Iguana Tea: from the Sleep Talkin' Man

Tea for the Cold-Blooded

"Pay homage to toast. Prostrate yourself in front of it: hot, crunchy bread slice thingy. We shall celebrate with tea! Iguana tea."


Homage to Toast






(Lizard teapot found here.)

Tea for Today tastes some Turkish tea, Western-style

Dr. Who's steampunk samovar

Marlena, who hosts the Tea for Today blog, intersperses tea tasting notes with pictures of faraway places (which often bear no relation to the teas themselves, but reflect her wide traveling experiences and are just lovely to look at), along with other tea facts.

This week she tasted some Turkish tea from two vendors, but she made it Western-style (1 tsp, boiling water, 3 minutes). Traditionally, Turks make their tea with a samovar and all the delightful complexities that go with that. One of these days, I need to buy me one of those contraptions.

Marlena makes the following interesting statement:

As sometimes happens, the taste of the tea follows directly in the foorsteps of the aroma, which to me, is one indication of a good tea. 

While, obviously, there are a million ways to measure a good or great tea, the aroma is particularly useful. The tongue can only identify five flavors-- sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami; but the human nose can identify tens of thousands of different, nuanced aromas. Interestingly, women in general have a stronger sense of smell than men, and their sense of smell is most highly developed during ovulation (if you'll pardon a bit of TMI with your breakfast). So, ladies, drink that comfort tea when you need it, and take good notes of what you're drinking.

Also, dogs have about 10 times the olfactory receptors that humans have. If I had a wish (other than for world peace, blah blah blah), I'd want to have a dog's ability to smell. Can you imagine the nuances of aroma and flavor you'd be able to discover in your favorite teas?


(Doctor Who steampunk Dalek comes from sculptor Alex Holden. I don't think it's actually a samovar, but who's counting?)


[Updated to fix horrid typos. Bleh.]

BearsBlog finds two Taiwanese oolongs to be... consistent.

Bear Discerning Fine Differences
among Taiwanese Teas

Bears Blog asks, who has the better San Lin Xi oolong from 2011: A source in Taizhong or Floating Leaves?

Takeaway: Taiwanese have their tea crafting down to an art that yields very consistent results. Judging gaoshan tea competitions must be rather difficult!

From what I understand, the Taiwanese may have the world's most sophisticated, upscale tea culture-- and certainly, being filled with businessmen willing to drop a thousand or two dollars on a pot of tea may effectively bring about such fine-tuned discernment that they can easily tell the differences between vintage teas that would elude us Westerners.

Go to Bears Blog for LOTS more to augment your tea education.


Picture of Pooh Bear originally found here.

Tasting Notes: Huang Jin Gui Wu Long, Canton Tea Co.

Though I've been in hiatus, I've been taking some tea notes along the way, which I can share with you now that I'm back up and running.



Tasting notes on Huang Jin Gui Wu Long, from Canton Tea Company


Steeping 1: 25s, all about scent.

Beautiful, golden liquor, with a distinctly fruit-floral aroma that eluded me until I read the liner notes, which stated that this tea is reminiscent and named after the osmanthus flower for both its color and scent. And, yes, this does somewhat remind me of osmanthus-infused oolongs, which I've tasted a number of times in the past.

Steeping 2: 20s, with attitude
The second steeping is quite often the best when drinking oolongs: the leaves have been awakened, but they still retain the potency and have not been diminished in any measurable way. When tasting a tea such as this, it's important to remember that the tea changes in the pot as you drink, revealing a changing character as it breathes. This tea definitely wakes up with the second steeping, and the fruity flavor is accompanied by an astringency that makes the golden infusion take on a brightness on the tongue. Quite delicious. If I were to give this tea a musical label, I would say she is a mezzo-soprano, with plenty of high (but not overly high) notes and a powerful middle register. There is little to no bitterness, and I can't discern any distinguishing low notes (which one would usually associate with, say, an Assam or other black teas). It's quite strong and bright, like hot sunlight filtered through a latticework screen.


Steeping 3 and onward: 20s, 45s, &c
[Author's note: I didn't take notes on the third steeping and onward, being that my life frequently interferes with a properly meditative environment for tea-taking. That being said, the third steeping was delightful, though thinning, stretching out a bit. True to form, that second steeping was the highlight of the gongfu session, and from then on I fought to keep the pot hot enough to extract the flavors from the tea. I was able to get about six pots of tea from this, until I got busy enough that I was unable to continue. The tea outlasted my life's ability to sit still in one place long enough.]

I love how teas can taste like so many things: osmanthus flower aroma, in this case, even though an osmanthus never came in contact with these leaves. If only people realized how teas are like roses, with more varieties and subtleties than a single person can experience in a lifetime.

Lovely tea, Canton Tea. Thanks!

Tea and Snoopy

Every time I set my microwave's timer (sorry, I don't have a Wicked-Witch-of-the-West hourglass) for three minutes-- a good length of time for many black teas-- I hear the rhythm of The Royal Guardsmen, singing, "It's Sopwith Camel Time." [Timer], [3], [0], [0], [Timer].

"And this is relevant to my tea-drinking experience how?" I hear you asking. Well, when one drinks some sophisticated tea using one's best gongfu, and some goofy number from the '60s is ringing in one's head, it rather colors the experience. And because I think it just about every time I make tea. Can't help it. Could be worse, I suppose.

Walker compares dan congs

That's Dan Cong, not King Kong.

Okay, let's remember, the words sound sort of like "don song," not a rhyme with "King Kong."  Walker Tea Review (who's been very busy making videos while I've been on hiatus) reviews two dan congs teas. Walker's got an awesome new intro music mix now, to boot!

Dan cong oolongs are as different and varied as American barbecue recipes, and so a review of only two of them might be a bit too limited. That being said, there are so few of them on the market in the US that it's good to start to think about them at all.  Jason Walker knows his tea, as I'm sure all of you know, and he does such a good job letting you see how to prepare and discern teas. In a way, he's a tea educator more than a tea evangelist. Thanks, Jason.

It's Time to Wake Up the Ol' Bear

Sleepers, awake!

Well, fellow tea travelers, it's time to wake up and start writing again. Maybe a cup of tea would help.

Thank you for sticking around and being patient while I reorganize my life. Blogging and intense introspection may go together, but perhaps not when I'm writing about tea. I've been working on my business, working on my family life, and working on me. Though I've been drinking tea, it's been in a rather desultory fashion, without spending the time or energy that such an obsession deserves. A bit of ti quan yin here, a splash of sencha there, some pu-erh in between, and of course Darjeeling to keep me honest.

Primarily, I've been reworking my daytime business, Chicago Captioning. Making a new website (can you believe it, still in progress), remaking relationships with clients, and thinking through the entire enterprise. You'd be surprised how much of your time a small business can take. But full steam ahead! Who knows, someday I might even take a vacation.

So we're open for tea. If any of you have any teas you want me to rant about, please do let me know. As always, I'll be honest when I like something and when I don't.  And readers, if you have any recommendations for me, please pop them into the comments section, and I'll be sure to look them up.

I appreciate all my reader(s), and I look forward to being part of your conversations again. Most of the content going forward will be tea oriented, but I will slip in a few other ideas along the way, as the mood strikes. Let the posting begin!

Very sincerely,

Steven