Happy New Years

Happy New Years from Me and My Tea!

The holidays have been busy here, but I have lots of interesting teas and new reviews and blurbs to write for this coming year. Look forward to some exciting new posts from Me and My Tea this year. For now here's a picture of my Kagami Mochi and Kadomatsu for New Years.

Masala Chai

Tea: Masala Chai
Vendor: Wegmans Food Markets
Price: $29.99 / lb.

Leaf: This chai has less of a clovey aroma than some other chai mixes that I have tried. The mix has a very peppery aroma to it. The tea leaf is very small broken.

Infusion Mix: The mix I used for this tea consists of 4 oz water, 4 oz milk, 1 tsp leaf (3g), 1/2 tsp honey.

Infusion Parameters: Boil water and milk, add tea and boil for 4 mins. Add honey

Infusion: This chai has a light and creamy chocolatey brown color to it. The aroma is very noticeably sweet and milky. The tea flavor is very well balanced between the milk / tea / sweetness. The flavor is very milky like a heavily milked black tea. There are hints of spiciness, but only light hinting. More tea may increase this flavor.

Rating: 6/10

Conclusion: This tea was enjoyable, but like most chai it doesn't have a very strong distinctive presence. I don't see this chai standing out more from any other chais. It seems to be a good reference chai.

Honyama Sencha

Tea: Honyama Sencha
Vendor: Wegmans Food Markets / Ito-en
Price: $72.99 / lb.
Source: Shizuoka, Japan
Vendor Description: A delightful hint of maize in the bouquet hints at the gentle firing of the drying process. This tea offers a subtle sweetness. Its flavor signature is generous and soft, with a compelling wildflower aftertaste. From Shizuoka's Abe River region.

Leaf: The leaf for this is a very normal appearing chumushi sencha. It has a dullish green / brown color to it, but not extreme so.

1st Infusion Parameters: 5g, 5 oz, 180F, 2 min

1st Infusion: The first infusion had a lightly yellow green color. The aroma was light and had almost a hint of a genmaicha aroma. The flavor was light, it was very front loaded with no sense of bitterness or astringency. The flavor was very thick with a strong marine flavor to it.

2nd Infusion: This infusion was a dark yellow infusion with a light brown hue to it. The flavor was very crisp this time and had a sharp bitterness to it. The marine / seaweed flavor was still quite present in this tea.

Rating: 2/10

Conclusion: This was a rather unremarkable tea. The price is moderately high considering the flavor of this tea. For it's price there are many other teas which have a nicer flavor to them. While the tea itself has no particular flaws, it is a short lived sencha which quickly moves into a sharp bitter flavor in the second infusion.

Hawaii Exclusives

One of the interesting things about Lupicia is that the Hawaii store has exclusive teas. These are a series of flavored teas with tropical flavorings that are characteristic of Hawaii. These teas are supposed to be exclusive to Hawaii, or so I thought. I believe that there are at least 12 exclusive Hawaii teas.

Yesterday as I was picking some food up at a Nijiya market in San Francisco's J-town, I noticed a stack of gift wrapped Lupicia 3 tin boxes. It turns out that they were 3 packs of the Hawaii exclusive teas. In the pack were Palekaiko, Hoku, and Malama. These are 3 tins of 50g each in a nicely wrapped gift box. The pack ran $30.00 and since I don't have easy access to Hawaii instanly snatched them up. Reviews will be coming soon.

I'm not sure if this is a trend to move the exclusive teas mainland, but the Lupicia store that I talked to didn't know that they were available stateside and wished that they could sell them. So if you're interested in some quite possibly elusive teas and live in the SF bay area or near a Nijiya you may want to check this out.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years from Me and my tea!

Seasons Greeting! Happy Holidays!

Shincha Houryoku

Tea: Shincha Houryoku
Vendor: Den's Tea
Source: Shizuoka, Japan

About This Tea: This was a bag of '08 shincha that I had forgotten to open up and try out from back in May.

Leaf: The leaf for this tea was a browner leaf color than normal. It had a very faint yet fresh aroma to it.

1st Infusion Parameters: 5g, 5 oz, 140F, 1 min

1st Infusion: This tea still had the bright and vibrant green hue normally associated with shincha. It is not as luminescent as some were back in the spring, but it was still a beautiful color of green. The flavor was very smooth and well rounded. It was rich and full bodied for a green tea. There was no sense of bitterness or astringency.

2nd Infusion Parameters: 30s, 140F

2nd Infusion: This infusion was darker and murkier than the first. There was a light bitterness to this infusion and the flavor was richer and more intense than the first. It was more lacking of the bright shincha freshness at this point though.

Rating: 6/10

Conclusion: Considering this tea was well past it's optimal freshness time, it was still an enjoyable cup of tea. Even though it was a bit on the older side, it was still quite flavorful, but the flavor was a little more subdued. I look forward to next year's shincha.

