2007 Mengku Cake - Pure Puer Tea

Factory: Guagtong

Harvest Year: 2007

Type: Ripe/Shu

Harvest Area: Mengku, Shuangjiang County

Brewing vessel: 120 gaiwan

38 gram sample dari teh ini sebetulnya saya beli bulan Desember 2009 namun baru hari ini sempat dinikmati. Karena saat itu masih banyak persediaan teh yang perlu dihabiskan jadi sang pu disimpan dulu. Toh semakin lama disimpan semakin enak rasanya. Tapi gara gara disimpan di barisan belakang di lemari penyimpan teh, keberadaan teh ini sempat terlupakan. Baru ingat kembali setelah asik mencoba beberapa pu dari Bana Tea belakangan ini.

Menurut informasi dari vendor, teh ini merupakan hand-picked, stoned pressed dari Mengku, dibuat dari the finest Emperor leaf sized yang dipetik dari pohon teh kuno. Saya menggunakan gaiwan ukuran 120 ml untuk menyeduh 4 gram pu kering, dengan dua kali bilas. Hasil seduhan sangat smooth, samar-samar terekam rasa manis menyenangkan. Delicious tea. 


Update: 24 November 2010, I am finishing up this tea today after enjoying it for  several more sessions since the first session in May. Setting saya usahakan semirip mungkin dengan setting yang saya gunakan saat mencoba teh ini untuk pertama kalinya 5 bulan lalu termasuk tea cups dan kain batik untuk alas. Teh kering diseduh dengan menggunakan gaiwan dengan ukuran yang sama pula, tapi berbeda pada ketebalan dindingnya. Gaiwan yang dipakai sekarang agak sedikit lebih tebal dari gaiwan yang dipakai saat mencoba pertama kali 5 bulan lalu. 

Rasa seduhan tetap enak tapi terasa tidak semanis atau se smooth yang saya ingat. Mungkinkah karena pengaruh gaiwan yang dipakai atau karena teh tidak tersimpan dengan baik setelah kemesannya terbuka?

3 days later, it was still going strong and the color was still beautiful...

The leaves after more than a week and 15 something infusions ...

Treasure from 5 Mountains

Treasures from Five Mountains
2008 vintage from early spring harvest
Raw pu-erh, Grade 1
Production area: Lincang, Yunnan Province
Vendor: Bana Tea Company


From Bana Tea website: This tea is a blend of leaves from five different tea mountains in the Lincang area.  The raw materials of this cake were selected and blended  according to each tea’s strength, mouth-feel, body, aftertaste and an assessment of how each tea complements the others.  

2009 Long Feng Xia Oolong - Tea from Taiwan

LFX dari Shan Li Shi adalah salah satu high mountain oolong dari Taiwan. Tercium aroma manis dan sedikit floral dari hasil seduhan pertama yang masih bisa terdeteksi sampai seduhan ke 4 dan hanya samar-samar tercium dari hasil seduhan ke 5 dstnya.  Rasa seduhan lembut membelai dan soothing.  Simply delicious!  Jika saja saya tidak punya masalah dengan caffeine, LFX akan jadi pengganti air putih sebagai minuman sehari-hari.

2006 Silver Tip - Bana Tea

This vintage pu erh was included in my order from Bana Tea Company. Per the website, "the tea is harvested from arbor trees ranging between 50-100 year old. It is made entirely from tippy buds plucked during early spring."
The tea was so clean, light and delicious!


Harvest year: 2006
Type: Non-fermented, premium grade, 100% tippy buds
Origin: Nannou Mountain, Xishuangbanna Perfecture

2006 Jin Mai

Another delicious sheng from Pure Puer Tea. According to the vendor, the tea comes from the Jin Main Mountain in Simao, Yunan and the leaves are from 500 - 800 old trees, hand picked and stone pressed. 

Factory: Jin Yu Xuan

Harvest Year: Spring 2006

Kulov's 10th Annual Tea Festival

Some pictures from the festival my husband and I attended this afternoon.

Japanese sweet served for those attending the Japanese Tea Ceremony workshop

Angie & David from 1001 Plateaus

Organic Uji Gyokuro Gokou - Yuuki-Cha

From Yuuki-Cha: A first harvest organic gyokuro tea from a small organic tea garden in Uji. It is made exclusively from the tea bush varietal known as Gokou. Rich and sweet flavored tea! 2009 First Harvest, light steamed.

I used 2 minute brewing method in a pre-heated houhin with the following parameter: 6 gram/2oz at 122ºF. The first infusion was robust, intense, buttery and very delicious, slightly bitter at the background. The liquor color was shinny, reminded me of olive oil consistency and beautiful green. The second infusion was for less robust, but still intense, buttery, sweet and bold. The later infusions developed spinach and less bold flavor but still delicious.

My favorite gyo cup - just amazingly beautiful!

