Harris Decaf Tea, Cold Brewed, Offers Life Lessons

This post is about drinking tea that falls quite far outside my normal comfort zone, both in terms of the choice of tea itself, and the way it was prepared.

Pictured here is a pitcher of iced tea that some of my friends brewed up:



This is Harris Tea's decaffeinated black tea, cold brewed. The two pitchers are the same tea, but the strength of brewing is different; the darker pitcher is obviously stronger.

I found this tea interesting to sample, because it was well outside the zone of teas I would brew up on my own. I tend to avoid decaffeinated tea, instead preferring naturally caffeine-free herbal teas if I am looking for something without caffeine. I strongly prefer loose-leaf to tea bags, and I tend to avoid the brands of tea most commonly available in supermarkets. I also rarely cold brew iced tea, as I find it tends not to produce the results I like the best. For this reason, I wasn't comfortable writing an actual review of this tea on RateTea.

I wasn't crazy about this batch of iced tea. It was perfectly drinkable, but a bit bland. I suspect this tea, however, might taste a bit better to me if brewed the way I would prefer it.

Compared to the worst loose-leaf tea:

As much as I love loose-leaf tea and prefer it to tea prepared in the manner described above, I want to note that my experience with the tea above was still pleasant. I drank a cup of the iced tea, and it was refreshing, only a little bland. There have been some loose-leaf teas that I've brewed up that I've placed great care into preparing, only to pour them out without drinking them because I found them so foul tasting.

I think there's an important life lesson here. Life is a bit unpredictable; sometimes, even if I do everything the way I think is best, things can come out in ways quite different from what I want. At other times, the setup in a situation may seem close to the worst possible, at least by my standards, but things might surprise me by turning out in positive ways.

Delving deeper: what else is going on here?

I think there is one observation about the tea situation here. The tea pictured above was brewed weakly, and I did not expect much from it. When I put care into brewing loose-leaf tea, I usually brew it more strongly, and I usually expect more from it. Thus, it has much greater potential to disappoint.

A life lesson:

I've often found that situations involving people are a lot like this. Sometimes, it seems like I would have a lot in common with someone, but I struggle to relate to them, or find myself coming into conflict with them in odd and unpredictable ways. Sometimes I've been excited about a class or a teacher, only to find that I absolutely hate it, and either drop it or find a way to barely scrape through it.



Other times, I've interact with people from vastly different backgrounds, sometimes even people that others have told me are "difficult to deal with", only to find I get along with these people just fine. I've also taken classes or read books that I did not expect to find remotely interesting (like Numerical Linear Alegbra, or the accompanying text Matrix Computations by Golub) that I ended up finding absolutely captivating.

I think the lesson here is not only that life is unpredictable and full of surprises, but also that delving into something too deep, and becoming heavily vested in a certain outcome of a situation without first getting a taste of that situation, can lead to disappointment. With a cup of tea, you can just pour it out, but in life, sometimes you are stuck with greater consequences to deal with. I find I am both happiest and most productive when I embrace the unpredictability of life, and make decisions in such a way that acknowledges the uncertainties, leaving ample room for both unexpected disliking and unexpected liking.

How about you?

Do you relate to my experience of this batch of iced tea? How about my experiences with life and with people? How about Matrix Computations? Do you get excited about that?

Why Can Green Tea Bags Be Worse Than Black Tea Bags?

Before I delve in, I want to explain the exact meaning of this post's title. Among tea bags, there is a broad range of quality. But my personal experience has been that green tea bags range much farther into the low end of quality, poor quality, than do black tea bags. In other words, the worst green tea bags are much worse than the worst black tea bags.

It's been my experience that there is a certain base level of quality one can expect from even stale, low-end tea bags of straight black tea, as well as familiar styles of tea like Earl Grey, Ceylon, Irish Breakfast, etc. And it has also been my experience that the best green tea bags are about as good as the best black tea bags...but I think there are some really terrible green teas out there in tea bags.

The following highly subjective diagram illustrates this point:

Why? Because people buy green tea for reasons other than taste:

Although there may be other factors, such as a tendency for black tea to hold its flavor longer, which can partially explain the phenomenon I'm getting at here, I think there is one factor that overwhelms the others.

I think the broader range of quality among green tea bags for sale in America can be mostly explained by noting that here in the U.S., people frequently drink green tea for "health" reasons, whereas they rarely drink black tea for health reasons.

Black tea, on the other hand, is consumed primarily for taste, so any products on the market that were bad beyond a certain point would quickly stop being purchased. Green teas, on the other hand, persist, because people are buying them and drinking them because they feel they "should" drink them. There's that word "should" again, causing problems in our tea culture.

My advice, to everyone, is to drink what tastes good to you. Not only will you be helping to shape the marketplace in a positive way by weeding out the inferior products, but you'll probably be healthier too because you'll be drinking fresher, higher-quality tea.

What do you think?

Do you buy into my reasoning here? Does your own personal experience fit with the point illustrated in my diagram? Do you agree that the word "should" and beliefs related to statements involving what we "should" drink can undermine quality and allow inferior products to persist in the marketplace?

Featured Tea Company: Hampstead Tea

In addition to starting a series featuring tea bloggers, I am also starting a series featuring tea companies.

Today's tea company is Hampstead Tea. Hampstead Tea is based in the UK, and accordingly, is not well-known in the US. The company has a small selection of teas, and specializes in organic, fair trade, and biodynamic teas, also focusing on whole-leaf, loose-leaf teas, although they also sell whole-leaf tea in sachets. My experience has been that people in the U.S. tend not to know of this company; I rarely hear or read people commenting about it, and as of writing this post, there are no reviews of Hampstead on RateTea other than my own. Since my audience is primarily in the U.S., I'd like to draw attention to this company.

