Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

Kitsch or Kewl?

I can't decide if this wabbit fambly tea set is cute-and-collectible or just gawdy-but-good-for-a-giggle. 

It was a gift from somebody who figured I needed more tea sets for my collection, so I'm loathe to throw it out.  It's a complete set - teapot, creamer, sugar bunny, 4 cups, saucers and little spoons.  Momma wabbit's head comes off, as does sugar bunny. 

It gave me a great chuckle when I unwrapped the box, and I do love bunny wabbits, but could I actually leave it out and serve tea with it?  I dunno, whaddya think ... kitsch or kewl?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ok, first I have to apologize.  This is NOT the recipe for cream cheese brownies that I've been promising.  I will get that posted soon. I will, no really, I will!!!  But for today, I'm bumping some old posts here by way of wishing everybunny a Happy Valentine's Day. 

Be sure to take a trip back a year and visit the Valentine's Day Carnival of the Recipes, which has some truly splendelicious goodies for you and your Valentine.

And here are some pictures I shared many moons ago, of a fun and scrummy Valentine's Tea Party I had:

First, I baked some Wally-Mari-Brownies (that's brownies with walnuts and marascino cherries inside). 

I just used a brownie mix, and these cute little heart-shaped tins I found in the baking aisle.

Added some chocolate kisses to the plate because ... well... you can never have too much chocolate.

The perfect complement to go with the brownies: Rosebud Gong Fu tea, which just arrived from JingTeas.com.

This is the perfect tea.  I lovelovelove it. Lightly scented/flavored, and there are tiny little rosebuds right in the tea.  It's a treat for all the senses.  Pretty to look at, wonderful smell, the taste is perfect, and the little afterbreath of roses is delightful.

And of course, the only possible china to use was my gold-rimmed roses cup and plate.

My Cozy Winter Tea

It has finally gotten cold enough here to qualify in my mind as "winter".  Just in time for Christmas.  Heheh. 

So I have an excuse now, to get out all my pretty Christmas things.  Today I'm having afternoon tea using some of my mom's china. This pretty gold-rimmed cup and plate are adorned with holly leaves and berries, and what I think are winter roses.  Very pretty. 

The holly reminds me of growing up.  My grandparents had a ginormous holly tree growing right outside the back door, and every year we kids had the job of cutting sprigs to decorate the house with.  Great, albeit prickly, fun.

For goodies this afternoon I'm munching on a lemon scone (in a word -- YUM), and cream cheese brownies that are to die for.  I really shouldn't be even LOOKING at these brownies, considering how much I ate for Thanksgiving, but it's my birthday, so what the hey. 

Heh.  As if I needed an excuse to eat chocolate. 

The recipe for the brownies will be coming soon! :)

Crack-Me-Up Teapots

While searching for cups on the net, I ran across Andy Titcomb's hilarious teapots. 

These on the right are the Toddler Teapots.  Aren't they a hoot?? If I had muy ducets I'd prolly become a teapot collector.  I just love kitschy stuff like this.

They're a little (a lot!) out of my price range - the one I really want is this cutey little dormouse teapot, but £75.00 translates to about $150 I think. Holy cats.

And at that price I'd be afraid to use it. 

Jasmine Cooler - Fun with Ice Cubes!

When our summer days heat up, I start playing with ice cubes.  It's hard to live in a place where I'm forced to switch my usual afternoon tea ritual from hot to iced.   But it does push me to find new and creative cool drinks.  I've made espresso ice cubes, tea ice cubes, jello ice cubes (which I do NOT recommend adding to a beverage), and all kinds of ice cream / soda combinations. 

Lately I've been playing with juice ice cubes and different kinds of tea, and I think I've hit on the absolutely most perfectest combination.  This one even beat my old favorite - Apricot Peachtea Delight made with tea-sicles.   If you're looking for something tall and cool, and slightly fruity, try this out:

Jasmine Orange Iced Tea

Pour your favorite orange juice into ice cube trays and freeze. (I like mine with plenty of pulp!)

Boil 4-6 cups water.
Steep together your favorite Jasmine tea (I love the Adagio Jasmine Tea Pearls) and 2-3 Lady Grey tea bags till tea is extra dark
Pour into pitcher and refrigerate until cool

Add orange juice cubes and regular ice cubes to a tall glass and fill with tea. 