2010 Shincha!!!

Shincha or "new tea" is the first harvest of the green tea growing season in Japan. This is the freshest Japanese green tea man can get because the tea is immediately processed and packed after it is picked. It is seasonal tea, available only from late April to July. I am a newbie to shincha. So I wanted to try both asamushi (light steamed) and fukamushi (deep steamed). 

I pre-ordered my shincha while I was on vacation last month. Most shincha I ordered have not been released yet. So I am still waiting patiently for the following from Yuuki-cha. I cannot wait to try my first shincha! 

2010 Organic Shizuoka Tenryu Misakubo

2010 Organic Shizuoka Tenryucha

2010 Organic Shizuoka Okuyutaka
2010 Organic Kagoshima Saemidori

Edit: All shinchas are in the house now and we had tried Saemidori and Tenryu Misakubo. Loved them. Hubby liked the Saemidori a lot so decided to order another package with the following order. Yes, we cannot get enough of shincha! 

2010 Organic Shizuoka Sayamakaori

2010 Organic Honyama Tokujo

2010 Organic Shizuoka Kanayamidori 

Organic Japanese Oolong - Yuuki-Cha

A very unique taste of oolong with a roasted taste and aroma. As a fan of greener oolong, I didn't expect to like this tea. But I did. It feels smooth and rich in the mouth. I brewed it gong fu style in shiboridashi and used 1:1 leaves to water ratio at 194°F without rinse or preheating the pot. First and second infusion for 30 seconds and third infusion for 40 seconds. 

From the vendor site: "A rare treat of JAS certified organic Japanese oolong tea single estate cultivated, processed, and packaged in Kagoshima, Japan... The dry leaf, which is semi-oxidized, is slightly curled."

Teh Bendera - In Loving Memory of My Father....

My father loved sweet Indonesian black tea. While I don't drink black tea that often anymore and rarely have a craving for it, I brewed one today. The tea was Teh Bendera brand that my father used to drink when we were kids. From what I remember, my father never missed a day drinking a big tall glass of sweet hot tea unless he was on business trips. He would enjoy his tea with some traditional Indonesian sweets prepared by our maid. A routine that he carried until he passed away in January this year. 

I haven't had this tea for more than 2 decades. So when I went home early this month, I bought a package of Teh Bendera and brew it occasionally to whenever I miss my father. Whenever I drink this tea or any black tea from Indonesia, I like to think that my father is also here with me .... 

  

2006 Yi Wu Pu-erh

First time I tried Yi Wu pu-erh. Very delicious. I will definitely buy more in the near future. I am easily finishing the 28 gram sample that was bought from Pure Puer. According to vendor's website the tea was hand picked and made from ancient pu-erh tea that are 500-800 years old. Very delicious.

Factory: Jin Yu Xuan
Harvest Year: Spring 2006
Type: Raw/Sheng
Harvest Area: Yi Wu Mountain

Kaboku Sencha - Ippodo

Delicious asamushi sencha we picked up at the store in Kyoto last year. It has been opened for about a month, so I plan to finish it very soon.  Granted it was not as fresh as when we first opened, but it was still delicious. 

2009 Winter Alishan - Floating Tea Leaves

What a sweet fragrant and refreshing taste! Alishan oolong termasuk dalam kategori Gao Shan (high mountain tea) dari Taiwan. Berasal dari perkebunan teh yang berlokasi di ketinggian 1000 - 2300 meter di sekitar Gunung Ali di Taiwan. Ciri khasnya antara lain medium oksidasi dan daun kering yang meringkel. 

Saya seduh di gaiwan yang berkapasitas 120 ml. Rasanya manis dan light  - enak banget. 

Teas on holiday...

Our office is closed in observance of Chesar Chavez Holiday today. Yippe! We started the day with a delicious bowl of organic matcha Tenkei Tori from Yuuki-cha that has become our favorite.  Since we first tasted this matcha about a moth ago, when we're home, we never start the day without it.    


Around noon before we left the house to run some errands, we enjoyed 4 infusions of Ippodo's Gyokuro Kanro. We always find this gyo to be very concentrated and smooth, but today we were also rewarded with a sweeter taste than ever. We were wondering wheather the beautiful Yamane Seigan cups had anything to do with this?

We finished the day with 7 infusions of 2009 Farmers Choice Baozhong from Floating Tea Leaves with a yummy pecan bars we picked up earlier from our favorite cakes shop, Jamaica's Cakes.  

Matcha Latte

For some odd reason, I was craving for a warm drink with milk this morning but at the same time I also wanted to have my matcha. Preparing and drinking matcha has been my morning routine for a while now and I really enjoy it. So I combined the two and made myself a nice cup of matcha latte!

It was so goooood.... and was very easy to prepare.

Here's my method:

1. Pour 2 chasaku of shifted matcha into a warm bowl or a cup.
2. Add about 100 ml warm water, and whisk with a chasen or a small whisk until the tea gets frothy.
3. Add warm soy milk and stir. 
4. Enjoy every sip of it with a big smile.