I don't know if Hampstead sells tea directly outside of the UK (their website's prices are in pounds), but a quick search with Google Products shows that their teas are easily available for ordering in the U.S., and, as I describe below, I have even seen them in stores here.

How did I learn about this company?

I learned of this company through a rather unusual means, through the discount food section in TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx is a discount store best known for selling clothing (which constitutes an overwhelming majority of the store's stock). But these stores also sell some food products, and among them, typically sell some tea. The tea selection is very hit-or-miss; the few times I have been in the store, I haven't found anything I wanted to buy. But one time, my dad saw some Darjeeling tea from Hampstead Tea, certified both organic and fair trade, and picked it up for me.

When I tried it, I was impressed. The tea was from Makaibari Estate, which I wrote about previously, and which is my favorite Darjeeling estate, both by flavor and by its ecologically-friendly practices. And when I looked up the price of the tea sold by Hampstead, I was also impressed: it was quite reasoanble.

How good was their Darjeeling? I'll just say it was one of those teas that I kept wanting to drink every morning until it was gone, and then wished I had more of. I later tried their English Breakfast, and it was also quite good (although lighter than typical for this style) and I used it up rather quickly as well, although I preferred their Darjeeling.

What do I like about Hampstead Tea?

• Their loose-leaf Darjeeling is unparalleled in quality in its price range.
• Hampstead focuses on organic, fair-trade, and biodynamically grown teas.
• Hampstead offers an unusual combination of a company that is rooted solidly in the British tea tradition, yet is a leader both in terms of organics and fair-trade, and the quality and value of its tea.

So, if you value sustainability and like Darjeeling tea, and you have an opportunity to pick up something from Hampstead, I'd recommend doing so. I have yet to try anything other than their Darjeeling or English Breakfast, so I'd be curious to see if their other teas are also good as well.

Have you heard of Hampstead Tea or tried their teas?

I'm a bit curious...how many of you all knew of this company? How many of you have tried their teas? Have you tried anything other than the two teas of theirs that I sampled? And how many of you are learning about this company for the first time?

Top 5 Most-Viewed Pages for Styles of Pure Black Tea on RateTea

This post highlights the top 5 most-viewed pages on RateTea for styles of pure black tea. These styles include both blends defined by their character, like English and Irish breakfast, as well as those defined by their region of origin, like Darjeeling, as well as more specific varieties, like Lapsang Souchong or Golden Monkey. I did not include flavored teas on this list.



The category I'm selecting from is a bit of a hodge-podge, but the results are not at all surprising:

• English Breakfast - The classic style of tea consumed with breakfast in England; strong, but not too strong.


• Darjeeling Black Tea - One of the most well-known of the single origin black teas, widely known for artisan teas.


• Assam - Known as a strong black tea, and also among the best-known of the single-origin teas.


• Lapsang Souchong - The smoky black tea, one of the best-known Chinese varieties of tea.


• Irish Breakfast - The stronger breakfast tea.

The runner-up is Ceylon. Yes, this list is boring. Hey, I can't make every post interesting, right?

Where are the Keemun Tea Bags?

In the course of managing RateTea, I see all sorts of interesting patterns and trends, and make lots of random observations about the nature of the tea market, especially in the U.S. I've been thinking about Keemun black tea lately, as I recently received three samples of high-quality, loose-leaf Keemun lately. And today, I noticed a marked absence of Keemun tea bags on the U.S. market. As a huge fan of and advocate for loose-leaf teas, I don't get terribly excited about tea bags. But I do find this absence strange.



Pictured here is a diagram showing Qimen county in Anhui province, where Keemun originated, a photo of the loose-leaf Keemun Mao Feng sent to me as a sample from Life in Teacup, and a shelf at a supermarket in Delaware, with no Keemun for sale.

When I think of "mainstream" black teas, what do I think of?

When I think of the standard single-origin black teas which are mainstays of British tea culture (and thus, tend to be widely available in the U.S. as well), I think of Ceylon, Assam, Darjeeling, and Keemun. There are other teas, like Lapsang Souchong, which I also think of, but which I'm excluding because I think of this tea as a bit more unusual, with its strong smoky character.

Keemun is a pretty well-known tea in the mainstream. There are about as many individual Keemuns listed on RateTea as there are individual English Breakfast blends, and about twice as many Keemuns as Irish Breakfast blends.

All of these varieties of tea except Keemun are widely available in tea bags:

Ceylon, Assam, and Darjeeling are all widely available in tea bags, from mainstream brands. Lapsang Souchong is as well, as is Pu-erh and both darker and greener Oolongs.

In spite of the availability of loose-leaf Keemun, there is only 1 entry in RateTea's database for Keemun in a tea bag, and this entry is rather esoteric--a tea bag sold by Lupicia, a Japanese company best-known for selling loose-leaf teas. There may be other Keemuns in tea bags, but there are none that I know of from any of the mainstream tea companies, whose catalogues have been entered into RateTea in their entirety long ago.

Keemun tea bags are sold neither by companies specializing in British style teas (like Twinings), nor by companies like Foojoy or Ten Ren, specializing in Chinese teas, in spite of the fact that Keemun fits into both categories quite well.

What do you think?

Do you think that the absence of Keemun available in tea bags represents a vacant business niche? Do you think that brands that sell tea bags or whole-leaf sachets containing single-region teas would do well to add Keemun to their catalogue? Or is there some reason that there would not be much demand for a Keemun in tea bags?

My intuition is that the first company to offer a Keemun in tea bags would have it be well-received. I could imagine a company like Twinings, Foojoy, or Ten Ren finding it worthwhile to sell Keemun in tea bags, but I could also imagine a brand like Two Leaves and a Bud successfully selling a Keemun in whole-leaf sachets. I think that Keemun in particular might perform well in a western market, perhaps even better than Ceylon or Assam, as it tends to be rich and full-bodied, yet relatively smooth, and I've found that in America, a lot of people like robust tea but want something that is a bit smoother and less bitter.

