Tiana, Kristen and I went on a tea date today, the perfect thing to do on a post-finals Sunday afternoon. And we don’t tea-date half-heartedly, we did a flight of 5 teas (people normally do flights of 3), with mochi(*) to pair. The idea was to structure it like a full meal: an appetizer, a [...]
Last night I made a list of teas that I haven’t tried at Teance. Four of them are green teas, and three are from China. So today I asked Cheryl, but the Dafang of this season hasn’t arrived, same with the Yellow Mountain Mao Feng, the only thing left (not much) is the [...]
I stepped into this whole tea thing because I wanted to do tea pairing, so it started out strictly as a flavor endeavor. Then the world of real tea is so vast I can’t get enough of it, so I don’t try anything but real tea, and by that I mean tea from Camellia sinensis, [...]
About a month ago, I learned that Longjing (Dragon Well) is the sweetest tea with the highest theanine content among green teas. My experience with green teas, minus the Korean sejak(*), has been less favorable than with the light oolongs, so I’ve been wanting to taste the Longjing forever, but
In my mind, green teas are more monotonic and oolongs are more multi-flavored, greens are lighter and oolongs are roastier.
I can tell the category of tea from the type of gaiwan/pot that we use at Teance, the water, and most of the time, the steeping time, so when Iris gave me a blind taste [...]
Sesame mochi is different from the other mochis. The coat is hard and chewy. The black sesame filling oozes out as I press the fork down. The filling, salty, sweet and resembling wet sand, is addictive. It’s a wonderful mochi. But I can’t find a tea to go with it.
I was [...]
The third pairing of mochi and Japanese green tea. Perfect!
Yes, finally a mochi that goes perfectly with sencha. Yomogi (Japanese mugwort), julienned into tiny strings and mixed with the mochi dough, gives the mochi a clean, refreshing taste, which reminds me of the tip of a Vietnamese [...]
The tea purists will never forgive me, but I’m not a purist. I like to experiment. This tea studying thing started as me trying to learn as much about tea as possible to pair it with food or to cook with it. Pairing with food is not a problem, but cooking is, because I have [...]
We had two blind taste tests today to distinguish types of tea. In the first one, I failed horribly: mistaking an oolong (Baochong) for a white tea because it was so light, and thinking that a green tea (Lu Shan) was a roasted oolong because it tasted burnt, which I still can’t understand. [...]
While listening to John Kokko about the benefits of tea, we tasted a white, an oolong and a pu’er. I’m ashamed to admit that I thought the oolong was a green tea.
1. Jasmine Silver Needle: white tea infused with jasmine flower. Water: 195 F. Need to rinse. Steep for 30-45 s.
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