I like the taste of matcha by itself so I don't add any sweetener to my matcha drink.

Organic Hojicha from Yuuki-Cha

When I find myself craving a pot of tea in the late afternoon like today, I always turn to hojicha, a Japanese roasted green tea, that is supposed to be very light and low in caffeine. I agree the very light part, but not sure about its low caffeine content as I am always having a hard time falling asleep after sipping hojicha in the evening. I guess it's just me being extremely sensitive to caffeine. I read hojicha is normally served to children and elderly in the hospitals in Japan.

Hojicha that I brewed today was from Yuuki-Cha. I always loved sniffing the aroma of the dry leaf.  Its light smoky fragrant reminded me of the aroma of the banana leaf used to wrap lemper, an Indonesian snack made of sticky rice and chicken. My preferred brewing vessel for this hojicha is a ceramic teapot -  its spout was pictured on this post -, it's a part of a set that was gifted to me by a group of very kind Japanese women in Miyanoshita in 1991. For some odd reasons, the brew from this ceramic pot always came out very mild, smooth and sweet. Just a lovely cup of tea to sip. 

Vietnam Note de Lotus dan Hanami Imperial - Jin Patisserie

The tea adventure continues.....
Hari ini kami mencoba teh hijau Vietnam Note de Lotus dan Hanami Imperial Tea di Jin Patisserie.  Dari informasi yang tersedia di menu, Vietnam Note de Lotus dihasilkan dengan cara mencampurkan bunga teratai segar yang dipetik dengan tangan hanya pada musim semi  kedalam teh hijau. Konon proses pencampuran seperti ini pertama kali dilakukan oleh Raja Tu Duc dengan cara menyebarkan teh hijau kedalam danau yang dipenuhi bunga teratai. Sementara Hanami Imperial adalah teh hijau Jepang (tidak ada informasi jenis yang mana) yang telah dinifused dengan  bunga sakura.  Disebutkan juga bahwa pada awalnya campuran teh dengan bunga sakura ini terbatas untuk kalangan kaisar saja. Tetapi sekarang dinikmati oleh orang Jepang untuk menyambut musim semi dan sebagai atribut ke bunga sakura.

Suami dan saya sepakat kedua teh hijau ini tidak terlalu istimewa, bahkan terasa aneh untuk teh hijau. Lebih terasa seperti herbal tea karena tidak bisa ditraced rasa khas teh hijau sama sekali, terutama Hanami Imperial. Mungkin karena kami berdua cenderung lebih menyukai rasa teh hijau murni tanpa campuran apa-apa. Tapi pada akhirnya kedua teh ini dihabiskan  tanpa kesulitan dengan dibantu oleh sepotong venetian - flourless chocolate cake untuk saya dan poire - Poached pear flambé wrapped in dark chocolate mousse & Pear William crème -  untuk suami. Rasanya kedua jenis teh yang kami coba lebih cocok untuk dinikmati sebagai teman minum home-made cakes mereka yang rasanya memang boleh dipujikan.  

Teh yang tersedia di cafe ini berasal dari Theodor, Tea House di Paris.  

Megami Sencha - Royal T

Our tea adventure today brought us to Royal T Cafe in Culver City. It's a tea cafe, shop and art gallery combined. The main space is very open, bright and has a cool ambience.  It's really a fun place to enjoy your foods if you don't mind your wait staff wears French maid outfits. 

We scouted down their tea menus before checking out their lunch items. I decided to get one of their classic brews, Megami Sencha from Kagoshima region. To go with it, I ordered roasted beet salad. The husband tried Iced Kyoto Sunset from their modern brews list.  It's a premium Ceylon black tea with apricot flavor and a peach syrup on the side. He enjoyed it with Kobe beef burger which was really tasty. The sencha was delicious with spinach, slightly grassy flavor and very smooth. I will definately include Megami sencha in my next tea list. The color of the liquor reminded me of the color of ocha we had in one restaurant we visited in Tokyo

Blue Moon from T Salon

So we went to T Salon in the West Hollywood neighborhood this afternoon.  It is  a sustainable tea cafe, bar (for teas of course) and market. The store has a huge selection of loose teas.  Most of them are blended teas, which I am not a big fan of.  After smelling about six tea blends, I decided to try the blue moon, a blend of white tea, blueberry and flowers. Out of the six, it was the one that has the least floral aroma and didn't smell like perfume. My husband tried the white darjeeling.

I was pleasantly surprised with the smooth taste of the tea. I liked the aroma of the tea liquor and was glad to find it didn't have strong floral smell either. Yes that's my tea cup on the table. I brought my own cup because that's one of my favorite cups to drink my tea from. While I couldn't brew my own tea at a tea house, this cup will enhance my enjoyment in sipping a cup of tea.