But I could be wrong; tea companies often do a lot of market research into deciding which teas to carry, and I suspect that many companies have already considered adding a Keemun in tea bags, and concluded that it was not the best business decision.

The Oxidation of Tea And Classifying Tea As Black, Green, Oolong, Etc.

When I first got into tea, my level of knowledge was a lot more basic than it is now. I had heard the standard adage "black tea is fully oxidized" and its counterpart "green tea is unoxidized". I initially thought that the different classes of tea (black, green, oolong, etc.) were characterized or defined by their levels of oxidation. I was surprised when I found teas that seemed to be exceptions to this pattern. What I found when researching more deeply was that differing levels of oxidation alone does not define or separate the different classes of tea, and that these classes are usually defined by the production process as a whole, which usually, but not always corresponds to certain differences in levels of oxidation.

Reflecting on these exceptions, and wanting to create a better resource on the topic of tea and oxidation, I recently published a new article on RateTea about the oxidation of tea, in which I go into more depth about the level of oxidation among the various tea types.

I would encourage you to take a peek at that article, and if you think it is a worthwhile resource, to consider linking to it when you need a reference on the topic of tea and oxidation. In this post though, I want to delve more into some of the specific teas that inspired me to think in more nuanced ways about oxidation, and ultimately led to that article.

Very green black tea: Darjeeling first flush:

Darjeeling is a black tea, but it often is not fully oxidized. In some cases, it is as green in color (both of leaf and brewed cup) as a number of green teas. Look at the following examples:



Pictured here are, the first two from Upton Tea Imports, Arya Estate First Flush SFTGFOP1, and Thurbo Estate TGBOP Cl/Tip First Flush, then Makaibari Estate Darjeeling 1st Flush from Arbor Teas, and last, Adagio's Darjeeling #1. I featured these teas mainly because of their visual characteristics, although I will say that I've tried the first three and they're all delicious, and they all have a greener character when brewed. The greenest character in a tea presented as a "black tea", however, was, also from Upton, Castleton Estate TGBOP Ch. First Flush; this tea produced a cup lighter in color than a typical Chinese pan-fired green tea, and barely resembled black tea at all, with a very light character and tones of mint.

Very dark green tea:

Although there are plenty of green teas that are more moderate in their color, truly dark green teas, I have found, are rarer than "black" teas which exhibit a highly green character. One particular example stands out, a large-leaf green tea, produced in Thailand from the Assamica cultivar, which I purchased from Upton tea. Here are Upton's pictures of the leaf:



As you can see in the photo, which accurately depicted the tea as I sampled it, this tea was much browner than green in color. You can read my review of this tea for more about my experience with this tea.

The color of the brewed cup was also quite dark, closer to a typical black tea than other green teas. However, there was little about this tea's flavor, aroma, or other characteristics that resembled black tea in any way. I don't have a way of objectively measuring the oxidation level of teas. I wonder if the dark color of this tea were due to oxidation, or were just due to other factors. I honestly don't know what to expect about a tea like this.

Dark white teas:

Darker white teas, like shou mei and bai mu dan (white peony), are fascinating to me because they create problems for some of the older definitions of white tea, as I explore in my post definitions of white tea: raising eyebrows.

But I have found that learning about these white teas has also taught me a lot about the role oxidation plays in tea production, and the way varying production processes impact tea's characteristics through halting or allowing oxidation. For example, the fact that white tea's production does not denature the enzymes responsible for oxidation in the way that the heating does in the case of green tea, enables white tea to oxidize more than green tea, but because the leaves are quickly dried, this process is not allowed to carry out completely. But because larger leaves contain more moisture, the larger-leaf teas oxidize more. This phenomenon also explains why certain teas like moonlight white exhibit a lighter color in years of drought: when the leaves are dry, they dry out completely more quickly during production, thus allowing for less oxidation.

What do you think?

Let me know what you think of the new article on tea and oxidation. I'd appreciate any corrections or additions if you think it can be improved. I'd also like ideas if you have specific articles (including ones you may have written) that you think would make a good addition to my list of further reading at the end of the article. And if and when you think the article is an accurate, comprehensive resource on the topic of the oxidation of tea, I'd like to ask you to link to it as a reference when you mention the oxidation of tea. Thank you in advance!

Masala Chai at Cafe Clave

I'm still basking in my success of "getting" as many people as I did with my April fool's joke. Tallying up the blog comments, comments on various forms of social media, and private remarks, I think I had well 100 people going. Mission accomplished!

I like finding different coffee shops in different areas, so that I can work from them on my laptop. When in West Philadelphia, I frequently work from Cafe Clave. This post is both about the cafe and about their masala chai.



Cafe Clave is a small cafe and coffee shop with a Cuban music theme to it. It is named after the claves, a key (haha) percussion instrument in Afro-Cuban music. In contrast to the music, the cafe tends to be rather quiet, and I've found it to be a good place to work on my laptop when working on my websites. The cafe also serves some very tasty home-made food, and serves Novus tea in whole-leaf sachets. If you are visiting Philadelphia and want to check this place out, it's on Locust Ave. between 43rd and 44th streets.

The cafe also has live salsa music; the picture says that the music is on Friday nights, but it has since been moved to Thursdays. I will say one thing...the band is amazing.

Cafe Clave's Masala Chai:

I recently tried the Masala chai made by Cafe Clave. This cafe serves its own proprietary blend of spiced tea, made from scratch by blending loose-leaf black tea and spices. The base black tea is itself a blend, including loose-leaf Turkish black tea from Caykur, and a slightly stronger black tea from Ahmad tea. If you want to know exactly what goes into it, go to the cafe and see for yourself!



