Cap & Kettle

More Than Broken Teaware

2008-05-28T20:52:00.001-07:00

Oops! Looks like I completely killed Cap & Kettle with my reckless dabbling. Don't worry though. It'll be back, in a better, grander form. Keep an eye out.

The House of Commons - An Uncommon Place

2008-05-13T15:56:00.001-07:00

I usually take my tea at home within the reach of my Macbook, reading book and teaware. But its always nice to get out and socialize, preferably over a hot cup of the good stuff. Sadly the American tea house is so rare as to be a phenomenon, on par with the Aurora Borealis and coastal green flash. I mean, it's simply rare. Since I'm migrating to a new city this fall, I thought about visiting one of these mysterious backrooms of tea leaf and levity here in Denver, even if it took some searching. I consulted my maps and charts, one of which purpotedly had a trail to one of these establishments, marked far out into uncharted lands. "Here There Be Dragons and Maybe Some Tea, Arrr." Sure enough, after a long Odyssian journey of trials and travesties I found the place, as taken and joyful at its discovery as Cortez must have been when he first sighted South American gold mines.

The House of Commons, an usually Anglo-Saxon name for a tea house so squarely planted in the United States, flaunts its British credentials from the moment one steps through the door. In fact, the Old World feel begins well before you park. A quick look down the ritzy street on which the House sits will bring to view a wine bar, a spice shop and a coffee shop. All the commodities for which good and healthy empires were willing to wage war. Now at your convenience! So it was actually only after a Cafe Mocha and pocketful of Tellicherry peppers later that I headed into the tea shop. There a clean and bright tea room (quite the contrast from the post-apocalyptic feel of nearby "Paris on the Platte") welcomes visitors with racks of scones and tea menus for perusing.

Though my thirst demanded (or rather, commanded) an Oolong, I opted for the unorthodox combination of a green tea and a scone, complete with jam and Devonshire cream; the kind that could arrest the cardiovascular system as well as it arrests the eyes. The "Green Tea" I was told, was only labeled as "Green Tea from Indonesia", though it looked a great deal like a Pouchong. I suppose I'll never know what it really was, but I found it quite good and expertly brewed. Other sessions sampled the Yunnan black tea and Tin-Kuan-Yin, both also very well prepared. I'd say they were more expertly devised than anything I can hack together at home.

Each pot of tea comes in one of two sizes - "reasonable" and "deluvian". I kept making the mistake of ordering the larger of the two, and each time driving home with the jittery reflexes of an F-16 pilot. When served you recieve a saucer, tea cup, spoon (for defiling your tea with milk and sugar, should you choose that most wicked of paths) a filter and a filter cuppy thingy for keeping the table dry. Everything one would need, that is, either to commit to a clean and proper tea session or, as in my case, look silly splashing tea about with tools far beyond my capabilities. By the time I had finished my 11 cups of tea the table looked more like a water park then a serving area. Furtively I wade away from my table and deposit extra money in the tip jar, hoping desperately the tea persons will either forgive my watery trespasses or forget who was sitting at the now swampy corner. Still, I enjoy it and find the experience to be a nice departure from the down n' dirty tea drinking I do at home.

Above all, the benefit of a tea house, and where the House of Commons really shines, is in the friendliness and expertise of the staff. These are, in essence, professionals who have not only dedicated their time to tea, but also to the proper service of said tea. For example, the Chinese manufacturer or American distributor really doesn't care that it ships out, say, Sencha tea. The responsebility of matching the right tea with the right customer falls squarely into the tea person's lap. The owner, a Ms. Avery, described by a co-worker as a "Very nice tea shop lady" is indeed a genuine product of the British Isles, complete with accent. While the novelty of her origin does indeed make her charming, as all Americans percieve all English to be, she has an uncanny knack for genuinely caring about what you drink and why you drink it. Most importantly, she advises and consults.

There is another tea store, which shall remain unnamed, which I found had an excellent tea sampling system, far beyond anything else I've found in Colorado, but the owner was cold and dismissive. Not so at the House of Commons, whose guiding force and manager is amiable and compassionate about her work. Also, as a young tea drinking male I can't help but be stricken by the young woman working as the assistant, a self-styled Jack-of-all-Trades and orthodox about her tea in amidst a generation addicted to L-chiral sugars and cream. Definitely a plus. But back to the subject of the tea house, I find that the staff here are very outgoing and willing to strike up a conversation so long as the House isn't packed, at which point they'll at least take the time to figure out which tea you should be drinking that day.

If you're in the downtown area and have any kind of inkling for tea, or an affinity for English culture and the cultured, I highly suggest a stop at the House of Commons. Located off I-25, past the Aquarium.

Also, my apologies, but the tea was just so good I forgot to take any photographs of the interior. That picture of the table will have to suffice.

2401 Fifteenth St.
Downtown Denver
303.455.4TEA

Review: Adagio's Oolong #40

2008-05-10T17:03:00.001-07:00

Tea marketing experts go to great lengths to describe the distinctive flavors of their tea. I especially like watching the inelegant handling of green tea. You can practically see the author squirming as they candidly pen words like "grassy", "fresh" or "a bit lawny" - diction oh so appealing to American palates. But nobody ever taackles the Gordian dilemma of Oolong tea. Nobody attempts to describe what an Oolong really tastes like. Lectures and essays about its production are common through out the tea interwebs and tea books. But no flavor profiles. Part of the problem is the broad definition of "Oolong" or "Wulong" which covers so many different styles and methods that it's about as specific as saying "Tea tastes like tea." You could argue that there are flavors common to all Oolongs, but I prefer not to make assumptions, even for the sake of tea newbs. See, I used to think all Oolongs were related in taste by a mellow graham cracker like flavor, but Adagio's Oolong #40 quickly dispelled that erroneous take. Think tropical flavors and daring cuisine. Think of sultry breezes and ocean spray. This Oolong is far from the misty, rocky crags on Formosa guide books - it is a vacation from Oolongs, so to speak, and evidence of why nobody will even try to describe what an Oolong tastes like.

"Oolong tea from Taiwan. Formosa, meaning 'beautiful' was what the Portuguese explorers called this island. The oolong tea grown here continues to be called as such. The intense pungency and exquisite bouquet of Formosa Oolong tea is regarded to be the finest in the world. However, only the finest of Formosa teas warrant the label of 'fancy' grade. This is such tea. Our 'Oolong Symphony no. 40' has dark, silver-tipped leaves and produces a mesmerizing cup of delicate peachy notes and warm, soothing flavor. Well deserving its nickname as the true champagne of teas."

Adagio spares no flattering words for this, their second highest rated Oolong, bested only by their premium Jasmine Oolong. I'm prone to agree. Though I can't justify why this would be fancy or fancier than other Oolongs, I can attest to its delicious deviance and distinguished style. It is a tea to remember.

Leaf & Liquor: At first glance Oolong #40 is not a single type, color and shape, but a colorful blend of greens and browns. Some leaves are more curled than others, and the breadth of colors covers light copper patina to moss green to timber brown. A healthy steep makes a healthy auburn color (one color), with a rich hue glowing like a large topaz gem. It also exhibits a good clarity, and somewhere in its dark and pensive depths the Oolong #40 takes on a color borrowed from a black tea. Most Oolongs I've had opted for a lighter shade of straw, but the Oolong #40 dispenses with the pale particulars and buckles down with a deeper tan.

Raw & Steeped Aroma: All that starry eyed tropical nonsense in the opening of this review? That comes into play here in the aroma. I dipped my nose for a quick whiff, expecting more of the same (but good!) Oolong olfactory opulence to hit my nose. I was completely off guard, then, when I caught the most curious smell. It was something familiar, but so far removed from the world of tea that I had to sit back and re-open my aroma palatte to find out what it was. Of course! Sweet coconut milk! The Oolong #40 conjured vivid memories of coconut shrimp plates of the past, but above all a smooth, sweet and silky scent of coconut milk, or maybe even sugared shredded coconut. Samoa cookies? Whatever your sugary coconut dish of choice, this smells a lot like it. I also catch a supplementary aroma of mochi, or those not in the know, flattened, pounded, glutinous rice, widely known as a common Japanese festival food and a hazard to dry throated elder persons. It's delicately and slightly sweet, and perfect for the timid palate. The coconut is neither overpowering nor weak, casting the perfect balance of intensity with a straightforward, appealing smell. I've never experienced anything quite like Oolong #40's aroma, which quickly puts it on a list of teas to have again.

Flavor & Palate: But like so many good teas, the hype of the aroma doesn't last through the tongue test. That coconut cream milkiness makes a brief return in the palate and the taste, with the slightest vestigial nub of the coconut flavor, but the tea is otherwise stripped of its fanciful fragrance. While the taste might be bowlderized of it's better flavor, but the palate is not so destitute. Still heavy and slow, the tea's body sits dutifully on the tongue. Unexcitable, unremarkable, it waits and ponders, breathing a heavy sigh. It's slow and ponderous crawl extends to the drinker, too, who can't help but slip into a semi-meditative state. A tranquilizer Oolong #40 is not, but it is a fantastic relaxant. As I write in my notes "Light, almost imperceptible, but with a nice weighty palate and the ability to focus the unfocused mind." Even bereft of flavor it is still gladly taken with book, movie or writing session.

As usual, my review concludes with a lesson of morality (Wheel of Morality, Turn Turn Turn, Tell Us The Lesson That We Must Learn) but today's is dead simple. That an Oolong is only a name, and a very unfair one. Maybe this is another example of Edward Said's Orientalism - Westerners slapping labels on foreign phenomenon, simplifying them, and keeping them at arm's length. We lack the recognizable vocabulary to differentiate between Oolongs. As (hack) writers we struggle to put a tea's flavorful depth into words that English may not be prepared for. We always urge someone to just try it, just take a sip, because whatever we say will not suffice. This is all telling, then, why Oolong will forever remain a mystery on tea house menus. "Oolong Tea: C'mon, Just Try It." And that certainly applies to Adagio's Oolong #40; a tea set apart from its so-called Oolong siblings in aroma and even a little in flavor.

DeiTea

2008-05-08T11:13:00.001-07:00

Apparently even a good thing like tea can be taken too far.

Review: Adagio's Ooooh-Darjeeling

2008-04-27T20:37:00.001-07:00

At the height of Adagio's clever but confusing naming scheme is the Ooooh-Darjeeling. If you're not sure what either an Oolong or a Darjeeling tea is, you'll have no problems. If you don't know what either an Oolong or a Darjeeling is, you'll find the name delightfully onomonopoetic and exotic. If you DO know what both an Oolong and a Darjeeling are, you'll be very confused.

Chances are your natural affinity for tea and insatiable thirst for a good cup of the stuff has also turned into an insatiable thirst for tea knowledge. Maybe this takes you to a library, maybe to the top of a Chinese mountain. There are many places to find tea wisdom. And whether you're consulting a book or a bearded mystic, you'll eventually find that teas are classified by its primary qualities qualities, sub-categorized green, black, oolong and white teas. Mostly. Sometimes. However loose this definitions may be, it is still a good start.

The student of tea will learn that Darjeeling is a black tea, on account of being very dark and typically astringent. And that Oolong teas, variegated, can still have some flavors in common. So, uh, Oooooh-Darjeeling sounds a lot like an Oolong and a lot like a Darjeeling. Or is it just an extremely good Darjeeling that makes you want to say, "Ooooooooh". So which is it? A Frankensteinian hybrid or an awe-inspiring Darjeeling? I turn to the leading authorities on Ooooooh-Darjeeling to find out.

"A rare first flush oolong tea from the Darjeeling region of India. While it is fairly uncommon for an Indian garden to produce anything other than black tea, the growers at the Gopaldhara estate have produced this exquisite exception. Steeped in a quality that rivals its Taiwanese and Chinese competitors, our Ooooh Darjeeling is sure to produce both 'ooohs' and 'aaahs.'"

And the clouds parted. There was clarity in communication, and it was good. Oooooooh-Darjeeling isn't a Darjeeling, it merely comes from the same region that happens to be famous for its own exclusive sub-style of black tea which has nothing to do with this Oolong except they're grown in the same general place. Good.

Leaf & Liquor: The Ooooooooh-Darjeeling's rawest form is a autumnal medley of leaves, scattered and erratic, with the same picturesque charm of late September foliage, though darker. If the leaf is a twilight shaded fall foliage, the liquor is high noon in Spring. Light, clear, peach colored with a raw, burning orange rind color, the Oooooooooh-Darjeeling is clarifying, shining tea. It is dark for an Oolong, sure, but it isn't so light as to be skeletal and pale; just dark enough to really show off the tea's curious brightness.

Raw & Steeped Aroma: It took me a lot of sampling, sniffing and head scratching, but at last I conjured up exactly what this tea smelled like: Chicken Picatta. If you dig buttery, citrusy Italian food, you'll love the Ooooooooooh-Darjeeling's aroma. Seriously. It smells like chicken soaked in a butter and lemon sauce with capers, exactly and precisely. And really, it's a bit startling. I honestly don't expect gourmet, continental cooking in my tea, but once I had formally acquainted myself with the possibility it was a stunning smell. It also encouraged my clamoring hunger with the herbal side notes of parsley and even a skoshe of oregano. Also, if you've read about old methods of drinking tea (with salt) Adagio's Ooooooooooooh-Darjeeling with its curiously strong scent of salty capers gives you an idea what that ancient tea might have been like. Alternately, you could just dump some kosher salt in your tea, but this is a bit more genuine.

Flavor & Palate: The excessive foray into a culinary countenace found in the aroma is absent in the taste, where a far sublter, gentler Oolong greets the tongue. The body is of medium-weight, present more in its palate than in flavor. As with many lighter teas, the beginning of the sip is almost flavorless, but a gentle, slightly toasty Oolong flavor creeps up from seemingly nothing. This, however, remains dwarfed by the inestimably strange aromatic qualities. I guess it is a rather bland taste, foiled by the tea's own outrageous salute to fine Italian cooking, which is sad in a way, but speaks highly of, at least, the tantalizingly unique aroma.

Teas like this make me think how a tea can be good independently of a poor taste. And that is because tea can often be more than just a drink. Tea is a sensation, and if one quality of the tea is intoxicating it is enough to be good without other parts of the tea also being intoxicating, then it is enough to be, simply, a good tea. So go ahead and breath in the Euro-gustatory vapors of Adagio's Oooooooooooh-Darjeeling, for even if the flavor is less than remarkable you can get a remarkable olfactory sensation and a better breadth of understanding for the mystique and wiles of tea.

Review: Stash's Raspberry Tea

2008-04-16T13:11:00.001-07:00

I really love tea sampler packs. I, the beleaguered consumer suffering under the yoke of rising food prices, don't need to commit myself to a one-flavor box of potentially undrinkable teas. When I invest in a tea sampler, my dwindling tea budget is spared an unnecessary hit and I get the benefit of another six or eight reviews at rock bottom prices. Everybody wins. Unless the whole box and every variety sucks. A bit of beer snobbery for a moment, but a sampler 6 pack from Sam Adams is still going to taste like a box of flavorless macro brew, whether there is one flavor, six or fourteen. It's all made with low quality, high volume in mind. Picking the Stash sampler pack from the shelf, then, was a defense mechanism as much as it was an act of curiosity. It is a guard against regrettable tea expenditures, but still exposes me to the very real possibility that all the teas therein are bad.

