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.
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.
I didn't think it was possible, but I managed to put in too much pu-erh into too little water. This has caused my tea to be so ridiculously thick that it's almost syrupy! Normally I like this, but this is very thick even for me. When I swirl it around it leaves trails that are noticeable from a distance around the inside of my cup. My solution? You betcha I'm diluting it as I pour it. Hahaha. But oh my goodness, this is just too much tea for one person. I wish I'd made this for a group of people. I suppose this is a good lesson about keeping up with dishes for the poor college student.
To be more truthful though, this is a good lesson about utilizing my resources properly. As I keep reminding you all, I'm a poor college student (much more so now that I finally bought my ticket to Japan for winter break!!!!), and therefore I cannot buy as much tea or teaware as I'd love to. I suppose I could convert this blog into a tea reviewing one, but I find all the background stories around tea (the research and just sharing it with people) to be a more interesting writing topic to me. Instead, I have to be very meticulous in not only what I buy, but also in how I consume. There are a few ways I could do this. Drinking less often is out of the question for me. I end up getting dehydrated when I'm too busy to drink tea for a few days, not to mention I enjoy being happy. It's not very convenient for me to put in less tea leaves when I'm making a brew too, because especially for my cooked pu-erhs, I enjoy them thick. However! I have come to the realization that I have one more option. Use a smaller gaiwan! Here is a picture of all of my tea brewing vessels:
Normally I use either my brown gaiwan or my small yixing in the back. The yixing is actually a bit bigger than the gaiwan, but still not big enough to overfill my fairness pitcher. I use it for my coooked pu-erhs, and when I finally get around to prepping the flat gaiwan I will decide what I'm going to use it for. All of those are good for sharing with about 6-8people maximum.
I love my beautiful kyusu. But it's big! Hahaha. It's pretty difficult to make anything in it to drink for just myself. I either do pu-erhs that I can just leave in indefinitely or green teas in cold water so that I don't have to worry about over brewing. I heard I could do this with lightly oxidized oolongs too, so when I open up this one I'm currently keeping safe and sealed I'll try that out.
Finally, draw your eyes to the little cute white gaiwan with plum blossoms in the front. I think I have pictures of it up from before, but anyways, this was my first gaiwan! I bought it in a very nice cute little travel set that I used extensively last year since it included a very nice ceramic tea tray. I haven't used it very much this year though, because finally I bought all of the other tea ware you see (except the black and red yixing in the back which I had before), but I've come to the conclusion that it would be best for me to use this one when I'm making tea for myself.
In the U.S., we are constantly bombarded with "BIGGER IS BETTER!" I think this trend is going away now, but as this was the theme of my childhood it has definitely left it's subconscious impact. When I bought the plum blossom gaiwan set and the previous yixing teapot, I got their small size for the sake of traveling. In fact, I thought that they would be too small for even one person. No no no! From now on I will be using my plum blossom gaiwan when serving myself. It really should make enough for me, especially considering how many times I get brews out of my leaves. I need to get away from this American "big=good" ideology and more into thinking on the smaller side and keeping everything in moderation.
By using a smaller gaiwan I use less leaves, am more mindful of how much I drink, and will hopefully avoid wasting good tea in the future like I did with making an entire thick pot of a delicious pu-erh in that large kyusu. Mindfulness and moderation are wonderful principals to live by. Let's hope they help me and my wallet along my college journey.
There are many things about college I love, but almost none more than free access to an unlimited amount of academic research journals. Since the start of this blog, I have promised all of you that I one of the things I would do would be to read and review and summarize tea research articles for you. The post before last I gave you some very small tidbits, but this post I will go much more in depth and I hope you will join the discussion by commenting.
This article, Decaffeination of fresh green tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) by hot water treatment (see bottom for citation and reference link), is not the most interesting one I've ever read. What it ends up saying is that if you boil the fresh tea leaves for 3-5 minutes in the step before rolling and drying (basically replacing the pan frying or steaming part of making Chinese green tea), you can remove around 90% of the caffeine without removing the catechins (what we love about tea).
As many of you know, there is a very large and old witch tale flying around that says that if you boil tea for 30 seconds and then discard that, your tea will be decaffeinated. This study just goes to show again that this does not happen. At 1 minute at boiling of fresh tea leaves (not even what would qualify as green tea) only about 50% of the caffeine was removed while you need to reach at least 80% to be able to consider it decaffeinated. Greater than 80% caffeine removal only happened when the time reached at least 3 minutes at boiling water. (Don't forget that what happens to fresh leaves is different from what happens to any type of later processed tea leaves that we drink from too.) When they tried 3 minutes boiling on processed leaves (what could actually be counted as green tea), they found that the leaves were essentially decaffeinated. Unfortunately by then the cell walls were so broken that 90% of the catechins were also removed, therefore making your leaves useless and likely disgusting tasting. Did I really need to tell many of you that, though? Hahaha. I'm pretty sure that when you read "3 minutes boiling on (green tea)" many of you cringed and/or may have nearly cried at the thought like me. Hahahahaha.
So why does processing the fresh leaves into green tea change the amount of catechins removed? Catechin removal requires breaking the cell walls, which happens when
leaves are broken by stirring during pan frying and definitely when rolled and dried. I wonder
if this then means that there would be a significant difference between
the amount of catechins released into the tea from something like
Longjing vs. Gunpowder green teas though? Since one is very obviously rolled more than the other.
Another one of the points it makes in discussing how to decaffeinate the fresh
leaves is that the water should be at boiling for decaffeination to
happen. Somewhere below the boiling point (between 100C and 75C)
the caffeine is no longer removed from the fresh leaf. In their table of
results from this part (see Table 2), it's interesting to see that while that basically no caffeine is removed from the fresh leaves at
50C (the lowest of the tested temperatures), a significant amount of
catechins are (~10% after 5 minutes). Because their study was about decaffeination as opposed to catechin extraction though, they did not test what happened in processed green tea leaves at these lower temperatures. It seems counter-intuitive to me that
while normally catechin removal would require breaking the cell walls, brewing at lower temperatures before those steps also released them.
