Tea Times Blog

(Tea TImes Blog) – The weather is now cooler here, so I can now enjoy drinking hot tea again.  Today I explored the deep, dark reaches of my kitchen cabinets and found my unopened box of Equo Organic Masala Chai tea.  My sister-in-law had purchased this for my birthday. Both she and I appreciate that this tea is organic and fair trade.

As I opened the box, I could smell the cinnamon and cardamom. I enjoy the aroma of all teas before they are infused, but I have a special affinity for chai teas.  The scent of chai can awaken me from the mental fog of mornings as well as after-lunch sleepiness.

This chai is a bagged tea.  I steeped the tea for two and one-half minutes.  The “liquor” (my new word for the day) had a weak smell of cinnamon, and its taste was similarly disappointing.  I like a chai tea to make me sit up and take notice.  This one was overly subtle.  Not bad, just not great.

I will try again with a longer steep time to see if it improves the aroma and flavor.

(Tea Times Blog) I took a trip to Washington Square Mall on Monday evening.  After a too-large meal at the Cheesecake Factory, my mother, daughter and I decided to walk some of it off in the mall.

The first thing I saw was the Teavana shop.  I had to stop.  They has samples of several teas throughout the store, including Peach Momotaro, a blooming tea.  The tea is a hand-tied art piece made of white tea leaves, and chrysanthemum and jasmine flowers. The shop had the tea “blossom” in a clear glass teapot on a candle teapot warmer.  The candlelight made the clear tea glow.

The salesperson helped us each sample the tea.  It had the heavenly smell of ripe peaches.  The sample was slightly sweetened.  It was delicious.

While my daughter went around tasting all the other samples (I’m doing a good job raising a tea lover), my mom and I went to the counter to look at the Peach Momotaro tea.  The salesperson took the big metal canister down from the shelf and showed us the balls that the blooming tea start out as.  It is when you put them in water that they “bloom” in all their glory.  We were advised that the blossom teas are great for traveling because you don’t need a strainer, and each ball can be infused several times.  Mom and I were sold.

And then came the sticker shock . . . $18 for 2 ounces, the mimimum amount they will sell.

We decided to buy the 2 ounces and split it.  Sigh . . . what I do in the name of research.

By the time my daughter was on her third round of samples, the transaction was complete.  Both my mom and I took home our treasures.

So the plan was for me to try the tea at home on Tuesday, but that didn’t happen. Wednesday came and went, and I still didn’t try it.

Thursday, I decided I had to take the tea to work.  Now, I didn’t have any fancy glass teapot; just a  mug.  I plopped the ball in, and poured hot water over it.  (Yes, I should know the exact water temperature.  I am working toward obtaining the appropriate equipment.  But, for now, its just “hot water.”)

Immediately, the lovely aroma surrounded me.  The instructions were to steep for 5 minutes.  I kept looking in to the mug as the ball blossomed beautifully into the shape of a flower:  the chrysanthemum in the center, the white tea leaves encircling the chrysathemum, and a jasmine flower garland.  But then I also noticed loose leaves, flower petals and some other tea debris floating in the water. This disappointed me, because the sample at the store was crystal clear.  I tried to skim off as much as I could with my spoon.

Hot, this tea was lovely in all it peachy wonder, with the floral note of the jasmine flowers.  But as the tea cooled, it had an off flavor.  I suspect that the white tea leaves made the drink bitter because of my unregulate use of hot water.

I have three more balls to try.  I plan to buy a thermometer, a glass teapot, and a small strainer before trying it again.

(Tea Times Blog) – It is still hotter than normal in my area of Oregon, so I am continuing my search for iced drinks.

After my success with the refrigerator tea using the white pomegranate and mint tea, I decided to play some more with the mint tea.  I had lemonade in the refrigerator that had been purchased late last week to make marionberry lemonade for my daughter. So, on Friday I decided to try a version of an Arnold Palmer: a drink made with half-lemonade and half-iced tea named after the famous golfer.