I am happy to report that at least one or two of these teas do not fall in with the rest of the sampler pack's miserable crowd. Behold, the diamond in the rough - Stash's Wild Raspberry Tea! A stolid commitment to sugar and spice with every sip, using the Raspberry as a cheap puppet in the name of natural goodness. Let’s get into the details.

A fair 4 minute steep produces a deep rose and purple colored brew. With all these tisanes turning out so murky I suspect I’m using too much tea, too much time or too little water, but according to the manufacturer’s instructions everything where it needs to be. So, I will accept that my tea looks like a shade of haunted pomegranate juice and be done with it.

The aroma is predictably sweet, but less predictably floral. And like the Stash’s blueberry tea has a janitorial edge. The fragrance is closely related to cheap bath soaps and the invasive cloud of scents from upscale mall candle stores; altogether unpleasant but tolerable. It’s the kind of smell one associates with open houses, unused guest bathrooms and surplus economy spending. Why stop buying at the necessities? Pick up a few charming ocean spray and citrus bath balls too and throw fiscal management to the wind. Yes, these are the memories evoked by Stash’s Wild Raspberry tea. A shame, too, since actual raspberries don’t seem to factor in. Perhaps, maybe, with the sensitivity million dollar German made scientific instruments, you can pick up the faintest peep of raspberry flavor. But it’s too small to really notice without disciplined focus. Does Stash deserve disciplined focus? No, so don't go straining any cranial veins in a quest to discover a deeper Raspberry flavor that isn't there.

Otherwise there is a tinny sweetness to it, some artificial raspberry syrup a la snow cone and an edible soapiness. If your average consumer was told that this wasn't so much a raspberry tisane as it was a brand new and curiously flavored sweet drink it would be far more accurate. I don't consider this tea. Maybe a sugar shot, maybe an "elixir" but not a tea. Like the Stash Blueberry tea this is very appropriate for the evening hours where an appreciatively delicious cup of Pouchong will come with late night insomnia and a following day of miserable work. If a hot beverage is needed to couple with a good read then maybe this is the tea to fill the order. The flip side to the sampler pack is, once you've found the tea you kinda like, there's no more of it left.

Review: Stash's Blueberry Tea

2008-04-15T12:34:00.001-07:00

If there is anything a bagged tea can do well, it is blueberry tisane. I don't mean that fancy loose leaf merchants can't have a high quality blueberry tea too, only that in a market place where tea bags are almost unanimously bad and insipid, blueberry teas come off rather well. It's a petty victory, like finding an extra mini-muffin in your boxed lunch, but sweet all the same. I first came across this startling discovery with Celestial Seasonings' Blueberry tea, one of only a few from them that recieved better than a wince and a grimace. I had inflated hopes that Stash's, too, would be comparably good. To think: a cheap, affordable bagged tea, caffeine free to fill those open night slots, and with flavor too! Despite my hostility to Stash, I am impressed.

Beware! The tea is concentrated, and if lifted out of the pouch with haste will pierce your nostrils, dagger like; bloodied. It's sour and strong like drink mix powder and should be immersed in water as soon as possible. After that the screeching tartness subdues into a mellow yet intensely sweet blueberry flavor. It smells like moderately expensive hotel a la fruity carpet cleaner. I don't find this inappropriate as much as its strange. We've all smelled smells like markers, gasoline, benzaldehyde (yum) which we can't really digest but deep down inside we know we'd like to, and in the case of Stash's blueberry tea you get the benefit of a deep syrupy cleaning agent in a cup without the associated guilt or poisoning. Part of this strange Pinesol connection has to do with the tea's cheap lemony scent - handy with Mr. Clean, off-putting in a tisane. I also think a note of macadamia nut comes into play with a neutral richness that anybody who's nourished themselves on these pale Hawaiian nuggets of calories would recognize.

With a 4 minute and 30 second brew time this tea produces a hefty dose of flavor. Witness the abysmal purple color in the mug, the sucker punch of an aroma, and the overall semblance of grape juice concentrate. This stuff is thick and flavorful and, in some situations, too much. The flavor mimics a blueberry snow cone syrup, sweet and intense, but not too cloying. Only slightly cloying. Seriously, in a tisane, that's pretty darn good. I also adore the grape pez flavor. At some point this is no longer tea - more of a sweet herbal potion. You can't really talk yourself into believing it's any kind of healthy once you realize you're sipping on moistened cotton candy.

Given the circumstances, the expense, the general quality and the emprical standard for bagged teas I am, still, very pleased with this tea. I have since learned that turning to Stash, Celestial Seasonings et. al. for standard greens, Oolongs and black teas is a trial in frustration. No matter how much I try to find the market impossible combination of cheap, good quality tea bag tea, I'll never find it. This much is obvious, but like a gambler whittling away his nickels at a po-dunk back alley casino filled with cigarette smoke, I'm hoping that somewhere in this milieu of misery might be a statistically impossible pot of gold. So far, no, but Stash's Blueberry tea is like a comped beer. In the money scheme it's near worthless, and compared to my sought for fortune, it is also worthless, but in a time of drought it's impact is much more than an equivalent bag of loose change.

Good Tea Takes Time To Make

2008-03-25T00:41:00.001-07:00

Whoops, I've let this thing get a little old and mossy. Give me a bit here and the reviews will start flowing again. Also, I'd like to do some more polemic type writing, though I'm not sure how far that can go with tea.

A personal note - I'm preparing for a move to Seattle. Any avid tea drinkers out there? Recommended tea stops?

Review: Aroma Tea Shop's Milk Aroma Oolong

2008-03-12T14:11:00.001-07:00

Permit me a non-tea tangent: in the world of beer there is a great deal of experimentation with flavor additives and added flavors. Take, for example, the banana nut bread beer. It is not a banana beer, nor a nutty bready beer, but the synthesis of two prepared products - beer and banana nut bread. And honestly, it sucks. But beer drinkers appreciate the adventurous spirit of quirky brewers. Tea drinkers, I think, are prone to embrace this same experimental take to tea, but in a limited capacity. As long as everyone understands that a "new and silly" kind of tea is just a joke and that nobody is expected to drink it with any seriousness, then all is well. But when a tea maker gets out the gongfu ware, brings in the shamisen player and serves up their eccentric tea things can get a little out of hand. It's like someone arrived at the ballroom gala wearing fisherman's trousers and a sombrero, ruining the whole evening.

But maybe tea isn't the unqualified ballroom gala I think it is. Is tea an institutionalized locus of formality, tradition and manners? Yes, for now, but as the practice of tea drinking grows out of its box of history and spills its tendrils out into the wider world of public consumption, touching different demographics, ages, nationalities and occasions, these new brews will come to be accepted as full fledged members of the tea club.

For today's review, and by eccentric brew, I am referring to Aroma Tea Shop's Milk Aroma Oolong. The full retreat from tea tradition is pretty obvious in the "Milk" part, and I don't think it is unwarranted. Milk pairs with a lot of foods to produce a delicious cooperative of flavors - milk and cookies, milk chocolate, malted milk balls, but tea? Milk tea? But wait! Do we not put milk with our black teas to produce a creamy, easy to drink blend? Why yes, we do - but check out the word that comes after "Milk": Oolong. I'd no sooner add milk to an Oolong than I would a green tea, or milk to a martini. It doesn't work, and not even the trampling, barbarian and uncouth hordes of American consumers have dared to revise green tea or oolong to suit the sugary, creamy and high-fat American diet which has stirred up a flurry of fat conscious journalism.

So what does it mean to be a Milk Oolong? Taken from Aroma Tea Shop's page -

"Being featured in Lucky Magazine, this top selling tea is taking the nation by storm! We were drowned in orders nationwide, having orders coming from New York, Dallas, and across to San Diego. This tea actually originated from Taiwan, where they took the tea leaves and steamed them with milk. After the steaming process, the tea is then oxidized under the sun. The result is the amazing taste that this tea produces. It's sweet, creamy, and so smooth. Don't miss out on this one!"

Milk Oolong, then, is a run-away popular drink with mass appeal, a light dose of hot dairy and the standard oxidation step. Sounds appealing, but I still feel like there's more information to be had. Where did it come from, who developed it and is it edging out other teas in the tea market?

Next I made a visit to TeaChat where the amateur brain trust of tea gathers in its mysterious, nightly consortiums to dictate the whims and whiles of the tea industry. I found clearer answers there.

To summarize, a proper Milk (alternatively called Silk) Oolong is produced when the growing tea leaves undergo swift, dramatic changes in weather conditions, especially sudden frosts. However, this seems to clash with Aroma Tea Shop's description, so I'm going to guess there are two methods. One is au naturale, while the other is artificial, probably in effort to lower costs and offer a respectable replacement. Until I try a "real" Milk Oolong then, I'll take my cues from Aroma Tea Shop's milk sprayed version, which, even if spliced together in a lab, still tastes pretty darn good.

Leaf & Liquor: The moss and olive green knotted furls of tea, like the facial protrutions of Peter Jackson's Ents in his cinematic version of the Lord of the Rings, look aged and creased, in tune with nature, like nuggets of forested essence. They are something one might find in a Miyazaki Hayao film, pulsing with a deep teal glow beneath a pile of shaded leaves, serendipitously discovered by a mistreated youth. That's saying quite a lot, just for a balled up leaf. Though serious in their appearance, the leaves belie something far more playful - Milk flavor. Unfurled these leaves show up in a range of lengths, some torn, pale green with ridged sides and a moderately healthy appearance. The liquor is a light straw colored soup, with a tinge of deep, dark seaweed green in the murkier depths of the gaiwan. Overall, nice color theme. Very Irish with the 40 shades of green.

Raw & Steeped Aroma: True to its namesake, the defining feature in the Milk Oolong is a lactose sweetness. It's mild mannered but very distinctive, fresh from the cereal bowl to the tea. Despite its unique sweetness and respectful intensity, the only aromatic quality is, singularly, this milk one. Which is okay, because we don't expect a slew of fancy fragrances and scents in a Milk Oolong. Or should we?

Flavor & Palate: After the 2 minute mark, the Aroma Tea Shop's Milk Oolong continues to have difficulty introducing itself to the tea drinker, the flavor straining against a short shrift in steeping. But at 3 minutes it's much more garrulous, giving off copious milk flavors. In fact, the flavors are a high fidelity copy of the aroma, presenting foremost a moderate, well tempered milk and lactose sweetness (which for some reason reminds me more of milk out of a cereal bowl than a glass) and a nice none-too-bitter pressed seaweed flavor to complement the sweetness. I see how the flavors could go terribly, terribly wrong with a geyser of milkiness beating back tea flavors who might try to squirm onto the palate, or the unwelcome addition of a weird kind of curdled milk or sour cream flavor furtively added into the flavor profile. But no such oddities exist, making this a jocular cup of milk sweetened tea. Aroma Tea Shop advertises that the leaves can be re-steeped a few times, but I found that much of the flavor had been stripped after the first brew. This correlates with the Milk Oolong's manufacture - a flavor spray, lost in the first hot rinse. Still, that first brew is quite satisfying, if not as a way to broaden one's palate experience, then as a peek into the newly stretched limits of tea experimentation.

Returning to the question of Oolong Milk's place in a highly stratified, rigid art of tea, I think that, no, a tea like this won't be able to get past the Shoji paper into the proper tea room; barred from entrance into the glamorous world of tea ceremonies and sessions. But as long as young drinkers are migrating to tea from soda or juice, or even coffee, the tea world will need to relax a bit and permit teas like the Milk Oolong, natural or not, to co-exist alongside the oligarchs of the tea world. We might make Milk Oolong an entry point to other less welcoming teas, or maybe somebody will find Milk Oolong to be their only tea of choice. Fine, but at least they're taking the first step - loose leaf, a welcome step in the movement to advance tea.

Review: Adagio's Raspberry Green

2008-03-05T10:15:00.001-08:00

My home state is feeling the first inklings of Spring, and with those spasms of good weather and green shoots comes a necessary change in attitude, decor, activity and above all, palate. Seasonal foods are being swapped around, replacing the sturdier edible ballast of winter stews and soups with a lighter springtime fare. If chefs and gourmets are making the change, why shouldn't the tea drinker? Yesterday a brisk walk outside, (all the better to soak in the fine weather) commanded a matching cup of light, springy and verdant tea. I rolled up my sleeve, shoved my arm deep into my overflowing basket of tea goods and pulled out a small tin of Adagio's Raspberry Green. Perfect! The suitability of green tea to a greening spring was obvious, but the raspberry was the joie de vie touch. Although raspberry's are traditionally a mid-summer harvest (Salute Wikipedia!) my childhood raspberry fix was always had in the spring, perhaps because of my local grocer's tendency to put them on sale at that time. Whatever the reason, my memory decidedly fixes raspberry to spring. Thus, the combination of green tea and raspberries couldn't be more appropriate for a light and dancing tea to greet a sleepy, yawning summer en route.

Adagio, the company that distributes this tea, is curiously succinct about it. The "Story Tab" gives a quick run down of raspberry's putative health benefits, while the basic description cuts short with a simple "Raspberries are not berries, but still yummy, especially with green tea.". Here it is in full -

"The moniker 'berry' is actually misleading, for the raspberry is actually a cluster of drupelets around a central core. When picked, the drupelets detach from the core, unlike true berries, which stay attached. However, you're sure to remain attached to our Raspberry Green tea, which combines the sweetly tart flavor of red raspberries and premium green tea from China."

The biggest and most obvious concern when matching any kind of tea with added flavors (especially fruit) is whether the two will co-mingle. For example, I might object to green tea and beets, or green tea with a shot of fondue cheese, but would find the complementary effect between green tea and mikan citrus to be quite lovely. What makes this so is a sense that green tea is something like a fresh vegetable in a salad, with a defining astringency. Often this is smoothed out by drinking a higher quality green. Other times it can be retained and used as a counter-balance to a sweet addition. For example, raspberries. The question is, does the raspberry make a good companion for the green tea as a sweetener, and does it's unique, fruity qualities also fit inside the greater paradigm of green tea as a drink?

Leaf & Liquor: Despite the raw leaf's Christmas coloration of reds and greens, only a drab green diffuses into the beverage; a surly sort of olive oil green with a slight muddy cloudiness. It looks like a fit and hale beverage, but also slightly polluted and murky. Of course there really isn't any oily toxins seeping from the leaves - just an image. It's only a green tea. But the visual play remains less than inspiring. Much easier on the eyes is the raw leaf. Twiggy green tea leaves of variable lengths co-habitate with the occasional rose colored speckle. A head count of raspberry splotches is a bit disappointing, leaving the poor tea drinker despairing over Adagio's stinginess with their raspberry, but not to worry. A sip here and there quickly re-affirms that the rare flash of red-in-green does not correlate to a taste lacking in fruity delicacy

Raw & Steeped Aroma: Full fledged and flowing scents of spring crash out of the cup like cataracts after a thaw. Raspberry, strawberry, creme brulee and fresh scents of a newly mown lawn really lay down the effusive fragrance of spring with a welcome touch of French dessert and dairy richness. Add in the particular smells of a greenhouse and an early summer farmer's market and you've got the very real agrarian/orchard smell of Adagio's Raspberry Green. Lovely a hundred fold, I deign to take a sip for fear of losing a moment from the tea's aroma. I am tethered to it, bound by the overwhelming aromatic allure! It's spring in a cup, and even a twitch of winter interrupting our string of Spring days won't pause the spring induced by a cup of this tea.