Even after processing the fresh leaves into actual tea, does do lower temperatures affect how much caffeine and catechins go into the water? Or are the cells so broken by then that there is no difference based on brewing temperature? Based on personal experience, I do believe that lower temperatures change the ratio of what goes into the tea since the taste is different. I just wish I had scientific evidence backing me up and explaining exactly what that taste difference was caused by. Maybe I'll find that in another article.
Reference:
Huiling Liang, Yuerong Liang, Junjie Dong, Jianliang Lu, Hairong Xu, Hui Wang, Decaffeination of fresh green tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) by hot water treatment, Food Chemistry, Volume 101, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 1451-1456, ISSN 0308-8146, 10.1016/j.foodchem.2006.03.054.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814606002998)
Keywords: Decaffeinated tea; Green tea; Black tea; Caffeine; Catechins; EGCg; HPLC; Polyphenol oxidase
Google AdSense is changing things in December, so in order for me to not forget to change how the ads are placed around my blog, I just changed them early. I'm sorry for how annoying they are, but I'm a poor college student and any chance of any tiny bit of income is very necessary for me.
Don't worry about there being more ads, in December a few of those will go away on their own. I hope in general these ads do not deter you from viewing my blog. I sincerely appreciate each and every one of you who read my posts and if you have any complaints about the placement of the ads or anything, please let me know so I can move things around for you.
I've told you time and time again that I swore I was going to do some "reviews" and summaries of some scientific articles, but just haven't gotten around to it. UNTIL NOW!
Quick update on my tea research obsession: I have 43 research papers on tea in my new tea folder. I've switched over to using gmail a lot more recently, and have found that I also really like using their storage space that sorts with folders and all those fun things and is really easy to upload and even work with online directly. All of these articles have to do with a lot of different things. Many have to do with caffeine, but honestly that's pretty much been said and done.
A lot of the new research coming out has to do with genetically analyzing the differences between cultivars, understanding what genes do what, figure out better compound isolation techniques, understanding compound synthesis and metabolism both in the live plant and in the final production of the different kinds of tea, and a lot about the anti-cancer and anti-viral properties of different kinds of tea. There is a lot I'd like to write about many of these, but some of them I need to do a lot more digging in to before I can ensure that I can convey everything about it with pretty much perfect accuracy.
And next time I'm going to explore the effects of decaffeinating tea by hot water treatment on taste, based on the results from "Decaffeination of fresh green tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) by hot water treatment" by Liang et al., 2007.
I am finally starting a tea club at Mount Holyoke! This makes me really happy because then I'll be able to share my love of tea with even more people and help spread much better tea knowledge around instead of all that folklore unsubstantiated info that too many companies and people keep repeating. But really, I just hope to inspire more people to enjoy all the wonders of tea like I do.
One of the things I want this club to do is be involved with the tea community outside of our college. I only really know of one good tea shop in the area, but I wondered a bit about whether the extremely large cities on this coast offered any festivals like Seattle does. So to my absolute joy, I found the Coffee and Tea Festival! It has two dates and two locations, the soonest is in Atlantic City and is from November 3rd to 4th this year. Atlantic City is really far away from Mount Holyoke though, not to mention November is really soon, so I looked at the other location; New York City!!! Woo! Not much has been planned for this one up on it's website yet, but it's not until March (and during our Spring break no less!!) so I have high hopes.
I think this will be really great because finally I'll be able to get more in touch with the tea community here on the East Coast. I love my tea stores over in the NW, but let's face it, shipping is a huge pain (especially for a college student). Not to mention that I am severely limited on where to tell people to try or buy tea over here. This also gives me an excuse to go to NYC (which I've been avoiding because of how people describe it here). Hahaha.
As for how tea has been going these first three weeks at school anyways, it's been great! I've had a ton of tea drinking sessions with old friends and new friends alike. It's made me really happy and I think I've changed several people's minds about tea.
The other day I was serving up some tea in the living room and one student told me that she didn't want a cup of tea because she'd already had some earlier that day. I've since realized that when I'm serving a specific tea, I never want to use the word "tea" again. If you're offering a ride in a Lamborghini to someone who has no idea what kind of car you drive, do you simply say, "Hey, do you want a ride in my car?" No! Referring to a Lamborghini like it's any other car is akin to referring to your child as if they're just a random person. I realized that this has become the same with Macs and other large brand name items like Coke and Skittles. They make you think there is absolutely no replacement for them, even though a Mac is in it's general essence simply a computer, Coke is a soda, and Skittles are just candy. This is how I want to make it with my teas. So from henceforth, I will never refer to a tea I'm drinking or offering as "tea", but exactly what it is. On that evening I was serving up Moon White pu-erh from New Century Tea Gallery. When that student saw how much the others were enjoying the Moon White she decided to change her mind and ask for a cup too. It made me so happy!
I've noticed that just saying "tea" has also created other problems. The other night I posted something about having found a new scientific collection of reviews and research articles on Camellia sinensis and tea and my friend commented that he was shocked that tea was so complicated when he couldn't even decide if he liked green or black tea better. From this I realized that people even clump all greens and blacks etc together! Some of them are fairly similar to each other, and there are minor differences when it comes to a specific type just from a different farm or microclimate (in general, such as *the* Da Hong Pao vs. Da Hong Paos from grafts grown on different farms etc), but no one can really deny the difference between something such as Dragonwell and Sencha. Besides not even being from the same country, they taste completely different! In general, I do like green teas and will say that and clump them all together like that, but I don't think my friend even realized that there were multiple kinds of green tea. Most people's jaws drop when I tell them all kinds of tea (except for tisanes!!!) are from the same plant.
These are fairly big problems, but I think it's essential that we work harder to change how we speak about tea in order to influence how others see it so that more people will be able to understand how many wonders tea has to offer. :)
I really need to go on top of a mountain and make some tea. Why?
Because I was looking at mountain pictures or something the other day
when I noticed that the climber remarked that while he was going to make
a cup of tea on top of the mountain, he didn't expect it to be any good
because the altitude was too high to reach 212 F (boiling temp at sea
level).
