Always Amazing

I had for the longest time thought that there were just some types of tea I was not that fond of, and I would never be able to like.  One by one they are not only being deemed drinkable, but they are suddenly being catapulted onto the list of types of tea to always try and have on hand.  The most recent of which is Taiwanese Gaoshan, I am half way through an order from Stephane at Tea Masters  and I am hooked.  I had a few Taiwanese Oolongs previously but for the most part I think I just brewed them poorly.

It has me reflecting on tea in general, it might just be that I have an incredible fondness for the C. Sinensis.  Moreover when  processing  it honestly doesn't matter if you are fully oxidizing it, pan frying it, steaming it, or roasting it, when it is done with care the end result will always be delicious.  Some people know I have bashed puerh quite a few times in the past, and while that is possibly the tea I am least likely to order more than samples of ever again in the future, there are still some puerh's that are phenomenal even for me.

So as I sit here this morning pondering what tea to have to celebrate my brothers engagement, I am mostly having such a hard time deciding because they are all good.

Get him on a Theanine Drip Pronto

Thursday night into Friday I did a bonehead move, I ordered Chinese food at 11pm, then felt so uncomfortable the rest of the night I didn't even consider going to bed until after 3 am.  So Friday was not a fun day at all, and in general I felt sluggish, and overly tired.  Friday night I went to bed around my usual time and slept in on Saturday morning, but things still were not right.  Thats when I decided to implement the Theanine drip.

In my mind no healthy session of Theanine is complete unless it involves matcha, usually as a starter just to make sure you are awake, and ready to go through the rest of the marathon tea drinking session.  But I needed theanine bad, so for my second tea, I turned to Gyokuro.  Matcha and gyokuro is such a wonderful combination to have back to back, and wow you feel calm, cool, and collected after drinking those, but ready to do anything you set your mind to.

Big revelation I had today, is that over time through lack of practice with matcha I had moved to brewing it with too high of a temperature.  Although matcha is a bit tricky, it is made with leaves shaded like gyokuro, so you think go cool, but the froth from whisking does not come out properly if it gets too cool.  Its a tougher act to carry off than brewing gyokuro, as matcha infuses completely near instantly, matcha can not be reconciled for too cool of a water temp by simply letting the bowl sit longer after whisking. 

Current thoughts on Tea Freshness

There are some large name Tea vendors in the united states, which I would encourage people new to tea to check out for pretty standard teas (red/ black teas, and perhaps some oolongs, and if I can't convince them otherwise flavored teas).  I will not name those vendors here, because this is not exactly a favorable post for those vendors.  The biggest window into the tea world in my eyes comes when you start to realize its not just your (UK nationality) Breakfast, or Earl grey, at the same time you get into loose leaf teas.

Based on what some of these ultra large tea companies carry, I am slightly surprised that so many people stick with their transition to the wide world of tea.  With all the health promotions out there, most peoples step away from black/ red tea would be a green tea, which is a lot more "time sensitive" than most black/red teas. Green teas are one of those teas that when slightly out of date can absolutely ruin the whole tea experience, making it exceedingly bitter, and often causes it to lack the sweetness green tea can have (gyokuro, and certain other green teas when carefully aged excepted).

I thought it would be interesting to post my thoughts on how time sensitive certain teas are when being kept.


In decreasing time sensitive order ( lower means stays fresh longer under most conditions).

Japanese Greens*
Chinese Greens
Korean Greens
Green Oolongs
Med Roast/ oxidized oolongs
Heavier roast/ oxidized oolongs
Black/red Teas

Not listed: White Tea, or Yellow tea as I do not have enough experience with them.

(*) Japanese greens are an oddball, based on how most of them are packaged they can stay fresh for far longer than Chinese greens, or Korean greens if they remain sealed and stored away from extreme temperatures.  But once opened they tend to loose freshness the quickest.