Flavor & Palate: The first couple of times I brewed Adagio's Raspberry Green up, I suffered from excess leaf and over-steeping. This made an insipid brew, where the fragile twinkle of raspberry flavor was overrun by mediocre green tea flavors, themselves bland. But a third brew with far less leaf and a disciplined hand ready for the three minute mark (not to mention water that had been cooled off the boil) produced a gentle, sweet and caressing cup of sweet, green tea. Tea drinkers who have long reviled the lawn and leaf bitterness of your standard green tea can rejoice in this tea's raspberry sweet effect. It tames the green tea, then releases its own blend of cherry, strawberry and raspberry into the mix. Thinner and better than a smoothie, this tea is across the board excellence when brewed with caution.

If you haven't reached the stage of orthodox green tea drinking, with the fancy imports and the named Japanese tea ware, then you absolutely must take a cup of this Raspberry Green out on these sleepy spring days. The idea of raspberry in a green tea might offend someone used to the orthodox rigors of chanoyu, but to the drinker adulterated by a flavored bagged tea, this Adagio offering will come as a delightfully welcome shock. My only regret is that I have run out this raspberry green well before spring has finished its seasonal blossoming.

Review: Adagio's Irish Breakfast

2008-02-19T20:14:00.001-08:00

As with many things in tea, the Irish Breakfast arrived at my doorstep as part of a duet. Maybe in name only, but the total breakfast pair - Irish Breakfast and English Breakfast - seemed like a sure way for a tea n00b to get a firm grasp on proper early morning, eye prying, teas. However, just as with the genuine English and Irish people, each tea is wildly different (though probably a lot less confrontational in the face of history), coupled only by sheer proximity in name.

Like it's Anglo-Saxon counterpart, reviewed here previously, Adagio's Irish Breakfast is an effective de-fatifying agent. It cuts through grease like a dish soap, but without all the unpleasant chemicals. As such, it's bold and abrasive flavors favor a heavy Western style breakfast. In my case, the Irish breakfast is a top notch liquid supplement to my standard morning fare of eggs and toast. Lipids stand no chance again the vorpal power of the Irish breakfast, which after wedging through the viscous wall of yolk and butter delivers all the good flavors and positive nutritive value of a proper gulp of tea.

Although Adagio, distributer if this fine tea agrees, they put it in a gentler way:

"Black Keemun tea from the Anhui region of China. As its name implies, English Breakfast tea is an ideal accompaniment to a morning meal. Our exquisite version of this tea is made with the finest grade Keemun, prized for its rich smoky flavor, and sumptuous aroma. May be enjoyed plain or with a drop of milk. It remains one of our most popular varieties"

There is an added introspective into Irish Breakfast's elusive history.

"James Joyce, a gourmand as well as a prolific writer, began Ulysses with not one, but two Irish Breakfasts. His protagonist, Leopold Bloom, recounted every meal consumed on what is now known as Bloomsday. The meal, also known as Fry, is typically served all day long, and consists primarily of porridge, bacon, sausage, smoked salmon, eggs and tea. The latter was required equally strong, as it was customary to dilute it with milk. The teas of Ceylon and Assam were judged equal to the task. However, the proportion of each varies greatly from blend to blend."

Okay, perhaps not the strictest origin story of Irish Breakfast, but a fun morsel of history all the same.

Also, this appeared to once have been Adagio Irish Breakfast's backdrop, text saved from when I wrote up the notes for this tea.

The English required a tea strong enough to wash down their beloved Fry-up, a typical morning fare of fried bacon, sausage, mushroom, eggs and tomato. The black teas of Keemun were found to be an ideal lubricant for all this cholesterol. English Breakfast was also instrumental in the Monty Python spam sketch (waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam...) that gave annoying and unsolicited emails their nickname.
We've established that the Adagio's Irish Breakfast is a fine morning tea, especially coupled with a heavy breakfast, but for this review here's the question I set out to answer: how do Irish Breakfast and English Breakfast differ?

Though I've tried to make their case for little or no blood-link, if one simply has to make a comparison between English and Irish Breakfast teas (and we will use Adadgio's versions for the sake of keeping our variables to a minimum) Adagio's English Breakfast is a very smoky tea with a cairn-ful of charcoal flavors. It tastes grilled, smoked, and even a bit meaty. It is bold, well rounded, soothing and supple. Though it is a tea, it might very well be a meal. The Irish Breakfast shares this same dark and tangible quality, but comes from a sharper flavor profile. The Irish Breakfast is more biting, with a harsh, tannic set of teeth. Oversteeping this tea, even a little, will result in a denigratingly foul taste. The sharp astringency of an oversteeped cup completely overwhelms the clear, dark and pungent earth tones resulting in an almost undrinkable brew. However, time it right and you've got a real fine cup of empowered, even pushy, tea.

Liquor & Leaf: Adagio's Irish Breakfast features all the dusky, gray charisma of a typical black tea, but with some desperately needed highlights of gold. Unlike it's English counterpart, the Irish Breakfast is a lighter gray and looks considerably more dusty. So much, in fact, that I gave this a traditional rinse before imbibing, mimicry of a sooty Industrial Revolution appreciated. It is, perhaps, the perfect color to match the droll gray clouds that hang above the green Irish hills.

Raw & Steeped Aroma: The Irish breakfast, of all sampled black teas, comes closest to resembling a stereotypical mass produced black tea, at least in its fragrance. The exotic Chinese black teas, English breakfast and Earl Greys all have their own very distinct flavors, but the very core of Adagio's Irish Breakfast was a core shared by denizens of the grocery store. The face most familiar, and the link between a lovely loose leaf Irish Breakfast and a common pouched tea will be iced tea. Unlike my mother, my sister and the entire South, I never took to iced tea. To me it had an off-putting quality, which sugar did nothing to hide. The addition of sweetener is to draping Quasimodo in a cocktail dress - nobody was fooled and the tea tasted all the worse for it. Sad to say, this sequestered, hideous flavor has somehow broken loose from the bonds of those giant fast food cups filled with bitter, iced brew. The astringency of the Irish Breakfast, that which sets it apart from Adagio's English Breakfast, closely resembles the smell of the iced tea, but keeps a safe distance from that other iced tea stuff. It is enough that the bitterness and astringency found in the Irish Breakfast is merely a familiar in iced teas, not duplicated from iced teas. Otherwise, the aroma is clear, sweet and hints at a deep, roasted caramel sweetness which I hope to meet again in the flavor.

Flavor & Palate: The notable similarities between the English and Irish breakfasts continue apace, as the Irish Breakfast once brewed takes on a very thick and heavy palate. Good thing too, as it's going to be crashing against the same linebacker breakfast foods I tested the English Breakfast with. Butter, egg yolk, syrup, whatever. It needs to be a contender for the drinker's already bombarded palate. And, just as I had hoped, the deep, roasted caramel flavor comes back amidst fanfare and protests. Fanfare because, well, it's sweet and roasty and delicious. Protest because the once tentative link between the Irish Breakfast and shallow iced tea is now entrenched in the tea's flavor. I am torn. The tea is hot, not cold, it is heavy, not light and the caramel sugariness seems somehow more sophisticated than its bumpkin' cousin at the soda machine. If there is a REAL and LEGITIMATE reason to find the Irish Breakfast off-putting, it is the bitterness. For some, this will be a heaven sent quality. For others, it will be forthrightly and disgustingly insulting. I am inbetween, finding the astringency a good companion with food, while it is over eager and off putting without. Still, it is a pleasant tea, if a bit punchy.

My early morning routine and daily breaking of the fast still belong exclusively to Adagio's English Breakfast. I can't get enough of that smoky, meaty flavor. It goes down well independently, and makes a fine match to heavy breakfast foods too, where the Irish Breakfast is a more specialized tool and harder to use in either situation. Still, I can't ignore my Irish roots and deign to go without a mug of Irish tea when the heaviest hitting breakfast foods come into play. Blood sausage anyone?

Review: Numi's Gunpowder Green

2008-02-12T15:10:00.001-08:00

This blog, Cap & Kettle, began it's history of squirming and fits with a series of low-end reviews, and by that I am alluding both to the quality of the writing and the tea. The teas were so called "box teas", taken from sterile but dusty grocery store shelves, and the writing was just doggerel. Still is. I got a lot of criticism for these reviews. After all, why would anybody want to read a review of a bad tea? And a tea that everybody already knows is bad? I don't disagree that one wouldn't need Edgar Cayce's (dubious) preternatural powers to predict that old, stale and ground tea leaves won't make for much of a cup. But this is the kind of tea that the unwashed masses take to. I would know, having been part of that pre-loose leaf combine not too long ago. However, I want to bridge the gap between these pedestrian pouches and the fine leaf one can buy from online specialty stores. I wanted to find a tea somewhere between the vulgar line of Stash teas and the fiscal brutality of premium Gyokuro. And that bridge, actually, wasn't hard to find robbing me of a long and glorious tea journey. Big grocery stores, eager to dip into the deep pockets of our new American yuppie culture who balk at many of the mass produced teas, have put out new lines of gourmet tea to satisfy picky palates. I joined this very community of counter-counter-counter-culture for a spell, right at the center of that mediative bridge, to review a tea from Numi: the Gunpowder Green. Not quite fancy loose leaf, but also not a terrible, tasteless tea.

The marketers with Numi have done their research, describing all the fine things a vaguely aware consumer might find rewarding in green tea.

Our whole leaf Temple of Heaven - Gunpowder Green Tea is gently steamed within hours of being plucked, then skillfully hand rolled into small tight pearls. This process preserves its delicate flavor and aroma far longer than other green teas. Steeped in hot water, the leaves unfurl, releasing a well-rounded, full-bodied flavor. Rich in fluoride, calcium, and anti-oxidants - and with very little caffeine - this is a perfect choice to greet the evening.

The big deal here is, instead of getting tea leaves massacred at the hand of an eager knife wielder, Numi is bagging up actual, rolled leaves. This is an immense step for most new tea drinkers and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Leaf & Liquor: This is a bagged tea, which usually makes the actual leaf a moot point. But as noted above, while it is bagged it is also whole. Also, while the leaves might suffer some good thriller chopping and hacking, like a good mystery/horror victim, it is important to note that the tea bag construction is a little different from normal. Instead of a single pouch of tea, Numi uses a "double" pouch. Think of a very thin faced man with bulging jowels and you'll have a good idea of what the tea bag looks like. Once brewed, the tea takes on a dark, woody brown color with a touch of green olive to keep fidelity to the "green" in green tea. It is fairly clear, too, but the depth gradient takes a steep decline into the dark and darker near the bottom of the mug.

Raw & Steeped Aroma: For those who have had a loose leaf gunpowder tea before, the Numi Gunpowder smells very similar to its virgin loose leaf form. For those who have not had a Gunpowder tea before, this will be a challenge. The fragrance is mostly true to orthodox gunpowder leaf, which means it has a seaweed, almost nori pungency, should you ever had the fortune of munching on whole nori sheets. It keeps a medium grassy quality, pronounced but not pouncing, with a strange, deep sweetness that reminds me of barbeque sauce. Please, please, please, don't think this makes the Numi Gunpowder Green oozing or cloying. It doesn't mean you can paint a condensed version of the tea onto a rack of ribs. It just means that the sweeter side is a deep, honey and hickory kind of sweetness and still very faint.

Flavor & Palate: The Numi Gunpowder Green's taste is a bit more transluscent than the aroma, especially at the beginning of the sip where it has a cheap white tea or oolong tea flavor. From there it slowly grows into its full-fledged gunpowder flavor - its potential. A sip and a slurp bring back the seaweed taste, a la nori, or better yet, soupy wakame, but in the flavor this sea grassy quality is far drier and more aloof than in the aroma. It carries through the whole sip with a good, wet aftertaste which, for some reason, seems mossy and moist, yet also a mite of dry astringency that commands another soothing sip.

For the price and the place, the Gunpowder Green is a solid, sturdy and dark green tea; Chinese style, without all the Japanese sod flavors that can be so offputting to newcomers. And, I think, easily the best offering from Numi available.

Review: Aroma Tea Shop's Blue People Oolong

2008-01-28T12:15:00.001-08:00

Every tea blogger hopes that, one day, their lectures on tea, typed and published out in the nether regions of the internet, will earn them praise, accolades, and above all, free tea. Usually this only comes with extensive experience and a keen sense of style. The tea blogger evolves from a few, shy sentences per tea review to explosions of texts centered around some completely irrelevant tea minutiae. And, at the culmination of the tea blogger's (or author's) career they turn that explosion of text into art - a masterpiece of prose and poetry that can evoke real emotion. Emotional tea. That's hard to write. I know only of one person who can do it - James Norwood Pratt, and he not yet descended to the realm of blogging from his high, lofty throne made of tea leaves and dreams.

The rest of our lot are confined to the spacious prison of blogging, slowly following the above mentioned path to greater riches and prestige. I am proud to announce, then, that I have recieved my first offer to sample a tea, provided by the company at no charge! It's like adolescence - marginal to everyone uninvolved but tremendously emotional for the afflicted individual. And I've been afflicted with free tea.

The lucky volunteers were the fine folks at Aroma Tea Shop. Curt correspondence with someone affiliated with the San Francisco based store yielded an offer of a couple of samples, for review's sake. As a struggling not-quite-graduate-student-yet, I was more than happy to take anything they might have me try. And now, without further clamoring over free consumables, my review.

First Infusion: 1 Tablespoon of of tea in 11.5oz of freshly boiled water for a 2.5 minute covered steep.
Second Infusion: Same leaf, 3 minutes.
Third Infusion: 3 minutes.

It's hard to predict what an Oolong will taste like, let alone one mired in herbs. So, as always, I turned to the Aroma Tea Shop's web page.

This is one of our top sellers! Being a new style tea from Taiwan, it is an Oolong tea that is fermented with mint and liquorice root. The result creates an amazing sweet front taste and a long and lingering intense aftertaste. It has been described as being like a "party in your mouth!" The appearance of the tea looks like little blueish pebbles, creating the name "Blue People".

I'd hesitate to call any unmodified tea a "party in my mouth". But I'll start by giving the Blue People Oolong the benefit of the doubt. It does bring an untested mix of ingredients and flavors to the tea world, especially those flavors widely considered to be strong.

Liquor & Leaf: Albeit my experience with Oolong is very limited, I never expected to find a tea of such curious shape and color. It is not a leaf shape, per se, or not at the start. Rather, the Blue People Oolong looks like a cache of mossy green-teal pebbles. If you're into the imagery of Japanese Gardens you'll find this tea in its raw state to be quite stunning, as it carries the aesthetics of both stones and moss, or together like a mossy stone. The deep, verdant green of the Blue People Oolong is mesmerizing, and shows a fine dusty texture to it that supports the illusion of a mossy stone. I wonder, briefly, if this powdery surface is artificial flavoring in lieu of a genuine fermentation with mint and licorice root. Sadly, my tea tasting abilities are too limited and would be unable able to tell anyway.

After a 2.5 minute infusion, the pebbles refuse to open, though they have begun to loosen. They are, at this point, simply "peeking" out from beneath their crumpled and folded exoskeletons. It is only at the 3 minute mark that I can retrieve full, lush leaves. They are short and squatty, with the same dark forest green verdancy seen at the beginning, but mostly whole leaf nonetheless.