Here's how boiling temperature and altitude go:
Altitude (ft/m)- Boiling Temperature (F/C)
0/0- 212.0/100.0
250/76- 211.5/99.7 (This is about where I go to college)
500/152- 211.0/99.5 (This is about where I live when on the west coast)
1000/305- 210.1/98.5
2000/610- 208.1/97.8
3000/914- 206.2/96.8
4000/1219- 204.3/95.7 (One of the lower elevations of good quality tea)
5000/1524- 202.4/94.7
6000/1829- 200.6/93.6
7000/2134- 198.7/92.6
8000/2438- 196.9/91.6 (Pretty much the highest elevation of tea I've seen online)
9000/2743- 195.0/90.6
10000/3048- 193.2/89.6
As you can see, tea isn't even really grown at an altitude that has a boiling temperature of anything lower than 205/96. Higher quality tea from higher altitudes are grown at places where the boiling temperature of water is even lower, far below 200/93!
So why are we trying to boil our tea at 212/100?
I will tell you from personal experience, tea can brew at basically any temperature, especially green and white tea (I haven't tried it with a yellow, but I suspect yellow would be the same, as with less oxidized oolongs). In an older post, you will notice me brewing Japanese gyokuro with snow. I have yet to record these differences well, but the taste of the tea will change markedly about every 10/6 degrees.
You may be saying, "Well that sounds fine and all for the less oxidized and fermented teas, but the darker teas still need really hot water." and I will disagree with you. They grow black tea at those high altitudes too, you know. Very good pu-erhs come from some very high altitudes. Also, I've always suspected that the reason why I hated red tea (black to all of you Westerners who are new here) was because it was being brewed at too hot of temperatures like is commonly done to all other teas. Sometimes I've also noticed that I really dislike my pu-erhs if they're brewed with boiling water, but I like them better at around 195. So that's where I brew my tea at the maximum. Here is my tea temp range (F):
White: 1-120
Green: 1-120
Lightly oxidized oolongs: 120-160
Dark oxidized oolongs: 120-175
Red (back) tea: 160-195
Pu-erh (and other fermented teas): 185-195
And note, these are not set in stone and are personal preferences. Also, I don't have enough experience with black teas to really tell you that is my minimum temperature for sure. But I do have one that I've been drinking recently that I like (lychee flavored is why hahaha) and I've liked it at 195.
Why are the ranges so high (especially for whites and greens)? Depends on my mood. Some days I want to be hit in the face by my tea's massive flavor (lower temp) and some days I want a more mellow ride and a hot cup in my hand (higher temp).
Note that the amount of L-theanine and caffeine will change depending on the temperature you brew your tea at. More caffeine is released at higher temperatures, contributing to the mistaken theory that darker teas have higher levels of caffeine. L-theanine is more present in tea brewed at lower temperatures, contributing to the noted relaxing effect and false idea that there is less caffeine in the lighter colored teas (L-theanine counters the stimulatory effect of caffeine). Also note that while L-theanine is noted to be in higher concentration in more white and green teas, it is not absent from the others. I haven't figured the exact specifications of that entirely yet, but I'm getting closer. Ask me if you want my sources for anything, I suppose I should just put up a post and update said post with all my sources anyways.
So in conclusion: drink tea at lower temperatures!
Congratulations College Tea Time blog readers! We have managed to pass 500 views! As much as that makes me happy, I don't really think it means too much important though, especially since I still only have 8 comments, and I think at least 3 of those are mine. Hahaha. So I'll cheer a lot more when the number of comments goes up.
On this unfortunately hot summer night I'm drinking more pu-erh like usual, listening to enya, and enjoying frozen fruit popsicles while reading. It inspired me to write another haiku. So here I am, forcing my silly and poor haiku skills on you.
Frozen fruit and tea,
On a hot summer evening,
Makes a happy me.
In addition to this, I've been thinking a lot about the best way to fill up a tea cup. Quick note, I don't think this actually affects the way the tea tastes. Hahaha. But it's certainly important for a few things things.
First off, not burning your or your guest's hands/fingers/mouth.
Being that I value my cups and brewing vessels more than my skin (skin repairs by itself for free, but broken teapots/cups/gaiwans do not and cost money), I suffer finger burns quite regularly. It hurts. Only once it's gotten to the point where a blister formed, but I've had to put on burn cream quite a few times anyways, and did I mention it HURTS??? Hahaha. So I've done some troubleshooting. Normally, as an American I think, I love a full cup. When I worked at Teavana, I noticed customers always acted like the shop and I was being really stingy by only filling the little sample cups 1/2 full.
Dear sweet customers, the tea is VERY HOT and those iddy bitty paper sample cups are not heat resistant at all. There may be a bit of stinginess involved since it takes a long time to make enough tea to fill those things once they're empty and that's especially troublesome when there are a lot of customers, but really we were hoping that you'd be able to taste the tea in a timely fashion and without causing you physical pain. It's not a conspiracy to steal food and drink from you.
If you think about it, there are three causes of this problem and more or less three solutions to keep in mind when pouring tea for either yourself or guests.
You could brew the tea at a lower temperature and just save yourself a lot of trouble. For green and white teas, this is pretty much my solution. Although that's also because I just plain like the taste of those teas better when I brew them in cold or lukewarm water.
But for herbal tisanes or oxidized teas such as oolongs, blacks, and pu-erhs though, that's really not the way to go. I suppose you could cool the tea down after you make it, but you've got problems with that too. Tea really does just plain taste better fresh. I am not a bottled tea fan, no matter the brand (out of any I'd probably trust Tao of Tea the best, though I noticed that Smith's has released a line of bottled teas too), because I'm pretty sure the longer the tea is in water the more it keeps doing. I don't know all that it does, but it does something. Hahaha. It's most noticeable with green teas where if you brew it at a higher temperature and then don't drink it quickly the tea will (if originally green in color) turn more yellow usually. I'm pretty sure this is the reason why I have never seen bottled green tea that is actually green unless they put coloring in it. But this is also the reason why I don't suggest putting the tea in the fridge. I will do that every once in a while just because I hate wasting tea if I don't have time to drink all that I made, but like I said, it's not my favorite thing to do.
