All I Can Smell is Asparagus

I'm ramping up my tea appreciation a little bit. I just purchased this amazing book, The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea, by Michael Harney. You know that saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear"? Yeah! This is my new go-to guide!

This book goes beyond the usual, and it teaches you how to be more of a connoisseur by describing how a master brews and tastes all the myriad types of teas out there.

I have yet to get myself a kettle thermometer, and a gaiwan (small lidded ceramic cup ideal for smelling the drained leaves), and I also need to dust off my water filter. But I'm certainly paying more attention to my brewing rituals and trying to assess what I smell and taste.

It's not easy. After all, I've never had exceptionally refined tastes - I've eaten way too much junk food in my life, and I believe that it has clogged my taste buds (not to mention my arteries, but I won't cry about that just right now; I've got too many teas to taste). I also suffer from environmental allergies, which sometimes inhibits my smelling capacities. Two strikes against me. However, keep calm and carry on!

A nice thing about Michael Harney's Tea Guide is that he makes you feel very at ease about tea tasting. He suggests that you drink what makes you happy, what puts a smile on your face. And, he repeats that there are never any wrong answers when it comes to impressions and taste: "From ten tea tasters will come eleven opinions." So he doesn't make you feel inadequate in the least.

I will be following the guidance of this...guide. And hopefully I will become more able to distinguish a great oolong from an inferior one. My blog will probably never include such descriptions as, "It contained delicate high notes of Tasmanian boronia, with a lingering aftertaste of vanilla orchid". But at least I won't have to say that I liked a tea "just because", nor will I need to reveal which tea goes best with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. So thank you, Michael Harney!

Chai Update: I tried brewing yesterday with Rishi Tea's Ancient Emerald Lily (which is awesome on its own - it reminds me of a Darjeeling, actually). It was actually the second brewing for this set of leaves, so the tea taste was quite mild compared to the masala, but it was delicious. I even gave some to my daughter Sophie, who drank it all up once it cooled down.

A Secret

Anyone who knows my tastes in tea and tea ware will know that I'm not into Victoriana or fine bone china. I prefer earthy, heavy and artistic teapots and I usually drink my tea in a coffee mug. I don't like the dainty tinkling of silver plate spoons in fragile cups, or sitting in chairs with flowery, laced antimacassars. I'm anti-antimacassar. I don't subscribe to a particular tea time, either.


But, I have a secret. I would really like to take my daughter Sophie to a very fancy High Cream Tea when she's older. I don't even know why, but I get a little giddy when I think about going to The Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto, all dressed up and ready for some delicious scones, rich Devon cream and a nice hot cup of specially-blended tea. I don't care what they serve it in, although I assume it'll be fancy-schmancy. And I cannot wait! I want it to be a mom-daughter occasion, not on a birthday or a holiday, but a just-because day. I have no idea if she'll want to do this, but over the next few years I'm planning on instilling the idea - making little hints, kind of like the way I tell her that there are magical things in the forest across from our house. Perhaps she'll go along with it because she'll see how excited I am. Hopefully she'll get as much enjoyment out of it as I do. Heck, I don't even know if I'll enjoy it that much. But I can't wait to try. It's expensive and a little bit ridiculous, but it's an experience that I'm hoping will create a fond shared memory.


Have you gone to High Tea before? What was it like? Do you have any special memories surrounding tea?

Oolong can you wait?

Well, I got a response from my tea gurus...and the response was something to the effect of "We cannot comment on this tea because we do not sell it. Ask the people who sold it to you."

I appreciate that my gurus took the time to respond, and I also appreciate that there are so many types of tea that one can't possibly know all the answers. I guess I had just hoped that there might be a suggestion of where I could research it, besides the one who sold it to me. It left a little taste in my mouth that was slightly astringent, and not the nice Darjeeling-type of astringent. I am demoting my gurus to just good authors! I'm sure they won't mind.

So, my research continues...fortunately I do have a "bite" from another tea blogger, who appears very knowledgeable and willing to help. And of course, I'll be talking to one of the tea vendors who sold me the mysterious Oolong.

You see, the problem is with the "milk" part of the Oolong. Apparently China does not have its own milk industry, and therefore a question is whether the milk flavour is real or artificial. And does this matter? It could matter. So, as I've said before, stay tuned! We'll see what I turn up.

On another note, my daily masala chai experiments are becoming quite fun and enlightening. Today I tried simmering my spices for 30 minutes before adding the tea. I love the way this concoction makes the house smell. I'd almost do it just for the scent alone. I also added the golden brown sugar sooner so that it would become a little syrupy before adding the tea. It would have worked very well, however I ended up steeping the tea a little too long for my taste, and unfortunately the tea grains (this is an assam that is grainy - more on that another time) were small enough to pass through my strainer, and so it was difficult to eliminate the grit factor...not a quality I wish for my cup of chai. Lesson learned.

Soon I am going to learn how to make some special cookies that are supposed to be dunked in chai. Perhaps I can sell them when I become a chai wallah. A chai and cookie wallah. And if I can't become a chai wallah, at least I can dress up as one for Hallowe'en.