The liquor's color varied wildly between brews. After the first infusion the tea had taken on a fairly clear, light wood shaving brown color. Gentle, placid, it looked perhaps more like a white tea than an oolong. This changed after the second infusion, likely due an opening of the leaves and a more intense steeping. Whatever the cause, the liquor turns a much deeper brown than before, almost as if it had been burned or scalded, but retains the same clarity as before.

Raw & Steeped Aroma: The raw aroma is strong despite the tea's still dessicated state. I imagine this has much to do with the licorice and mint. Indeed, an initial whiff catches the viscous sweets of licorice, a cool breeze of mint and a sweet base of graham cracker.

The more subtle aromas come out only after the first infusion. There the licorice has bedizened itself in layers of sugar, becoming more of a candy than a root. It is accompanied by the same solid base of graham cracker, as well as a strange but not unwelcome note of chocolate syrup. Sweet, dark, yet chalky. A dash of nutmeg tops off the collage of sensuous tastes, wrapping the whole sweet and unguent bundle together like a bow. The second infusion brings the same aroma, with a slight increase in astringency.

Flavor & Palate: At first sip, one might be inclined to think that a terrible trick has been played. After all that gazing and sniffing, and after processing many a thick and syrupy smell, the Blue People Oolong begins its trip down your gullet imperceptibly. In those opening seconds there is little flavor to speak of. The palate has changed little, too, keeping the consistency of the water used in the decoction. However, a moment later and the familiar graham cracker notes come back and do their work on the tongue, masoning a flavor base. The graham is followed by a sticky glue of licoricie. This sprinting licorice rapidly advances on the tongue, clinging desperately to each taste bud it passes, grasping it with its licorice talons. After this initial, blitzkrieg wave of licorice fizzles away there is left only a gripping sweetness which I have tasted once before; Kellogg's Fruit Loops. The sugary aftertase dupliactes the white frosting found on sugar cereals, most dominant on my childhood favorite Fruit Loops. It doesn't fit very well in the grand scheme of Blue People Oolong, but makes a decent counterpoint to the adhesive licorice flavors.

The palate seems entirely unchanged, but this isn't necessarily bad. If it had become any thicker, the tea would have become almost too difficult to choke down, what with the combination of syrupy flavors and a syrupy texture.

The second infusion brings back the anterior-throat coating properties along with a welcome shake of spiciness. As the tea cools this velco-licorice becomes stronger and, with layers upon layers built up at the top of the esophagus (or behind the tonsuls) becomes overwhelming.

The package claims that the Blue People Oolong can be infused from 4 to 6 times. Personally, I found 3 infusions to be the maximum. At the third infusion most of the defining mint and licorice elements have deteriorated, leaving a vestigial toasted grain flavor. The aroma has likewise been depleted, itself leaving behind a more generic medium-bodied oolong scent. Is the tea's untimely expiration because I've stripped the tea leaves of a flavor coating that may or may not be there, or have I simply put the tea through the wringer one too many times? It is hard to say, and an inquiry e-mail is in order, but for now I'll assume the latter.

Somewhere on that tiny island of Formosa, a bored apprentice tea master was punching on his cell-phone while mucking around with ingredients, accidentally spilling a pot of herbs into the oolong brew in front of him. Apparently this suited his tastes, as well as everyone else's. Maybe this is the pop-culture side of tea: the tried-and-true traditional Oolong with a wallop of mint and licorice, making it T TO DA XTREME. For me, it tastes like just another licorice tea (Yogi Egyptian Licorice anybody?) with the added Oolong twist. This makes it superior to most store bought brands, but invalidates the subtleness that I find so charming in Oolong teas. It is hard to reconcile that with a desire to see a creativity on the part tea producers. I should say that this tea is a well received effort, but could stand improvement and better integration between flavors. Yes, I think that's level enough.

Review: Adagio's Golden Monkey

2008-01-21T14:40:00.001-08:00

Adagio's silverback of the black tea world, Golden Monkey, is another one of those hallmark teas that forcefully dragged me into the heretofore unexplored and jungly thicket of tea. If there was any kicking and screaming in the dragging process, it was not in fear, but adoration, even jubilation. Of all the black teas I sampled in those fetal days of my tea career none had made so profound an impact as Adagio's Golden Monkey. And for good reason, too. While white teas may seem tissue soft and dainty, and green teas most definitely remain an acquired taste, burly black teas are fairly well aligned with Western palates. The Golden Monkey, and other boistrous teas like English and Irish Breakfast, or straight out Assam, would do very well in the company of coffee, stouts and barbequed ribs. It is perhaps for that reason, that particular flavor mimicry, that I was effectively lured into tea. Once one is firmly established in the culture of tea it is easy to migrate fluidly between tea styles, but it takes one momentous experience to push a person into tea at the very beginning of their tea career. For me, that push was the Golden Monkey.

What can one say about such a whimsically named tea? To begin, we may say that it is not the tea's true moniker. That honor lies with the Chinese words ~~Dan Cong~~"Congu" (thank you commenter Jo!), which really has nothing to do with a monkey. Even so, it is easy to see why this might be known in some parts of the world as Golden Monkey, for each of the two leaves and one golden bud per tea tip appears to be a monkey's hand, dried and shriveled like the Simpsons' Wishing Monkey Paw. It is prettier than most black teas thanks to the flash of marigold found on the tops, but still occupies the same relatively mundane world of gray and dusky teas - dusky, dusty and sooty.

Adagio has this to say of their tea -

Black tea from the Fujian province of China. Golden Monkey tea is hand-processed each spring with a careful plucking of only one leaf and one bud. It is among the finest Chinese black teas available today. The name comes from its unique appearance: the leaves resemble monkey claws. If you enjoy full-bodied teas with an abundance of flavor, we urge you to give this tea a try.

Appareance & Liquor: I've already complimented the Golden Monkey on it's apt appellation, and there's not much more to say for it's liquor. It is predictably dark, but not as murky as an Assam based blend, with a clearer tone and a deep tinge of pomegranate red. A good lesson in why the Chinese prefer to call what we call black teas, red teas.

Raw Aroma: The Golden Monkey's raw (and untamed) scent is perhaps my favorite part of this tea. It is completely unlike any other black (red) tea I've sampled before. Whereas others are true to a smoky, malty and fairly rough aromatic touch, the Golden Monkey is much earthier. It smacks of wet soil, rich fertile tea gardens and a natural humidity. More than a simple smell, the Golden Monkey interacts with the consumer. The fragrance elicits all the romantic imagery the tea market can conjure, from Peshawar colonials to the Chinese tea picker laboring in knee-high mist. Apocryphal? Maybe, but this is an incredible smell, and the tea hasn't even been steeped.

Steeped Aroma: All the magic of the raw leaf aroma carries over to the steeped aroma in mint condition, and perhaps with a little more clarity. Some of the earthy dustiness is lost in the hydration, but the notes of wet soil are sharper, clearer and more focused. Few teas can engage me so deeply with just the aroma. I find myself spending more time swooning over the fragrance then actually drinking tea. It also distracts me from my reading and work, which I almost always accompany with a serving of tea. In a way, the Golden Monkey is inimical to its intended design in my workflow, constantly harrying me with its robust aroma, but really, with an scent this rich and satisfying, I don't care.

Flavor & Palatte: Once again, the Golden Monkey excels as a black tea, complete with a cornucopia of strong and commanding flavors. Paired with an equally strong palate and the Golden Monkey makes for a well-flavored tea for any time of day or season. The earth and soil tones become far more palpable as they ripple across the tongue, practically booming with bulking and bass flavors. Heavy starch flavors (like potatoes and yams) are also present, shoring up a substantial body, though weaker than in some other black teas I've had. The palate is well matched to the flavor - thick and deep, though not unguent or oily. I'm enamored with the smoky and charcoal flavors as well. Though they pale in comparison to the taste of a heavily smoked Lapsang Souchong, the smoky infusion in Adagio's Golden Monkey makes a perfect spice and counter-balance to the relatively plain but rich earthiness.

The Golden Monkey was one of the very first teas to grossly outperform the stuff available on grocery shelves. In a way, it was the evangelizing agent, spreading the good word of tea to uncouth heathens like myself. That alone deserves merit, but even after sampling many excellent teas, the Golden Monkey remains one of my absolute favorites. Whenever a canister comes into my house it is voraciously consumed like it was a pizza at a LAN party. Absolutely a fine black tea, the Golden Monkey is the first tea I turn to when bringing another potential tea drinker into the fold. It is my holy book of tea, and without it I might not have started into tea at all.

Review: Adagio's Snowbud

2008-01-16T18:07:00.001-08:00

Back at the beginning of my tea career I ordered a white team sample set from Adagio - it was the opening salvo for a paroxysmal fit of white tea tastings. See, I needed to become familiar with what white tea really was. Previous interactions had been limited to store bought boxes of pale dust falsely advertised as white tea. Hardly a fitting form for "a delicate far East treasure". No surprise then that once I had genuine white tea in its myriad loose leaf varieties I was a changed m an. It was a radical departure from any other tea I've had, even from its closest cousin, the green tea. In this newfound pale cup the grassy astringency of Japanese green teas was absent, and the darker shades of flavor of Chinese greens went unaccounted for. White tea was its own branch of the greater tea ramification, self-asserting and and even demanding. It demanded a completely pure and refined palate. It desired a tongue unsullied by anything else - not even light foods and fluids. A stubborn tea, indeed.

Of course, I was not the sage the white tea needed me to be. Instead of the master on the mountain, I was the dunce in the ditch. I remember the first time I had any of Adagio's white teas I found them all to be very, very dainty. Pellucid even. The taste would most aptly be described as 'White light", "clean air" or "glass". Of course, it didn't help that I was wrestling the delicate whole leaves, gingerly packaged by a line of laborers and merchants, into a cramped tea ball minutes before the leaves finally reached the brewing stage. But amongst these sessions of poor tea packing, two teas stood out with their assertive flavors: Adagio's Silver Needle and Adagio's Snowbud.

Snowbud, couched in its namesake.

When I came back to Adagio's website a few months later to order larger tins of the teas I liked, one quick look at the Silver Needles' price quickly convinced me that the Snowbud was the white tea for me. A large canister was more than affordable, though I did find out that a proper cup of white tea requires more volume of leaves to prepare. With tea drinking season upon us the canister has quickly emptied, but was well worth what became an extended introduction to a very engaging branch of the tea family. Here's was Adagio, Snowbud's company, has to say -

"White tea from the Fujian province of China. Snowbud as its name implies is an airy, light tea. And yields a cup worthy of its name: it is effervescent and graceful, with delicate, clean aroma. Snowbud is comprised exclusively of unprocessed leaves and buds, all gathered and dried in the early days of spring. Of all the teas we offer, our 'Snowbud Finale' is the lightest one. If you enjoy the subtle, gentle taste of white tea, we hope you'll give this one a try."

And...

"Snowbud tea hails from the Fujian province of China, one of its most prolific. This region accounts for one-fifth of China's total tea output. And the high quality of its teas keeps them in high demand. This region's exports of tea account for a quarter of the country's total. Fujian teas benefits from an excellent climate, combining mild temperatures, abundant rainfall and mountainous terrain. It has a long history of cultivating tea: over one-thousand years."

Appearance & Liquor: Even after a comparatively lengthy 7 minutes, the Snowbud maintains a highly transparent straw color, no murkiness or cloudiness. It is very agrarian in look, with the clarity of a cool, German lager and the tone of faded, sun bleached hay. Suffice it to say, it is indeed a "white" tea

Broken leaves, but unbroken flavor.

Aroma: One of my favorite parts of a white tea is the aroma. They're always but the merest whispers and shadows of some other aroma, but the subtlety with which they hint at their smell and the labor of coaxing that smell out are really enjoyable. Adagio's Snowbud carries this tradition with its soft notes of vanilla and honey, paired with the lightest and slightest hint of sweet cream. Once you've locked on to Snowbud's aroma it's impossible to lose it again, but rest assured that the reward at prying out these gentle smells is well worth the effort.

Flavor & Palate: Snowbud's first act once it touches the tongue is to at once cover every surface of the mouth. It is a sudden spate of tea that, even a conservative sip belies. After the sudden deluge one might expect a similar spate of flavor. However, the Snowbud keeps eerily quiet for a few tense moments. Then the white tea flavor grows, slowly and steadily, like flower budding in stop motion, until it stands as a domineering conqueror of your palate. In my experience, few teas typify the "flavor" of white tea as loudly or boldly as Adagio's Snowbud. This is not to say Snowbud is an assertive tea. A drinker absolutely needs an unsullied palate to really enjoy it. A piece of chocolate or a heavy sauce would completely breach the potential contract between tongue and tea for at least an hour. Still, with the right conditions Snowbud is quite a flavorful tea - good for white tea novices. The sweet honey notes we met back in the aroma have long since gone, but I now catch light hay notes and the same slight vanilla gently bobbing along in the Snowbud's collection of flavors. Lovely.

As I write this final paragraph I am drinking the efforts of the last few Snowbud leaves at my disposal, salvaged from the bottom of the can. Each time I take a sip I get a clear and pronounced sense of white tea - again, a wonderful demonstration of white tea's base flavor. What I've since forgotten is how incredibly affordable Adagio's Snowbud was, as well. Really, there's no excuse for me not to have a canister of this on me at all times.

And that goes for you too!

Review: Takaokaya's Sen-cha

2008-01-05T19:19:00.001-08:00

When I picked up a box of Takaokaya's Genmai-cha from the local Japanese market, I went ahead and splurged a couple of extra bucks for their whole line of bagged teas, including their Sencha. I was a little hesitant, seeing as a good Sencha relies on the profusely elegant qualities inherent in green tea. Bagged tea doesn't exactly have a good reputation for being nurtured and tenderly loved between the garden and the store. In other words, things seemed...inimical to the sencha's well being and good health, particularly on my tongue

Upon opening of the bag I was immediately greeted by the very essence of mediocrity. The Sencha, like it's partner the Genmai-cha, occupied a tense 42nd parallel of love and hate. This was a mass produced sencha. It embodied none of the qualities of an expertly fashioned green tea, nor did it reek of ill flavors. I disliked it, but did not scorn it. I would serve it to my guests, but not to myself. It was, quite simply, very plain, and like the plain maiden in the little town of folklore and storybooks, was never more prominent than a background to a bright and vibrant story. It is the very model of drinkable tea far below appreciable excellence. And by that I mean it makes a good contrast for better teas.

Appearance: This time I didn't bother with cutting open the tea bag. It's safe to assume that whatever lies therein is small and likely green. I don't have a very creative imagination, but something along the lines of finely minced parsley is not beyond my mental capabilities. The liquor is a different story. It is green. Staggeringly green. And not staggering like "Oh my, look at that rich green moss" or "What a beautiful emerald!" or even "Curious bile, eh?" but rather, a blinding beacon of neon verdance. It is practically glowing, maybe moreso than Iran's innocuous energy policy, giving off a light that, if it weren't so gaudily bright, might be considered eerie. Rather, it is gatorade green, with a certain bright yellow quality indicating to my natural, feral insticts: "DO NOT IMBIBE! POISON!". However, I have long since left the world of bright yellow poisonous plants and treacherously venemous yellow butterflies, and learned to cast off all such warnings thanks to human evolution with snack food and the invention of processed cheese. I proceed.

