There are a few places around town that sell Ito En’s bottled teas. So occasionally, amid shelves full of horrid syrrupy-sweet, fruity flavored drinks with a bit of tea in them, I can find a product I’m willing to drink. These particular Ito-en teas are unsweetened, either just tea, or just tea with one additional plant ingredient, like jasmine or lemon grass. So they taste good – they taste like tea.

But one thing that I have noticed is that at least one of these cold bottled teas comes in two completely different types of packaging. Depending where I see it offered for sale, “Golden Oolong” comes in either of these two bottles. The tea inside the two bottles is identical, but the way they appear on the market shelf is not. In fact they look so different I suspect many people would assume they’re a different drink. (Or more likely they wouldn’t encounter the variations at all. I can’t imagine the same store carrying both of them.)

The version sold in upscale, trendy or “natural food” type markets is branded “Teas’ Tea” and the back of the bottle has text about health benefits, specifically anti-oxidants, catechins, theanine and caffeine content. As you can see in the photograph, the labels are primarily blue, yellow and green. The bottles sold in Asian markets are bright orange, yellow, red, and gold, with half the text in Chinese. The back says:

The tea leaves used for this Golden Oolong are flowery, fragrant Huan jin guei “Golden Cinnamon”, and hearty and ripe Tieguanyin “Iron Goddess”. Oolong tea is semi oxidized, making it unique from green and black teas. Enjoy its robust and clean taste.

Since so much of the text is in English I assume this packaging also made specifically for the American market, but it might not be. I checked Ito En’s website and could only find information on the other one.

Aside from its chameleon-like properties, the Golden Oolong tastes quite good. Cold, out of a plastic bottle is definitely not my preferred way to consume tea, but under the right circumstances it’s a pretty pleasant drink.

Oolong Tea | 3 Comments »

For the past couple of weeks – seemingly forever – I’ve been sick with some sort of annoying viral thing that is probably a common cold. Aside from the general inconvenience of it all, one of the most aggravating aspects of it is the impact it has had on my tea drinking. I still have the desire to drink good tea, but the congestion in my head and chest makes it so that I can’t taste things accurately. Foods and beverages that are normally delicious don’t taste right, and don’t taste as good as they ought to. I have continued to drink tea, but I tend to drink tea and other non-tea infusions based on what kind of physiological change I want to effect, not based on what I want to taste.

Last week, in lieu of missing work and resting, I was taking NyQuil at night and DayQuil during the day in order to remain relatively functional. This is an effective strategy, but it made me feel like I was operating from inside a large blanket of lukewarm fog. And it was not a soft, comforting fog; it was more like an annoying, thick, impenetrable barrier between my brain and the world. Some people like that feeling. I don’t.

So after three days of the nullifying medicine cycle, I decided to hold off on the bright orange syrrupy narcotic for as long as I could during the day. Before I left for work that day I thought about whether I had any helpful, counteractive infusion-ready substances around the house. I had some gingko leaf, which is good for clearing brain fog, and cloves, which have analgesic properties and can help with respiration. (There weren’t as many cloves as I would have liked because most of them had been placed into little metal tins to be batted around the living room floor by one of the cats, but there were enough to be worth using.) Unfortunately, I did not have any mint at the time, which would have been my chosen third ingredient. But I took what I had with me to work and steeped them in a glass teapot for about five minutes with boiling water.

I can not, of course accurately describe that the resultant brew tasted good. With my palate as out of alignment as it was, it’s hard to say, but it did taste refreshing. More importantly, it helped make me feel better. If I remember correctly, I infused that same pot about three times, until it seemed too weak to be worth the effort to drink.

Hot liquids of just about any type are somewhat soothing during this sickness, but I must say that I’m more than ready to drink good tea and fully appreciate it again very soon!

Non-Tea Infusions | 11 Comments »

I generally scoff at combinations involving tea and alcohol (or food, for that matter), but I sometimes make exceptions when I’m feeling inventive, and as long as no really high quality tea is harmed in the process. The particular cocktail shown in the photos is shochu with jasmine pearls infused into it. The drink does not have a name, but it should.