Not Milk Oolong

Ok, so I'd said that my next entry would be about this tea called Quangzhou Milk Oolong, but I lied. I had every intention on doing it, but as it turns out I still have quite a bit of research to do on this somewhat mysterious tea. The fun part of the research is that I actually emailed my "tea gurus", Mary Lou & Robert J. Heiss, who wrote The Story of Tea, A Cultural History and Drinking Guide. If one of them or their staff replies to me, I'll most likely post the response. I was actually a little nervous sending the email to them, but they seem like very down-to-earth, friendly people. Even if they don't answer, I'll still write about it. So stay tuned!

This morning I enjoyed a large cup of KTE Organic, which I also got from my dad - he brought it back from Nepal (did I mention how lucky I was?) Oh, it's so smooth! Dad gave me the teabags in Ziploc bags, so I didn't have any info from the box, but I decided to Google the information that was on the tag, "KTE Kanchanjangha Organic Tea", and was happily surprised to find a great website about their estate. It's so much fun to find this kind of information, especially knowing that Nepalese tea is not very common in Canada (yet), so it is a treat to dream about a district in eastern Nepal bordering the tea area of Darjeeling.

Have a look at this amazing place: http://www.organickte.com/

This afternoon I had another homemade masala chai - with the added benefit of beautiful spices from The Spice Emporium in Hamilton. Fresh cardamom, whole cloves and peppercorns brewed with a cinnamon stick and Assam Rainforest tea? I could have cried! I feel like selling this stuff on the street - hmmm. Perhaps I will become a chai wallah after all...I wonder what the licensing would entail?

I'm topping off the evening with a blend called Bangkok White Rose. It contains Pai Mu Dan white, Chinese Sencha, peppermint, elderflowers, red and black peppercorn, and rose blossom. It's a great way to end the day, calming to the mind and tummy. I got it from a store called Shanghai T Merchant (hailing from Nanaimo, BC), located in Jackson Square (of all places), Hamilton. They offer beautiful tins to keep your tea, and I'm thinking of collecting them.

An attempt at being artistic with the tea tins
from Shanghai T Merchant

From The Other Blog

Just call me Chai Wallah – I’m There

One of the very very neat things about writing a tea blog is that I can make myself all sorts of concoctions with abandon. It’s fun, educational, and tasty for me, and fairly amusing to friends & family who see me somewhat hopped up on a constant smooth caffeine high.

Today is a day that will go down in history for me: the day that I made my own masala chai. Oh. My. God.

First, a note on the word chai: It literally means tea.

• Mandarin Chinese: Cha
• Chinese Amoy Dialect: Te (pronounced tay)
• Dutch & German: Thee
• Italian, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Hungarian & Malay: Te
• English: Tea
• French: Thé
• Finnish: Tee
• Latvian: Teja
• Korean: Ta
• Tamil: Tey
• Sinhalese: Thay
• Scientist-ese: Thea

The Mandarin, cha, became ch’a in Cantonese and passed as cha to Portuguese (during trade at Cantonese-speaking Macao) and so also to Persian, Japanese and Hindi, becoming shai in Arabic, ja in Tibetan, chay in Turkish, and chai in Russian.

From The Tea Companion, A Connoisseur’s Guide, by Jane Pettigrew.

So, for the love of loose leaf, please try not to order a “chai tea”. Especially if you are riding the railways in India. Unless, of course, you enjoy seeing people smirk at you.

So anyway, I had intended on making an entry on masala chai (masala = spice). And the thought occurred to me, “why not make my own?” I’ve never done it before, and what better way to be inspired?

I’m lucky to have relatives who travel all over the world. My dad brought me back some beautiful teas from his recent trip to India, including a Darjeeling Mountain tea. It was this one I decided to use for my “Indian Masala Milk Chai”. Here is my recipe:

1. Boil 2 cups water in a stainless steel saucepan
2. Add: A cinnamon stick, 4 cardamom pods, 4 whole black peppercorns, a little ground or whole cloves. In a moment of inspiration, I also added a spoonful of shredded coconut because I had it in the cupboard and thought, “why not?”. You could also put in a little crushed ginger, but I didn’t feel like it this time.
3. Also toss in 2 tsp. loose leaf black tea
4. Boil for 1-2 minutes
5. Chant some sort of mantra to make it fun and more authentic.
6. Add 2 cups milk (not skim) and a tsp. vanilla and let cool.
7. Add sugar: brown, white, maple syrup, honey, whatever. To taste.
8. Strain the mixture into your favorite mug (this is no time for fine bone china) and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
9. Never buy store-bought again.
   

This turned out so well, that I plan on making it whenever I need to be soothed or warmed. I’m also going to make it for anyone who wants to try it. It’s the kind of thing that needs to be shared.

Some of the main spices used in masala chai.

Photo by Move The Clouds, flickr.com

If you want to know more about masala chai, here are some very nice links with recipes for chai, and recipes that use chai.
http://www.chai-wallah.com/
http://www.chai-tea.org/

Magic Pearls

I thought I’d talk a little about jasmine tea, as I happened to mention it in my introduction. It is one of my favorite teas, and it has such a calming effect on me when I drink it – even more so than certain commercial teas that claim to soothe the soul. I’m not sure who came up with the idea of pairing a floral with tea, but I could kiss them.