Aroma: The aroma is incredibly plain, with the meek, meager grassy notes desperately bolstered in structure by the brusque scent of the paper bag. Even so, there are tell-tale signs of green tea therein. It's flat, lifeless and dessicated but it is undeniably there. Hmm. Sort of like a mummy, I suppose. So there you have it - Takaokaya Sencha: The Smell of Mummified Green Tea.

Flavor & Palatte: The flavor too is on the attenuated side, but doesn't stray as far as the aroma does into self-negating oblivion. I found that at three minutes the sencha's flavor was disagreeably sickly. The next cup I took to the full four minute mark with much improvement. Again, it is only the same very base and very simple sencha flavor, a simple nod to the greater kingdom of green tea, but louder than the terribly weak three minute steep.

If green tea, stripped of all its palatable ornamentation and vampirically drained of its better half, appeals to you then I heartily recommend Takaokaya's boxed and bagged tea. If you're trying to introduce someone to the joys of green tea, I would heartily suggest you keep this locked away tight. Not that you would, but while this green tea speaks of a mythical flavor that exists far beyond its capabilities, you would do much better to invest a little more money and acquire that mythically flavored green tea instead of settling for a barebones Takaokaya varietal. It's not a bad tea, really, but not a very good one either, and in a world where Murphy's Law reigns supreme and everything is bound to go poorly, that ain't so bad.

Refreshing New Poll

2007-12-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

In between sips life can be a real bother, but fret not! Long delay, new poll up.

Correction, thanks to the keen eyes of Mary. Flotsam should instead read sediment, crumbs, crumblies, dregs, precipitate or otherwise.

Review: Takaokaya's Genmai-cha

2007-11-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

The pursuit of a palatable bagged tea continued in a dogged race for something, anything better than Stash's Decaf Green Tea. My search brought me to Pacific Mercantile, a local Japanese market of good repute and standing. They're not so gourmet as to offer loose leaf teas, but they do offer bagged green teas imported from Japan. The Japanese may settle for bagged teas, but my impression is that they refuse to settle for bad tea. If there is an acceptable bagged tea out there, the Japanese will know about it, and by proxy, the Japanese market.

Weaving between aisles of pocky, yogurt milk drinks and miso pastes I finally emerge at a long shelf row refulgent with green cubes and green leaves. It is a hedge of green tea, with boxes instead of shrubs. All the same, it is tea and I am eager to try it. The store's tea offerings span the entire quality spectrum, with high quality matcha in nitro-cans all the way down to chintzy little boxes of tea dust. This is where I decided to start - the three flavors of Takaokaya's bagged teas, costing all of $1.89 each and serving up more than a few portions of tea. No doubt this was the blue collar man's tea - the serf's caffeine fix for the day and the drink of choice for fatigued sarariman. Students too. I heard it's affordable clarion call and skipped out the store with a bagful of tea and a well weighted wallet.

The consequence of purchasing absurdly cheap tea, even though it was imported from across the Pacific, dawned on me only as I drove away. If we abide by the tenuous law of cost to quality, then this tea was bound to be a paper bag full of wretched fear and loathing. In reality, I was surprised to find a perfectly acceptable, though boring, tea. By mere virtue of being drinkable I believe the Takaokaya deserves a hearty round of praise.

The company doesn't spend much time or detail on any one of it's bagged green teas. They list a few awards, including one from the incredibly corrupt Ministry of Agriculture (a dubious honor indeed) but I'm sure it was given in good faith. As such, there are no additional details to dish out on their Genmai-cha save that it was made with all the love that it's consanguinous siblings, the Houji-cha and the Sencha, enjoyed in their own manufacture, and that the Japanese MoA apparently approves of their teas.

The tea, resting precariously on the woodwork.

Here are the stats. 12 oz. of hot water, cooled for 2 minutes post-boil. 2 teabags to accommodate the double serving of water. Bags steeped for 1.5 minutes. Box recommends 1-2 minutes. I took the median.

Liquor & Appearance: Saving one bag for scientific autopsy (very affordable) we find a generous serving of dust and fannings. Imagine a regular loose-leaf genmaicha. Green tea, brown rice, the whole medley. Now blend it really, really well. Use a blender, a mixer, a stick blender, even a mallet will do. Mash, grind and cut until the particles are a much tinier version of their original selves. Thee you have it - the contents of the Genmai-cha tea bag. After enjoying the insouciant look of regular Genmai with the full sized bits of popcorn and popped brown rice, I found these miniature versions sort of funny. It was a bit like getting roughed up in a storm and dropped into a colorful village of midgets and Lollipop Guilds and whatnot, where everything and everyone is shorter and bedizened in tawdy frills in a total and flagrant disregard for modern political correctness. Everything is just suddenly smaller, except instead of looking cute and portable, the Takaokaya Genmai-cha just looks stepped on. Still, I can make out individual bits of brown rice and tea leaf, suggesting these components were there in a whole form at least some time in the process. Good. I acknowledge the necessity of miniaturization for tea bags, which means the suffering the tea underwent was more a martydom then a tragedy.

After a one and a half minute brew the liquor takes on a moderately cloudy, light green and light yellow haze. It is bright and, in a certain light, something of an eyesore. I could have been convinced as a child that this was the stuff they filled glo-sticks with. The good news is ravers can enjoy a round of warehouse techno and Takaokaya genmai-cha, and when they've slaked their thirst they've got a cup full of sloshing incandescence to awe the crowd with.

Aroma: Despite being a vivaciously blinding tea to the eye, the aroma is rich, heavy and even a little sullen. In true genmai-cha fashion, the brown tea takes the aromatic lead. It is strong, but not commanding, similar to the unique smell of Rice Krispies. I mean, they're both popped brown rice. We can delude ourselves and believe that when the Japanese pop their brown rice they do it better with some kind of Zen mastery and a side of Shinto magic. I doubt it, but while the methods may differ between a Japanese tea master and a metal behemoth on the Kellogg's factory floor, I highly doubt anyone has expended extra effort in popping brown rice in a fancy fashion when it's destined for a good boot stomping and a paper bag. In other words, it is a very normal aroma. Also note that the astringent, grassy qualities of green tea are entirely absent. The brown rice has easily conquered the comport fragrance of tea. This is not immediately harmful to the aroma, but it does make it needlessly simple.

True to form?

Flavor: The price is a bit too good to be true. While the tea's appearance is, to use an understatement, dazzling, and the aroma thickly layered, the taste is insufficient to really make this is a solid tea. Especially compared to an orthodox, loose leaf genmai-cha, the Takaokaya offering is almost flavorless, and at the least enervated and weak. It retains the characteristic genmai-touch - that dwarfy ruddiness and earthiness that would fit well in a Hobbit's den, but it is weaker than it needs to be to be fully enjoyed. It lacks strength, pungency and subtlety. I can pardon the subtlety for bagged tea, but I'd at least like the flavor to be bold enough to be engaging.

Despite these criticisms, it is leagues superior to Stash's alternative and at a fraction of the price. If I'm looking for a solid bagged green tea, at this point in time, I'd be more than willing to buy another box of this tea.

November 5th Poll Results

2007-11-16T13:49:00.001-08:00

Cap & Kettle's second poll is closed, and a hearty thanks to you who voted. All eight of you. At least the turn out was better than most U.S. Presidential elections. Zing! Okay, let's take a look at the results, hm?

Pinyin or Wade-Giles? How do you spell (romanize) your Chinese teas?

One of you chose Wade-Giles. May you bear the burden of your guilt forever, and may an angry ox tread on your face in your sleep. Nobody likes Wade-Giles but you.

Three of you chose Pinyin. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, if only the various and sundry online tea merchants took notice.

One of you selected both Wade-Giles and Pinyin. You're only half as evil as that Wade-Giles guy, so, um, may a baby ox tread on your face in your sleep.

And finally, three people chose the "I have no idea what you're talking about answer". That's fine. It exonerates you of the grave crime a few other voters committed. It also suggests that you don't need any kind of background or contextual knowledge to enjoy a good Chinese tea. Ahh, bliss.

Thanks again for voting, and be sure to participate in the next poll.

Review: Adagio's English Breakfast

2007-11-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

Of life's simple pleasures, few are as supremely satisfying and affordable as two eggs over easy served with two slices of toast. With proper seasoning and the courage to serve the egg on top of the toast, and maybe even a small glass of whole milk, it is a masochistic repast for the hardcore trencherman. The only problem is the immediate aftermath. Like any good festive binge the hangover can be a little unpleasant. The animal fats combined with the total absence of vitamins, minerals or fiber takes a terrible toll on the gut. It is only thanks to tea's restorative powers that I am once again able roll out of my cholesto-hibernation and greet the day. For a meal of this girth, an equally heavy tea is needed to combat the soporific effects of a greasy breakfast. Delicate white and green teas can do nothing, and their soft flavors are easily quashed by lingering butter and yolk. Oolongs could provide a respite from the tyrannical grease, but I argue they are too lenient in taste to accomplisn anything. No, only black tea has the muscle to wrest my body from the clutches of a sinfully unhealthy meal. The question is, which black tea?

How about the one designed expressly to be paired with a fatty breakfast? Indeed, the English have long provided their stout laborers and farmers with the gut-brick breakfasts that can keep a worker in a semi-conscious stupor. These meals may not endow the diner with the best feeling, but the old egg and toast classic keeps a man or woman going well into the darker hours of the day. When tea took English society by storm, it was only natural for the English to find a particular tea brew that could match the potency of a heavy English breakfast. Although the primary reason green tea fell from European favor was counterfeiting, I argue that a few intelligent chefs and frequent visitors of tea houses figured out that green teas were entirely inappropriate for the English meal, forever changing the tea drinking landscape of Europe. That's where the English Breakfast Tea was born, or so says my inchoate, impromptu mythology. Combining the solid, formidable and earthy base of Keemum, the English Breakfast is a blend more than capable of grappling with the heaviest, greasiest foods.

I had originally bought a canister of Adagio's English Breakfast for my father, who was looking for an alternative to coffee. I figured it would be somewhat close. Here's how Adagio tagged their version:

Black Keemun tea from the Anhui region of China. As its name implies, English Breakfast tea is an ideal accompaniment to a morning meal. Our exquisite version of this tea is made with the finest grade Keemun, prized for its rich smoky flavor, and sumptuous aroma. May be enjoyed plain or with a drop of milk. It remains one of our most popular varieties.

Black teas tend to be more straightforward in flavor and consistency, lacking the nuances of their white, yellow, green and Oolong cousins. At least on the surface. However, Dad courteously rejected my tea overtures, which in retrospect may have been due to me brewing up small pots of wildly oversteeped tea with the intense bitterness and flavor of spitoon crust. I adopted the orphaned English Breakfast and discovered its helpful role in quelling the postprandial protest of my delicious eggs and toast.

Liquor & Appearance: I suspect the English Breakfast is a seminal standard for the appearance of black tea. It's black. Couldn't be simpler. The leaves have that charcoal dustiness to them that gives the tea its traditionally processed look, alongside scattered gold spots. The liquor is expectedly murky. It's a very dark brown, almost black, like burnt or charred wood. It is also very cloudy, giving the impression of a terrifying all-consuming, yawning chasm the color of a nice mahogany. After suffering a severe case of vertigo and fatalism I stopped staring into the 12 oz. mug and proceeded to the aroma.

A nice, healthy looking black tea.

Aroma: Surprisingly, Adagio's English Breakfast's aroma is not very thick, solid or substantial. Rather, it's timidly thin. I expected a heavy set black tea to somehow have a more tumid aromatic texture, but alas, this tea is delicate and fragile. A good inhale conjures images of sweet root vegetables - yam, carrots and a complementary dark and sweet malts. It's quite pleasant to breath in, like a hearty aroma therapy, though the utter darkness of flavor makes the wan consistency seem even more out of place. Really, I've had green teas with a fuller aroma quality. Strange and emaciated as it may be, the English Breakfast's aroma is still a great match with breakfast.

Flavor: The English breakfast doesn't have a large, forward flinging flavor to smack the drinker. By that I mean at first its very quiet. Just a thick, hot water. About mid-taste it begins to take on an aged, earth quality with a fair bit of tannic bite. The drinker understands that its a tea, but it still tastes obtuse and unrefined. Like a tea from a mass produced bag. Even so, it is the meek tannic quality that so elegantly duels the left over greasy slathering on the tongue, ripping off the animal fats like velcro. After it has done this, the tea slowly transforms into a smoky, engaging and charcoaly drink in its aftertaste. This is its final fluorish, the last twitch to free itself from the cocoon and thus, in full form makes itself a splendid morning English Breakfast for breakfast.

There is, thus far, no reasonable substitute for this tea. It is firmly ingrained in my morning routine. Its absence, like any other single whit of my well versed morning, makes me cranky. No, it actually makes me feral. An empty can of English Breakfast sets off a most terrible reaction, inducing me to knocking over lamps and getting into heated barking contests with my 7 lb. dog. Thanfully, Adagio's English Breakfast is very reasonable priced and, as a black tea, doesn't require a lot of tea for an appropriate volume, so there's always plenty around.

Review: Adagio's Jasmine #9

2007-11-10T16:44:00.001-08:00

Films like "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" conjure up chimerical and fantastical images of China which we, as Americans, might take for a little bit more than fiction, and why not? Few Americans have actually read about China, fewer still have paid it a visit. The last time the population-at-large seemed to care was in 1989, and even then we were cheering on a papiermachet statue bobbing up and down in Tianenmen Square. It is easy to imagine that Chinese, its history and its countryside are all as colorful and epic as Zhang Yimou portrays.

If you, like me, prefer the cinematic qualities of a high-budget Imperial Court and color coordinated banner army over the realism of today's Chinese grinding poverty and environmental squalor, it's only natural to seek out and cherry pick those vestigial Chinese customs and traditions that harken back to the Middle Kingdom's better days. Tea is one such tradition, bonded to the Chinese wiseman and his beautiful garden, or the the court aristocrat and his impeccable calligraphy. The business of mythical China is had over tea, and so tea becomes a Chinese icon. To the beginner few teas exemplify the romantic quality of a bygone China then the exquisite Jasmine Tea.

Strangely, the Jasmine flower is not native to China at all. It was brought to China from Persia, and though it was a foreign plant, the Chinese took to it like an artist that had met his natural medium. The process of making Jasmine tea is fairly straightforward, but the efforts gargantuan. First, one must consider that tea is usually plucked a couple of months before the Jasmine flowers can be harvested. If the jasmine were to be plucked any earlier, the effect (and flavor) would be spoiled. So, the tea must wait, and is put into a special stasis. When the Jasmine flowers are ready, they're picked and added to the tea leaves. As night approaches, the jasmine flowers open, imparting their distinctive character to the tea leaves. Depending on the quality of the jasmine tea, this process can be refined or crass, and the duration of the process extended a few days to adjust for the quality. Finally, the Jasmine petals are disposed of for Chinese markets leaving the finished product of Jasmine Tea. Foreign audiences seem more stricken with the quirk of a flower petal in their tea, so often these are left in if the tea is for export.