Add a slice of orange on the rim for fun and color!

I love fruity ice cubes, they are a great addition to iced tea or 7-up or your favorite fuzzy water.  Lemonade cubes are wonderful added to almost any flavor iced tea.  Enjoy, and stay cool!

Earl Grey vs. Earl Grey

I'm comparing teas this afternoon.  Earl vs. Earl, dukin' it out.  Ever since I discovered Lady Grey, I've wanted to go back and rediscover the Earl.

Maybe this isn't a fair comparison.  In one corner we have fresh, loose leaf Earl Grey from Jing Tea.  On the other, a box of Private Selection Earl Grey tea in bags, newly bought, but of questionable freshness. I'm afraid one is quite the heavy weight, and the other is a sickly toad. 

Actually, comparing the two teas in color, the PS is stronger.  I steeped them for the same amount of time, and the PS tea is notably darker.  But I suspect that has to do with something I read on the Bigelow tea blog, about how some companies use tea dust in their tea bags, which makes the tea "color" more quickly:

Tea dust is the smallest size tea leaf possible; however, the problem with tea dust is that although it provides quick color into the cup, it has no real tea flavor. It also happens to be an inexpensive tea to purchase.

So, the important thing here is the flavor, and there's no contest, none at all. In both smell and taste, the Jing tea is better. The citrus is amazing, very light, but full. And there's a spice I can't identify that jumps out in the tea leaves, but sits back and blends in in the steeped tea. Altogether a wonderful taste, and great afternoon tea.

The PS tea is bitter at this strength.  It might be tolerable if I hadn't steeped it as long as the Jing.  I did have the same experience with the Lady Grey that I bought... it needed a very short steeping time or it became bitter.  I guess now I'll have to find some fresher / loose leaf Lady Grey and run some tests on that as well. 

Hmm, ladies in the ring, dukin' it out.  With lace gloves?  Heh.

A Perfect Valentine Tea

Ok, so I'm a little early to be treating myself this way, but I'm SO in the Valentine mood.  I just couldn't wait.  And I've been working so hard, I needed a little break and a bit of chocolate.  No fancy recipe here today (that'll come tomorrow!), just some photos I wanted to share of my special rose-tea-chocolate afternoon treat. 

First, I baked some Wally-Mari-Brownies (that's brownies with walnuts and marascino cherries inside). 

I just used a brownie mix, and these cute little heart-shaped tins I found in the baking aisle.

Added some chocolate kisses to the plate because ... well... you can never have too much chocolate.

The perfect complement to go with the brownies: Rosebud Gong Fu tea, which just arrived from JingTeas.com.

This is the perfect tea.  I lovelovelove it. Lightly scented/flavored, and there are tiny little rosebuds right in the tea.  It's a treat for all the senses.  Pretty to look at, wonderful smell, the taste is perfect, and the little afterbreath of roses is delightful.

And of course, the only possible china to use was my gold-rimmed roses cup and plate.

Sadly, now I have to get back to work.  *sigh*

Finding Love, the Tea Way

I got a chuckle from this article over at the Samovar Tea blog: How to Spot Your Own Darjeeling.  You can tell a lot about a person by the stuff they consume and how they do it.    Tea Guru Julian knows all about that.  And this applies not only to tea, but to other foods as well: ice cream, coffee, dinner, dessert...   

When you're first getting to know somebody, the truth is, all the signs are there.  At the end of a relationship you can always look back and see it... how the signs were there from the very beginning, if only we had been looking and aware.

Does your date order like Sally, everything on the side and specially made?  Careful!  You might be going home with Mr. or Ms. High Maintenance.  That's not to say high maintanence people don't deserve love too, they certainly do.  And if you love them enough, you're happy to ... maintain them.  :) 

Freshness in Tea

I've been obsessing on the freshness of coffee, and I started wondering if the same issues apply to tea.  When does tea ... peak?  Does it have an optimum flavor period, after which it begins to degrade in the same way that coffee does?  It seems appropriate to end Hot Tea Month with some answers to these questions.  Not from me, mind you, I only had questions.  These answers posted to the Teamail list came from Cindy, the Tea Fairy who sent me all those wonderful yunnan teas to try, with contributions also from Jill of Special Tea Pots.

