You've probably figured this out already, but I've migrated postings to the dedicated website www.flockofteacosy.com.

That site is mostly about the modern wool felt teaware that I make -- tea cosies, coffee cozies and mug cozies as well as trivets (hot pads) and table runners.  But I also still write the occasional post about some of the wonderful teas I find or tea places I've visited.

Those can be found by choosing "Flock tastes tea" in the drop-down menu of the "Post Category" on the blog page.

Myself, I still use this site for reference and reminders of what I've tasted so am leaving it here as-is.

Toronto Star bit on the Tea Sommelier program

This is not a tasting post, but is about one of my fellow Tea Sommeliers who was recently featured in a Toronto Star piece about Continuing Education.  Raelene told me today that the author found her through my list of Tea Sommeliers here on the blog!  Oh my.



If you have graduated as a Certified Tea Sommelier, please feel free to send along your name and a link to your website or other social media and I'd be happy to add you to the page.  You never know who will be trolling the page and I'm very happy to offer this free publicity for my fellow tea sommeliers.

Say, I wonder if an organisation that might have a complete list of the graduated Tea Sommeliers in Canada would post such a page....?

A gift of Anji Bai Cha....mmmm!

If you've read any of my previous posts you know that my personal mission is FRESH TEA.  Hard to find here in North America, although thankfully not impossible thanks to places such as Tao Tea Leaf (Toronto) and Camellia Sinensis (Montreal). The flavour delivery is just so much richer, especially for green teas which seem to fade in flavour more quickly than black tea.

The tea was bought at source in China last summer by a friend and given to me the other day when we sampled the afternoon tea service at the Shangri-la Hotel on University Avenue, but that's another story.

It came in this rather lovely little box -- like an old cigarette box.  Besides the chinese characters, it says in english "Anji Daguan Tea Industry Dawushan Tea Plant with a website -- www.dawushan.com.

Anji Daguan Tea Industry Dawushan Tea Plantation

TEA TASTING
Water - 82C for 2 minutes
The dry leaves are distinctly shaped -- a bit like pine needles at first glance -- and are a good clue that this is Anji Bai Cha green tea.  Fairly large leaf buds all neatly and similarly straight.  There's no twist to the leaf which suggests they were simply withered and baked -- and very delicately so, with very little handling. Of course I'm guessing here, as I didn't see it being made, and have not had tea like this before.

Anji Bai Cha dry leaves

Babelcarp tells me Anji Bai Cha is made from the "An Ji cultivar, more properly called Bai Ye Yi Hao, used to make lücha and baicha, or an early spring manufactured tea made from the cultivar, literally An Ji White Tea".  "Bai" means white, and "Cha" means tea.

And good old Wikipedia tells me it's "produced in Anji County, Zhejiang Province, China and is a relatively recent tea cultivar, having been discovered in 1982. As a result of this and its short harvesting period, it is a comparatively rare tea.  Despite being called "white", it is in fact a green tea. The long, narrow leaves are yellow in colour and have a recognisable fold along the length of the leaf.”

If you click on the dry leaves photo above, you'll note that some of the leaves still show some of the whiteness that gives the cultivar its name.

Wet leaves - light aroma of the fire from baking, loads of fresh green (sweet, spring,) faint spinach, something else sweet and cooked, like carrots or something.  The liquor is lovely, pale, yellowy green.  There's very little bitterness, almost none and it has an exceptionally smooth mouth feel -- light bodied.

Anji Bai Cha wet leaves

Anji Bai Cha liquor

Heavenly Feng Huang Hong Cha

Don't you love it when you're not paying attention, doing something, sipping your tea and then suddenly you go "hey, mmm, this is damn fine tea"?

Happened this morning while reading the Saturday newspaper and the cup of Feng Huang Hong Cha snapped me out of whatever I was reading.

Luku on right is lighter, more golden.

It's one of the three new 2012 black teas in my latest order from Camellia Sinensis which arrived a couple of days ago, and I decided to open this morning.

Medium bodied, smooth in the mouth, just enough snap to make it quenching and a wonderful hint of sweetness in the fruit-sauce (stonefruit?) end of things, a hint of a caramel note and an aftertaste hint of cinnamon too.  Very little bitterness. Mmmm, yes!

Feng Huang on left, Luku on right

I tasted it next to a black tea from Taiwan called Luku Hong Cha.  The two dry leaves couldn't be more different -- one thin and spidery and the other bent and folded sort of like a Ti Kwan Yin oolong (along with quite a few leaf stems).

I infused both at 95C at three minutes and then gave the Luku another 30 seconds because the leaves are rolled so tightly.

I'm afraid the Luku paled next to the Feng Huang -- perhaps not a fair pairing given how captured I am by the latter today.  The Luku is lighter bodied, abit of a tang in the flavour, along with faint wood smoke or hot metal, light furring on the mouth and a pasta flavour.  Overall rather flat, but perhaps that is just in comparison to you-know-who. I will give the Luku another try another day.

In the meantime, I'm heading right back to the CS site to order more of the Feng Huang before they run out.  It was the priciest of the three I ordered ($25 for 50 grams) but I'm happy to say the quality shines through. There's so much bad tea served in these parts, that I will support some delicious, fresh tea at this price to encourage more of it being available.

Feng Huang, by the way, means Phoenix, as in the mythical bird.  Or at least it means a mythical bird which we in the west have denoted as similar to our Phoenix.  Hong Cha means Red Tea which we in the west call Black Tea.  Per Camellia Sinensis, the tea is made in Guangdong province, which is on the south east coast of China.