I really like this particular rendition of masala chai. The base teas are high quality and balance strength with smoothness. The spices go heavy on anise and cardamom, two of my favorite spices. And the cafe sweetens it to taste, rather than pre-sweetening, so I was able to order an unsweetened variety.

Exquisite!

It is hard for me to find Masala chai that I like better than the stuff I can prepare at home, but I think I've found some.

Top 5 Most Unusual / Interesting Black Teas I've Tried

This top 5 post focuses on unusual black teas, black teas that have something novel, exciting, and different about them.



One of the reasons behind this post is that I sometimes read and hear the idea, expressed by enthusiasts of Chinese and/or Japanese teas, that the most interesting teas are green, oolong, Pu-erh, and white teas, and that black teas are somehow not as interesting, or do not represent a fully rich, deep, or complex tradition worthy of the same sort of focus or interest as the other types of teas. While I find it hard to argue with some points (like the complexity of Pu-erh), I think that some tea enthusiasts dismiss black tea without ever seeing what it can offer. People have different tastes, and I think it is completely legitimate to prefer these other types of tea, but I think that if you seek out interesting black teas and approach them with an open mind, you will find they offer a lot of diversity.

There is a difference between a tea that I consider interesting and a tea that I consider good. This list is not a collection of favorites. When comparing ratings on RateTea, I ranked a number of black teas higher than some of these, but for this list, I did not consider the teas with what I would call a "classic" profile of a well-established style, like a classic Assam, Darjeeling, or Keemun. These are the teas that defied classification, had surprising complexities in their aroma, and were totally unlike anything I had tried before:

• Putharjhora Estate FTGFOP1 Tippy/Cl First Flush Organic from Upton Tea - From the Dooars region of India, this tea stands out as the most interesting black tea I have ever sampled. I experimented with brewing it extensively, and I found that multiple infusions were required to fully experience it and bring out its diverse characters. This tea had elements in common with Darjeeling and Assam teas, and exhibited nuances of wintergreen, fruit, malt, celery, citrus, and caramel in the different infusions. One thing that really struck me about this tea was its resemblance to sheng Pu-erh and high-grown green oolongs in later infusions. The flavor and mouthfeel were also very complex, with peppery sensations like a Yunnan dian hong, and a significant savory or umami presence as well.


• Royal Tajiri Tea from Royal Tea of Kenya - This is the only black tea so far that I gave a perfect score on RateTea. It has a fresh, vegetal quality I usually only encounter in Darjeelings, yet is stronger overall. Aroma has suggestions of asparagus, honey, malt, muscatel, and wintergreen. Eminently pleasing to drink!


• Livingstonia Estate GFBOP from Upton Tea - A Tanzanian orthodox tea, also with wintergreen in the aroma, and rice, malt, and floral tones. The floral tones are reminiscent of Queen Anne's Lace, a flower with a distinctive aroma that I have not before noticed in tea. Very unlike other teas I've tried, but also very balanced and enjoyable.


• Kuwapani Estate Makalu Tippy Spl from Upton Tea - This tea from Nepal, which Upton described to be Oolong-like, I found to be vaguely reminiscent of Panyang Congou. The aroma has tones of sandalwood, smoke, wintergreen, cocoa, and muscatel. This tea had a dry, peppery finish as well.


• Singalila Estate SFTGFOP1 from Upton Tea - This tea, which I did not enjoy quite as much as the others, but still liked, was just outright bizarre. It was from a very new tea garden in Nepal; Upton described it as being oolong-like. The dry leaf appeared Darjeeling-like, but upon brewing, the aroma had a burnt quality, suggestive of candle wax. Nuances in the aroma included peppermint, vanilla, and chocolate, with hints of muscatel grape, smoke, and dust. This may not have been my favorite tea on this list but it certainly is up there among the most interesting black teas I've sampled.

One interesting observation I made after compiling this list was the fact that four of these teas exhibited wintergreen in the aroma. This signals the presence of methyl salicylate, which I explain in my post on wintergreen tones in black tea. While I haven't liked all teas exhibiting strong wintergreen tones, I think that in general, this quality tends to correlate pretty strongly with other qualities that I like in black tea.

What do you think?

What are some of the most interesting or unusual black teas that you've tried? What companies other than Upton Tea Imports would you like to recommend for these sorts of teas? Have you tried any of these teas?

Top 5 Favorite Black Teas Of The Moment

People often ask me: "what is your favorite tea?", and those who know me a little better may ask the more open question: "Do you have a favorite tea?", to which I usually answer "not really, although I have a few favorite teas at the moment". My tastes in tea change frequently, so it's hard for me to pick universal favorites. However, at the moment, there are five black teas that I can pick out as favorites. These include teas that I've tried recently as well as ones I have not had in some time, and am simply remembering:

• TK18: Livingstonia Estate GFBOP - I've tried a few Tanzanian teas now, including a very good one from Teas Etc, and I've liked all of them. This one, however, is my favorite, and is one of the most interesting / unusual black teas I've tried yet, with tones of wintergreen and a suggestion of Queen Anne's lace in the aroma. It is a high grade of broken-leaf orthodox tea.


• Makaibari Estate Darjeeling First Flush from Arbor Teas - As I've written about before, I love everythig I've ever tried to come out of Makaibari estate. This was not my favorite tea from theirs (this title goes to a long-leaf green tea), but it is the favorite batch of black tea I've tried.


