Breaching The Web

In this blog post on irrationality in transportation costs (via Flutterby) I discovered a new-to-me term that is instantly useful:

There is a tension between the risk of gold plating (focus on benefits to the exclusion of cost) and of corner cutting (focusing on costs to the exclusion of benefits). But there is available to us a balance, building something which maximizes the difference between benefits and costs, not just looking at benefits or costs. Insufficient attention is placed on the trade-off, too much on the ends by advocates of one side or the other. [Emphasis added]

Gold plating. Brilliant. I had not noticed before that corner cutting was a one-sided term, only half an equation. Gold plating is the other side, the missing piece. Google tells me that this term is commonly used in the IT world — but I’ve not encountered it before, either as a social scientist, or as someone who is a “client” for a lot of IT teams. But you can bet I’ll be using it in a meeting someday soon. Oh yes.

My husband and I adopted a rescue dog. We named him Crypto, because he is quite an enigma (Yes, we know cipher would have been a more “correct” name given this reference. But we don’t care. Also, cipher doesn’t have any hard consonants and wouldn’t make a good name for a dog).

We adopted Crypto from Bourbon County Rescue which brings adoptable pets from Kentucky to the Washington DC metro area. They were a pleasure to work with, and did a good job of helping us to match us with the right dog. Why did we choose a dog from Kentucky? Because we’re lazy. It’s counter-intuitive, but true. Of all the rescues in the metro area, Bourbon County Rescue is the one that holds adoption events for dogs closest to our home.

Crypto is a small guy. He weighs about 25 pounds. We call him a beagle/corgi mix, but the truth is we have no idea what his heritage is. Nor do we care. We really wanted a lovable little dog to take for walks and play with, and that’s exactly what he is. We didn’t care about breed. He’s about 1.5 years old. For 6-8 months in 2011 he was a stray (people in his neighborhood fed him, but no one took him in). He was hit by a car in October, and suffered a broken leg and pelvis. The driver of the car left him for dead. A kind, generous soul found him and took him to a vet and paid for all his care, but could not keep him as a pet. I can’t thank this angel enough for saving this tiny pooch. Crypto was with the rescue for 2 months, recovering from his injuries.

He was already house trained when he came to us. He walks well on a leash. He doesn’t seem to know any commands or tricks. No one knows where he lived before he was a stray. Maybe he was a stray in another neighborhood, but he’s well-socialized to people (not to mentioned house trained!) so that seems unlikely. Maybe he was lost or ran away from his people. Maybe he was turned out or left to roam. We don’t know. He’s very sweet and loves loves loves walks. He’s slowly learning things, like what the clicker means (treat!) and how to play with toys and what his name is.  He and I are starting obedience training this Saturday.  I’m really looking forward to it — we especially need to work on learning “stand up” and “sit.”  He’s a wonderful little dog, and I’m very happy he’s home.

Over the weekend, we opened up a sample of Organic Wyuan Ruikong China Green Tea (Upton item #ZG33). First, my husband made some iced tea with it. For one batch, we used 4 teaspoons of tea with 18 ounces of water; for the second, we used 3 teaspoons of tea with the same amount of water. The first batch was ok, but required a bit of sweetener and some diluting to be palatable. The second batch was quite good — it had an earthy quality, with some grassy overtones. It’s currently our second favorite iced green tea (after the Organic Gunpowder).

I also made one mug of this hot, using 2 teaspoons of tea with 12 ounces of nearly boiling water. I brewed it for 3 minutes. The first mug had a heavy grassy-veering-toward-fishy taste — I did not enjoy it much. But each subsequent infusion lost that harsh flavor, and some surprising sweet tones came out. I reinfused the leaves four times, increasing both the temperature and the time each time, and drying the leaves out between the 2nd and 3rd infusion. I like this tea, a lot. It was quite refreshing in the afternoon.

I have a sample of Harney & Son’s Winter White Earl Grey. It is packaged in a little round tin that contains 5 tea “sachets.”

The tea is really good. It is a Chinese Mutan White tea, flavored with oil of bergamot — the same thing that flavors your standard Earl Grey. The white tea is of decent quality, as far as my limited experience with white teas can attest. The bergamot flavor is light and does not swamp the tea — although the tea has none of the pear undernotes or aftertaste that are usually associated with white teas. I like this tea. In fact, I like it much more than I like standard Earl Grey tea. It’s a lovely tea to sip in the afternoon, when I don’t really want to be kicked by something stronger, but I still want a cup of tea.

The sample I have is of Harney & Sons sachets, rather than their loose tea. The sachets are little pyramid-shaped packets made from a fabric that feels like organza (I can’t find any info on their site about what it really is, but it is definately not paper). The packets allow the tea to move around more than a standard teabag, and the tea inside is the same tea Harney’s sells loose. I would prefer a loose tea, but these sachets are nice when I’m in a hurry. I imagine they would also be nice for travel.