Phoenix Oolong, is where I've heard the name before, as in the high-end Fenghuang Dan Cong oolong, reputedly made from tea trees which are several hundred years old in northern Guangdong province and southern Fujian province.   According to the Heiss' "The Story of Tea," "The teas are grown on and in the vicinity of Fenghuang, Phoenix Mountain, located in Chiuan and Chozhou counties.  This is a subtropical regions, and the tea grows at altitudes of 4,265 feet in terraced gardens composed of rocky, loose soil."

Hmmm, this makes me want to know what varietal of tea this black tea is and if it's a type usually used for oolong....?

Here's a couple snaps of the two teas' wet leaves.  Two things strike me immediately -- the leaves are on the large side, and both boast a beautifully even oxidation.  Their colour is an even green-tinged red-brown.  Like a used copper penny.

I opted for larger density photos here so you admire the leaves -- click to enlarge them.

Wet leaves of Feng Huang Hong Cha 2012 from Guangdong

Wet leaves of Luku Hong Cha 2012 from Taiwan showing
bud and leaf pluck and some beautiful downy pekoe on the
middle leaf.

Wei Shan Mao Jian, sublime...

Holy smokes this is good tea.  Been on a Ceylon jag this summer but, and I'm not sure why, suddenly this morning, for my elevensies, I plucked Camellia Sinensis' beautiful 2012 Wei Shan Mao Jian from the tea drawer.

Wish I could share the sweet aroma of this tea.  But you can
click on the image to get a closer look at this handsome tea.

The aroma from the bag was what did it, really.  I sniffed and the sweet, fresh, green smell of spring captured my nose.  I've infused for 2 minutes at 85 or so degrees and the tea is smooth and light with a bit of pull on the inside of the cheeks, leaving the mouth feel refreshed. Nice touch of sweet buttery popcorn, is that sweet ripe stonefruit (peaches) or is just because it's that time of the summer, light light smoke/fire, and a hint of tea's bitter tang. Mmmmm-mmm.  Astringent and smooth at the same time.

The dried leaves are lightly crinkly and spidery, corded, and a rich green-gray with dashes of bright green and the odd fuzzy leaf bud.  Bright green medium-small leaves with the occasional green-bean-like bud can be seen in the wet leaves.

Mao Jian, as we know and per Babelcarp, translates as "downy tip." I've been told Mao Jian also refers to a type of pluck of one slightly larger leaf and a bud.  Shan means "mountain" and Wei, surprisingly, apparently has two meanings -- "taste" or "fake or inauthentic."   Hah.  Google tells me it's also the name of a place in Hunan province in China.

The bag suggests 85C at 3 to 4 minutes and for infusion-two I'll try a longer one.
I have a feeling it will give me a buzz.

LATER:
Did second infusion at 4 minutes.  Brings out the bitter notes more, still smooth, still astringent.  I tend to be a bit sensitive to bitter (and salt) and think 3 minutes would be more to my taste.  That's just me though. ;)

Okay, now off to order more tea from Camellia Sinensis....

Edinburgh Breakfast from Majesteas

I had the pleasure of assisting my colleague The Tea Stylist at her Mother's Day presentation at The Bata Shoe Museum the other day.  I volunteered to prepare the tea for the 20+ folk who came to hear her lecture and taste some tea and food pairings.

The three teas were all wonderful -- an exquisite Wei Shan Mao Jian from Camellia Sinensis in Montreal, a beautiful High Mountain (Jade) Oolong Organic from Tao Tea Leaf in Toronto, and a black tea blend from Majesteas, also here in Toronto, called Edinburgh Breakfast .

This latter tea was a delightful discovery.  I don't tend to gravitate to blends but this one seduced me first by the wonderful, rich aroma of the dry leaves and then by its nicely balanced flavour and mouth feel.  I snaffued some of the left-overs and took it home to our Mother's Day lunch to share with family, and have enjoyed it the past couple of mornings as my breakfast tea.


Majesteas is co-owned and operated by Ian Macdonald and Robert Gignac, who are both Certified Tea Sommeliers out of the same George Brown program that I graduated from -- the cohort just after mine I believe. It's a small but well-stocked store with a couple of tables for enjoying a pot of tea and sweet snack.  Very inviting.

Both owners are knowledgeable and curious about tea, tea blending, and, most exciting in my books, sourcing fresh tea. In fact Robert is just back from a 17-day trip to China and Majesteas is having a spring tea tasting of some of his discoveries on May 26 and 27.  Oh la la!

The Tea:  Majesteas Edinburgh Breakfast

Water: just off the boil
Tea: 3.9 grams to 7 oz water (same ratio as the 2.5 grams to 5 oz water I generally use, but adapted for my teamaker)
Steep: 2 minutes

The appeal of this black tea starts with the very aromatic dry leaves -- put your nose in the package and breathe in its seductive malty aroma with spice and fruity (peachy?) notes. The package tells us it's a blend of Indian and Chinese black teas and doesn't suggest there have been any other scent or flavour additives so the beautiful aroma is just the tea.  Mmmmmm.

The liquor is light to medium bodied and nicely brisk. It has a bit of a snap to it and creates that pull at the side back of the tongue that brings water into the mouth. 

The flavour is malty and toasty (buttered brown toast) with a light note of cinammon and a faint sweet floral finish.