• The now-discontinued Himalayan BOP from Upton Tea Imports. I have tried a number of similar teas Upton added after retiring this one, but I haven't found one I like as much as this one. This tea is inexpensive, Darjeeling-like, but very edgy, with a greener character for a black tea, yet considerable bitterness. My next-best bet for a similar tea is one from Jun Chiyabari estate in Nepal, provided by Imperial Tea Garden, but I have yet to find a tea in this genre that I like quite as much as Upton's discontinued one.


• Panyang Tippy Golden Needles Imperial - A tippy black tea, also from Upton, this tea was remarkably light for a Chinese black tea, and had an aroma suggestive of pastry crust, yet with considerable complexity.


• Darjeeling from Hampstead Tea - This tea is also from Makaibari estate, and to my knowledge is a mixed flush tea, although this is not explicitly stated. It is my second-favorite black tea from that estate, richer and with more depth and bitterness than their first flush but still with some of the first-flush character in the aroma.

I also want to add that I think all of these teas are reasonably priced, but the Livingstonia Estate GFBOP is a particular bargain.

As a disclaimer, Upton Tea Imports is my favorite tea company, which biases me to order and sample more teas from them than from any other company. I'm sure there are many other outstanding sources of black tea out there. These teas mentioned here are simply the ones that got my attention the most.

Lipton Tea - Brewing and Attitude Recommendations

This post is inspired by an interesting observation. I was reading Steven Knoerr's 39 Steeps, and in the post Drink Cheap Wine . . . and Tea? (which is a great post, by the way), I noticed something interesting.

The first is a positive remark Steven made about Lipton tea. The second is (gasp!) a positive comment *I* made about Lipton tea. Here is a humble bag of Lipton tea, to get you in the spirit of this post:



Picking on Lipton:

Often, I think Lipton gets a bad rap. Because it's the dominant brand, it is the default tea for connoisseurs to "pick on". Ironically though, picking on it by default may actually help this brand maintain its place as the dominant brand in the market...but that's another issue. I was picked on a lot as a kid, and it's not terribly pleasant or constructive, not something I would ever wish on anyone, so rather than doing the same to Lipton, I'll share my genuine opinion about what I really think about this tea.

What do we expect from Lipton?

I think tea is influenced a lot by how we perceive it, which is one of the key aspects that Steven gets at in his post above. If we order a whole-leaf oolong tea with a steep price tag on it, and it just tastes bad, where does our head go?

• Maybe I didn't brew it properly.


• Maybe the tea was not stored properly.


• Maybe I just don't know how to appreciate this particular tea or style of tea. (especially if the tea is an unfamiliar style that we do not regularly sample)


• Maybe this particular batch is no good.

But if we have the same experience drinking a cup of Lipton tea, our head usually goes to a different place:

• This tea is low-quality, mass-produced junk.

Is this justified? Objectively, we can look at Lipton and say: the tea bag contains finely broken leaf, fannings or dust. That means it's low grade. That means it's bad. But this logic does not hold.

Broken-leaf tea is not necessarily bad. For example, I tried a broken-leaf orthodox tea from Tanzania a while back, Upton Tea's TK18: Livingstonia Estate GFBOP, and one of my favorites was their now-discontinued Himalayan BOP Blend. These are not just "decent" or "passable" teas, these are teas I consider truly outstanding, and would gladly drink over any number of whole-leaf selections.

Lipton puts a great amount of care and resources into quality control, selecting teas and blending them to maintain a consistent quality of their tea as conditions change from season to season and year to year. Objectively, there's no reason to expect Lipton to necessarily be bad. And, if we do not enjoy it, it makes sense to at least ask whether or not we stored it properly, and brewed it so as to bring out the best in it.

My recommendations about Lipton:

If you are going to drink Lipton tea, treat it like any other tea:

• Make sure it's fresh and has been stored properly.


• Put some care into brewing it: make sure the water is boiling, heat your brewing vessel up so you're actually steeping the tea with boiling water, and carefully watch the steeping time (I recommend only 1 minute for a single cup).

My original comment on 39 Steeps was that I once gave this advice to one of my friends who was complaining about Lipton tea being bad. She told me after following the advice that she was very surprised, and that she really enjoyed the cup of tea. She told me that the resulting cup of tea was both less bitter and more flavorful than what had resulted when she had brewed the same tea haphazardly.

I want to make one final remark. I've tried a lot of teas, and Lipton's plain black tea is a lot better than a lot of teas out there. It's not the lowest of the low, nor is it really anywhere close. I've tried relatively pricey whole-leaf teas that I enjoyed much less, not to mention any number of other mainstream tea bags from the common brands in the supermarket, that I also think don't quite compare. Objectively, I think of Lipton as being somewhere in the middle in terms of quality, which is pretty impressive given its price scale of production.

What do you think?

Do you bash Lipton, or use it as an example of low-quality tea? Or do you enjoy it, and think it's actually pretty decent quality? Have you ever drunk Lipton, or any other mainstream, inexpensive, mass-produced teas, while putting care into properly storing them and preparing them, as you would expensive loose-leaf tea? What were your results?

You can read and share reviews of Lipton's Black Tea on RateTea if you are curious what others think, or want to chime in for yourself.

Makaibari Estate - My Favorite Darjeeling Estate

I was inspired to write this post by a review I read on Sarah's blog Latte Tea Dah: I Now Dream of Darjeeling: Makaibari 2nd Flush Organic .

A couple years ago, I had sampled a few single-estate Darjeeling teas, but the prospect of being able to have opinions on individual estates was still way out of grasp, something that I could perhaps imagine others doing, but was nowhere near doing myself.

I still don't have many opinions, as there are a large number of estates that I've tried only one or two teas from, and many I have yet to try any teas from. But I do now have a favorite tea estate, and that is Makaibari estate. Furthermore, the Makaibari tea estate has an official website:



It's worth visiting the website, which has more information about the estate, including the garden's commitment to sustainability and ecological principles, and a photo gallery. You can also buy some tea directly through the website. It is rather unusual for individual tea gardens to have websites, and Makaibari is one of only a few that have extensive websites.