Putting in ice is also not my choice because then when the ice melts (which the first few cubes will very quickly) you will be diluting the tea. Some people like to dilute their drinks, but cranberry and grape juice is the only thing I'll do that too. Would you dilute your coffee with water?
Of course, that brings up putting in milk, which I find a fairly acceptable idea for teas with spices or flowers or just plain black tea. I've never done that to an oolong though and I haven't had enough pu-erh that I wanted to waste to try it out with pu-erh except for one time when I was particularly tired which put me into a super childish "let's mix everything!!!" kind of mood. It did taste good though. And it turned out pink which was really weird. But anyways. That's a topic for another day's post.
If you were absolutely desperate to maintain your tea's flavor and cool it down quickly, I think I'd vote for freezing large glass marbles and using them like ice cubes. The glass won't interfere with the flavor at all unlike unglazed ceramic balls (commonly used to clean water and I've heard it improves tea's flavor, but that's still changing it), rocks, or plastic ice cubes (my fear would be that the heat of the tea would release BPA from the plastic into your drink, and plastic is weird in many other ways). If figure large glass marbles aren't particularly hard to find, and I'd think they'd take the change in heat pretty well which is something I'd worry more about with freezing the cup and then pouring hot tea into the cup. (I like my tea cups a lot)
Which brings me to different cup types! There's really more in choosing a tea cup than you'd imagine. You don't just want to find a pretty one or one with a texture you like in your hands and on your lips or a color to enhance your tea's color, but you also want to consider how big the cup is, the shape, and how thick the walls of it are.
You wouldn't believe the debate about which type of cup holds heat better. Thin vs. thick walled cups. I've heard that many people find that bone china (very thin walls, lovely stuff) keeps the heat in well, but I know that in Japan, winter cups are very thick. I haven't taken any thermodynamics yet so I don't trust any theories I have enough to tell you what I think. Maybe I'll test it out here soon. My mother has a huge (and gorgeous) European tea cup collection which will provide me with cups of much thinner walls. (But yet she drinks instant LIPTON. You have no idea how much it murders me when I see her doing that. It's not like she even uses a bag for crying out loud. IT'S INSTANT. *shudders*)
In some countries, tea cups have lids. I think this mostly goes for Asian ones. Almost all the infuser mugs you find from China have lids, and fancy cups for guests in Japan have lids. The idea in Japan at least is if your tea is hotter for longer, your guest will feel more welcome and stay longer.
Then of course, how much you put in the cup probably makes the most and easiest difference. If you fill up a cup all the way, it will take longer to cool down (and to drink, even those little tiny cups can manage two drinks if you fill them up too much) than if you don't. Furthermore, the tea will also heat up the cup. The advantage of European style cups is definitely their handles. Especially initially, the cup will heat up to only slightly less than that of the tea to where the tea level is inside. So if you pour in the tea to the top, the cup is also going to be hot all the way to the top. This makes it hard to hold the cup without burning your fingers when you're trying to pass the cup or just pick it up to take a sip.
If you cannot hold your cup properly, you're also likely going to spill.
Which means wasted tea, a mess, and probably burned fingers as well.
Not filling up the cup all the way is an easy fix to this, but not a perfect one. People are still going to spill tea and be clumsy. But still, better something than nothing. It's really not like it hurts anyone to force them to have to refill their cups if they want more. Honestly. I could completely rant here about over-sized USA and that NYC law, but I'll just leave it at that. Hahaha.
When your cup is filled too high it takes more times of drinking to empty it, changing the heat between each drink, making each taste colder than the last till finally you're probably like me and throwing your last half of your cup back in to your pot (I don't do this when I drink with people!) because you want at least warm tea.
Drinks and food taste different at different temperatures. Surely you've noticed that you hate cold mashed potatoes (or something), that ice cream tastes terrible when warm, or that Europeans generally think US beer tastes weak and disgusting because they drink theirs warm (sometimes I hear differently, but I really couldn't say since I don't drink beer)? Heat brings out more flavor. You want your tea to be at its best brewed temperature. But of course you want to drink it. Solution? Just don't pour in as much. Then you get to keep the majority of your tea in the pot where it'll stay hotter for longer than it would in your cup.
What's that? All of those problems had a common solution?
Just don't fill the cup up all the way. :) Ta-dah!
As you know, it's been Ramadan since July 20th, which means no eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset. Just out of sheer laziness, and because I had to get up early in the morning, I had also been abstaining from tea since I usually only had an hour or two after sunset to eat and go to bed and I needed to focus more on protein, veggies, and water.
Tonight however, I finally gave in and made myself some tea! The other day I went and bought some more of that shu pu-erh from the Red Robe Teahouse that I love so dearly and went ahead and made it tonight.
I had completely forgotten what a powerful happy impact tea has on me. Hahaha. About 5 minutes after the 2nd cup, I am in HEAVEN. I didn't quite put in as many leaves into the pot as I normally like, and I may have washed the leaves for a little too long, but oh me oh my does this pu-erh make me purr.