Nishio Samidori

Tea: Nishio Samidori - 7501
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $12.50 / 20g
Source: Aichi, Japan
Vendor Description: Matcha from Nishio, Aichi Pref., the 2nd largest Matcha producing area after Uji, Kyoko. A variety called "Samidori" suitable for producing Matcha is used, with a mild flavor to suit everyone's taste.

Powder: This matcha is a rather light shade of green. It was darker than the 7502 (Okabe Aohane) however. There is a nice aroma to this matcha though, it's very enjoyable.

Infusion Parameters: 140F, 3 scoops, 1 ladle of water

Infusion: This matcha foamed rather nicely. The large foam brought out the lighter color of the matcha and gave off a nice hue. The flavor was a very rich matcha flavor. The flavor was quite bold, yet had a slightly gritty texture to it. There was a detectable light bitterness to it though.

Rating: 7/10

Conclusion: This is a rather enjoyable matcha, there wasn't much that was particuarly outstanding about it. It was probably one of the easiest matcha to foam. It is definitely an usucha though.

Oolong 101

Last Tuesday I had a chance to attend a small class on Oolongs by a local vendor, Swan Sisters. The class was appropriately named Oolong 101. The class covered some of the general points of Oolongs, brewing, manufacture / history of specific oolongs, and of course tastings.

There were a few types of oolong covered, Tie Guan Yin, Taiwanese Oolongs, Wuyi Rock, and Dan Cong. For a lot of the attendees the class really was also an instruction on how to use a gaiwan with a tea table. Most of them had never used a gaiwan before, let alone serving pitcher or tea table. I have a feeling that may have been more rewarding of an experience for some of them than the actual tea itself. First starting to use a gaiwan is a very difficult and somewhat painful proposition.

A few important points in brewing oolongs though were brought to light. The class focused on brewing multiple infusions using a gaiwan in a gong fu style. This mean short infusion times and lots of infusions. To prevent swimming through tea all night though we tended to stick to about 2-3 infusions, as is appropriate for beginning. I've always felt that learning to coax more out of your tea and reading your infusion is something that comes with experience and practice.

Swan Sisters plans to have classes like these every second tuesday of the month on different teas/subjects. The cost for the class was $10

First Flush Darjeeling

Tea: First Flush Darjeeling
Vendor: Tao of Tea
Price: $10.00 / Chestlet (~3-4 oz)
Source: Darjeeling, India
Vendor Description: A delicate First Flush Darjeeling packaged in a miniature, wooden tea-chest. To this day, teas from India are packaged in large, foil-lined wooden chests that must be broken or pried open to remove the tea. On this mini-chest, the top is removable and can be re-used for storing tea or other items.

Leaf: The leaf for this tea is nicely sized Darjeeling leaves, there was not much of an aroma to the leaves though. The color was a bit on the darker side for Darjeeling black teas, with some light silver and green bits showing through.

1st Infusion Parameters: 5g, 5 oz, 185F, 4 min

1st Infusion: This tea came out iwth a nice floral aroma. It was floral yet thick and sweet. The tea had a rich brown hue to it. The flavor felt a bit muddled, it was rough to find distinct flavors in it, yet I kept finding a hint of a soapiness in the flavor. The flavor was dominated though by a strong bitterness. There was a long lingering aftertaste which piggybacked on the bitterness.

Rating: 1/10

Conclusion:I really was not a fan of this tea. The light character of a Darjeeling was overpowered by bitterness in this case. It wasn't a very enjoyable cup of tea and is not a very characteristic Darjeeling. I did try this tea later with lower temperatures and shorter infusion times, but I could not shake the taste of soapiness with this tea.

Sencha "Sakura Saku"

Tea: Sencha "Sakura Saku" - 8005
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Vendor Description: Blend of Uji Sencha which is firmly rubbed.

Leaf: This tea is a well polished dark green sencha leaf. There is a light aroma to it. The shape of the leaf is very expected with a good distribution of large leaf and a light amount of small flecks.

1st Infusion Parameters: 4g, 160F, 1 min

1st Infusion: There was a pale light green color to this infusion, it didn't have much of an aroma to it. The tea is a light clean flavor with a medium grassiness. The flavor was very sweet and almost like a shincha in vibrance.

2nd Infusion Parmeters: 180F, 1 min

2nd Infusion: This infusion was a darker yellow color with a very bitter flavor to it. It felt like the temperature was a massive overshoot.

Rating: 2/10

Conclusion: This sencha would normally have been a very normal and good example of an Uji sencha, but instead it seemed to be very very temperature sensitive. Temperatures which would seem normal for most senchas seemed a bit too extreme for this tea. The flavor of the first infusion was quite good, but nothing to warrant the fickle nature of this tea. I tried this tea later using a second infusion at 150F and the result was a very average tasting sencha.