Discussion on the "best" Darjeeling estate:

I really don't like the word "best", but I want to point out that there was a discussion over 4 years ago on teachat, best darjeeling estate?, and of the four replies that name gardens, all four name Makaibari. Other gardens named are Castleton, Jungpana, and Arya. I haven't tried Jungpana but I will say, of these, I've tried enough teas to say that I like Makaibari the best of the others mentioned, simply because I've tried teas from Castleton and Arya estates that I was less a fan of.

Makaibari's teas are pretty diverse. I find them to tend on the lighter side, but still have some bite to them. One of my favorite teas ever was a long-leaf green tea produced by Makaibari estate. I also love their first-flush, and have had very good blended tea (blends of different flushes) from this estate, sold by the Hampstead tea brand. With each of their teas, I have been impressed by the complexity of its aroma. Their are two reviews, including mine, of their first flush as sold by Arbor Teas, on RateTea if you want to get an idea of what these teas are like.

Sustainability, Organics, and Biodynamic Agriculture:

Makaibari estate also stands out from the other tea gardens, not only in Darjeeling, but around the world, as it has been a leader in sustainable agricultural practices. Makaibari was one of the first organic tea operations, and also practices biodynamic agriculture, which goes above and beyond organic certification. Both the organic and biodynamic practices have been in place since 1991, but the history of conscious sustainability-promoting decisions goes back to long before the word "sustainability" entered the mainstream: in 1971 the garden shifted over to a permaculture-based system. There's a great Wikipedia page on permaculture: it's an ancient approach to both human settlements and agriculture that emphasizes stability and long-term prosperity, using awareness of ecological principles, and it's an approach that I support wholeheartedly. You can read a bit more information on TransFair's page on Makaibari estate...which also leads into one more remark: Makaibari estate also produces fair-trade certified tea.

I find it interesting that I first got interested in this estate because I liked the way its teas tasted so much, but then came to learn that it is doing all these fantastic things that are in line with my values and goals in life.

How about you?

Have you tried tea from Makaibari estate? Were you aware of all of the sustainable, ecologically-sound practices of Makaibari estate? Would you too like to see these sorts of practices be the norm, rather than the exception, not only in tea production, but in all agriculture, worldwide?

Tea Food Pairings - Black Grapes & Assam

The subject of tea-food pairings is one that I have been wanting to explore more, ever since I discovered about a year and a half ago that spicy food enhanced a tea that I did not otherwise enjoy, and similarly, that I found shou mei, one of my favorite styles of tea, did not go well with spicy foods. But today, instead of spicy foods, the foods in question that I'd like to explore are grapes:



Pictured on the left are black grapes, and on the right, red grapes. These grapes were grown in California, and are currently in season, so are inexpensive and tend to be relatively high in quality. While I prefer buying local produce, I definitely prefer buying California grapes, while in-season, to produced shipped from outside the country.

I typically eat some fruit with my breakfast, and I've had a lot of these grapes on hand recently, so I've been munching on them as I drink my morning cup of tea. In the course of eating these grapes together with different teas, I've realized something about tea-grape pairings. This is not the first time I've explored tea-fruit pairings; see Pare down the teas to pair with your pear for a similar post based on a terrible play on words, or Grapefruit and tea for my discovery that one of my favorite breakfast fruits often spoils the flavors of many types of tea.

Grapes and tea:

Certain types of tea have a natural grape-like quality. Both Darjeeling black teas and Bai Hao Oolong often have a quality said to resemble muscat grapes, a specific type of grape. Of the two grapes pictured above, muscat grapes are probably more similar to the black grapes on the left...which brings us into the realizations of pairing.

The red grapes above, I found to be relatively neutral among fruits. They were crisp, lightly sweet, lightly sour, and somewhat watery, making them refreshing without really dominating the palate. These grapes seemed to go well with just about any teas I drank for breakfast, black, green, oolong, Pu-erh, or white. They did not get in the way of my appreciation of the tea, nor did they enhance it.

Black grapes:

The black grapes however, were another beast. These were a bit stranger, not the usual grapes you buy at the supermarket. They had a dusty outside, and their skin was noticeably astringent. The interior was intensely sweet, but less sour than the familiar red or green grapes, and they had a strong, deep aroma, reminiscent more of raisins than of most fresh grapes.

I tried these grapes with a variety of teas and I found that they tended to overpower most teas, including lighter black teas, green teas, and white teas. However, the mornings that I drank strong Assam (lately I've been drinking a lot of Ahmad Tea's Kalami Assam), I found that these grapes not only went well with the tea, but helped me to enjoy the tea in a more intense and deeper way than I normally did. It was hard to notice which qualities were from the grapes and which from the tea, as both left lingering flavors on the palate, but I found that sipping the tea after munching on these grapes led to an explosion of a deep, fruity aroma, like in some of the better Keemun I've tried--qualities sometimes present in Assam, but not to this degree.

How about you?

Have you ever tried grapes like the ones described here? Do you like eating grapes with tea? Which teas and grapes do you think go well together?

Yunnan Gold: More Expensive. Better?

This weekend I attended World Tea East, and it was wonderful. I hope to write more about this event soon, but for now, I've been catching up on more routine tasks, including reading blog posts that I was behind on well before attending the expo.