I don't know about any of you, but for me, it feels like most of my emotions can be most easily felt in my stomach region. Hahaha. When angry or stressed out it will be tight, when sad it'll be empty, when worried it's like a pit of snakes, when peaceful it's a little warm ball of sunshine on a breezy day, when excited a bag of butterflies, and when full of homemade applesauce made from apples in the backyard and good dark pu-erh tea it's like this:
I don't know how many of you who read this know, but this "month" is Ramadan, the Islamic holiday where you fast during daylight. I am not a Muslim, but I have been doing this holiday fast too for the last four years. I am a "only through experiencing can you truly understand" kind of person. Even when I was in 4th grade I decided that the only way to actually learn Japanese was to live in Japan. Hahaha. Of course you can gain a general sense of understanding about a situation or a culture or a language or a philosophy by reading and studying, but that understanding will not be complete unless you experience it as well. So when I didn't understand why the heck anyone let alone like a billion people would ever consider fasting for 30 days to be a good idea, I decided to try it out myself. That first year I was only able to complete about two weeks, but after that I've been much better. To sum up my lessons from this experience, I'll just say that it's an incredible exercise in self-discipline which is something that I've always exceedingly lacked in my life. There are many, many other things about this that I have learned about it and myself through fasting for 30 days, but this is a tea blog, not a religion blog. Hahaha. But I just wanted to share that really quickly so you'd all understand why the heck I haven't been posting anything lately. It's kind of difficult to drink tea when you only have about an hour to eat and drink in the morning and only an hour or two in the evening when you're preparing to go to bed. Hahaha. It's been really bothersome actually, because since I'm not drinking as much tea, I'm also not getting as much water or vitamins as normal. Grr. Hahaha. And no one better give me the pity face! I really enjoy doing Ramadan and the sacrifice honestly is minimal. I'm just glad I'm not a Muslim Olympic athlete! Some of them have decided to still fast while competing. Can you imagine that?? Yikes.
Okay, now on to the big "WOAH!" part of this post!
(I'm sure that I could find more of these, but this was my first time stumbling upon this today while in search for a tea pet (I really, really, really, really want a cute little mouse or rat that either squirts water or changes color or wags it tail or something! Or a monkey. Or a cat. I liked the little frogs that squirt on rocks too, but I'd prefer one of the previously mentioned things first.))
Go to China, tour the tea arbors, DO A HOMESTAY AND SEE HOW THEY MAKE THE PUERH TEA AND MAKE YOUR OWN.
It's a good thing I'm fairly committed to my Japan trip, because otherwise I'd do this in a heartbeat. Maybe in two years? I would kind of like to learn at least a little bit of Chinese first. Hahaha.
But that's really all I wanted to say this time. :)
About a year or two ago now, I bought a pu-erh at Uwajimaya. It was on sale and they'd advertized it well. I went home to try it and was rewarded with the worst tea of my life. I tried brewing it several different ways with different temperatures and steeping times- but to no avail. It was as if I'd just brought in a fish factory to my house. Worst pu-erh experience of my life. It's a miracle I ever bought another, especially from Uwajimaya. Hahaha.
Speed forward to last week, I went and made my recent favorite in one of the glass Teavana tea tumblers so that I could have it with me on the go on my way to work. The tea is super dark and thick, just how I like it, and my coworker spots it. I have just taken my first sip and have noticed that it doesn't taste nearly as good as normal. I attribute this to maybe not having used enough leaves, but really, I put in a ton. But my coworker asks if she can smell it and I agree. I quickly tell her though, that it doesn't normally smell like this (because it doesn't) and have to make an excuse for the poor aroma. Days later and this memory still bothers me. I couldn't understand how my favorite pu-erh could have smelled so unpleasantly fishy. Then I made gyokuro in it. Miracle above all horrible miracles, even my gyokuro smelled bad!!! I was in absolute shock. That was just so ridiculous. This should not have been happening! This couldn't be happening! But it was!
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there had to be a connection between these two incidents and that original Uwajimaya crap pu-erh. Then it dawned on me. The tumbler. At the time of that original pu-erh, I didn't actually own a real gaiwan or even a real tea pot. I brewed all of my teas in my little glass Teavana tumbler. Most of them were just fine, but they had always seemed a bit sweeter on the bad side of sweet when coming from there. I thought it was the metal mesh, and have avidly avoided using anything metal in my brewing pots for a long time, but now I don't think it was actually that.
I've been reading up on wine and alcohol culture lately (which always confuses me anyways since I don't actually drink at all), but if any of you drink wine in particular, I'm sure you'll know that the air and how the drink is poured is actually very important to the taste. This is true of making cocktails as well. There is a reason why people can get degrees in being a sommelier or bartender. Mixing and pouring and making drinks brewed from plants are actually very complex chemical processes. So it could make sense that the brewing vessel actually makes a difference in the taste of the drink, in the taste of my tea.
I bash Teavana enough as it is, so I will say here that I do not think this is anything that's out of the way their fault. I'm pretty sure there are many other companies with straight tall glass cylindrical tea brewing tumblers. Also, as I've mentioned before, some teas taste just fine in one of them. But they're never that special kind of magical that I get with brewing them other ways.
Because of how much control you have, I think I like brewing in a gaiwan best. There are however, different shaped gaiwans. I'd known before that this was for different types of tea, but I'd always brushed that off as being way too nit-picky. I think now though that there probably is a lot more truth to those sort of thing than I thought before which only goes to show again that it's better to respect the words of your elders and give them more trust than doubt. I'd talk about the different shapes of gaiwans and teapots and what those are better suited for, but I'll just save that for another post another day. Or just put tidibits of that in as I go along like usual.
By the way, that I've brought out this tea (which now tastes MUCH BETTER brewed in a gaiwan) also means that I've brought out the other shu pu-erhs that I'd had in storage for the school year and... MOON WHITE.
I have it next to me right now and I keep opening the jar I have it in to smell it happily. I might even write a poem about this tea in my next post. Tea and poems go together, right? Or maybe I should just post a music video I find appropriate and let a pro do the mushy stuff for me. Haha.
So as you know from my previous post, I've been having a hard time finding new tea sources in Portland, Oregon. This is extremely depressing to me, and so I resolved to head directly in to Portland, hoping that some small tea-shop owner just didn't know how to use the internet. Brett from Black Dragon Tea Bar Blog was kind enough to point me into the direction of the Portland Tea Enthusiasts' Alliance and J-Tea in Eugene, Oregon, but for anyone who doesn't know Oregon geography, Eugene is not very near to Portland at all, and even the Portland Tea Enthusiasts' Alliance is on the other side of the Willamette river (making it more difficult to get to). I intend to get over to the Alliance eventually, but this week I really just wanted to check one more time that there wasn't anything in Portland.