This strikes me as a beautifully balanced black tea blend -- one I would highly recomend for breakfast.  Or anytime really.  At any rate, I'll be heading out to Leslieville to get me some more.   Perhaps on the weekend of their new spring 2012 tea tasting.

More new China tea...Fengqing

On to the black tea that my sister in law brought home with her from China this month.  The package is dated on the bottom indicating the tea was made on September 16, 2011

My friend Tao translated the label for me and tells me it is a black tea from the Fengqing region which is a famous black tea region in the Yunnan province.  The package weight is 75g (and I presume the 90C refers to recommended water temp).  But, he went on to say, the other information is a bit confusing because it says it's produced by a Taiwan tea company, and imported by a Shanghai trade company from Taiwan to Mainland China.  Although Fengqing black tea is usually from Yunnan, it appears possible that this one may be produced in Taiwan in the Fengqing black tea style.  Huh.

From a quick ramble around the web it looks like Fengqing is know for Pu-erh tea.  And as for general info on the region, the Yunnan Adventure site told me that Yunnan Province is the most southwest region of China bordering the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma.  It has a population of more than 43 million people (bigger than Canada) of which its 25 ethnic nationalities take up over 14 million. It has a diverse topography that ranges from alpine mountain ranges to tropical rainforests and the greatest number of plant species in China (more than 18,000) as well as an incredible array of animals, including the Asian elephant (!) and the protected Yunnan golden monkey.

On the tea side of things, apparently Yunnan's tea species are known as the "Yunnan large-leaf tea, which, just like the ideal Assam tea of India and the Kenya tea, belongs to superb tea species of the world, and is the ideal raw material for producing the black tea and Pu-erh tea."  (Camellia Sinensis Assamica -- the tea plant native to Assam, India is a larger-leafed plant than Camellia Sinensis Sinensis, the one native to the Chinese side of the mountains.  There are hundreds of varietals of each one now, each grown and/or developed for specific teas or climates.)

The website further states that "Comparing with the small-leaf species, Yunnan tea has higher polyphenol by 5-7% than the average value, catechin by 30-60% higher than the average value, and water-soluble substances by 3-5% higher than the average value."  That all sounds good, don't you think, although I've no idea where they got those numbers.

It's certainly a beautiful looking tea, and although the leaves are smaller, it reminds me of a Yunnan Golden Tips.  The tea has a slightly chunky look to it as opposed to spindly-spidery and fine.  It's mostly golden-coloured leaf buds covered in that youthful fur (pekoe) along with some darker leaves and leaf veins.

The aroma out of the bag is sweet, then like mintyness of a mouthwash?  Hmmm must be the bag.  Hate that.


The liquor -- well I completely ruined this tea -- infused for too long on the first steep so it showed too much of a bitter note which subsumed pretty much any others.

A second steep results in a light bodied liquor with an odd bitter-sour dominant note.  In behind that are faint hints of grainy sweetness.

Bah!  I've completely ruined this tea by not paying attention to its preparation.  I put too much in the Piao teamaker and infused for too long.

I'll have to wait until my mouth recovers and try again later to give this tea its due.

 

 

 

 

 

TAKE TWO, a few hours later.

Leaves: 3.9 grams in 7 oz of water
Water: 90C
Infuse: 45 seconds

The dry leaves have a warm slightly sweet aroma -- a pleasant whiff of a hay mow, and some baked fire.

This infuses to dark rich red-brown more quickly than I was expecting given all the little buds in there.  The wet leaves give a faint hint of sharp fine spice, like clove, at the end.

The liquor is pretty smooth and light bodied -- only minor furring on the tongue.  Very light caramel note.  (I was expecting more, like a Golden Monkey, given all those golden buds.)  Something pleasantly toasty like a roasted marshmellow.  Ends with some bitterness on the sides of the back of the tongue, along with a wateryness in the bottom of the jaw.

Overall I have to say there's not much to this tea.  Rather disappointing -- quite flat -- after my anticipation of this relatively fresh tea.  And it's so pretty and all.  It's possible it's the water, which has been boiled three times as I top up the kettle.  Hmmm.  Okay, I'll give this tea another go -- but not til' another day.  Fresh water.  Proper prep!

TAKE THREE, in early July

Okay, I put entirely fresh spring water in the kettle and it has made a modest difference.  Or perhaps my taste buds are just in a happier mood today.  It's still a light bodied liquor, but there are sweeter caramel and honey notes and the tea is just not so dead in the mouth.  It's got a decent balance to its flavour profile today.

I'm still not sure I'd rush back for more of this tea though.

Fresh 2012 Bi Lo Chun from China

Just before she left for China two weeks ago my sister-in-law asked if there was anything I'd like. "Fresh tea.  Really fresh tea," I said.  And she delivered it yesterday.  What a gal.

Xi Shan Bi Lo Chun - a green tea which, according to its label, was made April 8, 2012.  That's fresh.
Tie Guan Yin - an oolong, undated but packed in individual serving-sized foil wraps
A black tea - lots of gold furry buds, without an english label but dated September 16, 2011.  Fresher than most tea you can buy in Toronto.













Xi Shan Bi Lo Chun or Green Spring Snail 
Okay, first up is the Green Spring Snail which is a baked (rather than steamed) green tea from the Jiangsu province in China.  ( I did a previous posting on another example of this type of tea last year.)

