Pearls II

OK, so I'm still trying these pearls from Darjeeling, and I'm very caffeinated! Ordinarily pearls are easy like tea-bags -- that's part of their appeal since they tend to hang together in the bottom of your cup. You can just toss them in there and enjoy. Also ordinarily, pearls tend to be non-threatening jasmine scented green tea so it doesn't matter that they steep forever. These guys, however, are really potent and I've just discovered that the drop & ignore brewing method results in strong as hell tea, then bitter tea, and eventually makes you (me, in this instance) have to scoop out the tea leaves with a spoon to salvage the cup. But it's OK. I also, apparently, have no idea how to gauge how much tea I'm using.

Pearls

With each post I like to believe I am starting anew, and yet it's been months since my last fresh-start post. Pffft. I've been busy. Erik and I are working hard getting our tea business going, and I've also been working hard suppressing all the horrible entrepreneurial ideas I keep having.

So, in the meantime I've been up to my neck in tea trying to reckon which ones will make the roster for our launch. I'm glad I remembered to check out the little vacuum sealed bag on my desk because I found some crazy tea in it! Yes, it's Gopaldhara & Rohini Estate Pearl Tea, it really is! I figure whenever you go out of your way to hand-roll perfectly good tea into little balls (pearls) it's because it's not as perfectly good as the stuff you just throw in a bag and sell as is. However, I'm inclined to believe that this tea is, in fact, perfectly good. How the tea is rolled has a lot to do with how it oxidizes, which in turn has everything to do with how it tastes so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps a lesser leaf can be schooled in this manner and go just as far in society as another.