First, let me tell you a little bit about Portland. Portland is a generally large city full of hippies and hipsters and emos and punks and steampunks and gay people and intellectuals and activists and animal lovers and bicyclists and tech geeks and comic geeks and book lovers and... Okay just go watch an episode or two of Portlandia and you'll know what Portland is like. Hahaha. It's really wonderful here. But there is like no options for tea! That is not to say we don't have any good tea available at all, we actually have one major brand that's very good: The Tao of Tea. They are a tea importing company based in Portland and spread all throughout the Northwest. I had the opportunity to meet some people from that company when I went to the Northwest Tea Fest last year, and was pleasantly surprised by how small and friendly this company is. They offer a HUGE variety of teas, and essentially every store stocks their teas. Honestly, if you want a good shot at getting a good tea without too much hassle, just hit up a store and get some of their tea. My only problem with just buying from them like that is that I really like to connect to the tea shop owners or workers and join a community of tea drinkers.
I don't know if any of you have realized this yet, but tea is much more than a simple beverage for me. It's a science, an adventure, a process, a refuge, a comfort, an entry into a community, and an international connection. Oh, and of course it's also a SUPER DELICIOUS beverage. Haha. So I'm not just looking for a new source of tea, I'm looking for new people and places to go and things to do.
In terms of tea, I am new in Portland. So maybe it's not as bad here as I basically feel like it is. But either way, I spent the entire day in downtown Portland, and even though I went up and down EVERY STREET in Chinatown, I only found ONE very small tea shop.
But! This was a super cool tea shop.
In all honesty, this tea shop is almost a perfect model for how I'd want my tea shop to be like if I ever had one (which I'm beginning to want as I get more and more into tea). The place is called the Red Robe Tea House. I did find it in my initial search online, and I think they need a better description of themselves on their website, because I was not expecting what I got when I went in. The super cool thing about this little tea house is that they are essentially a restaurant. They have a full menu of food selections, and most people I saw that went in there were there for the food. But in addition to their food, they have a tea selection menu! And not only can you just buy a cup of tea there, you can get them served Gongfu style!
In a normal tea shop, I'm used to this being almost complementary, but it was also really nice to have this in a restaurant setting instead of a tea shop setting. What this included was a tea tray with a small yixing pot, a fairness pitcher, a cute filter and holder, and a pot of hot water with a candle burner underneath to keep it warm for longer. An employee washed the tea and woke up the leaves for us, telling us about the tea we'd chosen and the method of brewing for Gongfu style and then poured us our first cup. From then were able to simply pour the hot water ourselves and just chat the entire time happily. When we ran out of hot water she would replace it for us. I think this provided my friends in particular a much more relaxed first Gongfu style tea tasting because they didn't have to have the added stress of meeting someone new and being in front of someone trying to sell you something the entire time such as when I go tea tasting at tea stores in Seattle. Since I've been to them all it's not stressful for me, but this was a much more relaxed and comfortable setting for all of us it seemed. I think it's a better model for the store too, since the whole service costs something so they don't feel the pressure to have to try and sell us anything more. This also provides the opportunity to give many more tea tastings than a regular tea store can do since it leaves the tea and water with the customers, giving the employees the time to pay attention to more customers. This shop is only 10 months old apparently, and unfortunately their area doesn't get the most traffic ever, but it seemed like they already had several regular customers and were obviously getting new ones very easily.
Now of course, all of this would be useless if the quality of their product was horrible! But oh my~! The tea is DELICIOUS there. I chose a 2006 Menghai Imperial Pu-erh (2006
勐海宫庭普洱), and this happens to be a higher quality tea than I realized apparently after looking it up online. So freaking delicious!!! I forgot to mention, but the other reason this trip was so imperative was because I'd just ran out of the cooked pu-erh I had for consumption this summer. Technically I have a few I'd left at home for storage until after college somewhere, but I really wanted to keep those safe until after college. I also really wanted to find a tea store nearby to support. This tea house completely has my support; I bought more than I usually buy of loose leaf at a time. It's really, really good tea. I think the Long Run 2898 that I love so much is very similar to it, being similarly thick and dark and smooth. But I think that this one's age gives it an advantage and has made it even smoother than my 2898. I think I want to put a 2898 in storage and see how it is after college too. But seriously, this '06 Imperial goes right up there with the 2898, Moon White, Dan Cong, and Gyokuro as one of my special favorite teas. It's really just lovely.
They had about 3 other teas for drinking in store, and then they also had a nice set of bricks for sale too. I was tempted to get one of them as well, but I'm such a picky buyer that I am just going to wait for now, I think. Also, they're super expensive because they're already mostly at least 6 years old, so I think I'd rather find similar ones that are younger and therefore cheaper instead. I guess I could get one and just be super happy with it, but I also don't know how they taste, so I don't know which one I'd want. Anyways, yadda yadda I just stuck with what I tried because I loved it. I will definitely go again one day with friends again and try out a different one. If they're all very good then maybe I will trust that store's tastes more and splurge for my birthday or something. Or ask someone to splurge for me for my birthday. Hahaha. (My 20th birthday is coming up in 22 days!)
Good job, Portland! You may not have the biggest selection ever for me, but you certainly have provided me with a great first try selection!
By the way, if any of you guys have any questions about tea in any shape or form, just let me know! Please feel free at all times to comment on any of these posts pretty much whatever you want. Haha.
One of the first books I read was Winnie the Pooh. I have no idea what it was about because to be honest, I hated that book. It was excruciatingly boring to me. So someone got the great idea to give me My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett instead when I turned 6. I absolutely loved that book and the rest in the series, and still remember the adventure I went on in it's pages very vividly and happily. Somehow I became instantly addicted to books. I would do anything for a new book. I'd even clean my room or practice the piano if only my poor single mother would take me to the most magical store in the world, Barnes and Noble.
Older now, I wonder why she wasn't more appreciative of having such an incredible child. Hahaha. She laughed at me when I said that once, and said she would've gone broke if she'd bought me all the books I wanted. It's probably true. The school sent home book catalogs every few months or so and only about a fourth would be left undesired. I remember adding up the prices of them all, and it definitely came to over a hundred dollars. My mother usually rolled her eyes at me and would only permit me to buy TWO. Oh, how it crushed the poor 6 year-old me. Luckily I had a very enabling grandfather who would basically take me to the holy store of books and let me pick out whatever, but I wasn't always near him.