You may not know it, but if you're new to tea, you've likely had jasmine tea before. Many Chinese restaurants, or at least those in my immediate vicinity, will offer tea to customers dining in the restaurant. Usually this means a flimsy metal pot and some small cups. The tea itself is bland, but there will at least be a flowery tingle in the flavor. The first time I had Chinese restaurant grade Jasmine tea I had never really thought the flavor was enervated from a flower and infused into the tea. Then again, tea back then was a truly mysterious plant. For all I knew it could encompass a flowery flavor. So I had dismissed this unique bouquet as an idiosyncrasy of the brewing process. Clearly I was wrong, and if I remember correctly, appropriately punished with a hot cup of tea in my lap. The shrimp fried rice was still excellent.

All participating parties

Many years later, after the terrible throes of adolescence and the less terrible throes of freshman and sophomore year college, I got my grubby little mits on a bunch of Adagio Tea samplers. One of them was the "Oolong Sampler" and contained therein was the Jasmine #9 - to steal Adagio's frustrating musical theme, an ode to the sweet, sweet fragrance of the jasmine flower. It was good. Very good in fact, and was one of only a few teas that I re-ordered in a larger size. With better equipment, superior brewing techniques (as in, the leaves not beaten with a fist into the corner of a cramped tea ball) and some additional "book learnins'" the tea has only improved. I was even motivated to edit the Wikipedia article on Jasmine! So now, my glowing review!

First, here's Adagio's own description:

Oolong tea from the Fujian province of China infused with the delicate scent of the night-blooming jasmine flowers. If you enjoy jasmine tea, we urge you to try the sublime taste of its well-made varieties. Our 'Jasmine Suite no. 9' is the finest grade Yin Hao tea, perfectly suited for special occasions. It melts into a cup of sweet fragrance and delicate jasmine notes. You will be hard-pressed to find anything so sublime.

The raw leaf

Adagio recommends a three minute steep time; compared to all the black teas I’ve been drinking this seems like a short time, but it puts plenty of flavor into the tea. I’ve also chosen to add the water well after boiling to keep it from scalding the tea leaves. Besides, these are the orthodox rules of Oolong, scented with flowers or not. It’s only appropriate.

The first steep of the Jasmine #9 is very familiar. It was my tea of choice through the month of October. The light character but determined flavor suited the brisk but comfortable Colorado fall weather perfectly, and provided for a few relaxing fall viewing sessions outside.

First steep

The color is relatively light, with a gold and straw color to it, but it doesn’t appear weak. On the contrary, it looks intensely tea-like. Just not charred or auburn like a heartily brewed black tea. The aroma is light and refreshing, with a subdued jasmine scent tagging along. For a jasmine tea I find it a little tenuous, but it’s ethereal fragrance combined with the tea’s bold floral character make a well balanced aroma for the newbie tea drinker. The palate is curiously viscous, completely transforming the gravity of the water used in brewing. Not only does it feel heavier in the mouth, but it causes the tea’s flavor to stick around the tongue much longer than expected. Considering the gentle, cloudy jasmine quality this is a good thing. The bold flavor of the jasmine flower is a dangerous flavor indeed. Too little and the tea is bland and lifeless. Too much and the flowery character is overpowering. The tea masters must walk an incredibly thin line, insuring that the jasmine flavor is properly absorbed into the tea without making it a glorified potpourri. This has been addressed with keen precision in the Jasmine #9, giving all the sweet, madeleine Jasmine character. It is a monolithic flavor, repressing any other nuances the tea base may have, but considering the circumstances it is permitted. We are drinking jasmine tea, after all. Still, there is a quiet taste of herb, like chive, lingering in the pool of jasmine that nicely complements the dictatorial flower’s reign.

Spent leaf

The second steep brings a new and different tea, though clearly related to the original #9. The texture has become even creamer, expanding and expounding in the mouth, but the jasmine has weakened considerably. A gamut of earth tones and rich soil flavors take its place, once again wrapping themselves around the tongue with the assistance of the heavy cream like texture. The color has refused to change, while the aroma has lot some of its jasmine quality making it plain and dull.

The third steep, with an additional ten seconds and slightly hotter water behind it is drastically disparate from the first two steeps. The tea’s liquor has now taken on a darker more minatory shade, arousing suspicions that I have somehow incorrectly brewed the third round. The nose, with the jasmine almost entirely absent, offers up a clean lemon smell, sweeping away the duskier earth tones from the second steep with a heretofore unnoticed stream of citrus. Honey suckle appears too, with its characteristic nectar sugar smell, counterbalancing the blazing sugars of the lemon to make an excitable, bright aroma. Strange, considering this is the third steep. If the aroma has made a curious metamorphosis, the taste has not. The viscosity feels degenerated, abused from so much use, and the jasmine flavor entirely hollow. It is now an imperceptibly light tea, and tastes very similiar to the jasmine teas served at Chinese restaurants.

It is tempting to sit down down, cross my legs, inhale once slowly, take off my glasses and rub my nose, then exhale and gentle tell the Jasmine tea how pitifully simple it is. But that would take a lot of time and facial exercise. Instead, I'll say this - sometimes one simple but well tuned flavor is more high valued than a cacophony of interlocking flavors working in synch like little gremlins (or elves, depending on whether you're still digging Halloween or are putting up the Christmas tree already). The jasmine #9 relies on that dedicated cause straight to the jasmine, and it does well. It's bold, but not too loud. Adagio offers two more Jasmine flavored teas. The Jasmine #5 seems ho-hum, but the Jasmine #12 has had nothing but praise heaped on it. It also costs more. If the #9 seems good now, I can't wait to give those little pearls a chance.

Oh, and Adagio's customer service was impeccable, but we'll save that for another post.

Review: Stash's Premium Green Decaf

2007-11-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

In my ongoing quest for a portable, convenient and drinkable bagged tea I came across an unusued and justifiably unloved box of Stash's Decaf Green Tea. Before we discuss the company, the ethics of bagged tea, or the travesty of such a highly processed green, we need to acknowledge one big problem - decaffeinated. I've always thought of decaffeination as castigation of a drink. By removing the zip and aftereffect zing of a good cup of tea (or coffee for that matter) an unwitting consumer is left with a whimpering mug of tepid despair. Why would you wish this on anybody, or any drink? Furthermore, why would you buy it, and then commit the ultimate misdeed by ingesting it? I understand that there are some who don't want the caffeine but do want the drink's falvor, or at least it's thermal qualities. But decaffeination is itself a brutal process, vitiating the subtle flavors of a good tea or coffee. Consumers are binding themselves in a destructive contract when they purchase a decaffeinated product. In essence they've agreed to overlook the attenuated quality of the drink in exchange for the extraction of caffeine. Everybody loses.

Return to present. Here I am, faced with a box of green tea that I am tempted to discard simply because it's restorative properties have been excised in a bloody and harmful procedure. But the blood isn't on my hands, and I do think every tea or quasi-tea beverage deserves at least one chance, so here comes a review I deigned to write and most readers deign to read.

The Trifecta

I intend to write a more elaborate and thought out essay on this upcoming point, but I need to mention it now, briefly. For me, bagged tea is an acceptable compromise for convenience, especially pertinent in the workplace. I do not expect the flavor to have ten thousand glorious layers of subtlety. I only expect to be engaging enough while I focus on conversation or work. So there.

The company take is as follows: "A delicate, slightly sweet, slightly nutty flavor. For our decaffeinated teas we use an advanced, completely natural European process. This process removes 99.5% of the caffeine, leaving the tea leaves with all the flavor, color and aroma you expect from Stash premium teas."

Completely natural European process? I'm not convinced. The Inquisition, the colonial subjugation of foreign powers and, initially, chemical warfare were all exclusive European processes. Just because it comes from a land of socialized governments and Bohemian intellectuals doesn't mean it's good.

Note: Stash's website navigates like a poorly programmed science database. I've had easier times referencing arcane and ancient foreign language articles than I had finding the commercial description for this tea. Only when I had started to wrap the mouse around my neck like a crude noose did I finally stumble on the darn thing.

That said, the Stash Decaf Green Tea is nothing short of an abomination. Really, it's awful. It is the worst "green tea" I have ever had. Let's begin.

Liquor & Appearance: At 2' 15" and 3' the color appears to be the exact same. It's dark, but sickly and murky. At first I had assumed I oversteeped it, but hacking off 45 seconds and even adding a little extra water does nothing to make the diseased visage of this tea any better. Ick.

Raw Aroma: Dark and dank, almost odorless.

Steeped Aroma: The smell is, thankfully, not as immediately offensive as the appearance. Genmai-cha's characteristic dusk and ruddiness appears here, but drier and less flavorful. The other half of the aroma is the smell of raw pumpkin/pumpkin guts. Too bad, too. Since I was a kid I've always hated that smell. It induces an inexplicable gag reflex. Since the tea maintains only a shade of this most dislikeable aroma I didn't becpme ill, but I made sure to breath through my mouth before taking a sip.

Flavor & Palate: If you've read the rest of the review you already understand that this "tea" lacks spirit. Thus it comes as no surprise that it lacks flavor as well. Even with accidental oversteeping I can't detect any actual tea flavor. Just as in the aroma, all I can pick up is a somber dustiness and a revolting raw gourd quality. Why Stash's Green Tea is redolent of this unfriendly stench and taste is far beyond the interpretive skills of the author. All I can determine is that it is eminently poor for the tea and induces an acute queasiness in the drinker's gut. Cutting the steeping time by a full minute down to two minutes (Stash reccomends 1-3 minutes) alleviates much of the vegetabal taste, but leaves the tea entirely flavorless. It is an improvement.

Not much more needs to be said. There are no redeeming qualities. Stash's Decaffeinated Bagged Green tea is very, very unpleasant. Not only is it a poor tea, it is actually discomforting.

October 30th Poll Results

2007-11-05T01:06:00.000-08:00

What is your favorite time of day to have tea?

That's the end of the first poll. Seems most of you take your tea in the evening, presumably to recuperate from your long, tea-less day. "Late morning" takes second place. And with that it is clear that the poll was incredibly stupid, because everyone knows you take tea in the late in the morning or to relax at home. Few people drink later at night, but I was hoping the Li Bai reference would resonate with a few more tea avids. A few dedicated individuals checked every box. Good for you. You're the tea elite, drinking tea like you had a dedicated IV and a catheter strapped to your ankle.

Tea in the News

2007-11-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

The Onion lampoons deserving tea and tea drinkers in its frontpage article "Fancy Man Enjoys Tea". As usual, brilliantly done.

"The 29-year-old web designer prepared and consumed his precious tea, which is imported from some la-di-da foreign country, at about 10:30 a.m with the loving attention of a brittle, shawl-wearing spinster."

Ouch.

And that's with a guy who uses tea bags. I wonder how bitter it would get with some of the more othodox tea habits, like loose leaf.

UPDATE - Apparently the "full" article is available in the print edition of The Onion.

Review: Celestial Seasonings' Perfectly Pear White Tea

2007-11-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

The idea of a delicate white tea brutally cut, torn and ripped at the hands of an unbridled shredding machine is a little gut wrenching. Somewhere there's a giant steel box, churning with guts full of razor blades, carelessly hacking at what otherwise should be a pampered tea leaf. Why would anyone desecrate something so pure and holy? Do we spit at holy sites? Do we use the bones of Saint's as monopoly pieces? Would we headbutt the Dalai Llama or spill our chocolate shake on the Pope? Barring some eccentric exceptions, no! So why massacre a tea leaf destined for white tea?

Because it suits our palates.

Well, some of our palates.

Celestial Seasonings is no fool. They understand that Americans with their hard work-a-day lives have no time to steep leaves properly. It's a lot of hassle and equipment cleaning to do inbetween McDonald's runs and litanies against soccer. So companies do us a favor and make white tea simple and easy. They bag it. And bagged tea needs to be very small, hence the Zorro act on the tea leaf. The transgression is unpardonable, but nobody else seems to notice. So, with a heavy heart and a thirsty palate I give Celestial Seasonings' White Pear a try.

The box and cat, both with excellent posture.

Here's the company's review:

Long ago white tea was a rarity reserved for Chinese royalty who treasured its wonderfully calming nature and delicate depth of flavor and aroma. We celebrate to the unique flavor of white tea with the lusciously mellow sweetness of Perfectly Pear White Tea. Natural pear and vanilla flavors enhance the white tea's soft, flowery tones ... perfectly. Served hot or iced, this tea is truly elegant. Our suggestion? Find a favorite place to enjoy Perfectly Pear White Tea, and refine the moment into something especially for you.

So what makes up such a perfect tea?

White tea with natural pear and vanilla flavors.

Uncannily vague.

Appearance & Liquour: A quick vivisection yields the tea bag's contents. Inside I found a pile of powder staggeringly transformed. There is no semblance of tea here. Only tragedy, broken into bits and then broken again. The liquor brews up a wet-straw golden brown, leaning a little on the green side but only faintly.

White tea, wishing it were whole again.

Raw Aroma: The sheer assertiveness of the pear dominates the raw aroma, but this is to be expected. It is, like other Celestial Seasonings' teas, very dusty, inciting a long series of sneezes. I think I'm done here.

Steeped Aroma: The Perfectly Pear White Tea's most elegant quality is here in the nose. A decadent waft of butter gambols out of the mug to coat the olfactory before introducing the scent of the pear - specifically pear juice, not the rind or flesh. But the pear's subtle fruity qualities combined with the soft, buttery notes is, if not deep, then intoxicating. It is an aromatic massage sans Helga, giving your senses just the slightest hints of flavor to excite. Not bad, Celestial Seasonings. Not bad at all.

Flavor & Palate: Where the aroma excels, the flavor disappoints. The sip that brings in the tea is flavorless. On the tongue it is flavorless. Coating the mouth with the tea manifests a generic bitterness that reminds me it is an herbal tea, but not a mite of pear can be found. Until the aftertaste. It's here that a slow crescendo of juicy pear reveals itself, materializing into its recognizable softness and sweetness. It is a humming of pear. Like the aroma, both soft and delicate, it is tangible, but still ethereal and persists long after the actual tea has left. Unfortunately this is a poor substitute for the tea's general lack of flavor. No drink, I think, should force the drinker to wait to the end of the sip to catch any of the beverage's qualities.

All the tea together.

Review: Celestial Seasonings' Acaí Mango Zinger

2007-10-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Celestial Seasonings' line of Zinger teas is in a class all by itself. Literally. You wouldn't know it if you drank it hot, but the Zingers are engineered to be just as good, if not better, served cold. They put this into practice at their factory where, amongst the free samples of tea available in the tour waiting room, a customer can take a steaming cup of hot tea, or one of two different species of sweetend Zingers. Chilled, of course.

"When the dog days of summer start to wear you down, freshen up with the lively and revitalizing flavor of a Celestial Seasonings Zinger® on ice! Each of these delicious, caffeine free teas sparkles with the tart and tangy taste and ruby-red color of hibiscus and other delicious, all-natural ingredients.

You know these teas taste great hot, but you may not know that a chilled glass of flavorful Zinger tea is a glass of pure refreshment. Simply brew your tea in a heat-resistant container and add ice. Drink in relief from the summer heat-it's just moments away!"

The first tour I took at Celestial Seasonings was precluded by at least a dozen tiny paper cups worth of Berry Zinger, and my bladder punished me for it the whole way through. But it was good, and those lingering memories surfaced when I opened up the box of Acai Mango Zinger. The vibrant, tropical box art is a good tip-off. Everything about this tea exudes swaying palm trees and pasty tourists in tacky swim wear. Let's look at the information.