Shochu is a type of Japanese liquor, stronger than sake, and made from either rice, barley or sweet potato, or a combination of two of the three. The Iichiko shochu I used is brewed with barley, and is considerably smoother than shochu made with rice. There is at least one traditional cocktail served often in an Izakaya (Japanese pub-like establishment) that uses tea – the Oolong Hai, which is Shochu with pre-brewed oolong tea over ice, so there is some precedent for the drink I made.

One of the things I was curious about when I considered making this drink was how well and how quickly the tea would infuse into the room-temperature Shochu. I didn’t think it would infuse very fast or very effectively, and I was right, but the unfurling jasmine pearls did look pretty in the glass.

And it did taste quite good, just not as strongly flavored as I would have preferred. Tossing the tea in about three days or more before consuming is probably a good rule-of-thumb.

Blends and Flavored Teas, China, Japan | 3 Comments »

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) – writer, mathematician, photographer, Anglican deacon, and perpetrator of glorious logic-puzzles and nonsense – was born on this day in 1832. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the best known of his works, and a book no doubt responsible for fostering a great many fixations on tea, was first published in 1865.

I can’t find any verification of this, but I would like to imagine that Carroll preferred a nice Keemun in his cup.

“Take some more tea”, the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

“I’ve had nothing yet”, Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.

“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question.

I’d like to add a couple of notes on the madness exhibited by the attendees of this famous tea party. The Mad Hatter can be assumed to suffer from a malady common to many milliners of the Victorian era: extended exposure to mercury, which was used in the felting process during the manufacture of hats. Common symptoms of mercury poisoning are delusional, erratic behavior and shiny red skin. The March Hare’s perceived madness can be attributed to the commonly observed crazed behavior of hares during mating season in the Spring.

The painting above of the mad tea party is by Arthur Rackham, illustrator of many children’s books and classical fables in the early twentieth century. You can view the rest of Arthur Rackham’s beautiful 1907 illustrations for Alice in Wonderland here, along with a large collection of other Alice artworks, including the more familiar John Tenniel woodcuts.

So why is a raven like a writing desk anyway?

“The Twa Corbies” (The Two Ravens) is also by Arthur Rackham, from “Some British Ballads,” published in 1919.

England | 2 Comments »

I anticipated that Puerh Special Grade, a loose leaf pu’er from TeaSource, would brew into a nice liquor after I smelled the intense sweet aroma of the dry leaf. I was not disappointed. In general, but especially in the initial steep, it was very malty, almost like graham crackers or Ovaltine. It opened up more through the third infusion, exhibiting a briny, seaweed-like character along with the sweet maltiness, but it was not at all salty. The character was something like a bonfire on the beach, with charcoal and burning caramel.

One of the notable aspects of this tea was its beautiful, rich color. The first time I made it I was not aware of quite how striking the color was because I used a serving pitcher that was made of yixing clay. It was pretty in the white porcelain lined cups, but in a subsequent brewing I used a glass pitcher, and was impressed with its bright reddish orange hue and sparkle. It was a sunny afternoon, and the tea shone nicely with the sun coming through the window and into the liquor.

Like many pu’er teas, this pu’er can stand up to very long steeps, which affects the number of flavorful steeps one can get from it. In each tasting that I did, I found the third steeping to be the most interesting and flavorful, and by the fifth it had dropped off considerably in its intensity.

TeaSource’s description:

The steeped cup has a lovely deep black/red color with a wonderful dark aroma. The liquor is very smooth and thick (almost brothlike), with great depth and richness to the flavor. It also has a slight sweet note, with no harshness or astringency.”

China, Pu'erh Tea, Reviews | 1 Comment »

A few weeks ago I ventured into a grocery that I had passed by hundreds of times in the past without my curiosity the least bit piqued, having previously assumed that it would not have anything of interest on its shelves. But for whatever reason, on this day I decided I needed to investigate, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that among its wide array of foodstuffs it held a large section of Russian items, from loaves of hearty rye bread to tins of black caviar from the Caspian Sea to Russian wines — and even better, Georgian wines, which are the wines that Russians who care about wine are more likely to drink, at least they were before the 2006 embargo, when they could still get them. (Note: I believe that it was the Russian embargo against wine from Georgia which resulted in the sudden increase in availability of Georgian wines in the U.S. Georgia needed to expand its markets to make up for the loss of its biggest consumer.)

