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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
A while ago I reviewed a Formosa Shanlinxi high mountain oolong from auraTeas. Not terribly long after that I received a sample of Rishi Tea’s Shan Lin Xi Gao Shan Cha Oolong, and I was quite interested in finding out how different the teas would be from each other. They are both from the Shan [...]
The first day of this month, All Saints Day, the first half of the two-day festival El Dia de los Muertos, I saw a much-needed period of un-allocated time laid at my feet, in between all of the running about, executing tasks and organizing, writing and building. I decided that this allowed me sufficient attentiveness [...]