So the years passed. Many books have come and gone through those 14 years, and I gobbled them all up as if they were food. I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but the satisfaction I get from books is always very similar to the satisfaction I get from different kinds of food. Some books "taste" like a Big Boy's hamburger, some like a virgin Strawberry Daiquiri. My favorites were always the more complex flavors like those instead of plain things like simple corn, a banana, or noodles. One book made me think of corned beef on fresh baked Irish soda bread with a side of boiled eggs sprinkled with coarse salt. Delicious.
Then tragedy.
After I came back from Japan, I entered into the most rigorous year of my high school career. I had three AP classes and who know's what else that kept me busy. I read a few books, but I was down so far from where I'd been just the year before. Then I started a summer internship, and didn't have as much free time again. Then it was school at Bellevue College, and somehow I didn't have time yet again! I've still managed to read a few here and there, but really, it was no where near like my prime reading years in middle school and early high school. I didn't really know what I was interested in and it was so hard to find anything that tasted good anymore. I managed to find The Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin (which is best described as Greek yogurt with some exotic honey and spices- essentially crack to me), but I still didn't have my same drive to just find and read a bunch of things. When I started school at Mount Holyoke it was even worse. I didn't get to read a single book for pleasure or even just leisurely until after finals. Finally yesterday I started The Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. It's DELICIOUS. Like hot spiced apple cider on a cold and misty autumn morning in the countryside.
So yay for me rediscovering the magic I once felt through books, but that's not actually the point I wanted to make. What's super crazy about all this, is that this book satisfied my legitimate craving for something to eat. Hahahahahahaha. When I get a craving, I don't always know exactly what it's for. I have to pull up memories of different foods and see which one matches the most. This time I also thought of this book (and two other books I'm reading), and realized that I didn't want to eat food, I wanted to eat a story. Hahahahaha. By the way sometimes songs do the same thing for me, but I have to be in the right mood. Currently Within Temptation's Hand of Sorrow (which is inspired by the Assassin's Apprentice) is actually just making me really want to get back to reading that book. I swear, these things are seriously like addictions. I just absolutely have to finish this book otherwise I won't be able to think properly about anything else for a reasonable period of time. I used to take breaks from classes or work just to get in an extra five minutes of reading when I was in the middle of a book I loved. I really don't know how people take more than three days to read a book of any length. I'm bad enough doing anything else during those three days. Ughhhhhh! It's all I can think about!!!!!! Maybe this is why I stopped reading so much... I have no idea how I'd be able to get any school work done feeling like this... I just have to go read this book some more!
But first I'll get to the tea part of this post. Ended up finishing 2898 today instead of earlier because I got busy with moving between Portland and Seattle and stuff. It was AMAZING in every way possible. I'm just so sad to see it go. Since it's now left me, I only really have one cooked pu-erh in my possession. You all know how much I love cooked pu-erh. You all know how much I drink of it. 2 freaking tiny oz of loose leaf pu-erh is not going to cut it for this entire summer. I'm not sure that'll even last me until my birthday!
I decided to use this lack of supply as an excuse to scout out the local tea shops in the Portland area. I went to my trusty pal, Google and...
COST PLUS WORLD MARKET?!?!?!!!! Words do not describe.
There were about five other independent stores that I found too, but only about 4 had pu-erh. I was extremely disappointed with all of them. One of them said that pu-erh was like Darjeeling in that it wasn't actually pu-erh unless it came from Yunnan. (For those of you who do not know, this is incorrect as although pu-erh is kind of named after a particular lake in Yunnan, it actually means something more like oolong or black in that it is stating the tea has gone through a particular process. Anyone who has any disputes with this, please correct me, but seriously. We all know that there are real pu-erhs that come from many provinces and even countries besides Yunnan, China.) Another was a restaurant and only served it, and the others only had a maximum of 3 choices general, not so awesome looking choices online.
Oh, Portland. You've disappointed me so. My only hope lies in the possibility that the person who owns my fantasy store is in Chinatown and is internet-disabled.
"Coffee Floats and Tea Sinks" is apparently the title of some book, but it was a book about coffee, so I didn't bother looking at it much more than that on amazon.
Today, kind of like usual, I was looking around online for a nice Gongfu tea tray. Upon looking around, I found out that some people call it a "tea sink"! I started looking for one using those keywords, but came across something interesting about tea leaves sinking into the water instead.
I'd never heard of this before, but apparently there are 3 different methods of brewing tea concerning when you put the leaves in the water. Most of us use "Bottom-Putting Method" (下投法), but it appears that for green teas we should be either using "Middle-Putting Method" (中投法) or "Top-Putting Method" (上投法). What is the difference between these 3 methods? Well simply put, it has to do with where you put the leaves in the water.
For those of you who don't know, this can be important to consider because some leaf flavors are more sensitive to heat than other. My favorite tea, Gyokuro (a Japanese green) is a perfect example for what the different temperatures of water do to the flavors. Green tea in general likes water at about 175 F. Personally, I never like my greens at anything higher than 160F (unless it's Houjicha). When the water is too hot, it brings out a very disgusting bitter taste in green tea. When the water temperature is correct, you will taste sweeter, grassier, more flowery and vegetal flavors instead (unless your tea is either crap or too old). About every 5-10 degrees between 35F and 140F (the highest I'll ever go with Gyokuro), you will notice a difference in the flavor of Gyokuro. Why? Because different chemical components of the leaf are being pulled out (lower temperature= more L-theanine, less caffeine) and the temperature also highlights different flavors too. Ever notice how American beer tastes like crap at room temperature, but the Germans think we're insane for drinking beer cold? Or how ice cream is way too sweet when warm?