There’s something wonderfully magical about a flower that blooms and releases its perfume in the evening. Jasminum sambac happens to be such a plant. It is a ‘climber’ with sweet fragrant flowers, “scattered stars” of purest white. J. sambac, or Arabian jasmine, is the type used to scent tea.

There are many varieties of jasmine, approximately 200 species in all, but rich J. sambac gives Chinese tea its intoxicating aroma.  The white flowers, “Moonlight of the Grove”, are said to exhale a richer fragrance at night. For this reason, it is critical to gather the blossoms at the right time. Ideally, they are picked at noon in order to bring them to the tea factory around 4:00pm. There they are stored for a few hours in a warm room to encourage the development of the aroma, and then the production of jasmine tea begins around 8:00pm.

About forty pounds of flowers are required to scent a hundred pounds of tea. As you can imagine, jasmine bushes need to be planted in abundance, and so there are areas in the Fujian Province in China that are famous for their jasmine flower production.

Manufacturing jasmine tea requires at least several days, and the finer quality jasmines necessitate up to a month of scenting. Fresh blossoms are introduced to giant piles of tea leaves, and are left to infuse their perfume into the leaves for several hours. When the flowers are ’spent’, another batch is brought in, and this operation can be repeated a few times.

Sometimes you’ll see jasmine tea with flowers in it, but they only add to the appearance of the tea and not to the taste. Most times, the flowers won’t be present at all in good quality teas, as the blossoms have been blown out of the tea factory by large fans. You can imagine these flowers being scattered to the wind, having done their duty. What they’ve left behind, in my opinion, is much more beautiful than what you’d find in any perfume bottle. And you get the added benefit of tasting this exhilarating potion.

I’ve been very lucky to stumble upon a gorgeous jasmine tea called Dragon Pearl. The leaves have been hand-rolled into little balls, which unfurl in the brewing process. I have a tin of Dragon Pearl Jasmine made by Harney & Sons, and the aroma is indeed enchanting when you take off the lid. I’ve compared it to other commercial jasmines, and there’s absolutely no doubt about the difference in quality. I’ve read about a more costly Yin Hao Jasmine tea, which apparently is scented about eight or nine times, and it can take as long as one month to finish a batch. I desperately want to try it. I might just have to order some online.

Dragon Pearl Jasmine, by Harney & Sons

For more information on Harney & Sons, visit their website, where the above photograph was taken: http://www.harney.com

Questions of the day: Do you have a favorite scented tea? What is it? Do you think that scent is an important part of drinking tea? Do you prefer florals or something more fruity? Or do you believe that tea ought to be left alone, as it has its own distinct fragrance?
Sources: The Fragrant Path, by Louise Beebe Wilder and The Story of Tea, a Cultural History and Drinking Guide, by Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss.

And for some listening enjoyment:
Dome Epais le Jasmin – The Flower Duet (Lakme)

Are you a tea purist?

Look, I’m not a writer. I don’t even know why I started this blog, although I find myself impassioned by tea and I guess I felt the need to disseminate information about it.

I’m not an expert or tea master, either. But for some reason, when someone mentions tea my ears prick up and I feel the need to contribute to the conversation or answer a question about it.

Take yesterday, for example. My daughter and I were on the train leaving Montreal to come back home to Dundas, and I decided to settle into the trip by ordering a tea (Jasmine Green)*. The woman sitting across from us also ordered a green tea, and exclaimed out loud, “Jasmine is green tea?” So I jumped at the occasion to explain that jasmine was the scent added to the tea – the process involves piling the sweet-scented flowers onto the green or black tea so that the perfume infuses into the tea leaves. The woman nodded her head and politely said “Oh.” The conversation about tea ended there (I do know when to shut up), and we continued to talk about other things, and all in all we had a lovely time together.

So I realize that writing this blog is something I want to do. If you want to follow along with me, welcome! We’ll see where this goes. If not, go drink your Pepsi or whatever it is you drink and have a good day!

To get this conversation started, I thought I’d ask you: How do you take your tea? Are you a purist, in the sense that you believe you should not add anything to your brew? Or do you prefer to pour in a little milk and sugar? What about lemon or honey? Do you ever add spices to your tea? Also, do you use tea bags, or do you think the leaves ought to be loose? Let me know what you think, and over time I’ll let you know my preferences too.

Ciao for now.

* I thought I’d give it a try – I was reluctant to order tea on the train, as I’d done it once before and the “brew” was so disgusting that I had to throw it out. But, VIA Rail seems to have improved their refreshment options, and it turns out I wasn’t disappointed this time ’round. I was happy to see that it was fair trade, and the jasmine flavour was decent, allowing me to relax and enjoy the start of my trip.

So Sorry to Have Done This

I've changed blog sites. Sorry. Had to do it because my former blog host wouldn't allow me to change my url. I hope you'll forgive me! I'm going to cut and paste my entries into this blog and we will continue where we left off. Please stay tuned, next entry: Quangzhou Milk Oolong.