Kanchanjangha

OK, my photographer appears to be on strike so I've got to go ahead without visuals here. I am nuts about this tea I have from Nepal! I got a pile of samples from a coop of Nepalese tea growers and each one just kicks ass. Nepal is nestled right in there geographically with some heavy duty tea regions but for some reason it just doesn't have the clout. I'm guessing politics, age-old hatred and the like are at play, but basically Darjeeling is relaxing poolside while Nepal is watching it from outside the fence. The result is a tea that tries harder. Also, they are so eager for people to buy their tea they are handing out really top-notch samples.

What I really like about these teas is they tend to be of a very high quality but with a twist to distinguish them from your standard awesome tea from India. Awesome-but-with-a-twist is the Andrews & Dunham way. I'm drinking one now from the Kanchanjangha Estate. it has the astringency of a Darjeeling, the earthy clay taste of a Chinese green, and the sweet grassy aroma of a Japanese Sencha. And a lot of caffeine. The other thing I really like about these teas has nothing to do with tea, but with the romantic associations I have with Nepal from listening to Rush albums, watching Indiana Jones movies and generally longing for far-away exotic places.

Balls Inspection

Trying out some of the great tea we got at the Expo. Today it's these little balls of Yunnan tea which we received as a result of one of our aforementioned halting conversations. You might have encountered those little green jasmine pearls at your local tea shoppe and these are just like them, except they are not green. No. They are black & gold and make a tea that looks like coffee. I'm on the 3rd infusion and it still looks/is stronger than most coffee.

I'm walking around the office, showing off my tea.

World Tea Expo!

Just got back from the 2007 World Tea Expo in Atlanta and, as is our custom, we had a fantastic time. All weekend long we were knocking back little cups of tea while having funny, halting conversations with people who spoke little English. Erik got to flex his limited yet awesome knowledge of Japanese to the delight of some of the exhibitor ladies while I got to watch the eye-rolling of their male boothmates. Domo arigato, Erik-san. And, of course, we made lots of headway with our fledgling enterprise. More details to follow once we get some of our photos uploaded.

Wednesday

I come and go as I please.

Eyes Buggin'

As you may know, Erik (see issue 7 - ed.) and I are in the process of getting in the business of making huge piles of money as purveyors of fine tea and to that end we are adrift in samples. My eyes are buggin' from all the tea we've been drinking. You wouldn't think the sampling of tea would be particularly taxing but it turns out there is a staggering amount of unremarkable tea to be sampled. We are providing a service to our fellow tea drinkers by sorting through all this sludge. Some might recommend a measured, careful tea tasting technique but not us. We are freestyle all the way. No swish and spit at Andrews & Dunham - we engage in full on street tasting, real-world tea sippin'. This is not business-casual. I am wide awake.

Havukal Silver Tips

Been working through some samples in the Andrews & Dunham tea tasting lab - today's selection: Havukal Silver Tips. For those of you who don't know, Havukal is a estate in Nilgiri, which is a mountainous region in southwestern India, which is a great big country on our planet. I'd never heard of Havukal either so I had to do some frantic internet research so I could pretend to be smarter than Eric and know all about it. it's OK, he does this to me all the time. It's something we do.

So the tea... To be honest I had no idea what to do with it. The dry leaves are big, pretty straight, fuzzy and pale like a white tea, but also had some darker colors like a Darjeeling black so I brewed it up a couple of ways. First try was with water at 180, steeped for 2 minutes. This was accidental, as I thought the water was warmer than it turned out to be but it worked fine - very subtle, round taste with a hint of that malty sweetness you get in a Darjeeling. Second try was with hotter water and a 3 to 4 minute brew - didn't seem to lose anything but didn't gain much other than a darker color something like apple cider. Still pretty damn subtle. I'm either a loser who can't appreciate subtlety (this is highly possible) or this tea is not quite there. I chugged through it, felt briefly contented and now can't remember much to recommend it.