The dried tea has a distinctive gray-green colour. Click the
image to have a close look at these beautiful furred leaf buds.

According to The Tea Drinkers Handbook this tea's original name translated as "astounding fragrance" or "fragrance to cause fear and trembling" and when I snipped open the foil inner packet yesterday the aroma did indeed knock me over.  So big and fresh and sweet and green!  It was made only three weeks ago -- no wonder.

It's current name -- apparently changed by an Emperor during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), is Bi Lo Chun, sometimes translated as Pi Luo Chun, which means Green (bi) Spring (chun) Snail (lo), and is named for its coiled snail-like shape and the fact it's only manufactured in the spring from the year's earliest plucks.

Separating out the bud-sets you can see the
coiled, snail-like shape which gave it its name.

The always informative SevenCups website further explains the "Xi Shan" part of its name: Within and around the Tai Lake in Jiangsu Province is Dong Ting Mountain where Bi Luo Chun originates. Dong Ting actually refers to two mountains known as Dong Shan (East) seated on the eastern edge of the lake and Xi Shan (West) which sits on an island within Tai Hu. The taste and aroma varies between Bi Luo Chun harvested from these two mountains. Dong Shan Bi Luo Chun has darker and bigger leaves with a rich taste. Xi Shan Bi Luo Chun has small, tender leaves with a gentle taste. 

FYI the Bi Lo Chun I posted about last year was from the mountain on the other side of the lake.








The Tea
Water at 80C for 2 minutes.
I wanted to emphasise the flavours a bit so I did a longer steep than needed.  I will try this at 1 1/2 and 1 minute tomorrow for regular drinking.

The dry leaves give off a big, heady perfume which is sweetly floral with a hint of light lemon, along with a sweet vegetal aroma like steamed spinach and a faint marine (fishy) note -- along with so much else that I'm at a loss for words.  Everything about the aroma is amped.

Bright green of the tiny, tiny leaf buds.

The liquor is a pale, golden green, getting more golden as it oxidises in the glass pot next to me, and is slightly cloudy.  This is due to the teeny leaf bud hairs floating about which seem to add a firmness to the tea's mouth-feel as well.  (Cloudiness can also be due to a high L-Theanine content -- the amino acid which is credited with contributing the calming effect of tea despite its caffeine content.)

The tea has fresh light body with good briskness -- snappy I'd say.  There's a toasty nuttiness, followed by a sweet green vegetal (spinach) flavour and a light marine-ness (seaweed) which is then balanced out by a nice tartness.  Its briskness dries the sides at the back of my tongue, watering my mouth and leaving me thirst-quenched.  What a great tea!

Pale golden green liquor of
the 3-week new Bi Lo Chun.

After drinking it all day I can certainly attest to this tea's caffeine content:  I'm buzz buzz buzzing. Nothing like fresh, spring leaf buds for big fresh flavour and big caffeine.

The refreshing briskness of this Bi Lo Chun reminds me of the wonderful Ceylon tea a friend brought back from Sri Lanka for me. It also had a wonderful lemony snap to it, and became my favorite morning tea, until it was gone.  It also was a very fresh tea -- coincidence?

The thing I've found about freshly made tea is, not surprisingly, its flavour has huge breadth.  Beyond the tea type's distinctive flavour characteristics freshness delivers flavour nuances big time.  As a fresh rose blossom's aroma is so much more than just "rose" (think peppery, peach, almond), so fresh tea is more than just toasty, vegetal and/or malty.  In fresh tea those flavour notes sing with so much.  I've been drinking (mostly black) tea for decades and enjoying the way it perks me up and calms me down and has a wonderful bitter-sweet brew.  But in recent years I've had the occasional really freshly made tea and discovered a whole new world of flavour in tea.  Yahoo.  More, I say!

The shop in Shanghai where it came from...

A Ceylon from Parliament St.

It arrived in a ziplock so I've absolutely no information about this tea except that it comes from Sri Lanka, and was bought at a Sri Lankan grocery store on Parliament Street.  Which I'm going to have to visit because this is one of the nicer Ceylon tea I've had in awhile.

A medium-sized leaf and an even coppery colour.

After the wet leaves fill your nose with their damp, lightly toasty, tangy raiseny aroma there's a fresh, light perfumey note of spices in the cinnamon and clove range.  How lovely!

The liquor is rich red-brown and light to medium bodied -- a clean feel on my tongue with just the lightest furring, and a bit of briskness.  The spice notes have become a faint honeyed floral note in the mouth.

Seville Orange Marmalade 2012

Batch #1.  Bright and light although fruit rose abit during setting.

I almost missed the Seville oranges this year!   I don't know if it's my imagination but they seem to be coming earlier -- when I started making it in about 2004 it was "end of January, early February."  When I went looking for them this year on January 23rd (thinking I'd be early) I was told I'd pretty much missed them.  Yikes.  I love bitter orange marmalade and I started making it so I could make it as bitter-sweet as possible.

Anyway, this tasting post is not about almost missing the oranges but rather about the two batches I made this year from very different recipes.  The first was from the one I've using from the beginning (with my own naive changes) which is from Edna Staebler's More Food That Schmecks.  

All the juice, fruit and water is left to
sit overnight before boiling down.

I think of it as a traditional Seville Orange Marmalade recipe because it calls for the final boiling (after you've added the sugar) to be brisk and full and go on for about 20 to 30 minutes until it reaches the magic 105C  -- which is (apparently) the setting point for the sugary mix.  This means, after it's cooled in the jars it will be firm or at least firmish rather than liquid.

