see if they can survive the winter without me before getting too attached. You know, like how in Game of Thrones the Wildings don't name their children until they're 3 years old? Hahahaha. I'm going to put a bowl of water on top of the heater to humidify the room for at least a portion of the time I'm away, which will hopefully help them out at least some.

In my loneliness without my roommie, I've also taken to spoiling the heck out of my teapets, ShiShi and KanKan.They're just so adorable and sweet that I can't help but pour delicious tea on them! I really enjoy seeing ShiShi turn dark because of the water and tea and KanKan turn light because of the heat.

The other day I was drinking Fenghuang Dan Cong Oolong from Phoenix Tea (which is AMAZING by the way) in the kitchen and noticed something really pretty. There was a rainbow coming from the window and running over ShiShi's nose!

The sweet smell of the tea, the peaceful lack of any noticeable sounds, and this colorful presentation made that a very wonderful morning.

*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.

I'm Such a Tea Geek

And I say that proudly! So many people go, "Oh, no you're not! You're a tea nerd! Not a geek!" as if geek is a bad thing, when I say it proudly. Hahaha.

But anyways, I just FINALLY got rid of my flighty mind by doing a bit of research on tea! I found 8 new articles that I was able to download and about 8 others that I had to request from the Five College Library. I hate UMass- Amherst. Apparently they have all the articles I want. But then again, if they were at Mount Holyoke, I would be the one who would have to go and find it and scan it, which would be a major pain, so haha for them I guess!

Some quick tidbits on the articles I found:

• L-theanine improves attention and task-switching, but it is not sure on the alertness part, and seems to be most potent in combination with caffeine!
• L-theanine may actually be highest in black tea! (Poor me, considering I hate black tea and it's quantity is significantly diminished in tea with lots of milk apparently too which is the only way I'd ever drink black tea hahahaha)
• L-theanine protects your liver!
• L-theanine helps schizophrenics!
• L-theanine helps significantly decrease smoking!
• THERE IS SUCH A THING AS ALBINO TEA!
• Black tea helps renal (kidney) transplant patients recover!
• And that kind of thing. There was much more. ONE DAY I will finally post summaries of all these articles up here, so that people from non-science backgrounds (and even those of science backgrounds but from non-biology disciplines) can have some extra excuses to justify their love of tea. Maybe I'll even get in to learning more about the biochemistry behind coffee and do comparative research. La la la one day over the rainbow... Hahaha.

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.

Who am I kidding?

I don't know enough about aging pu-erh right now nor do I have enough money to go around amassing tea that I'm not going to drink. Hahahaha.

But either way, today I did something really funny. Haha. So yesterday I made spaghetti with friends. And with spaghetti comes marinara sauce! And with marinara sauce comes awesome glass jars with lids! Hahaha. And as every Northwesterner knows, mason jars make for great mugs! And today I have proven that they make great makeshift glass teapots too! Hahahahaha!

That's right! I made tea in a mason jar! Hahahaha! One of my filters for a tumbler fits perfectly in the opening of the jar, so I figured I might as well have fun and make tea in it too. Now I have a large teapot for my pu-erhs which I can't make too easily in my Breville! I love my Breville and all, but it doesn't really do less 30 second brews easily, so it's not the best for large tastings. I was thinking about getting a larger gaiwan (the one I have now is good for 4 people max and at that point your serving is super tiny), but I'm feeling protective of my wallet at the moment and would rather not spend even that much money, thus leaving me without a teapot bigger than 8oz! Until now! Hahaha! Now I technically have a 24oz teapot! Hahaha! I feel super hippie and college student-ish. It's lots of fun.

 Isn't it beautiful? Haha. That is also my new Mengku sheng in there too, just to let you know. And it was again a lot less spicy than I keep expecting it to be! Year 5 is definitely an interesting turning point for shengs I guess. Ah, I love this journey.

Oh and I found out something really cool the other day, apparently students can be instructors for classes during our intersession term in January! Hehehe. I was thinking of seeing if I could teach a henna class and a tea class. I know I'm not an expert on tea or a tea master, but I would absolutely love to be able to share my love of tea and what knowledge I have with more people so easily (and get paid! Haha). Plus then I'd have the funding and the excuse to buy more teaware and tea! Hehehe! But we'll see. I feel a little premature to start teaching other people about tea so seriously like that. So maybe I'll just stick with henna. What do you think? I was also really hoping to be in Japan for that winter break time period (we don't have to attend the intersession term), so maybe I won't do that this year... But again, we'll see. Hmm, I wonder if I could visit a tea farm when I'm there this time around! That would be so cool!

Speaking of Japanese tea, I'm considering learning Chado, because I really have a lot of respect for it and would also like to expand my Buddhist practice, but that's just an idea I have arbitrarily floating around right now, and I definitely don't have the time for that this year, and if all goes well and I get into the classes I need for next semester, I really won't have the time for the next 4 semesters either! Haha.

So I don't know if I've mentioned this on here before, but I want to be a biomedical researcher. I LOVE SCIENCE. You might have realized that by now. But really, I LOVE SCIENCE SO MUCH. Almost three years ago now I was extremely lucky and had the amazing opportunity to intern at a university hospital research center. Going in my intention was to explore the research side of medicine and confirm that I did not want to be a part of it. Haha! That's hilarious because I left with exactly the opposite mentality. I fell head over heels in love with research. I'm pretty sure I ended up working like 50 hours on average per week there instead of the required 40 because I stayed after almost every day and I even went in on weekends sometimes. I was extremely happy to get up every morning in order to go to work and didn't really want to leave at the end of the day either. Haha. It was just so exciting to go in and not know what you were going to find when the project was done. It was also really fascinating to learn hands on how cells and the chemicals in the body worked. Just thinking about it all makes me so happy and excited about it all over again! So I left knowing I wanted to be a researcher for certain.

