All the best stuff comes from china...

i have been meaning to post this for some time (like after christmas), but well i have been alternatingly busy and lazy. But now as i wait for the laundry to finish, with my wife back to being on call in the hospital, and little homework this weekend, i am finally going to do it.

Here's some new teas that i have accumulated in recent months:

Starting chronologically, the two holiday blends from Peete's were vastly different, Holiday Blend which incorporated orange rind, cloves, cinnamon and smelled like a potpourri sachet-to be fair it didn't taste as strongly as it smelled-was not my cup, 3 tries and i gave up.

But Holiday Breakfast Blend was very nice, a slightly malty and smokier version of Scottish Breakfast which finished cleanly, if a bit acidic. it was slightly too smokey for meg, but a far cry from straight lapsang souchong (which provided the piney-christmasy flavor of this tea)all told slightly better and more interesting, but not as smooth as scottish breakfast. I remember taking cups of it down to sit and chat with meg at the outdoor fireplace in our pajamas on mild december evenings-you wouldn't do that in new york.

Then as we went in to christmas there was a trip to san francisco and china town that provided everything a tea totaler dreams of. I went into a tea shop in the morning and asked for yunnan tea, but was given pu-erh, that was unsatisfactory. the woman was not particularly adept at english, which ensures her knowledge of tea, but increases the challenge of finding what you want. it was a tasting store anyway, so you were expected to pick several types and try them. I also had come prepared and researched the chinese name, and pronunciation, of my favorite variety. "d/tee-ann-hong". "Oh...tianhong cha, yes just a minute" then the woman briskly walked to a shelf and brought back a golden painted tea container roughly the size of a sparkletts water bottle, with a sign that said "golden monkey". She took it to a tasting table, and prepared it, inquiring when we had been to china. apparently this tea is not a common request of westerners, but I assured her we hadn't been, yet, and that it was my favorite.

a word about tea tastings in chinatown. i assume they are similar to wine tastings, but for two main points, 1. the tea is prepared for you right at the table, so unlike wine it is subject to the preparers skill, and the water's qualities. 2. you drink it plain, the same as wine, or coffee tasings, but really, who drinks their tea and coffee without "additives"? wine you drink plain, straight from the bottle, maybe decanted, but you don't put cream or sugar analogs in it. so a tea tasting really is less specific to how a tea will taste in your own home with all the fixins, its really just a ballpark.
it came in a bag, the bag ripped-its in a metal tin now.

The store was called Ten ren teas and unbeknownst to me at the time they are the taiwan based company that owns "cha for tea" the tea bar that meg and i frequent. and furthermore, they have a store a few miles away in anaheim-which i have yet to visit, but i'll let you know. Golden monkey is the best tea i have ever had. it tastes like warm honey, it is so mild and smooth. i prepare it in a french press, and resteep the leaves 3-4 times over the course of a couple days, and it gets milder and milder.

also on this trip we stopped in another tea store, and tasted quite a few teas with a big spender/regular at the store. he didn't like the type of teas i enjoy, he favored oolong and ti kwan yin, which aren't hearty enough for me. but it was interesting to taste the differences in a half dozen types of the same variety. one in particular was interesting, called "milk oolong" it tasted like butter. and that was fascinating. also pricey, but meg liked it so we bought an ounce for $12. when you sweeten it the taste is like buttered popcorn jelly bellies.

Then for christmas my brother and sister-in-law, in new york, sent 3 teas from a store called mcnulty's, which is supposed to be one of the largest tea stores in the us, and has a diversity that is shocking when you look on their website. they used my blog against me, and cobbled together a few types that they thought i would enjoy.
gunpowder on the left, normal whole leaf on the right

First up, was "golden gunpowder", it was the same type of tea as golden monkey, but "gunpowder" refers to a preparation where the leaves are rolled into loose clumps prior to oxidization. "pearls" refers to tightly rolled balls, and is common in green and occasional in black and oolong. "gunpowder"is also common among greens. the purpose of this preparation is that the tea brews stronger than regular whole leaf because of the damage done to the leaf tissues in the rolling process, it releases more tannins into the hot water faster. i like this tea a great deal, it has the same flavor as golden monkey, but at a strength that is almost that of a very smooth coffee. its a strong brew, but only good for 2 steepings as they tend to empty the leaves of flavor very quickly. it was an excellent choice for my christmas gift.

The other two were assams, which i have mentioned are probably my second favorite variety of straight black teas. and i am lumping them together because they give an interesting (at least to me, possibly you-if you made it this far) lesson in leaf quality/grading. I am sorry for any hurt feelings this may cause, and i assure you i enjoyed the adventure and anticipation of trying every new tea i have ever tasted, but one of the teas was not good.

Golden assam, is a whole leaf assam, malty and smooth not the best assam i have ever had, but certainly among the better, the counterpoint to this was Assam B.O.P. the difference was the grade.

There are many grading systems for teas, but the simplest is leaf condition. whole leaf is the highest, it brews smoother due to the relatively undisturbed nature of the leaf, less surface area is available to let out the tannins.
BOP on the left, whole leaf on the right

broken or parts is the middle grade and it is what it sounds like, broken leaves. more surface area, allows more and larger molecules out of the leaf and that makes it much less smooth but more flavorful.

dust or "fannings" again is what it sounds like, really tiny pieces of tea leaf. huge amounts of surface area, super bitter, and not much more flavorful than broken leaf. this is what most bagged teas are made of (filterbags, not sachets-more on that later) think Lipton.

Assam BOP, was rough! bitter as lipton, but better flavored. the kind of tea that makes you pucker. maybe it is better with milk to smooth it out, the british-and my wife and her kin seem to think so. but i tried understeeping this and it was almost as bad as drinking coffee.