OK, all cards on the table, for years I've been using more than the recipe's called-for 11 oranges and trying to add less sugar so it wouldn't be tooth-zinging sweet. What I realised this year is that I should just follow the recipe and that it's not good to try and double or increase it.  There are optimum amounts for making it.

14 gorgeous bright jars of marmy.

So I followed the recipe but couldn't help reducing the sugar just a bit. I still had great trouble getting it to the 105C set point but after putting a lid on my big old stock pot and it boiled over making an incredible mess of the stove -- it seems to have reached temperature.  Although a loose set, it did at least set when cooled.  I didn't have to reboil it the next day and add lemon juice (for pectin) and more sugar.


But the big news is ...that with the leftover six Seville oranges I subsequently tried a new recipe for Dark Chunky Seville Orange marmalade which, instead of a fast hard boil, calls for a long slow three to four hour bubbling simmer.  This resulted in an incredibly tasty, rich, spicy tasting brew.  I think I'm a convert.

Batch #1 and Batch #2 -- different and delicious!

While both are, frankly, incredibly delicious and have wonderful bitter-sweet citrus flavour they are quite different.

Batch #1 is light in texture in the mouth and the flavour focuses more on the tangy citrus zing of the oranges -- light and bright with a great mouth puckering zip one expects from Seville Orange Marmalade.  It's also a most beautiful bright, clear jelly, isn't it?

Batch #2, on the other hand, is thicker in the mouth -- like honey or treacle -- and has a rich full orange flavour with almost cinnamon or clove spicy notes.  This must be something the Seville orange gives up over the longer cooking time of this recipe.  It still has the requisite bitter-sweet Seville Marmalade profile but it's not as aggressive on the tongue.  And, of course, it's much darker in colour -- due to the longer boiling too.

Batch #2 has a thick treacle-like texture.

Oh my.  I do love both of them but for the rich, spicy notes, as well as the easier cooking method, I think I'll stick to the Dark Chunky Seville Orange recipe in the future.

Food for fair trade thought....

I came across a 2009 article in the London Sunday Times...which mentions a Danish film called "The Bitter Taste of Tea"

You can watch the film here, at Films On Demand.

An eye-opener.

Caffeine in Tea -- more info

Hey -- even more great  info about how much caffeine is in tea.

Camellia Sinensis -- tea store and importer extraordinaire in Montreal -- did a test of their own and you can find the results here.  They're also included in their book, recently translated in to english.

Available for sale at their site

What I can't discern from the info on-line is how old the tea was that the tests were done on.  I've always assumed that as teas age and flavour fades everything else does too so that older (stale) tea has less caffeine.  I'm also curious about what the results mean for oolong which one usually steeps for a series of short infusions -- 1 minute, then 30 secs, then 45 secs, etc.  But perhaps it's cumulative time vis a vis the oolongs...?  And the Gyokuro they tested is way down the list while the Hujicha was quite high!  Questions, questions.

UPDATE April 2012: I'm going to Kevin Gascoyne's presentation on this subject at the Tea Expo in June and look forward to the opportunity to get more background information.  (He's one of the partners at Camellia Sinensis.)  More later.

A Kenyan black tea from Kangaita

When I was studying tea a fellow student -- who turned out to be a ringer of sorts (he was an established tea merchant and blender) -- brought some three-week old Kenyan tea to share with the class.  It was a stand-out:  mind-blowingly rich in flavour breadth.  A truly fresh cup of tea and one against which I have measured black tea since.  Hence my conviction that, nice as alot of tea here is, it doesn't hold a candle to freshly manufactured tea because it is often 6 months to 5 years old and therefore stale by comparison.

So I was interested to try this Kenyan black tea made at the Kangaita Tea Factory from Camellia Sinensis.

Kenyan black from Kangaita

Thrillingly, for a tea detective comme moi, there's tons of info at the Tea Board of Kenya's site.

From there I get: "The main tea growing areas in Kenya are situated in and around the highland areas on both sides of the Great Rift Valley; and astride the Equator within altitudes of between 1500 metres (4900 ft) and 2700 metres (8800 ft) above the sea level. These regions include the areas around Mt. Kenya, the Aberdares, and the Nyambene hills in the Central Kenya and the Mau escarpment , Kericho Highlands, Nandi  and Kisii Highlands and the Cherangani Hills."  That's incredibly high.  The Indian Nilgiri tea region boasts having the highest tea plantation at 8000 feet (the Korakundah Estate) so it looks like Kenya may beat them.  And the "high grown" teas of Sri Lanka are generally at 6000 feet.

From my tea studies at George Brown College I understood that tea plantations the world over relied on heavy fertilising to get the plants to deliver the quantity needed to be economically viable.  Interestingly the Kenyan Tea Board site says that "Kenya tea is grown free of agrochemicals because the ideal environment in which the tea is grown acts as a natural deterrent to pests’ infestation and diseases attack;"  If that's so then all Kenyan tea is organic, right?  Must check that out.  Wait.  Further down the page they talk about using fertilisers in compliance with recommendations and ditto for agrochemicals when needed for pests. Clearly not organic.  Bit confusing though.

About Kangaita Tea Factory

(Excerpted from their website) Kangaita is one of the 60 factories being managed by the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). It  is one of the oldest tea factories within the KTDA stable having been built in 1965 and currently serves about 5730 small scale tea farmers. 

