Breaching The Web

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.

Last night, we watched Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. This utterly bizarre movie has everything — vampires who are immune to the sun, a priest with a wild spiky mohawk, a red vinyl catsuit, kung fu fighting, a musical number (in which Jesus tries to recruit some modern-day apostles), fighting atheists, a talking bowl of ice cream, a talking air freshener, a group of (what I assume are Mexican) female tag-team wrestling vampires, a crazy bible-thumping dude in the bushes, and (best of all) El Santo! Oh yeah, and Jesus Christ, who is apparently around these days, wears street clothes, has both his ears pierced, and fights vampires*.

In the midst of all this insanity, the plot barely matters, but it revolves around the efforts of a mad scientist, Dr. Pretorious, to make vampires stronger and take over the world. There’s a lot of weirdness in this movie, much of which I haven’t even mentioned. But it’s a tight 85 minutes, so it is pretty well-contained. If the title alone appeals to you, you’ll probably like this movie.

*Mild spoilers: My husband kept telling me that this movie was so foolish that I shouldn’t worry about this, but I was really bothered by the fact that Jesus was omnipresent, but neither omniscient nor omnipotent. But I guess it wouldn’t be much of a movie if the vampire hunter knew what the vampires were thinking, and could best them without any effort. Also, I thought that if Holy Water (and even holy beer) could kill a vamp, then the blood of Jesus really ought to do the job as well.

On the one hand, it’s good to see the EPAs new mercury rule — it’s good that the US has finally acted to cap mercury emmissions from power plants. On the other hand, the way the rule is written may acutally increase mercury emissions in some parts of the country, particularly the West. While overall mercury exposure will decrease under the law, pockets of high exposure will develop — and I’ll bet money that these pockets will be more likely to develop where poor people live.

Environmental discrimination creates serious health problems for poor and minority people in this country, and this new regulation will only make that problem worse.

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.

The Chess Variants page indexes thousands of variations on the game of chess. It includes both historical variants (such as Chaturanga, thought to be the original chess game) and contemporary variants (such as Xiangqi, the Chinese version of Chaturanga).

It’s fascinating to see how many ways there are to play the same game — the board can be arranged in various ways, the pieces can move in different ways. The number of variations are incredible.

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.

I just signed up for Adagio Tea’s link rewards program. I figured that since I do use and have recommended their teapot, and since I plan to put more tea stuff on the sidebar anyway, I wasn’t too big a sell out for participating.

But I’m sure I’m just rationalizing.

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.