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Friday, May 29, 2015

Phoenix Comicon Steampunk Tea House

Hi all!

I'm at Phoenix Comicon right this second being anti-social in their Steampunk Tea House. There are going to be Steampunk authors and personas here but mostly I came for the tea.

It's bagged tea, not quite what I hoped but as I drank all my tea from this morning, I'll take what I can get.

My first cup is a white orchard from a company called Mighty Leaf. The package says Chinese white tea with peach and melon. It certainly smells very fruity. It brewed up pretty dark for a white with quite a bit of sediment (but that's a tea bag for ya).

The first sip of it had a very thick mouth feel and made me think of my favorite childhood lunch snack: gushers. This however was not a good thing.

The rest of it tasted like body wash, I think because the melon and the prevalences of cucumber melon bath products. It's got a very sweet aftertaste that unfortunately seals the last nail in this flavor's coffin. Maybe I'll have better luck with the Jasmine Green?

If not, at least I'm still at my favorite event of the year!!!! Rocking my Hufflepuff uniform!!  Happy Friday all!! TeaGIF!

Friday, May 22, 2015

Glenburn 2013 Autumn Oolong

Can I be honest for a minute? I feel a bit silly writing a review of this tea. I'm still so new to the tea world that I feel like there isn't anything I can say about this one that more knowledgeable experts haven't already said.

But that being said, I love this tea so much I have to tell you about it! Here's what I know.

This oolong comes from the Glenburn Estate in Darjeeling. It is an autumnal flush and dried in the sun.  There's a neat little video of their processing technique here.



This is a 2013 harvest that I picked up at a local independent tea shop: Souvia. The 2014 harvest won 2nd place (dark oolong category) in this years tea tasting championship.


I love the look of this tea, all curly blacks, browns, and greens. It's got a rich woodsy sweet smell. Brewed up the sweet smell comes through even more and the floral notes really start to stand out.  The liquor is a bright orange and smells complex, combining the wet and dried leaf smells.


So how did it taste? Heavenly. It started off with a bit of tartness due, I think, to slight overstepping. However it wasn't unpleasant. I got some hints of malt and dried fruit sweetness.

This tea really started to captivate me during its subsequent steepings, shortened to two minutes. That's when the floral notes bloomed and turned into an absolutely amazing experience. I almost can't describe it. It was floral but not like the jasmines that I'm used to, it was much sweeter and I flew through the next three or four infusions.

I can definitely see why this tea won its spot in the championship; and make me really want to try the first place winner.

Have you had a chance to try this tea, or anything from Glenburn? Know any other neat tidbits about this tea? Let me know in the comments! I'm gonna go steep this since more, but before I go here's my stats:


Temp: 195° F
Time: 3 minutes for the first infusion but then 2 min for the subsequent ones
Tea: 2.5g 
Vessel: Gaiwan (≈100mL)
Steepings: 5+

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Sterilizing my Yixing pot

Some time ago, I finally took the plunge and bought my very first Yixing pot.  I was a bit scared but had found some great pu'er teas and felt confident that I wouldn't be wasting my money on a pot I wouldn't ever use.

Dan, the owner at Trailhead Tea, where I bought the pot, gave me great instructions on how to sterilize it BEFORE seasoning.  So here's what I did.

I started by covering the pot with bottled water.  The desert is notorious for it's hard water and I really didn't want all those chemicals in my pot so I wasted the water but I think for good reason.

I made sure that only the bottom of the pot touched the pan.  You don't want the handle or spout touching the sides.  The lid I put next to the pot, handle up for stability, also not touching the sides or the pot.

I've read a lot of tutorials that say to boil but Dan told me to simmer.  Boiling creates bubbles that are potentially large enough to disrupt the pot.  The large bubbles could knock it over and cause it to break.  We don't want that before we even use it so simmering is a safer way to go.

Heating up.

I covered the pot with water and set my heat to medium.  I wanted to bring the heat up slowly so as not to subject the pot to any kind of extreme temperature difference.  Once the pot was simmering very gently I set a timer for 30 minutes.  Or at least that's what I tried.  I think I got up to look at it every five minutes or so.  It was my first pot so I think I was a bit over protective.

This was as bubbly as my water got.

Once it had simmered for 30 minutes I turned off the heat and left it for a few hours so it could thoroughly cool down. Then I drained the water, which had more dust/sediment particles than I expected, and left the pot out for a day or two to dry completely.  

Yay!  Squeaky clean!  Stay tuned for my take on Yixing pot seasoning.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Freedom at last!

Finals are done! School is over! I can finally have my life back!! Hooray!

The top thing on my list of activities I've been missing out on is reading. I've always been a bit of a bookworm and it's been terrible not being able to read for fun. So when I saw this beauty at World Market, I couldn't pass it up.
I never see tea books out in the wild. They all seem to hide in their Amazon habitats and I really prefer to flip through them before I buy. I think this one was fate.


I'm also excited to start being productive again.  Actually finish some tea reviews instead of just drinking them and reveling in how delicious they are while sharing none of it.  Of course that's assuming I can suddenly learn to be organized and disciplined.  I bet there's a lot of ideas on how to do that on Pinterest.  I'll go make some tea and "research" that.  

Happy Sunday all!