Kangaita Tea Factory is located on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya, 700 meters from the start of the extensive Mount Kenya forest and with a spectacular view of the snow capped peaks of the Mountain. It’s on a relatively high altitude of 2036M above sea level approximately ½° south of the equator and approximately along the 37.3° E longitude.

 

More than 40 years as a tea processor gives the company a solid experience in this industry. This, combined with cool climatic conditions, high altitude and volcanic soils gives Kangaita an edge as a producer of teas with excellent taste and aroma popular with our key markets such as the United Kingdom and Pakistan.

Kangaita is Fair-Trade certified, which means it sells its teas at a premium and the surplus is used to develop local community projects. The factory is also ISO 9001-2000 certified.

The Tea...
The wet leaves are a coppery brown with some very dark green showing and give off some of the vegetable soup aroma which I remember, as well as a brief, fruity sweet note like peaches and then a heavier raiseny scent I associate with most black tea.

The liquor has a full firm body with fruity flavour notes. Tea's natural bitterness is softened and rounded here by a hint of caramely sweetness. I added milk for the last half of the cup as is my wont -- and on the last few sips there's a faint, cocoa flavour note.


This is definitely not a three-week old tea -- it doesn't have the breadth and strength of flavour notes of that first cup of Kenyan I had.  But it retains some of the distinctive (to my palate) vegetable soup and fruity notes.  I wouldn't say this is a sophisticated or complex tea, but very pleasant for this afternoon.

Two Nilgiri Teas, one 2011

I've been looking forward to the 2011 crop of teas and just ordered a couple from Camellia Sinensis in Montreal -- which came very quickly, by the way, and with a little handwritten note.  Classy. 

First up is an organic 2011 Nilgiri from the Coonoor Estate, if I understand the label correctly, although the name may simply refer to the town of Coonoor which has a number of small tea gardens.  At any rate, Coonoor is at 1839 metres which is 6000 feet.  A high grown tea.

To give this tea a good run, I'm tasting it next to another Nilgiri that I bought locally which is likely a 2010.  It is from the Korakundah Estate, reportedly the highest tea plantation in the world at some 8000 feet.  It's also organically grown.

I've not had much tea from Nilgiri so here goes.

The Nilgiri are named for the blue flowering Neelakurinji which
bloom once every 12 years -- the last time in 2006.

The Nilgiri mountains -- which translates as the blue mountains -- are in the southern tip of India and are part of the Western Ghat mountain range which runs down the west side of the country.   The tea plantations cover a relatively small area of roughly 35 miles by 20 miles within the mountain range.  The region has two (!) monsoon seasons a year and the resulting plucking seasons can apparently offer quite distinct flavours.  Tea plucking does take place year round as there is no dormant season but teas plucked from December to March are reputedly considered the best.  In these months there is still often the threat of frost and as a result they are referred to as 'frost teas.'  According to The Story of Tea, Nilgiri teas do not cloud and are therefore sought by iced tea makers too.  (Generally, when a tea clouds it signals high levels of L-Theonine which is the ingredient in tea that calms us.)

In Nilgiri only 30% of the tea is grown by large estates.  The rest is grown by small producers who then sell their green leaf to "bought leaf factories."  The region has certainly experienced some highs and lows.  For many decades it focused on the Russian market supplying  reams of inexpensive, quite ordinary tea to an unfussy Russian and eastern European market.  But that dried up in the 1990s.  However, it was also a Nilgiri tea that broke world price records for black tea by selling for $600 per kilo at an auction in Las Vegas in 2006 where it took "top Honours."   The tea was a Glendale Estate's SFTGFOP.

BTW - here is a nice little video on tea making in the Nilgiri region.  Good footage to view for understanding how black tea is made too -- plucking, withering, rolling, oxidising although the baking part is not so clear.  Notice that there is footage of one plucker using a pair of garden shears with what looks like a metal dustbin attached to one blade.  The dustbin catches the sheared leaves. Hmm.  I'm not sure it would be any less work to have to hold the shears, etc out all day versus simply hand-plucking...?

Before we get to the tea, one final bit of info:  according to wikipedia the Nilgiris are called "blue" because of the once abundant blue-flowering shrubs called Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana) which bloom only once every 12 years.  That would have been a magnificent sight, although I'm sure what's left in between the tea plantations is also lovely to see in bloom.


The Tea
3.9 gr tea in 7 ozs water at 90C for 2 minutes 10 seconds.  (Camellia Sinensis recommended 90C on their package so I'm going with it.)

The very different dry leaves of two organic Nilgiri black teas.
Korakundah on the left and Coonoor on the right.
Click to have a closer look.  G'wan.

The dry leaves of these two organic Nilgiris couldn't be more different.  One is very large leafed,  medium-twisted, slender, somewhat curly, crispy dark charcoal grey leaves with (under my loup) the occasional golden furry pekoe.  The other, the Korakundah, is small chunky bits of differing sizes with some leaf stems in a warm brown and browny grey.

Hah.  The plucker using the garden shears in that video?  That would explain perhaps the twiggy bits in the Korakundah tea. And the broken leaf.  The Coonoor would have been hand plucked to get those whole leaves.

Wet leaves - Korakundah on left, Coonoor on right.
Click for a closer look.

The difference when the leaves are wet is even more pronounced although, especially considering these are black teas, they both show a surprising amount of green.

