Posted on August 28, 2010
In any tasting session, brief or more time-intensive, I generally try to taste teas that belong to one subgroup.
Usually the range is narrower, but sometimes the exigencies of having to decide on one over another in preparing an order, or just plain eagerness to taste an unusual looking tea make for a grouping of teas [...]
Posted on June 17, 2010
Last month (May) I gave a tea talk at UCLA along with a tasting that was part of the school’s annual “Asia in LA 2010″ day-long program.
Most of the material I presented has been covered in various earlier posts, but I provide here the teas that I brought for the tasting and my reasoning for [...]
Posted on May 22, 2010
I confess to tuning in occasionally to the Food Network channel. One show I did catch by chance was Alton Brown’s episode on tea (10/9/08). Brown is a good explainer when it comes to the chemistry of foods.
He began by showing the (obvious) difference between leaf teas and fannings (that go into traditional teabags), reviewed water [...]
Posted on April 24, 2010
At the end of the previous post (Part 2), I concluded that for almost $50/lb, one could have a really top grade Jasmine leaf tea instead of the $48.95/lb Jasmine Pearls tea that turned out to be a poor choice, value-wise and flavor-wise. If it is Jasmine Pearls you’re after, seek out a better quality [...]
Posted on March 31, 2010
As I have noted in an earlier post on Milk Oolong, there is no milk in this tea. No milk (actual or in the form of flavoring) is added during processing or after. The tea is named for its pleasing aroma of cream, a feature distinctive to this varietal from Taiwan.
That said, when one buys [...]