One recent blog post that struck me as notable was Lahikmajoe's post you pay more for appearance. If you haven't yet read this, I recommend at least glancing at it, as it will make this post make more sense. This post talks about the appearance of tippy Assam teas. A comment on the post then brings up Yunnan Gold or Golden Yunnan teas, a tippy type of Dian Hong or Yunnan Red, the style of black tea produced in China's Yunnan Province. In the spirit of this subject, and in case you don't know where Yunnan province is, here is a map of China with the province colored in a rich golden color:



When I first started sampling and researching Yunnan teas, I was under the impression that all tips were golden in black teas, and that the golden color corresponded in a fairly straightforward way to the portion of buds. According to the post above and the conversation it references, this correspondence is not so simple. I had seen tippy Assam with golden tips as well, and I had read that the Yunnan Pure Gold teas were made exclusively of tips. But if you are a Yunnan enthusiast, as I am becoming (the more of these teas I try, the more this becomes one of my favorite styles), or if you are experienced with trying a wide range of tippy black teas, you will likely know from experience that the golden color does not always correspond perfectly to the portion of tips, nor to the character or quality of the tea.

But it does seem to correspond fairly well to price, which begs the question:

Does Golden = Better?

I was curious to see if I had been roped into the idea of golden = better, so I looked back to my recent ratings and reviews on RateTea to find some Yunnan Gold teas that I had tried recently. The three teas I most recently sampled, starting with the most recent, were Adagio's Yunnan Gold, Life in Teacup's Yunnan Golden Bud, and Rishi Tea's Golden Yunnan. These links will take you to my reviews.

Keep in mind, these companies also sell other Yunnan teas (Rishi has a less golden and more golden one), so I'm not necessarily comparing teas of similar grades. But that's the point. These three teas are pictured from left to right, Adagio's, then Life in Teacup's, then Rishi's:



These photos were not taken side-by-side. Although the lighting and composition of these photographs is obviously different, and it's hard to get an exact comparison of the way the leaf looked, I will say that having seen all of these teas up-close, Rishi's looks the least golden of them, as the picture suggests, and the other two teas are similar in color and appearance.

Interestingly, Rishi's got the highest rating from me. The other two I gave identical ratings. In my review, I noted when trying Adagio's that I think I prefer the darker teas somewhat.

How do they compare by price?

Rishi's is $4.00 an ounce, or $14.75 a quarter pound. Adagio's is 1.5 ounces for $12. Life in Teacup's is $7.99 an ounce. It looks pretty clear...golden is more expensive. And at least from my limited sample size, I do not necessarily prefer the golden color, and at this point, I do not think it is worth paying for. This impression may change as I sample more teas and/or as my palate develops, but for now, I'm thinking it's at least possible that this golden color is more for show than anything else, and does not adequately reflect higher quality as manifested in the flavor and aroma of the brewed tea.

What do you think? I'd be curious to hear your opinions and experiences on this matter.

Honey, Honey, Honey, Tea, and Honey

For some reason, I've felt inspired to write this month; I just realized that I've posted a blog post every single day, and I feel like writing more. So I hope I am not writing too much. I've been thinking about honey a lot lately, for multiple reasons.

Honey is my sweetener of choice:

A while back, I was sick, and drank some tea sweetened with honey. I usually drink tea unsweetened but sometimes when I'm feeling particularly bad, tea with honey hits the spot. Honey is my sweetener of choice for tea (and in general, I currently do not even have any sugar in my apartment). But I am not much of a sweetening person: although I have three separate honeys in my cupboard, I tend not to use honey that often. The three honeys I have now are a raw wildflower honey, and then cranberry blossom honey and butter bean blossom honey (my favorite) both from New Jersey.

Other reminders of honey:

Recently, one of my friends ordered a pint of Weyerbacher sixteen, a beer brewed with honey, and I tried it and was amazed by its powerful honey aroma. And on a very different note, I've been exploring my neighborhood, and I found a cute little store and coffee shop called Milk and Honey. This store is not just capitalizing on a cute name: it is actively involved in the promotion of a culture of local honey. The shop even has beehives on its roof, and one can see the bees travelling off into the neighborhood and returning.

I also was exploring Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum in this same neighborhood, and I saw this meadow of beautiful flowers (mostly chickory in bloom here, the blue flower):



At the far edge, which I did not photograph, I discovered a bunch of beehives! Someone is evidently tending bees in this area, and I suspect that this patch of wildflowers has been deliberately left to feed the bees. I can't get away from thinking about honey!

A black tea surprises me by reminding me of honey:

Greener oolongs, such as pouchong or jade oolong, often remind me of honey, but recently, I had the surprising experience of trying a black tea that has an aroma strongly suggestive of honey. As I write this post, I am drinking some Kaimosi Estate TGFOP1 (TK32) from Upton Tea Imports, and it has a surprisingly strong honey-like aroma, which stands out even through the other, bold characteristics of this tea. I've brewed this tea several times now. If you like honey, I recommend sampling that one: it is quite remarkable, and unlike any other black tea I have yet tried.

So, honey is on my mind, for better or for worse. I think for better, as I find honey to be very pleasing, both to eat and to think about.

The Chicken Soup Aroma in Black Tea

What does chicken soup have to do with tea? This is certainly not my favorite weather for hot soup, and I have not had a bowl of chicken soup in some time, but I have unexpectedly encountered the familiar, distinctive, and comforting aroma and flavor of chicken soup in several black teas that I have sampled:



This following photo of a bowl of chicken soup was contributed by RWS and is available on Wikimedia Commons under both GNU FDL 1.2 or later and CC BY-SA 3.0 licenses.

Which black teas taste like chicken soup to me?

The first tea in which I detected the aroma of chicken soup was Rishi Tea's Keemun, which is a black tea produced in the style of Keemun, but grown in Hubei province, rather than Anhui where Keemuns are traditionally made. I made a note of the interesting chicken-like qualities of this tea, but did not think much of it more until I tried Upton Tea Imports' Kaimosi Estate GFBOP1, which was a very different tea from Rishi's Keemun, but had a definite chicken-soup character as well. Then, recently I sampled Upton's Hubei Keemun Ji Hong, which, interestingly, I found very similar to Rishi's Keemun (although several months have passed since I tried that tea, so I cannot truly say whether or not they would be distinguishable side-by-side).