I assume that is due to their high-altitude manufacture where it might be drier and the habit to give a long, hard wither, as they do in Darjeeling.

Oddly the aroma off the Korakundah wet leaves and the liquor calls to mind play-doh (not entirely pleasant), which will only have meaning to others who enjoyed this plasticene-like toy as a child, likely.  The wet leaves also give me a marine note and abit of a spicy floral note.

The large leaves of the 2011 Nilgiri Coonoor

I'm so intrigued by the leaves of the Coonoor I had to take another snap.  These are huge leaves and so green!  Hardly showing any oxidation at all.  I might have thought these were an oolong if I'd just met them.  You can also see that the pluck included buds and two leaves as well as larger more mature leaves.

The first aroma off the wet Coonoor leaves is a light sweet caramel, then a toasty fire -- then a biscuity aroma, abit of baked squash and is that just a hint of the almost peppery sweet cinnamon?

Korakundah on left, Coonoor on right.  Could they
be more different?

Well no surprise, the steeped liquor of these two Nilgiris looks completely different too.  The Coonoor is a light bright clear orange  and the Korakundah is a quite dark red-brown.  I will have to let the liquor site for 10 minutes or so next time I brew them to see if the liquor stays clear.






Coonoor Liquor
I have to say that I've been getting a sweet caramel note from this tea from the moment I opened the bag.  The liquor mouth-feel is light with only a bit of soft furring on the tongue.  It's giving me a very light bitter tang, a caramel note with other sweet top notes through my nose, a bit of dried apricot and there's a sweet citrus flavour in the aftertaste -- like sweet orange.  Overall this tea has nice clean feel in the mouth - it's got a light body with very light astringency despite the sweet citric note.  I add milk to my black teas and it flattens the flavours of this tea a bit while sweetening everything, as is usual with the milk addition.

The colour of the liquor, even after adding the milk is bright.  In fact, the milk is pooling into clouds and pulling away from the sides of the glass pot I'm using.  Interesting.

Korakundah Liquor
Again, completely different than the other Nilgiri.  This is a heavier-bodied, simpler tea with fewer flavour notes.  There's quite abit of bitterness which hits the tip end of my tongue.  The milk sweetens, makes it less bitter and gives the liquor, which is quite dull, a browny blue look.

What a contrast these two Nilgiris are.  I'm quite excited about the Coonoor and look forward to further tastings tomorrow morning.  It's almost like a Golden Monkey-light with those caramel notes. 

Caffeine in Tea

This is not a tasting post, but rather than wait until my next one I wanted to post this link right away while I have it in my "control c".

It's still puzzling to me how much misinformation there is out there from presumably reputable and well-meaning sources about the caffeine content of tea.

Here's the real scoop, an article titled Too Easy to be True De-bunking the At-Home Decaffeination Myth

written by American Bruce Richardson and based on a scientific study. (The article appeared in the January 2009 edition of Fresh Cup magazine and is copyrighted material.)  The article's focus is another widespread myth about being able to decaffeinate tea by "washing" with hot water, but the testing done to disprove that one provides great information on the caffeine content of tea.  BTW Bruce is the co-author, with renowned UK tea lecturer Jane Pettigrew, of the 2008 expanded edition of The New Tea Companion.

The upshot is that unless you know what kind of tea plant, when and how the tea was made and what part of the plant the tea leaves came from -- there's no way of really knowing how much caffeine is in your cup.  An educated tea drinker though can make a pretty good guess so have a look and become an educated tea drinker too.

P.S.  Enjoying Long Jing (or Lung Jing or Lung Ching, etc) this afternoon.
 

Handsome shiny flat Lung Jing.  

Can't remember where I got this Lung Jing but it still has
some tasty sparkle and zing.

Bi Luo Chun green tea from China

Visited a friend last week who mentioned her current favorite green tea is a Bi Luo Chun (Spring Snail Shell).  Easily influenced, I found my eye landing on some Bi Luo Chun in my tea drawer.

The stuff I have is truly a beautiful looking tea.  From an arm's length it's a sage green-grey but when you look more closely it is a mix of dark grey with dark green small twisted leaves and flecks of brighter green dusted with the pekoe of the many teeny buds.  It's from Tao's wonderful tea shop and the label tells me it from the East Mountain of Dong Ting Lake in the Jiangsu Province of China.  According to the Tea Drinker's Handbook, this tea in Jiangsu is only harvested once a year at the end of March.

Bi Luo Chun is considered one of the Ten Famous Teas of China.  It's also known as Dong Ting or Pi Lo Chun and, in English, Green Snail Spring.  To truly appreciate the work involved in making 500 grams of this tea, have a look at Chinese Tea 101 which has a wonderful series of photos of the process from plucking to baking.

The beautiful, pekoe-covered leaves of the Bi Luo Chun from Tao's.

The Tea
3.8 grams in 7 oz of 80C water for 1 minute.  Second steep 1 minute.

Can you see the little flower bud
in the lower right quadrant?

When I open the jar the first pleasure of this tea is a rush of fresh clean green aroma, abit like a fresh mown lawn.  The tiny, tiny leaves are whole, tightly wound and tend to curl into little "U's" or spirals.  There's also alot of silvery and pale yellow furry pekoe.

The wet leaves area a bright green and the leaves are a uniform size, tiny and narrow, an indication of its high quality.  Some show a slight rusty brown and I don't know if that is from a little oxidising on the bush or during the withering.  The first aroma is of the "fire" from its processing -- so different from all the Japanese steamed green teas I've been enjoying.  This is followed by rich fried greens and/or nuts (chestnut?) along with a slight sweetness and finished off with just the lightest tang which gives it a nice clean profile.