I brewed a cup of the Trader Joe’s Organic Mint Melange Tea with half the water than normal.  I poured the hot tea over an equivalent amount of ice, letting the ice melt.  I filled a glass with ice, then added the tea with an equal amount of lemonade. (I used a premade, but you could make homemade.)

The minty flavor worked really well with the lemonade, creating a fun twist on an already fun drink.

(Tea Times Blog) – This morning was the first in a long while that I actually had breakfast at home.

Let me say that I most definitely eat breakfast most mornings; I believe that is the reason that I have managed to lose 20 pounds since the beginning of 2009.  But I usually eat at my desk at work.

Today, though, I was able to have a rather leisurely meal at my kitchen table.  It consisted of whole wheat english muffin with almond butter and homemade marionberry jam.  With it I decided to have a cup of Numi Aged Earl Grey Italian Bergamot Black Tea.  I usually enjoy most earl grey teas, but for some reason this morning’s was disappointing.  Although I could smell the bergamot oil, I couldn’t taste it at all.

So I was wondering if the food that accompanied my “cuppa” affected my ability to taste the tea properly.  I ruled out the english muffin and the almond butter. The marionberry jam seems to be the obvious culprit.  This means I need to find a more appropriate tea to pair with the jam.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

(Tea Times Blog) – While wilting under the 100+ degree weather, I’ve been trying to build up enough energy to make iced tea. Whenever I thought about making some, it was still 94 degrees at 10 P.M. and there was no way I was going to subject myself or my family (including the fur-covered, four-legged variety) to the effects of heating water in my house.

After “Twittering” about my problem, I was reminded by Michael J. Coffey of TeaGeek.net that refrigerator tea would be the obvious choice. Yes, but that meant that I was going to have to move my body.  I would have much rather waited around to see if the tea would have just magically appeared, but I had already done that for the last two days, and I think it was Einstein who said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Or something like that. In any case I was still going to have to do some planning in order to get me some iced tea.

I was inspired by this TeaBoat blog post. This morning, before leaving the house for work, I dug out some of Trader Joe’s White Pomegranate Tea and Trader Joe’s Organic Mint Melange Tea from my cupboard and put them in my purse. When I got to work, I simply took three bags of each the white tea and the mint tea, removed the tags , and put them in a pitcher with six cups of spring water, and stuck the whole thing in the fridge for four hours.  (Note to self:  If your going to use bagged teas, try not to tear the bags while removing the tags.  What a mess!)

I went to check on my concoction at lunch time and found a lovely pink beverage waiting for me.  The pomeganate tea, which I’ve enjoyed sipping hot without any sweetner, was even more pleasurable cold.  The addition of the mint made the iced tea a very refreshing complement to my lunch, a pasta salad.

And granted, this was a pretty darn easy way to make iced tea. Even for someone in the midst of a stifling heat wave.

(Tea Times Blog) -Day three into my investigation into the effects of brew time on the flavor of tea.

Again, I’m using Green Tea Super Anti-Oxidant by Yogi Tea, an Oregon company.  Its parent company, Golden Temple, is headquartered in Eugene.  Eugene is a progressive college town, its nickname being “Berkeley North” after that other left-of-center city in California.

Back to the experiment.  Today I set my vibrating timer (remember, I work in a cube farm) for three minutes.  I remove the bag, and smelled the tea.

To my surprise, the citrus aroma of the lemongrass was back, in a more subtle but balanced way.  I tasted the tea and, just as with the smell, the lemongrass flavor had returned.  But it was so much more complex than before.  The balance of the lemongrass with the green tea and alfalfa leaves worked well.  As it cooled, I became aware of more flavors, but I was unable to name them.  I don’t know enough about the other components of this blend, such as dandelion root, Irish moss, or burdock root, to comment fully on their roles.

I noticed there was more of an astringent quality to this brew; not unpleasant, just different.

Overall, definitely enjoyed this tea steeped for three minutes.  I’m now need to decide if I should try four minutes.  From things I’ve read, the concern would be that such a long brew would cause the green tea to be bitter.  But I’m enjoying this learning experience.  Stay tuned!