The box, lurking in the shadows.

Ooh, Brazil.

"Rich, healthful Acaí berries from the Brazilian rainforests, juicy mangos and the trademark zing of hibiscus create a unique taste sensation in Acaí Mango Zinger. For centuries, natives of the rainforest have relied on the antioxidants and other essential nutrients naturally present in the ancient Acaí berry for daily energy. Now you can liven up your day with this exotic tea, which is delicious hot or iced. Take a trip down the mighty Amazon with every sip!"

The odds and ends.

"Hibiscus, rosehips, orange peel, natural Acaí berry and mango flavors with other natural flavors, blackberry leaves, Acaí berry fruit and Acaí berry purée."

Hibiscus? How regal. Rosehips? Don't even know what those are. Orange peel? Too dry. Acai berry? Exotique! "Other natuval flavors"? Curiously vague. Blackberry leaves? Because we couldn't afford the blackberries. And then more Acai. Also, where exactly do the "mango flavors" come from? Hmm...

Liquor & Appearance: Brewed at five minutes the Acai Mango Zinger takes on a deep red, nigh crimson pomegranate red. This confused me. Mangoes, to all recollection, have a yellow flesh. Acai berries I wasn't so sure, so I gave them the benefit of a Google image search. This yielded a charming photo of what appeared to be a cross between blueberries and black olives - round, opal black and polished looking. Using the long standing and faultless tool of science - process of elimination - I skillfully determined that it is indeed the Acai berry that is bleeding for the rich, deep rose color of the tea.

A handful of the stuff.

Raw Aroma: Tangy, sour and a bit too pungent for my nose. Mango is present in excess.

Steeped Aroma: Definitively a medley of tropical aromas - mango is the paramount player, identifiable by its distinct sweet and sour flavor. The mango possesses another charming trait - black pepper. Ever since I started giving my nose a daily regimen of black pepper to feast on (one of my favorite smells in the world) I've becoming particularly sensitive to anything remotely like it. It appears in the stranges places. For example, the mango. It's not entirely clear where the Zinger gets its mango flavoring, but wherever it comes from, originating in some mysterious and shady back alley, it brought along the peppery flavor. Like someone bring along a Wii to a party, it's unexpected but entirely welcome. Red grapes and a pinch of cinnamon appear too, but I'm really too busy fawning over the mango's pepper pinch to care.

Flavor & Palate: The Acai Mango Zinger seems a bit lighter than most herbal teas. It tip-toes on the tongue, but like the gaijin on the Tokyo train, it's hard not to notice it's there. That's because while the mango flavor from the scent is well preserved in the taste from the aroma, there is an additional grapefruit acidity. A little zip does the tea no harm though, and blends harmoniously with the mango. The diversity of flavors ends there. A singular character, but not surprising coming from a mass marketed herbal tea. A teaspoon of sugar per cup gives the Acai Mango Zinger a slight glow of caramel apple sweetness, but it feels weak and tepid. Two teaspoons of sugar, a bit excess even for me, brings it to a more noticeable level. But by the time you've finished the mug you're ears turn red and you're jumping around the room like a set of prank chattering teeth.

Currently this review stands incomplete. I have neglected to try the Mango Zinger in its chilled form, but it is not because I was remiss. A chilled tea, no matter how conventional or well within the accepted boundaries of tea preparation, is to me an entirely different drink and currently outside the scope of this blog's well meaning intentions. Iced tea is not Cap & Kettle material, so I will circumscribe the review to the conventionally hot brew form. As such, Celestial Seasonings' fruity concoction ia rather good, if facile. Like the True Bluberry I could easily see this tea gracing a handful of mugs for guests who may not appreciate your fondness for exquisite teas. It's not a crime. We're bound to accomodate this unfortunate aberration, and a tasty grocery store herbal may be the best way to do it.

Review: Celestial Seasonings' True Blueberry

2007-10-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

The blueberry is an enigmatic fruit. Stuffed with anti-oxidants, curiously round, and made famous by Roald Dahl's nasty character Violet Beauregarde, the blueberry has enjoyed a fruitful career as a healthy berry, but it lacks the fame and appeal of its many cousins, such as the strawberry, blackberry and even the boysenberry. Its appearances in desserts is relatively rare, and any manifestation of blueberry in candies or sweets is more a product of artifice and Frankensteinian science than a respectful reference to a toothsome fruit. That is why Celestial Seasonings' True Blueberry is a welcome treat. Though it is an herbal, it is still a hot beverage, and in my mind occupies the same place as a hot tea would in purpose and appreciation. And though it is found in and amongst the riff-raff at grocery stores, passed around like a common drink, the True Blueberry makes for a verisimilar drink of blueberry flavor.

Marketing speak?

"If you are a real blueberry lover, then True Blueberry Herb Tea is for you! This luscious treat bursts with a sun-warmed fruity scent and the mouth-watering flavor of fresh blueberries. An anti-oxidant rich combination of wild blueberries, blueberry flavor and other herbs creates the full-bodied taste. Naturally caffeine-free, True Blueberry is delicious any time, hot or iced. So, savor pure blueberry bliss with a steamy cup. Or try it chilled for a thrill of genuine berry refreshment!"

Ingredients?

"Hibiscus, rosehips, orange peel, natural blueberry flavor with other natural flavors, blackberry leaves, blueberries and blueberry leaves."

Alright, let's roll.

Appearance & Liquor: Once brewed, the herbal tea takes on a passionate purple-red, mixing the sanguine hues of pomegranate seeds with a deep lavender to produce a stunning pool of eye candy. In bright sunlight, however, the liquor is much more of a firetruck red, refulgent and beaming. Really a lovely color for anybody looking to make a palate of tea chromatics.

Raw Aroma: Tangy, sour, and not entirely unlike blueberry sweet-tart candy. This herbal is thirsty!

Steeped Aroma: True Blueberry's aroma is powerful, wafting into the nose with a pleasant swiftness and coaxing the olfactory with the fragrance of sweetened blueberries (a la Pop-Tarts), bubble gum, cotton candy, a hint of graham cracker and a nice, sour pungency of concentrated pomegranate juice. The sugary sweet blueberry note is a little disappointing in the hope for a scent more loyal to the aroma of raw blueberries, but it's considerably milder than it could have been. It is not at all candy like, nor is it cloying. It simply leans towards the artificial blueberry flavoring. This deficiency is corrected in the...

Flavor & Palate: Once the True Blueberry hits your tongue, you realize why it's so true to real, fresh blueberry flavor. Unsweetened, it portrays nothing but the semi-sweet and slightly sour twang of a real blueberry in a satisfying, drinkable form. This is the singular flavor of the tea, but it's a very good one, and for monomaniac blueberry yearnings and a simple need for a simple drink, the flavor is more than adequate. Sweetened with a little sugar, it takes on an entirely different character. Suddenly the True Blueberry adopts a dessert like quality, with all the luxury of a fancy berry and cream treat. About a teaspoon of sugar per cup is perfect.

If bagged tea is your thing, and the commercial black and green tea offerings are lacking the nuances that a black and green tea should have, it's only natural to go with an herbal choice, and you can't go wrong with True Blueberry. The flavors are discernible and noticeable, as well as balanced and representative of good blueberry flavor.

Review: Celestial Seasonings' Persian Mint Spice

2007-10-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

The next stop in my family's basket of admittedly neglected and elderly teas is yet another Celestial Seasonings offering - the Persian Mint Spice Decaf. Apparently this was a favorite of my father's, so only a few bags remained, but it proved more than enough to extract a review. Let it suffice to say that the curtness of the tea extends to the curtness of the review.

Here's what their website says - "Evoke your taste for the exotic with Persian Mint Spice Decaf Black Tea, made with naturally decaffeinated black tea intricately woven with the traditional Persian flavor of cooling mint. With a touch of cinnamon and ginger, this tea will warm your heart, hot or iced. What a delectable way to let a leisurely daydream take wing!"

Ingredients? "Decaffeinated black tea, spearmint, cinnamon, ginger, natural mint and honey flavors with other natural flavors, anise seed, allspice, and dried honey."

It may not be a proper, "fancified" tea, but I'm half-expecting a modestly minty drink. Mint, by itself, is a bold flavor. If nothing else, it should overpower everything else in the blend giving me a refreshing dose of the powerful herb. All the better if there is a synchronized orchestra of flavors between the conductor, mint, and the supplementary flavors; most especially the ginger, cinnamon, anise and allspice. There's plenty of opportunity here for the Persian Mint Spice to please my palate, with it's already low expectations.

Appearance & Liquor: Didn't bother emptying the contents out of the tea bag. I figured that, unlike the Red Safari Spice, I'd likely find a withered and depressed pile of black fannings. Not even worth a photograph. As for the liquor, when brewed for four and a half minutes it takes on a very muddy and murky chocolate brown, with enough swampy morass thickness to be somewhat off putting. It is a far cry from the clarity of proper loose leaf tea.

Raw Aroma: Being a mint tea, the Persian Mint Spice is abound with pungent mint. However, it's dull and lifeless. I'm willing to concede this to age (even though the tea is still far from it's "Best By Date"). And by lifeless, I mean it has lost the vibrancy of fresh, raw mint. It's a mere shadow of its former self, the flavor rattling around like a hacking cough. Instead, the somewhat more mild eucalyptus aroma takes charge, accompanied by a nose wrenching dustiness and the ever present fragrance of tea-bag.

Steeped Aroma: Once the herbal tea has had time to settle into the water I find that the strength of the mint found in the tea's raw form has subsided considerably, subsumed even further by age and depredation. A handful of earth and soil tones form the backbone of the tea, giving the mint some foundation to settle on, but these are weak. The only flavor that isn't feckless is an assertive note of licorice (the anise seed?), which makes for a beautiful bridge between the mint and the earth tones. Without this, the aromatic quality of the tea would be considerably poor.

Flavor & Palate: The Persian Mint Spice's sweeter side is attenuated, leaving the mint's caustic power to wreak havoc on the tongue. It is also tacky, adhering to the entirety of the tongue like a thick coat of paint. This iron-grip cling, combined with a muted, even displeasing taste, is a problem. It is like a strait jacket of moribund flavor and dead mint, and the straps are tight. And like a magician I attempt to wriggle free, but only a good dunking in water can take it away. In other words, it is dead flavor, but with the crushing grip of sumo wrestler, thanks to the mint's vestigial presence.

This herbal tea is proof that, even when an herbal ingredient like mint is notorious for its assertive flavor and bear-hug embrace, poor preparation and care taking can leech all the goodness out of it. It withers and rots, leaving a mummified version of its once lively flavor. All its youthful verve, long expired, has left for greener pastures leaving you, the drinker, with a cup of geriatric mint and dust. And that hardly makes for a consumable drink. Even a generous dose of sugar, often a defibrillator for dying teas, did nothing to liven up the Persian Mint Spice. It's long exhausted, long barren, long dead. And I won't be paying my respects.

Review: Celestian Seasonings' Red Safari Spice

2007-10-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

For my very first tea review, I've chosen Celestial Seasoning's Red Safari Spice. "Why?" the tea enthusiast objects, "Would you choose THAT as your first review?". I'll tell you. It is not a loose leaf, not a plain tea, and in fact, is not a tea at all. I find something poetic in that. The Red Safari Spice is also my first review because of the immense power of arbitration. It was the first box I pulled out of my family's tea basket back when I first became interested in tea. Something like drawing a raffle ticket out of hat. Except nobody really wins.

Here's what Celestial Seasonings' marketers have to say about Red Safari Spice -

"Experience the unexpected pleasures of an African odyssey with Red Safari Spice Tea. This magnificent rooibos herb tea offers a slightly sweet, fruity flavor with a twist of red pepper and a kiss of ginger and cinnamon. Every naturally caffeine-free sip steams with a delicious, spicy flavor, evoking the marvels of Africa and her burnished panoramas. So pitch the tent, and put the kettle on. It's tea time on the savannah."

Gobbledygook! Nothing more than advertisement prosody. The real information is a bit further south on the webpage -

"Rooibos, hibiscus, cinnamon, natural sweet piquanté pepper flavor with other natural flavors, blackberry leaves, allspice, cardamom, ginger, roasted chicory, cloves, and bananas."

Walking into this, I expect heavy spices. I mean, much more than a tiny little sachet. We're talking bedsheets wrapped in exotic, pungent flavors. I can already tell this stuff, like so many of Celestial Seasonings' other offerings, is going to be boistrous with flavors. Crowded, cramped and boistrous. I also expect the signature Rooibos tobacco, a tickling sweetness from the ginger, and I'm keeping a special look out for the red pepper, or as its translated in the ingredient list "Natural sweet piquanté pepper". This is not a meditative tea by any means. I rather see it as an alarming jump-out-of-bed drink that'll give you a good skull-thumping if brewed even a hair too long.

Raw Appearance: Hard to say. It's a bagged tea, after all, but once I commit the grim act of beheading a bag we find a scad of brown and auburn fannings, with curious white bits interspersed through the mix. It looks crowded, and portends a busy drinking experience. The liquor is a blood orange, red, with some brown hues reeling it back into the wood-colored camp.

Raw Aroma: A jubilant celebration of deep and harsh holiday spices. Think wassail, with an extra handful of Silk Road caravan spices carelessly chucked in. Cinnamon and clove feature pre-dominantly in a robust concentration that keeps a curious nose at bay. Ground nutmeg is present too, but at a tamed volume lending its pungency without its abrasive nature. A note of sandalwood makes itself heard, and kudos to the tasters behind this addition - a well played aromatic lending the drink a distinctive exotic edge. Roasted apple skins and dark brown sugar sweeten the deal, helping to round out the vorpal spices and keep a candied lid on their cutting misdeeds. Gingerbread bridges the gap, offering a sharp but sweet scent to add the final, if indelicate, touch. The composition, with its deep, dark and almost cloying sweets and spices, smells exactly like those dedicated Christmas stores that sprout around strip malls come December. They put a good deal of effort into perfuming their store with pine cones and cinnamon to get all five of your senses into the holly-jolly spirit, and its mirrored incredibly well in the Red Safari Spice. Its the commercial wafting of Christmas in a mug, and to be honest, while brusque and overpowering, its quite pleasant.

Steeped Aroma: When the "tea" has had an opportunity to soak the aromatics change drastically. The lacerating spices soothe and dimish, replaced by a soft, buttery glow. Only cinnamon remains alert, but coupled with the butter it too loses its catankerous crankiness, leaving only the complex sweetness to meld with the oily, savory flavor. The roasted apple skins have subsided too, replaced with the higher pitched sugar of the strawberry and the scolding sweet of the cranberry. It's simpler, but mellower and less punishing. This is my favorite part of the Red Safari Spice.

Flavor & Palate: Those deep, tangy fruits I just mentioned? Yes, they make a welcome return in the flavor of the tea, but the harsh spices from the raw aroma do too, and they bite with a vengeance. So much so that they come to completely dominate the flavor profile. Each one, furious, stabbing the tongue with spicy pinpricks. At the end, once the tea has slid down the esophagus and the clamor of nutmeg and all-spice subside, there's a low, murmuring pomegranate, cranberry and orange rind flavor that sits heavily but quietly on the tongue - a tranquil aftertaste. It comes at the cost of the tea's main flavors, and is too small of a requite for the endured buzzing of spices on the tongue, but is well savored and remembered.