As I tried to imply with Bottom-Putting Method (henceforth BPM), this is where you put the leaves in before putting the water on top. This is what most Americans use, probably because we're so used to doing dry ingredients before wet ones when baking. You're really never supposed to do this with green tea because that's too harsh on the delicately steamed leaves (or pan fried if they're Chinese). This source seems to suggest that you shouldn't really do that with any type of good quality tea, but I guess I'll have to do an experiment with that using pu-erh and oolong (I don't have any black teas) and see if there's any reason to fuss about that with the hardier, more oxidized teas.
Middle-Putting Method (MPM), seems pretty interesting to me. In this method, the source says to fill the brewing container about 1/4th of the way with water at brewing temperature. Then you need to put the leaves on top of that and let them soak a little until they start to float down (vessel may be shaken slightly). Finally you fill the rest of the vessel with brewing water and then wait until the leaves fall to the bottom (it suggests that if they don't then your water is too cool, but that appears to be partially because it looks like they're suggesting drinking "Grandpa style") and then wait for it to brew (about a min or so) and only then drink. This is suggested for Chinese greens like Longjing (Dragon Well) and Huang Shan Mao Feng (Yellow Mountain Fur Peak) with are both delicious.
Top-Putting Method (TPM) is where you put the leaves on top of the brewing water. They recommend this for even more delicate teas like white teas apparently (they say Bi Luo Chun, but I haven't ever had this one or seen it before which isn't surprising because I'm not typically a white tea person).
I'm curious to see if these really do make an impact on flavor. For more delicate teas for sure, I would imagine that they do, but I'd like to try it out for myself too. If any of you have experience with this as well, or know anything more, please feel free to comment on this post!
On a more personal note, I'm down to my last 5 grams of my absolute favorite 2898!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness. When you get a new brick, it looks like it'll last you forever, but I'm down to the last tippy little corner now, and in another 2 hours or so it'll be gone. I'll possibly post something in it's memory. Hahaha. But funnily enough, getting a larger gaiwan and hand strainer has really increased my tea consumption. I had nearly 50 grams still left a month ago when I came back to Seattle from Mount Holyoke. Hahaha. Oh well. I've loved every drop of it!
Long Run's 2989 Cooked Pu-erh tastes extra delicious with those little Mini Babybel Original cheese rounds. How strange! I'm going to have to do more tea and cheese combinations now...
Today was the transit of Venus in case anyone failed to notice! I remember seeing it in 2004 when I was in elementary school still, and although today was cloudy thanks to NASA I still got to catch the beginning and the end on live video stream from Hawaii.
(Photo rights to STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImages from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/venus-transit-2012-live-c_n_1571654.html#s=1061477)
To mark the occasion, I decided to pull out my plum blossom gaiwan set and drink some delicious Guangdong Dan Cong from Phoenix Tea (listed in English as Phoenix Oolong when it's available). I love Dan Cong because it tastes like Japanese andromeda and clover nectar. When I was in elementary school, the green was made of mostly clover. We all loved it when it blossomed, and one day some of my friends showed me that you could get what we thought was honey at the time from the clover petals. You pick off one single closed petal and lightly bite the end of it essentially. It was really delicious as a kid, but having such a short attention span, we only did that on occasion. Haha. But this tea reminds me of that smell and taste.
I mentioned it also reminds me of Japanese andromeda. When I was even younger, before I was in elementary school, I lived with my mother at my grandparent's house. In their backyard they had huge Japanese andromeda bushes.
(Picture from http://www.plant-care.com/japanese-andromeda.html)
These little bell flowers smell amazing when they bloom and I used to play on the bush. Haha. It was a variegata variety and they get to be almost small trees when they get large. Inside the bush there weren't any flowers but just these huge branches that I could climb on and sit on and pretend I was Tarzan in. Drinking this oolong reminds me of those very fun times and so I love it.
Today, June 5th, 2012, with the Venus transit and Phoenix Oolong, was a wonderful day.
You know what I love more than anything in the world? Tea. But feedback is a close 15th or something in that list. Hahaha. I have a hot yoga class tomorrow morning so I can't say much right now, but how about instead you say something? What do you like? What don't you like? What do you want from me? Without facebook "Likes" here it's hard for me to gauge what your reactions are. Although I do appreciate the nice OVER 250 HITS! Woo!
And now, as a reward for your wonderful patience with me, a picture of my new kutani set! (Please help me think of a name for the pot, I don't really name cups, but I guess this one is special and deserves it. And preferably a Japanese name, since it is Japanese.)
My dear friends could not join me in any tea adventures today due to STUPID things like IMPORTANT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION HOMEWORK and DANGEROUS DRIVING CONDITIONS so there was no tea adventure. But I stopped by New Century Tea Gallery after service at my Choeizan Enkyoji Nichiren Shu Buddhist Temple to inquire at the very least about this year's spring harvest and found that the owner would be bringing it all back from China on June 1st! I'll have to stop in after that date instead then, which is fine and actually makes me pretty happy because then I get super fresh green tea! Woo!
In preparation for this I have broken in my beautiful new Kitani with a delicious Western Zhejiang Long Ding from Tea Trekker back in Northampton, MA. I need to drink all the Chinese greens I have up faster so that I can get more and have room for some Japanese greens too!! Hehehe. I'd really love to get some more Gyokuro, but I'm afraid my budget may limit me to Sencha. I love Sencha too, but oh my fluffy bunnies from the land beneath the bed, Gyokuro is just heavenly to me. So we shall see. It's also quite likely that I'll finally start experimenting with Matcha. Matcha is really great, I think, because I can just put it into a bottle and shake it up. Hahahahaha. Just like with putting a Chinese green into a Japanese tea pot I feel kind of sacrilegious, I also feel kind of sacrilegious for shaking up my matcha in a plastic bottle. Hahahahaha. But since I'm in college, I consider everything fair game.
And I swear to those fluffy bunnies again that ONE DAY I will summarize a few original research articles for you all here! On my list is Caffeine content, L-Theanine content and effects, and I should probably do EGCG too since everyone's always going on and on and on about that. But of course, I also want to focus on whatever cool things I can find out about Pu-erh or Purple tea. Maybe tomorrow.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