Of particular interest, accompanying these other Russian food and drink items was a selection of teas. The array was not huge, but it appeared to provide some valuable insight into what Russians in the United States would purchase in their attempts to recapture some of the flavor of Mother Russia. These particular teas were not the expensive, refined teas that members of the Russian aristocracy would have poured out of blue and white Lomonosov “Cobalt” teapots. These were teas of the proletariat – inexpensive and convenient, most of them manufactured by a company called “Czar Nikolas II.” Although I later found out that the company also sells one-pound bags of loose tea, this particular store only sells the company’s boxes of tea bags, in varieties very much geared to the Russian palate. Along with basic green and black teas, they sell “Valentine,” which is flavored with rose petals and safflower and a bergamot-scented tea similar to Earl Grey, and “Nostalgia,” which is Ceylon tea with the addition of black currant leaves and strawberry leaves.

To get an idea of a similar, but more extensive selection, take a look through the Russian teas available through Skazka Russian Food.

It might seem a little surprising that I’d be attracted to a tea that is both flavored with non-tea ingredients and, quelle horreur!, in tea bags, but my expectation was to investigate commonly available Russian teas, not to discover the most exquisite and sublime tea taste imaginable. Plus, I have no resistance whatsoever to items that fascinate me and also happen to bear the name of my favorite film – Nostalghia (Ностальгия), by the visionary director Andrei Tarkovsky – thus the compulsion was strong to buy a box of the Nostalgia tea, so I did.

I was intrigued by the notion of the addition of currant and strawberry leaves to tea. These were two flavors I had not experienced before, but I didn’t think they’d be fruity or sweet. From what I already knew about Russian cuisine and the types of flavors that appeal to my palate, I expected this tea to be one I would like, in spite of it being so very different from the pure-leaf teas I drink the rest of the time and I was not disappointed. The non-tea taste is hard to describe. I can’t think of a more familiar flavor to use to describe what it tastes like by analogy. Imagining the flavors of currants and strawberries, but slightly pungent and bitter and without any sweetness, ought to provide an approximation of what this tea tastes like. It’s kind of hard to talk about it as tea since the dominant scents and flavors are not tea, but that’s to be expected. As one would expect, the Ceylon black tea in this tea would be pretty substandard on its own, but that’s not important. Why would anyone add weird dominant non-tea flavors to good tasting teas in the first place?

I don’t have any Russian grandmothers to ask whether they like this tea or not, but it certainly fits my definition of a very Russian character. Czar Nikolas II’s “Premium Nostalgia” tea tastes like Russian tea because it is made for consumption by Russians.

“I wanted to make a film about Russian nostalgia—about that state of mind peculiar to our nation which affects Russians who are far from their native land. I saw this almost as a patriotic duty in my understanding of the concept. I wanted the film to be about the fatal attachment of Russians to their national roots, their past, their culture, their native places, their families and friends; an attachment which they carry with them all their lives, regardless of where destiny may fling them. Russians are seldom able to adapt easily, to come to terms with a new way of life. The entire history of Russian emigration bears out the Western view that ‘Russians are bad emigrants’; everyone knows their tragic incapacity to be assimilated, the clumsy ineptitude of their efforts to adopt to an alien life-style. How could I have imagined, as I was making Nostalgia that the stifling sense of longing that fills the screen space of that film was to becone my lot for the rest of my life; that from now until the end of my days I would bear the painful malady within myself?”

- Andrei Tarkovsky, from his book “Sculpting in Time”

After doing some additional reading in preparation for writing about the tea, especially the passage by Tarkovsky above, I became aware of how appropriate it was for a Russian tea in an unassuming suburban grocery store in the United States to be called “Nostalgia.” The signs of an influx of Russian culture into the area are there, from older indicators like the two beautiful Russian Orthodox churches in Seattle, to more recent signs, like the ease of finding Russian language as an option in local ATMs. But there aren’t restaurants or neighborhoods or many of the more blatant signs visible here, so I only notice the signs when I seek to spot them. I have fantasies of a Russian teahouse opening up with a running loop of Eisenstein films in one room and Stravinsky playing in the background, with banks of bronze samovars holding teapots of Keemun perched on top, but until then I can console myself with strong cups of cheap Russian tea.

(The image above is a still from Nostalghia.)