The Red Safari Spice suffers from many of the same ailments as Celestial Seasonings' extravagantly flavored herbal teas: it's too much flavor, with insufficient substance. When I taste the Red Safari Spice I can dissect the different tastes, true, but they seem too upfront, too direct. The appeal of complex loose leaf teas is their subtle but complex character. I'd rather have a hundred quiet flavors whispering to me than a few loud ones shouting. The flavors in the Red Safari Spice are also far from what I'd like in a tea - if I wanted spices, I'd have Thai food, or go to a Turkish market. The contemplative benefits of tea are lost when you're under a barrage of sipid but crazed flavors. Somehow the palate rings hollow, and that itself makes for a hollow drinking experience.

The Proper Tools

2007-10-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

The writer has his pen, the musician his intrument, and the chef his knife. Every trade has its tools.

Even the beggar has his tin cup.

Some hobbies and interests take very little money to enjoy, but there are many variables at work. An enthusiast's approach to the activity may be guided by a spartan paradigm, enforcing enjoyment with the simplest and most rudimentary effects. Conversely, they might maintain an enormous annual budget for the very same hobby, shedding bags of money to acquire the latest and greatest equipment for whatever it is they do. Will I write my poetry on this lightly used napkin, or type it in an expensive word processor on a gold plated laptop? Will I settle for a point and shoot camera and a freeware image editor, or splurge on the professional level DSLR and Adobe Photoshop CS3? Good equipment helps, but it doesn't guarantee success or satisfaction. The poems will express the same meaning whether in ink or pixels. Meanwhile, the high-budget photographer will have an album of gleaming, high-res pictures, but lacks even the slightest artistic inkling, whereas the pauper with the handheld travel camera has used its low end features to produce a bold, daring and refreshingly risky photographic style. The above situation is all empty theorizing, but it goes to show that most hobbies don't need expensive gear - just a good spirited, dedicated hobbyist behind it.

However.

Sometimes you need a bare minimum to get started. It's awfully hard to play tennis without a racket or ball, and no matter how zealous you are about the sport and how indomitable your spirit, showing up at the court with a large frying pan and a ball of yarn will yield poor, poor results. Okay, so we've had enough anologies. Here's the heart of the matter: does tea have any essential tools or equipment?

If you're focus in tea as a hobby is on drinking, then no. The palate savant will, on the most inchoate level, be able to cup their hands or, temperture forbidding, find any cup, bowl, glass, tupperware or thimble to drink from. But few have dedicated their tea time solely to its consumption.

The rest of us want to prepare, enjoy, rate, and review the tea as we drink it. This presents problems for the penurious. At the very least we need the tea, either by purchase or, in the more eccentric case, borrowing it. "Hello neighbor! Care to lend me a cup of tea? I mean, loose leaf. Unbrewed. Not sugar." If the neighbor rebuffs are outre entreaties, then we've no choice but to crack open our wallets and throw money at the tea industry.

Now we have our tea. What now? We desperately need hot water. The thermal energy in heated water is critical to the development of a good cup of tea. Cold water simply won't do, and there is no feasibly free way to heat the water to its proper temperature. We have to have a kettle. It can be electric, it can be stovetop, it can be a pot on the range, it can even be a microwaveable safe container in the microwave, but we must have a kettle. We must have hot water. Now, as we watch our container pirrouetting in the microwave take on heat, we need to consider the next step. Brewing. What's in a brew?

Brewing is nothing more than a vessel in which our tea leaves and recently heated water can meld and marry to make tea. The teapot must be heat resistant. Exploding teaware is hazardous to your health. It must also be large enough to hold all the tea you desire. Have a hankering for a gallon of tea in a single sitting? See a doctor. Barring that, find a 1 gallon teapot, or get ready for many high maintenance infusions. We'll assume, for the sake of ascetism, that there are no fine meshes here, no designer pots, just something to hold water and tea.

At last, we need the final component - a drinking vessel. Any kind of cup will do. Maybe even cupped hands, if the tea has cooled appropriately. And there, we're done.

Bare Minimum:
Money for tea
Pot on a stove
A lidded bowl
Cupped Hands

That's not so bad. But remember, I said "The rest of us want to prepare, ejoy, rate, and review the tea as we drink it". Alas, this set up omits one of those desirable elements - enjoy. It is terribly difficult to catch the fine nuances of an aged Pu-Erh when your slurping it off your fingers, or when it's brewed in a questionably effective tupperware container that no doubt leeched savory polymers into the drink. So, when I first started drinking tea I got my Pu-Erh soaked mitts on three pieces of tea equipment.

A 10 oz. mug.
An electric kettle.
A ball-on-a-stick tea ball.

Considering convenience and flavor, this seemed to me to be an ideal set up. Quick hot water, a good volume of tea and convenient way to steep it, and a very covenient way to remove the leaves when the concoction is finished.

I was wrong.

If only you could see the graveyard of tea, wantonly wasted in this nefarious set-up. If only I could atone for the nugatory brewing, feckless drinking, and odious enjoyment. Silver needles, gyokuro, loose Pu-Erh, all cast to the fates by means of an uncaring tea ball and its master. I've imprisoned vast quantities of superb tea, leaving it to writhe in agony in a cramped, spherical cell. How could it possibly elicit flavor in such draconian conditions? It can't, and I never knew it. Nobody told me I was a jailor. Well, until I checked in with the greater tea drinking community.

It is now abundantly clear that there are certain necessities for a good cup of tea, and that it might require a moderately sized sum of money to get these necessities. Even taking style and function into consideration, the purchase of tea equipment is not very large at all - especially relative to the time and enjoyment it provides. The largest expense is the tea itself, and even here the premium teas are incredibly affordable. Compare the price of a serving of tea to a serving of soda, or coffee. A can of soda from a machine will almost always cost more than some of the priciest teas on the market, per volume.

Tea equipment never really loses its salience. The same Yixing teaware praised through Chinese history is made today, lavished with the same respect and appreciation. And it's been a long time. Tea pots, mesh, proper water temperature - small improvements and conveniences will always enter the market, but tea equipment's primary function is long standing. It is to produce hot water, and help it mingle with tea leaves. The action is so stupendously simple that the art of tea cannot be moved by progress. It will never be outmoded or outdated. No amount of technological innovation can improve the process enough to turn the kettle, pot and mug into moot relics of a bygone age. Even professional, automatic tea makers are no more than a well built substitute for the somantics of a tea pour. And even if there were some harbinger device to topple the canonically held procedure of making tea, tea itself is imbued with a reverence for the past. Note gong fu or cha no yu, both tea drinking ceremonies retained from the past. Are they efficient? No. Do they use the most recent tea equipment? Absolutely not. But they still hold a dear place in the culture of tea, and this is unlikely to change with the apocalyptic advent of some unforeseen tea invention

In short, I'm upgrading, and after searching long and hard for the proper tea-ware I find myself happier. My wallet is content as well. Indeed, it set me back a little bit, but if you could calcuate the improvement in the quality of the tea per dollar, it would make for a startlingly good and well reccomended investment.

Reviews of the new equipment to come.

What's In a Review?

2007-10-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

The greater part of the current Tea Blogosphere dedicates at least a portion of their time to writing reviews of teas. Whether it be loose leaf, bagged or even teaware, many authors find it conducive to their own study and to that of its readers to articulate the qualities of a tea. I firmly support this idea, having for a long time now done something vaguely similiar for beer, though not in a blog form. Writing a review for an ethereal or intangible thing, which includes tea for its chronic propensity to consumption, can often be challenging. Tea is often so soft on the senses it is apt to be influenced by mood and setting - both a boon and a curse. And if the review proceeds the drink, the reviewer must rely on a fistful of notes and a scrambled collection of thought to describe the minutest details of the sampled tea. It is a demanding activity, and might explain why food and wine critics give themselves so much professional leverage.

Critiquing, then, is not light work. The gravitas of casting judgment on a consumable product that took many man hours and the labor of many skilled workers demands a cautious approach. The reviewer should have an ethos, a philosophy, a set of rules, something to guide their wreckless hand in the deadly serious business of tea reviews. Anything less and they do a great disfavor to the entrenched and well recieved tea industry as well as the budding tea drinking crowd back home. How can Americans cultivate an appreciation for tea when their neighbors are poo-pooing Pu-erh? How do we intimate the delicate, flavorful whisperings of Silver Needle White Tea when the blogs say it tastes "A bit deeper than water"? How do we convince the Bistro Bums to take a cup of tea instead of coffee when the finer art of tea is lost in a vast sea of cavalier polemics?

We are fortunate, that's how. Tea bloggers are an extremely dedicated bunch. Their love and adoration of tea invokes them to photograph and write. They converse amongst themselves, sharing musings of the tea industry. They pass around well kept secrets, which remain secret only because nobody cares to listen. It is a very poetic type of community seclusion, like the French Resistance, with tea bloggers forming a seamless but subtle vanguard for the betterment of tea and tea drinkers. They stand at the forefront with wagging fingers and well worn keyboards, educating and converting new drinkers to the Church of Tea (or Synagogue, or Mosque, or Temple, what have you). Most of all they are accountable to each other, insuring that the level of dialogue remains open to compliment and criticism alike. It keeps our observations in check and does justice to good work when good and poor work when poor.

With all the reasons in the world to make sure a tea review is good, I've taken some time to develop a personal approach to critiquing tea. It will be a personal coda, now published on the internet, by which I solemly affix myself to the great, grand tea community.

Upon punishment of light and air exposed tea, I will make my best efforts to capture the spirit and essence of tea. In the liquor I will describe the color, the clarity, the hue and the glow. In the aroma I will scour for its flavorful elements, its pungency, and its smoothness. In palate I will seek its texture, tastes and mouthfeel. In the service of tea I will also find the pulse of the drink, its personality and its history. I will find its emotion, time and place. In fairness and proper dedication to the drink at hand, reviewing will be an event with its own dedicated hour and space. It will be aloof from distractions and focused in demeanor. It will be, to all purposes, a review and maybe even a story.

Whew.

Now that we've got that out of the way I can deal with a few more of the basic matters. Ideally, all reviews at Cap & Kettle will be accompanied by photographs mirroring the essential images of a professional tea tasting: the unsteeped leaf, the brewed tea, and the post-steeped leaves. Reviews will have some orderliness to them, but a block-by-block A.P. style of organization is not my style. I preffer itinerant tangents and off the cuff disquisitions. This'll keep the academics off my back. I'd also like to include lessons on morality, fortunes, short poems and vignettes and miscellaneous punditry to keep things fresh. Expect praise for my favorite things, whether or not they have anything at all to do with tea. Above all, reviews here will be serious, but may take the occasional flippant tone as long as it doesn't sully the good name behind the tea (unless it's deserved).

Here's to many happy reviews.

A Tea For All Seasons

2007-10-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

I am acutely aware of seasons. The temperature drop, the colors, the atmosphere, even people's gait all register a an alarm that the season is changing. It is a signal to approach my day in slightly different ways, often out of necessity. Obviously I need to dress warmly for winter, and should lug around suntan lotion with me on sunny, summer outings. It's the exiguous details, however, that are most significant. In the Spring I read and go through intense bouts of entrepeneuralism. In the Summer I'm caught in heat driven lassitude. In the Fall I become quiet and reserved. In Winter I'm sociable, outgoing and unusually generous. But there are even smaller, more minute details which shift and flow when the seasons do. They are quirks of a mutable lifestyle, petty and inconsistent compared to the philisophical shifts catalyzed by a change in foliage, but these are the changes that amount to the more significant dynamic, season driven perspective. For example, when the seasons change I ask myself -

What should I drink today?

Since tea is, to me, a relatively new love (we're still honeymooning) the typical answer has swerved between more common and, dare I say, pedestrian beverages. As a kid it was between soda and juice. As a teenager it was between soda and lemonade. As a college student it was between water and craft beer. Now there's a new contender: tea. And what's worse is that tea itself is not a singular, identifiable, definable beverage. "Tea" in the epistomological sense would better serve the intangible meaning of "Tea" as a social phenomenon. The thousands and thousands of varieties of Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, Black and White (or Black, Oolong, Green and White) are so wide and so deverse that "Tea" is merely a concept. It stands for a drink whose history and diversity extend well beyond the capabilties of the word "Tea" to entrap it. Even in the modest consumer sense, tea can stand for Iced Tea, Bottled Tea, Bagged Tea, Instant Tea, Tea Time, Tea Etiquette, the Tea Trade or any other easily recognizable association with tea, to say nothing of how a connoisseur of tea percieves the word "Tea". So when I set down with an insatiable thirst and decide that a cup of tea sounds quite nice, I've really done a most horrible thing.

I originally stood between three choices - water, beer and tea. Suddenly, after non-chalantly choosing tea, I'm caught between many, many more choices, depending on the teas currently available in my stash. The problem of selection has been compounded, leaving me to choose between many fine shades of a drink that slakes different kinds of thirsts in different seasons. Really, I should have just chosen water.

These days, instead of choosing tea and being overwhelmed by a tyranny of choice, I include all my teas in that one, single, critical decision making moment. What's more, I've recently made this choice for a variety of tea with greater frequency and conviction than before. It is by and large my primary drink. And I believe this new trend to be a seasonal flux. Autumn approaches, and so does tea.

Pegging certain seasons to tea and vice-versa at first appears iconoclastic. The proper preparation of tea and respect for the drink can be dictated by strict and well meaning rules, but to fetter the enjoyment of tea with rules about the time and place of its consumption seems unctuously authoritarian. But I've had a feral quaking for tea since about three weeks ago when the very first glimmers of fall began to settle in. Call it instinct, but the marrow of my bones have cried for a delicious, deep and complex hot beverage. This had never before appeared in the Summer, and only tepidly emerged in the Spring. Now, in the throes of a vibrantly golden fall, I must drink tea.

And so I drink it. But I wonder, is there really a season for tea drinking, or is it merely an apocryphal, subconscious clarion call for a hot brew? Once again I come against the problem of tea's explosive variety. There are cold teas and hot teas, and teas meant to be had in the cold and teas meant to be had in the heat. Do my tea preferences simply lie with teas most appropriate for colder climes? Is my limited breadth and scope of tea prejudiced against hot teas for hot days? Or can there be an explicit time of year during which the angle of the earth relative to the sun provides the celestial make up for good tea drinking?

Suddenly the question of tea drinking has turned into a bloated conundrum of astrology and psychoanalysis. But my suspicion is that there is an Occam's Razor for this question: whether or not tea drinking is or can be seasonal I will need to explore this question further.

First Brew

2007-10-05T21:23:00.001-07:00

Cap & Kettle was created to satisfy a peculiar longing to write about tea. Fixing a cup of tea is a meditative and pensive act, and I find that whenever I move into this reclusive reverie I begin to think of a great number of things to say. By coincidence I am drinking tea, and so many of these great expostulations I conjure up are on the subject of, well, tea.

My tea drinking is typically a solo act. I rarely serve tea to others, finding few who sympathize with my love for the stuff. Attempts to proselytize coffee and soda heathens are for naught. So I drink tea alone, with no vessel to carry or hear my tea ramblings and rumblings.

And now I've gone and created a digital mouthpiece, where late-night and errant browsers can gather and read epic poems and long diatribes on what, to many, appears to be a very ordinary and very mundane beverage.

How wrong those skeptics are.

Welcome, and enjoy your stay.