Why do these teas resemble chicken soup?

In terms of the flavor, I found all three of these teas to have a light, thinner quality, combined with a savory (umami) presence, with an almost salty quality. This helps explain the flavor experience.

What explains the presence of this aroma? I honestly have no idea but I find it fascinating. In general, I am quite fascinated by the diversity of smells that appear when drinking pure teas. Tea may be from a single plant, but the diversity of history of cultivation, different growing conditions, and different processing methods produces all sorts of fascinating resemblances to other foods.

Have you ever thought that a tea, black tea or otherwise, seemed a bit like chicken soup to you?

Wintergreen Tones in Black Tea

One of my favorite tea blog posts of all time is Sir William of the Leaf's review of 2006 Haiwan "Purple Leaf"; in which he is astounded by the pork- and bacon-like qualities evident in this Pu-erh cake.

When a person has tried many teas, and they sample a pure tea and encounter an unusual aroma, it often grabs their attention. Today this happened to me for the second time, which sparked me to write about it. The aroma in this case was wintergreen. The first tea I sampled which exhibited wintergreen tones in the aroma was Upton Tea Imports' TC53: Uva Highlands Estate BOP. The second tea, which I sampled today, also from Upton, was TK18: Livingstonia Estate GFBOP. Both of these teas stand out in that I have never even detected more than the faintest suggestion of wintergreen in any tea, which is interesting because wintergreen is an aroma that is relatively common in various plant sources, and is distinct and easily recognizable to me as it is one of my favorite smells or flavors.

What is wintergreen?

Several evergreen leafy plants bear the name wintergreen. The wintergreen that I know, Gaultheria procumbens, is an evergreen leafy plant that grows in heavily-shaded areas of forests, especially those with poor soil and heavy accumulation of needle litter from pine, hemlock, and other dense evergreen trees. The plant, which tends to grow along the ground, has tiny, starchy red berries, and tough, but strongly aromatic leaves.



This public domain photograph was taken by Mike Serfas; original on wikimedia commons.

There is a lesson about tea here as well. The evergreen nature of wintergreen, just like the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, is primarily an adaptation to the low nutrient levels: by holding onto its leaves for multiple years, this plant conserves nutrients in an environment where nitrogen in particular is in short supply. Recall that tea plants are able to grow wild in areas, such as exposed rocks high in the Wuyi mountains, where there are very low nutrient levels.

The distinctive wintergreen aroma is actually due to a single chemical, methyl salicylate, which according to Wikipedia makes up 98% of the essential oil of the wintergreen plant. This chemical occurs in numerous other plants as well, including the bark of birch trees, and is responsible for the commonalities in aroma between wintergreen tea and birch beer, as well as some of the medicinal effects of plants containing this chemical, which is closely related to salicylic acid, the chemical in willow bark that originally spawned the development of aspirin. Methyl salicylate is also responsible for the "spark-in-the-dark" phenomenon that can be observed when crunching wintergreen Life Savers in between your teeth. The chemical is toxic in high doses.

I did some digging and found that pure black tea naturally contains methyl salicylate. I found this absolutely fascinating. So it was not just all in my head!

More about the teas:

I must say, I absolutely love the Livingstonia Estate GFBOP. This tea is from Tanzania. Upton points out that most tea produced in Tanzania is CTC (Crush-Tear-Curl), mechanically processed tea, and this tea, using orthodox production methods, is rather unusual. I found this tea to be delightfully complex, strong, but balanced. Another interesting tone besides wintergreen that I detected in the aroma of this tea was Queen Anne's lace, a distinctive-scented wildflower which is actually the wild version of the domestic carrot. ( my review )

The Uva Highlands Estate BOP was a tea that I was less excited about. I found that tea to be rather tannic, and easily became too bitter and astringent if brewed for more than a couple minutes. Its aroma was less complex; the main distinguishing feature I noticed about this tea was the wintergreen tones in the aroma, which were stronger and more well-defined than the Tanzanian tea. This alone made the tea interesting and worth trying. ( My review )

Have you ever noticed wintergreen in the aroma of any black tea, or any tea for that matter? It's in there, at least, somewhere, in some black teas!

Sage Tea made like Black Tea

This post and the preceding post have inspired a new post on Teacology: Oxidizing Herbs Like Black Tea or Oolong Tea.

My last post was about oxidizing herbs usually used in herb teas, in a manner similar to that used to produce black or oolong tea or red rooibos.

I made another successful batch the other night, this time out of sage (Salvia officinalis). I've had sage tea before but it is very strong and intense in aroma, and yet thin in body. I wanted to see if I could take the edge off the tea and develop it into something richer, more complex, and more mellow.

The production process:

1. Let the leaves partially wither (about 24 hours in a dark, dry area)
2. Roll the leaves to heavily and thoroughly bruise them.
3. Place them on a ceramic plate under a moist cloth
4. Let them sit for about 6 hours.

The leaves turned completely black by this point. Then the final step:

5. Heating for 5 minutes at 225 degrees in the toaster oven.

The result? An herbal tea that brews a light brown color, and has an aroma much like gingerbread cookies. There's a fair amount of toastiness (perhaps I'll go lighter on the final heating next time) and a pleasant suggestion of sage in the aftertaste, but the strong sage aroma does not dominate as it does with the fresh or plain dried leaf. The aroma is much more complex and multifaceted than that of straight sage tea. I think this is my most successful attempt at oxidizing herbs yet! I am going to work on refining this process and see where it takes me.