Black Tea, Blends and Flavored Teas, Russia | 16 Comments »

There’s a certain set of scents that I (and probably a whole lot of other people) associate with Christmas. Mighty Leaf’s Holiday Blend tastes like Christmas smells: like the decoration aisle of a craft store in winter, like candles, fireplaces, and red and green and gold glittery stuff. The dominant flavors that contribute to this overall holiday-ness are clove and cinnamon, which led my clove-obsessed cat to pester me the whole time the teapot containing the tea was on the table. (I didn’t give him any of the tea.)
Mighty Leaf’s description:

“Our holiday blend is a festive winter chai. Indian black tea converges with chai spices of clove, cinnamon, star anise, and ginger for a robust, slightly astringent cup. Apple and goji berries give it a slightly tart, mulled spice profile. Great with milk.”

The tea is good, but as the company’s description would suggest, it did not taste good black. It really, really needed sugar so I added some. It seemed like it might do well with milk also, but I didn’t have any to experiment with when I tasted the tea and I found that it was quite tasty once it was sweetened. I liked the peppery flavor of the blend, and I was relieved that it didn’t have the cloying, cheap potpourri flavor that I feared it might have. I also determined that it would have been greatly enhanced by a shot of brandy, which I also did not have on hand, sadly.

It is a very nice tea, and provided me with the unusual experience of drinking a type of tea that I would not encounter under normal circumstances. I very rarely drink flavored teas or blends or teas that need sugar, so it was really interesting to taste this particular tea. It was almost like trying a completely different cuisine, like trying something that is enjoyable, but struck me as not tea-like since it was so unlike the varieties of tea I drink. I think that for anyone who does drink spicy and aromatic blends and flavored teas the Holiday Blend would be quite enjoyable. It would be perfect for drinking in front of a fire surrounded by shreds of wrapping paper and relatives you don’t often see, which might necessitate adding the brandy, depending on your circumstances.

Blends and Flavored Teas, Reviews | No Comments »

Surrounded by all of the current hype touting green tea as the cure-all tonic for just about every ailment – physical or spiritual – it’s a little difficult to imagine a very different perspective, in a very different era, where green tea could be distrusted and even thought to cause harm to tea drinkers. Sheridan Le Fanu’s story “Green Tea,” published in 1872, tells a haunting tale about the dangers of certain substances and the trickery that comes in the night from the spirit world. Author of Carmilla, one of the most engaging, heavily subtext-laden vampire stories of the Victorian era, Le Fanu is no stranger to anyone who reads a lot of Gothic fiction.

Excerpted:

“I believe, that every one who sets about writing in earnest does his work, as a friend of mine phrased it, on something—tea, or coffee, or tobacco. I suppose there is a material waste that must be hourly supplied in such occupations, or that we should grow too abstracted, and the mind, as it were, pass out of the body, unless it were reminded often enough of the connection by actual sensation. At all events, I felt the want, and I supplied it. Tea was my companion-at first the ordinary black tea, made in the usual way, not too strong: but I drank a good deal, and increased its strength as I went on. I never, experienced an uncomfortable symptom from it. I began to take a little green tea. I found the effect pleasanter, it cleared and intensified the power of thought so, I had come to take it frequently, but not stronger than one might take it for pleasure. I wrote a great deal out here, it was so quiet, and in this room. I used to sit up very late, and it became a habit with me to sip my tea—green tea—every now and then as my work proceeded. I had a little kettle on my table, that swung over a lamp, and made tea two or three times between eleven o’clock and two or three in the morning, my hours of going to bed. I used to go into town every day. I was not a monk, and, although I spent an hour or two in a library, hunting up authorities and looking out lights upon my theme, I was in no morbid state as far as I can judge. I met my friends pretty much as usual and enjoyed their society, and, on the whole, existence had never been, I think, so pleasant before.”

This sounds quite lovely, so far. But then the narrative turns darker, as the central character in the story, Mr. Jennings, is visited by a spectral and menacing monkey with glowing red eyes. The tortured subject of the story solicits doctors to help relieve his affliction, including the narrator, who is also the other principal character of the story, Dr. Hesselius, who offers the following analysis not too long after listening to Mr. Jennings relay the events and facts surrounding his condition:

“By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents as green tea is one, this fluid may be affected as to its quality, but it is more frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid being that which we have in common with spirits, a congestion found on the masses of brain or nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a surface unduly exposed, on which disembodied spirits may operate: communication is thus more or less effectually established.”

