2010 Kanayamidori Shincha

Vendor: Yuuki-Cha
Type: Asamushi
Varietal: Kanayamidori
Origin: Shimizu, Shizouka
Brewing vessel: Kuro Sendan Tokoname kyusu (with a sasame ceramic strainer) by Houryu

2010 Spring Alishan - Floating Tea Leaves

Varietal: Chin Hsin Oolong
Region: Alishan ZhanShuHu 
Varietal: Chin Hsin Oolong

Iced Matcha au Lait

The warm weather continues......
No hot matcha today.  Instead, I had this delicious and refreshing cold drink: Iced Matcha au Lait. Yum.

Here is my method:
1. Pour 2 chasaku of sifted Matcha into a cold glass.
2. Add 100ml iced water, and whisk with chasen (bamboo whish) until the tea gets frothy.
3. Add soy milk and stir.  Then add ice cubes and enjoy!

Cold brew Teas

The weather has been hot lately as June Gloom is finally over.  The thought of having a cup of hot tea is not really appealing so I decided to cold brew my teas this week. After searching online for how to prepare cold brewed teas, I decided to try brewing my teas with iced water and left it overnight in the fridge. First try was saemidori shincha. Wow I really liked the taste!  It was sweet,no bitterness, less astringent and very refreshing. 

Then I tried other type of teas that I normally brew hot; oolong, darjeeling and matcha. I liked all of them too. I am very pleased to know that I can still enjoy my teas even in very hot days! Life is good.  

2010 Farmer's Choice Bao Zhong from Floating Tea Leaves

2010 Organic Honyama Tonkuju Shincha

This is one of my favorite shincha teas this year; it has a sweet and delicate taste which I really like for my green tea. Look at the beautiful leaves!

The spent leaves do not look bad either. 

Kenya Silverback Silver Needle - Green Tea Lovers

I participated in an online group tea tasting organized by Chip over at TeaChat. I signed up for Silver Needle round and received the following 5 samples, 8 gram each:

GreenTeaLovers Adam's Peak from Ceylon 

Kenya Silverback from Green Tea Loveres
Rishi Silver Needle Premium Organic (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) from Fujian
Adagio Silver Needle
Rishi Fuding Grand Cru

I tried Kenya Silverback today and used the group tasting discussion as the guidelines. I used 4 grams of tea and 4 ounces water, brewed at 170 for 2 minutes in a shiboridashi.  I found the dried leaves have an unpleasant smell. It smelled like an old tea to me or "bau apek" in Indonesian. (Couldn't find an English word to accurately describe the smell). The aroma of the brewed tea on the contrary, was sweet and had a nice fresh floral scent. I quite enjoyed the sweet flavors of this tea but had to stop after the first brew. Since I am very sensitive to caffeine, one session of white tea is enough to keep me awake all night especially if I drink it this late. So I will continue brewing this tea tomorrow.  

Edit: So  the next day after leaving the spent leaves in the fridge overnight, I had the second and third infusion before noon. The color of the brew as well as the aroma and flavor didn't change much. It's quite refreshing actually. The flavor from the fourth and fifth infusions  was less sweet but it was still enjoyable to drink. Overall I really like this tea. Hope I will like my other 4 samples of SN too.

Today's Matcha

Organic Marukyu-Koyamaen in Ericka O'Rourke's chawan

2010 Spring Farmer's Choice Baozhong - Floating Tea Leaves

I really liked the 2009 Winter Famer's Choice Baozhong from Floating Tea Leaves. So while in Seattle early this month, we stopped by FLT to see if Shiuwen, the owner of FLT, brought the 2010 Spring harvest of this Baozhong from her recent trip to Taiwan. I was glad she did. She kindly invited us to have some teas with her.

I tried the Baozhong today and compared it with the 2009 Winter. While the 2010 version was not as great as the 2009 version, it was still delicious!

1st and 2nd infusion

2010 Jing Mai

Raw Pu-erh, Spring 2010

Harvest Area: Jingmai Mountain, Lancang County
Vendor: Bana Tea Company

This pu-erh was served at a workshop my husband and I attended during Kulov's tea festival in May. I fell in love with its crisp, fresh and sweet aftertaste as soon as I had the first sip. It was a kind of tea that I really like. Unfortunately the tea was not available for purchase. Linda, the owner of the Bana Tea Company, only had a small amount of this tea from her recent trip to Jingmai tea mountain. And that was not for sale. Good news that about a week after the festival Linda informed me that her farmer was able to ship a smaller amount of this tea via airmail and I could taste this tea again by end of May. 

The tea arrived sooner than I expected. Thanks Linda! I did Gongfu-style brewing method in a gaiwan using filtered water. I rinsed the tea with boiling water twice before brewing. 1st infusion: 10s, 2nd: 20s, 3rd:30s, 4th: 40s. I took a break after the 4th infusion. 5th infusion was for 1 minute then gradually increased the brewing time by 1 minute after every infusion. 

It was as delicious as I remember it.  And the spent leaves looked so pretty!

Today's Matcha

Organic Marukyu-Koyamaen in Robert Fornell's chawan

2010 Organic Tenryu Misukubo Shincha

This 100% handpicked asamushi (light-steamed) Yabukita shincha from Shizuoka was simply delicious! The dried leaves smelled very fresh and had a sweet vegetal aroma. On my first session, I used brewing parameters provided by the vendor; 3 grams of leaves in 4oz of water at 158°F in a pre-heated kyusu. The first infusion was 60 seconds and yielded a delicate, sweet and smooth tea. The second and third infusion was around 20 - 25 seconds. The brew was sweet, a hint of astringent and an umami taste.

On my second session, I used 1 to 1 leaves to water ratio and brewed it at a slightly cooler temperature but similar steeping time. I preferred the taste from this brewing; deepest umami but not overpowering, sweet, more astringent and vegetal. I enjoyed a very aromatic and delicious cup. 

Tea in Seattle

Teas we had while in Seattle last weekend:
Sencha Fukujyu at Wild Ginger Restaurant

The first cup of this sencha (green spider leg from Shizuoka) was actually tasty. It had good balance of sweet, vegetal, astringent and slightly bitterness. But since the tea was served in a pot and left brewed, the second and the third cups became very bitter. Someone needs to tell the restaurant not to cook this tea please! 

Vietnamese tea at Green Leaf Restaurant
It was a free flow drink that was served with our meals. Didn't know what it was and was not able to ask the waitstaff either (the restaurant was very busy at that time). The tea tasted a little bit like Bori Cha (Barley Tea) served in Korean restaurants. 

Delicious 2010 Spring and Aged Taiwanese Oolong at Floating Tea Leaves
Without doubt the teas we tried at FLT were the best teas we had in Seattle and they were all free! Shiuwen brewed the newly arrived Spring teas and an aged Baozhong for us to drink together. The 13 years old Baozhong was from Chin Hsin varieatal from Pinglin. The 2010 Spring teas were Farmer's Choice Baozhong and   Alishan. All was delicious.  

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