How Old is Too Old?

Green teas need to be as fresh as possible to be flavorful. After a year, they're probably too old. Indeed, some would argue that once the picking season has passed, they've already lost much of their flavor.  I believe that white teas are the same but am not as familiar with these. I'm also not very well-versed in Japanese greens, which are processed differently than Chinese. Oolongs are best fresh, and I find that mine lose much of their flavor after a year. I tend to toss any left after 2 years.  I'm assuming that those greener oolongs, such as baozhongs, are more susceptible to fading flavor. Black teas last longer (I suppose this is due to roasting?). I've read that 2-3 years is probably the time limit. I think that some black teas actually need to sit for a bit before the flavor is full. At last year's Tea Expo, I was thrilled to try some Nilgiri that had just been picked and processed the week before (the plantation manager/owner was giving a tea-tasting). He noted that this was much too soon to be sipping, but he wanted us to try it. Very raw-feeling and not something I'd want to drink much of, but a great learning experience! Aged teas, like puerh and aged oolongs, are meant to be stored for quite a while. I have several puerh cakes and touchas that are stuck in the dark nether-regions of my cabinet drawers (or tucked in a dark closet), waiting for another decade or two. I believe that aged oolongs are re-roasted(?) annually, so I tend to purchase rather small amounts of these pricey teas from superior vendors who deal with them for me. Scented teas are good for 9 months for optimum flavor, depending on how they are scented.  Some teas like Market spice have a 2 month shelf life. Herb teas - Some herbs like Rooibos do not expire.  Some herb blends keep their flavor longer than the teas. Of course, all of the above depends on some really important factors: If the tea is sealed in airtight containers and kept out of the sunlight, it will last much longer. This is how a quality vendor would store the tea. How many times the tea has been moved from one container to the next (as it passes from processing to retailer, importer, retailer, shops) can impact the quality of the tea. Harvest and processing dates.  Teas are processed soon after picking, so the harvest date should be similar to processing date -- these dates are important for two reasons. First, so you can know how fresh the tea is (especially relevant for greens/oolongs). Second, it lets you know that vendor is nowledgeable, cares about the tea, and has a good relationship with the company/farm/plantation the tea is purchased from. Here in the U.S., it can be hard to get greens and oolongs during the harvest season, except from those vendors who actually travel to the country's tea farms.

So I guess I need to check the tea in my cupboard for dates. But I honestly don't know if I'd recognize staleness in tea. I've done quite a lot of tea tasting this last month, now I just need to get a little more refined about it. I've decided I need to do the same thing with tea that I did with coffee... compare.  Eddi-cate myself.  Get some fresh, and compare it to some old stuff, and calibrate my tongue.  Ok, then.  Ready, set, shop!

What Say, Lady Grey

More from the tea tasting front!

In spite of my growing preference for loose teas, I still occasionally enjoy a cup of something in a bag.  I found this one by accident.  I was going to try this recipe for Earl Grey Tea Cookies (recipe is actually HERE, but go see the original post anyway, for the wicked tea porn), but I realized I had no Earl Grey tea.  So, while at the store, I noticed Twinings had a tea called Lady Grey.  Citrusy, it said, which I love, so I bought some.  I may try the tea cookie recipe with this tea instead, and then I can call them Mrs. Grey Tea Cookies. 

S'wenyway, this is a really nice, light tea, citrusy but not overwhelmingly so.  It reminded me in some ways of Constant Comment by Bigelow (hey, they've got a blog now, check it out), which I still keep on my shelves because it's my aunt's favorite.  The box says bergamot, oranges and lemons for flavoring.  Which is the same as the Earl Grey, so I wonder what the difference is between the two.  The first cup I steeped was waaay too strong.  Very bitter.  This tea only needs a very short steep time, at least for me.

I topped this cup off with a lemon scone, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I dunked.  I dunked, and I slurped; I made a mess and it was wonderful.  Fortunately I was alone, so there were no witnesses.  And if you tell anybody, I'll deny it all.