To do this, I would preferably like the MD/PhD combo degree. If I can't get into that, then an MD, if not that then a PhD, and if I can't even get a PhD then I don't know how on earth I'm even alive. Hahaha. And it's not like I want just any MD/PhD degree either, I really want to get into one of the few NIH sponsored programs as well, because then it's F R E E. Woah! A 5 year doctoral degree, free!!! That would be a dream come true. So in order to even qualify to get in the first place, I obviously have to take care of some pre-med requirements. These requirements differ slightly from med school to med school unfortunately. I decided however, that Harvard's would likely be of a very high standard and am going off of theirs. I figure if I can achieve their standard, it will cover whatever requirements other med schools have as well.

I think I'm definitely right because they changed their requirements for the year I'd be entering (2016) this year, and basically added on an extra year of intensive physics classes and biology and chemistry classes. ...THANKS A LOT, HARVARD SHOWOFFS. Hahaha. Just kidding. I would've been taking most of those classes anyways, and they all look really interesting, so I'm sure it'll be fun.

So after figuring out which classes I'll therefore absolutely have to take I realized that I will qualify to basically be a Biochemistry major with a Physics minor. Hahahahaha. And not only that, but for the next two full years I will have to take at least one biology, chemistry, and physics class per semester. Technically I could put off one or another for a year and ease up the load a little, but I work better under a bit of stress and when I'm extremely interested in a subject. I feel that I definitely need to have a balance though, and so I'm trying to decide between Asian Studies, Economics, International Relations, or Buddhist Studies for my 2nd major or my minor. I'd rather do a double major instead of a minor (and I only need one music class to take care of my last distribution requirement because this year was so well rounded! Woot!) and I have like 13 class spaces that I could put whatever I want to in, more than enough for a 2nd major, so it's not like I won't have time for it.

But anyways, the future is certainly packed isn't it? Yup. And now I need to go do homework like usual. Hahaha. Time for more tea!

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.

Yeah, Yixing Teapot!

Yay! I have finally broken in my first Yixing clay teapot today! Isn't it adorable? I didn't have any room while moving from Washington state to Massachusetts so I had to leave my large teapots and only brought my two little ones (this one and a ceramic one).

I've been really curious for a long time what effect brewing tea in a clay teapot had on the flavor of the tea. Certainly it made me feel a lot more special, and I enjoyed my tea more, but I wasn't really interested in drinking two full pots (albeit small pots haha) of tea so I'll wait for some time next week when my friend whom I think I might have hooked on pu-erh (which is only what I'm going to use in this pot) comes back from afar. I would say that my tea tasted better than usual, but it's REALLY good pu-erh (LongRun's 2898) already, and I just recently read an article about how people couldn't tell the difference between dog food and some french dish when it was dressed up properly... Haha. So I will do a blind taste test on myself here soon, brewing it in both the Yixing and ceramic teapots. Certainly though, when I put hot water in the yixing teapot, WOW. What a SUPER earthy smell!!! Geez! It was like I had my face pressed to a wet forest floor! Hahahaha. It smelled great. I also had my roommates smell it, and they were shocked that a teapot could smell like that. Hehehe. I love introducing people to new things about tea.

Which apparently I need to do even more of. Yesterday, I decided it would be a good idea to eat some chocolate cake. This was an actual thing I had to think about for a few seconds, because I really dislike chocolate. I love chocolate milk, but actual chocolate gives me a headache and really upsets my stomach. I have a legitimate reason for disliking chocolate!!! Stop hating on me!!! Hahaha. You have no idea how hard it is to go to a woman's college and dislike chocolate. But anyways, I said this, and one of my friends started hating on me. So I told her I had this great tea (2898 again) that tasted a lot like it (it's so THICK and has a really sweet and dark earthyness) and suggested that she should try it. Then, she had to go and say the most nonsensical sentence ever that way too many people say all the time:

"I don't like tea."

BULL FREAKING S****.

The best tea people who say crap like that have ever had was either Lipton or whatever they just willy-nilly serve at Chinese restaurants (I'm assuming it's most commonly an oolong). Their green tea was always probably burnt, and well, I'd say their black tea was over brewed or something, but I don't really like black teas at all in general unless they have a ton of milk and sugar in them (a sin, I know!!). Haha. But they've definitely never had a quality Dan Cong oolong that tastes like honeysuckle, the new Purple Tea, Gyokuro made over ice, or one of the owner of New Century Tea Gallery's green teas from his family farm (not all on linked page are from his family's farm) or Moon White Pu-erh. HONESTLY. Just because you've had some stupid Lipton tea, or some super sugared up Snapple iced tea does not qualify you to say you dislike all tea!!!!!! AT ALL. GAH.

Also, I can't tell if I have a perfect opportunity to help change a bit of this right now or not haha. I was offered a chance to run a tea tasting event for a club fundraising event on campus today, but then the girl started talking about flowers and spices and I realized she (and so many other people) just lump all "tea" in one word and consider any other dried plant piece that you can put in water and drink as what gives tea its flavor. *SIGHS* We'll be discussing this further. To do anything though, I'd either need more gaiwans/pots and cups, or at the very least more strainers. Technically I have a ton of little tea bags you can use to make yourself, but tea bags suck. A lot. I tried making Gyokuro in them once. I would have gotten better results from holding them down with a spoon. Hahaha. It was like there was no infusion! So disappointing. So yeah, I think tea bags are a bad idea. I suggested we do a chai event, but again we'll have to discuss and think this through further. 

Watch out for my next post, I have time this weekend to read and analyze a few scientific articles. Comment with suggestions about what you'd like to know about tea if you'd like and I'll see what I can find. :)

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) :)