Alas, this diagnosis comes too late to save the tormented tea drinker from his terrible fate. I’ll leave the details for you to discover in the story itself.

I don’t want to go too far into analysis of the Victorian attitudes about foreign religions, ideas and substances, but I will say that these are central to the story’s theme. Mr. Jennings, a pastor by vocation, becomes unhinged and haunted through his pursuit of studying ancient Pagan religion and venturing away from the standard British Isles black tea. He goes beyond the formal strictures of Victorian society, and disaster strikes him.

I tried to determine what specific kind of green tea a person in Britain or Ireland would have been drinking in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, but I was unable to find out. This was after the establishment of British colonial rule and the tea plantations in India, and after trade with China fell apart, so most tea coming into the British isles was black tea from the sub-continent. My guess is that any green tea coming in would have been Chinese, and given the troublesome relationship with China at that time, regular consumption of such a tea would have been considered at the least, a little suspicious.

You can read the entire story online: Green Tea, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, (28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873 )

In addition to reading it (or instead, if you’re short on time or attention), you can listen to the story on LibriVox.

The book image above is the cover of the 1945 Arkham House edition of “Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories.”

England, Green Tea | 7 Comments »

You have a little more than a day left to enter Steepster’s Ultimate Holiday Tea Gift Contest, which will end at 8:00pm EST Friday, December 18th, 2009. The combined prize package is quite a large quantity of desirable stuff, ranging from modern, shiny tea accessories to a traditional matcha kit, and including quite a wide array of high quality teas to go with them. The winner will be pretty well set for having good tea on the road and at home or at the office.

The contest is easy to enter. You just need to either use Twitter to follow Steepster (if you’re not already) and tweet the text from the contest with your preferred tea type filled in, or, if you’re a Steepster member (or want to become one) you can reply to the contest discussion.

For a little more information on the most innovative and unusual of the items in the prize package, the video below is its designer Joey Roth demonstrating how the Sorapot works. I also recommend watching the video that appears on the page with details about the contest of Joey Roth and Kevin Rose discussing the development of the Sorapot and brewing a pot of tea with it.

Sorapot instructions from Joey Roth on Vimeo.

Events, Paraphernalia | No Comments »

Teas Etc.’s Plum Blossom Reserve Oolong (Dong Fong Mei Zen), a Bai Hao style oolong from Taiwan, is an exceptional and fabulous tea. It is one of a small number of teas that Teas Etc. has started importing from an award-winning Taiwanese grower.

If you’ve tasted any Bai Hao oolong and are capable of calling to mind its flavor, you’ll know what the essential character of this tea is like. As its name suggests, the scent of plum blossom is a dominant element of this tea’s flavor profile. If you’ve never tried any Bai Hao style oolongs (also known regrettably as “Oriental Beauty,” a name attributed to Queen Elizabeth II, in her enthusiasm over this tea), I recommend that you do. They’re quite deserving of their worldwide repute, and this Plum Blossom Reserve in particular is a very good example of a Taiwanese oolong produced in the style of a Bai Hao. Teas Etc.’s description:

“Obvious fruit tones, crisp bright notes and a smooth finish make this a rare yet classic favorite.

This exceptional dark Bai Hao (Oriental Beauty) style oolong comes to us from MiaoLi County in Taiwan, long renowned for producing some of the finest of this superb varietal.

The high elevation, environmental conditions and synergy of the tea bush and the green leaf hopper impart a unique fruit tones, the likes of which we have not cupped since 2002-2003.

This summer harvest is oxidized at approximately 50% and was produced by an award winning tea master.”

Teas Etc.’s recommendation for brewing suggests using water between 180-185°F and I would encourage you to follow this advice. If you use water that is too hot, the tea will be a little bitter and will not emit as many of the deep floral fruity notes that make it so enjoyable. I wouldn’t get too caught up in thermometers and worry, though. If you’re brewing it Gongfu style just pour the water from the kettle into your sharing pitcher and leave it for a minute or two before pouring it into your teapot or gaiwan to begin steeping the tea leaves.

One of the most notable things about the Plum Blossom Reserve was how the deep aroma and flavor lingered for a long time after I had finished drinking it, slowly fading with time.

Oolong Tea, Reviews, Taiwan | 2 Comments »