Breaching The Web

Over the weekend, I steeped up a cup of Adagio’s White Silver Needle tea. This is the first cup of white tea I’ve ever had, so my experience is limited.

I was underwhelmed by this tea. In fact, I thought it tasted exactly like hot water. My husband had a sip, and he said it tasted like what he thinks tea should taste like — light and not overwhelming.

Clearly, we don’t have similar tea tastes– my palate is perhaps not subtle enough for white tea. Regardless, in the future I will probably be using this tea to make iced tea for my husband, since he seems to like it. I won’t be drinking it again.

No, not the movie star, the root. I’ve been doing some research about ginger lately, because I think it might help with some health issues I have.

Dr. Weil recommends a ginger tonic made from 1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger root in 8 ounces of boiling water, steeped about 10 minutes. I tried this and found the ginger difficult to grate and the resulting tea unpleasant to drink.

So I’ve adapted that method. My usual evening drinks are either Upton’s Chamillo Blend or Republic of Teas Orange Ginger Mint. When I reach for the Orange Ginger Mint, I’ve been adding a peeled chunk of ginger to the cup.

In the morning, I’ve been doing the same thing, only this time with a cup of what I call “miscellaneous” tea. Because I cannot bear to throw away any bit of tea I’ve enjoyed, I mix them all together and use them when the tea taste does not matter — when I make chai, or iced tea for example. Or when I plunk a hunk of ginger in my cup.

That’s what I’m drinking right now — miscellaneous tea (mostly various Assams, with a bit of Darjeeling and some Russian Caravan) with ginger. And it’s not bad. I wouldn’t want this to be my only cup of tea today, but it’s not horrible either.

So, someone asked me if there were any teas I don’t like. The answer is, yes, there are some.

I don’t like the Lipton tea sold in the US (I’ve read that the Lipton sold elsewhere is different, but I’ve not tried it). I don’t like the teas from Peets Coffee. I don’t like most flavored teas, although there are some exceptions. I’ve only tried one Lapsong Souchong, but I was so put off by the smoky taste that I think it will be some time before I try another (even after brushing my teeth I could still taste it — horrid). I’ve also only tried one Pu Ehr, but I probably won’t try it again anytime soon either — it tasted like moldy old socks.

I haven’t been writing about the teas I don’t like because many of them were given to me, either by friends or in a swap. However, the next time I taste a tea I don’t like that I have purchased or procured myself, I’ll write about it. I promise.

Nick Martin’s list of teas he likes is interesting reading. His taste in black teas is similar to mine (with the notable exception of Lapsang Souchong — I hate that stuff), so perhaps I will order some of the greens he likes, as I start to drink more green tea.

Tea is hot — that’s the obvious conclusion from this brief article about celebrities taking up tea drinking, and the growing number of tea shops around the country. Is tea drinking the new knitting?

I’ve been out of town for the last two weeks, on an extended and exhausting business trip. One of the first things I did yesterday on my first full day home, was to make myself a good cup of tea. I don’t take my tea things on trips, although I may start doing so in the future. I really missed well-made, high quality tea, and I didn’t like resorting to iced tea for my caffiene fix.

The tea I chose to make was Osmanthus Tea from Tea ‘n’ Teas. It is a blend of dried osmanthus flowers and green tea. The sample I have had no steeping instructions.

The tea base is a very dark green. In fact, when I first made this tea a few weeks ago, I thought the tea base was black, so I made it like a black tea — boiling water, steeped about 4 minutes. As soon as I poured it into my cup, I could see my mistake — this is obviously green. That first cup was not very good.

This time around, I made it correctly — with water that had just begun to simmer, steeped about 3 minutes. The resulting cup was a dark green color, and the aroma was intensely sweet — but not sticky sweet. The flavor reminded me faintly of apricots, but it did not overpower the tea base, which was strong, almost like a black tea.

I really enjoyed this tea. I have enough of my sample left for another 4-cup pot, but after that it will be gone. I may have to order some for myself! I’d also like to try an osmanthus tisane.

The only bad thing about this tea is that the name makes me think about Ozymandius — is this why I had to memorize all those poems in school? So that I could be reminded of them at random intervals? I can’t think of any other reason for why my 5th grade teacher made me memorize both Ozymandius and The Impossible Dream.

I recently participated in a tea swap organized on the Teamail yahoo group, and I discovered an outstanding new-to-me tea. It’s the Winey Keemun blend from Grace Tea Company. It’s a blend of teas from the Keemun region of China, and it has an amazing depth of flavor, like the Assams that I love, but without their eye-opening astringency. The Winey Keemun is bold, a bit smoky, and layered, with a pleasant, lingering aftertaste. I have only a bit of my sample from the swap left, but I will definately be ordering some of this in the near future.

I couldn’t let this series of tea posts come to an end without sharing my very favorite tea term: Agony of the Leaves. This refers to the twisting, opening, and dancing of tea leaves as they are steeped in hot water. Some teas, especially display teas, put on a spectacular show as they brew.

I find it ironic that agony soothes me.

A newly released study has found that drinking three cups of black tea a day reduces the risk of heart attack. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s relatively rare to see black tea included in studies like this, so I was very glad to find this article. I’m a two-cup-a-day black-tea-drinker. Does this mean I must increase my consumption? Gosh, that would really be too bad!

I do plan to start drinking more green and white teas this year. I’ve not liked most greens I’ve tried, but they have all been of the tea bag variety, and I suspect that loose leaf greens will have a little more oomph. So look forward to some green tea musing in upcoming months.

Onkar Singh Kular, a British designer, has come up with a simple and elegant — yet delightfully manipulative — way to get the perfect cup of tea. He will make a mug for you that is just the right shade of brown or beige or tan, that way you can instruct people to make your tea the exact color of the mug. You can order the mugs from him directly by sending him the Pantone chip number you’d like.

Alternatively, you can order a Pantone color chart from his website (kularsoflondon.com) and hang it on the wall, then everyone can choose their own color and write their names on it.

Kular has other innovative products as well — such as mis-shapen silverware for those who tend to eat too fast — which he plans to mass produce and sell in the near future. I wish they were available now. I really want one of those mugs, and I know people who are in desperate need of that silverware.