Revolting. Vile. Horrible. I can’t think of a term bad enough to describe the iced tea I made from some Chun Mee green tea purchased from Upton’s. I used 3 teaspoons in 4 cups of water. The resulting tea was cloudy, bitter, metalic, and probably some other things, but I couldn’t bring myself to try more than one little sip, so I’m not sure what they are. I’m not sure that there is enough of the sample left to try this hot — and even if there is, I’m not sure I am brave enough to try it.

This past weekend, my husband and I made a few batches of iced tea, using some Organic Gunpowder green tea puchased from Upton tea. I use the cold-brew refrigerator method to make iced tea (put some loose leaves in some water, put it in the fridge for 24 hours, strain before drinking), because I like it nice and clear and I find this method to be almost fool-proof in that regard. The only trick is figuring out the proper tea-to-water ratio.

For the Organic Gunpowder, we made two batches: one with 1 teaspoon of tea per cup of water, and another with 3/4 teaspoon of tea per cup of water. The first batch was too strong, and the second batch was a bit too weak. When I make this again, I’ll aim for something between the two. This tea is somewhat open, and the leaves unwound all the way in the fridge. The tea was probably about 75% whole leaves, and the rest were torn in half or thirds — they were all big pieces.

The resulting iced tea was quite good. It needed no sweetner, and had full, vegetal flavors — but it did not taste like grass. While a bit weak for my taste, it did have a nice “tea” flavor.

Just for kicks, I made a cup of this hot. The hot tea was harsher than the cold tea — I think I liked it better cold, it had a bit of natural sweetness. I reinfused this about 4 times.

Good news for our continuing iced tea experiements: iced tea — even cold-brewed — has plenty of antioxidents

There’s been a long-running discussion on the Teamail list about weirdly-flavored teas — vanilla pu-ehr, jalapeno assam, and tomato tea. The first is apparently real, while the others are mythical. At least so far.

The last has me thinking — what would a V-8 matcha taste like? I think it might not be too bad. I’ll have to pick up some supplies.

Today I made a cup of Upton’s Pai Mu Tan, an organic white tea.

I liked this better than the white tea from Adagio, but I was still a bit disappointed. The cup is smooth and mellow, but it just doesn’t taste like much. There are no flavors or textures I can identify.

Perhaps white tea is simply not for me.

I’ve heard it said that loose tea is cheaper per cup of tea than teabag tea. I thought I’d calculate my own per cup tea expenditures to see if that is true for me.

My favorite teabag black tea (the only one I ever drink, and that only occassionally) is Stash double chai spice — the spice overwhelms the nasty dust flavor, and it smells very good. When I last purchased this tea, I paid $4.85 for 48 teabags. At one teabag per 6 ounces of water, that works out to 10.1 cents per cup. If made the way most Americans would probably make it (1 teabag per 12 ounces of water), it would be 5 cents per cup.

My everday standard loose black tea is the Tippy Orthodox GFOP Assam from Upton, at $5.80 for 125 grams (about 1/4 pound). This is about 2-1/2 cups of dry leaves, which is about 120 teaspoons. At one teaspoon of tea per 6 ounces of water, that works out to 4.8 cents per cup.

So for me, the loose tea is about half the cost of the teabag tea. For most people, they would probably be comperably priced. The taste, of course, is incomparable — the Assam is that much better.

Some of the teas I buy are more expensive than the above referenced Assam. The most I’m personally willing to spend on tea is about $15 for 125 grams — or three times the cost of the Assam. I’ll buy sample amounts of more expensive teas, so that I can test out both them and my palate, but for everyday drinking $15/125g is my limit. Consequently, about half of the cups I drink a day cost as much as 15 cents a cup, which is obviously more expensive than the teabag tea, no matter how it is made. I think that’s a pretty good exchange!

Notes: I usually buy my tea from mail order sources, so I have to pay shipping. I’ve left shipping costs out of my calculations, so I’m probably under-estimating the cost of the loose tea. Also, I sometimes see Stash tea on sale, so it can probably be had for less than $4.85 per box.

UPDATE: The cost difference is even greater for the herbals I drink. Republic of Tea’s Orange Ginger Mint teabags work out to 25 cents per 6 ounce cup. Upton’s Chamillo Blend is only 7.3 cents. Wow!

Yesterday I received my latest order from Upton Tea. I ordered 15 different green tea samples (for my husband’s iced tea experiments, about which I will be reporting here), and some tea for me.

I also ordered the Chatsford Mug Strainer Kit, which comes with an infuser and a clever little holder. I thought this would be useful for travel, but it may just become my all-purpose away from home tea maker. I’ve used it at my desk yesterday and today, and it has worked very well. Since my IngenuiTEA teapot is beginning to give up the ghost, I think I might very well replace it with this.

The infuser is easy to use and fits perfectly in a mug. The holder not only holds the infuser after use (and prevents the wet leaves from dripping all over), but allows the leaves to dry between uses if multiple infusions are desired. I’m very pleased with it.