This is not unlike the chick flick I watched with my wife the other night (because I'm so thoughtful and caring) which had plenty of plot and dialogue and good acting (no nudity), made me feel happy, then sad, but left me unable to determine whether I could recommend it to a friend or not. No matter, we'll just talk about sports & tea instead.

Donuts

Spent the week out at the seaside with my lady and decided to forgo my usual nerdly ways by not taking a bunch of tea along with me. Instead, I chose to rough it and trust providence to steer me to the right hot beverage at just the right moment. My report from the field is as follows:

-it's hard to get a good cup of tea these days

-beer makes an excellent substitute

-hot donuts are always nice

-can I go back to the beach now?

Really, living cup to cup is hard these days. The best thing I found was from Revolution tea. They make appealing one-serving boxes that contain pretty fine tea in deluxe sachets. Plus: Most of the goodness of loose tea, all the convenience of a tea bag. Minus: hard to find. Mostly what I found was Tazo, which is like pretend real tea. It's OK when brewed with really scalding hot water - that seems to bully it into having some flavor, but otherwise it has no character. It makes me sleepy it's so boring.

The real find was a little chain of Donut shops called the Fractured Prune that serves up extravagantly adorned, lovingly hand-dipped, hot donuts. Screw the tea. Here's a picture of me with an unsatisfying cup of Tazo tea and an extremely satisfying hot donut (note the empty plate, evidence of its departed brethren):

Good News, Sort Of

Good news: A new study informs us that consumption of green tea can have a beneficial impact on cardiovascular health. Bad news: Only if you're Japanese. Also bad news: Because we eat too much pig fat here in the West. More bad news: Pig fat consumption is on the rise. Related bad news story: To many, pig fat is so damn tasty. Tonight: America: Killed by flavor.

Does anyone really care that much? I stand by my belief that the best reason to drink tea, green, black, or otherwise, is because it tastes good and it makes you feel good right now. Live in the now, buddy. As Van Halen once said, "Right now."

Think about it.

Yeah, now you begin to see. The wisdom of Sammy Hagar is as powerful today as it was in the early '90s, my friend. Peace out.

Tea Bag Machine

the Fuso tea bag machine:

Iced Tea Round-up

I'm very lazy so I pretty much never make my own iced tea. Too much effort required - multiple containers, ice cubes, you know, all that business. I'm pretty well-trained around the house so using ice cubes means refilling ice trays (old school!) which just pushes the whole project over a line I'm not willing to cross. I do, however, love to drink the stuff and have found that the tea has to be "OK" but not too good or else the whole thing is crap. For this reason I really like the iced tea at Starbucks which, I believe, is a newish offering. Their tea is OK - not great - but they make it really strong and add ice and it's pretty fine on a hot day. Even better, it's priced comparably to a Big Gulp which makes it one of two or three things you can order at the Buckstar that won't make you feel like a money-wasting chump. Also, the process is hidden so you never see the tea bag which means there is no chance of accidentally reading the clever tidbits of copy on the package (hint: not clever).

So the Starbucks iced tea is pretty good. This is what I'm trying to say. Here I am, all loving Starbucks, humming along to the compilation CD I impulse bought at the counter, trying to decide whether to get the current logo or the original logo for my next tattoo. Meanwhile, across town these Honest Tea people are making a difference with their wholesome, organic, good karma-enhancing, ethical corporation-style bottled teas that I find myself buying at the hip, urban eateries I sometimes visit and you know what? I don't like them. I want to like them, I want to cheer them on and feel good about where my money goes but I don't like the tea. It's weak and I'm confused by the sweetening. Is it sweetened? if so, make it sweet. Otherwise, don't bother. It tastes like maybe there used to be a sweet drink in there and they forgot to rinse out the bottle before filling it with weak tea. Oh, I thought you were going to wash those. You didn't wash them? Damn. I always forget to do that. Come to think of it, I believe they got their start in a garage filling old snapple bottles with weak tea so I may not be that far off the mark.