Bi Lo Chun liquor

The liquor is a mid-golden yellow.  It has good astringency which gives me a slight furring on the tongue, and abit of a pucker.

The flavour is beautifully balanced between a light floral sweetness, a clean lemony snap, fresh raw green bean and abit of bitterness on the sides of the tongue.  (To my tongue, one of the integral flavour notes of tea is bitterness, like another popular beverage -- beer.)  I do love that tang -- so charactertistic of baked green teas, perhaps mostly chinese green teas; it's like the raw green leaf.

My first second brew at 2 minutes was quite bitter -- like slightly burnt fried onions or chinese greens, and I realised I should not have increased the brewing time.  Actually, the best subsequent steeps were all at 1-minute, which continued to give me good flavour and pleasure in the cup.  BTW I got quite a caffeine buzz from this tea which makes sense since it's all buds.

I've made this a number of times over the past few days and I keep thinking that if this were a wine it would be one of my favorites, an excellent Chablis -- crisp and bright with a minerally finish. 

Later:  I made a small pot of this tea a couple weeks ago for some friends and we did three very flavourful steeps from the same leaves.  This is a wonderful example of this tea type and one that just keeps on giving.

Spices in a soup

Spinach soup with cumin, cloves, nutmeg, lemon zest and lemon juice.

It's a bright very cold wintry day here in the great white north.  Minus 15C.  Some home-made hot soup is in order and thus this lovely spinach soup seasoned with cumin, cloves, nutmeg, lemon zest and lemon juice.  Oy! It's absolutely delicious if I do say so myself.  Thought I'd include it here since the spices are really waking up the taste buds and making them smile.  The warmth and exoticness of the cumin always does it for me and today the small hint of clove and nutmeg add a wonderful dark note of heat way in the background.  The lemon zest, well what's better for adding zing to the flavour of anything?  And the lemon juice itself adds abit of astringency which makes the broth very refreshing. 

Recipe Note: found in the marvelous The Greens cookbook.

GYOKURO -- DIRECT FROM JAPAN

Even more on Gyokuro.  Can you stand it?  Mmmmmm it's just so darn delicious though.

Ordered this latest lot on-line from Yuuki-cha in Japan last week and I picked it up at the post office this afternoon.   Organic Uji Gyokuro Gokou which Yuuki-cha describe thus:

A first harvest organic gyokuro tea (Jade Dew) from a small organic tea garden in Uji. It is made exclusively from the tea bush varietal known as Gokou. Carefully grown under diffused sunlight for an extended 30 days before harvest, as opposed to the shorter 20 days that is often suggested. It is minimally processed and sorted and is 100% Uji Gyokuro. This type of unique farmer's gyokuro has become more and more popular over recent years and is very much in demand due to its more natural flavor than blended and/or heavily processed gyokuro teas. It has a rich, sweet, dense, briny taste with a marine aroma, a deep green liquor color, and an almost buttery aftertaste! 

Opening the bag there's a big rush of sweet rich aroma -- sweeter than any Gyokuro I've had before, sweet like a floral sweet, almost hyacinth.  (I went to my cupboard and smelled raisens and apricots and then the sweet frozen berries in the freezer to give my nose a reference just to be sure.)  Also some of that nut hint I've noticed in Gyokuro before as well as big green vegetal and marine aromas.

4 grams in 7 ozs of 65C water for 1 minute.

Wet leaves are a bright mid and dark green mix, can still see leaf shapes and stringy bits of leaf veins, etc.  Strong vegetal, marine and big chestnut (I swear it's chestnut) aromas. 

Beautiful pale bluey green liquor.

Smooth, sweet soft flavour, no astringency at all.  A tiny kick of bitter on the back sides of the tongue as it goes down.  This smells and tastes unlike any gyokuro I've had before -- the breadth of flavour and aroma is greater but also that chestnut note is really forward in this tea.  Different.  Surprising.  Really nice.

TEA & CHOCOLATE TASTING EVENT...

Yesterday, January 29, 2011,  I had the pleasure of being a presenter at the Tea Guild of Canada's second annual public tea tasting event which this year paired a number of teas and chocolate.  The Guild is a volunteer-run association founded by the first lot of certified Canadian tea sommeliers which is open to all tea enthusiasts and is dedicated to furthering the delicious 'cause' of tea appreciation and tea education.

Held at the lovely historic Montgomery's Inn in Etobicoke, it drew some 44 people for afternoon's 3-hour tasting which featured four tasting stations highlighting green, black, oolong and blended teas paired with various (mostly) home-made chocolate treats.

Actually, when I say "home made" chocolate treats I do them a disservice.  The chocolate mousse (!) and other treats were made by Bill Kamula, Laura Bryan and Raelene Gannon, all excellent and professional pastry and chocolate chefs.  Some chocolate bars and buttons were contributed by sponsors to round out the tasting samples.

My task was to present the Japanese steamed green tea, gyokuro, and a dark chocolate.  A total treat since I love both and find them to be a terrific pairing.

Have you tried it?  The soft sweet-ish flavour and satiny mouthfeel of the gyokuro is an incredibly nice match with the rich, bitter-ish flavour and earthy mouthfeel of plain, 80%+ dark chocolate.