Tea and shades of purple

A few weeks ago sampling some sheng (raw) puer tea.

And trying to capture the afternoon light.

The young tea leaves

One morning this cherry plum tree stole my attention with it's blossoms. 

Enjoying the blossoms with a lightly oxidized oolong from Alishan...

...And used a plum blossom motif tea cup I bought on a whim prior to moving into our new home.

Some tiny ground flowers that sprung up 

Some started to wilt after several days.

I was never a flower or plant person...

..maybe it's age, 

maybe it's looking at life differently, 

maybe it's the surprise beauty and the uncertainty of when they will wither that makes me take time to admire them...

but I've come to think of them as "nice to have" these days.  

Especially with tea.

Picture Update

I've been taking pictures but have been quite preoccupied to post so here is a picture update of what I've been doing lately and some of the meals I've had recently...

Chrysanthemum honeysuckle tea and pineapple bun (BLB) with half slab of butter at Lucculus Bakery in downtown Markham. ..yum!

Red oolong from Thailand with a cranberry scone at home.  Enjoying the tea subscription from Thetea.pl and must do a dedicated post soon for their tea club!

Homemade gooseberry and sweet potato filled mochi/daifuku...still need practice but love the burst of tartness of the gooseberry.

Tried the Love Me Sweet chocolate cheese tart...pretty good.

Game of Cheese...a fusion pasta restaurant at Commerce Gate in Richmond Hill surprised us.  This spot has changed restaurants so many times that it seemed abnormal to see it so busy and with reserved tables!  Service was very polite.

Chicken and Duck Korean restaurant. ..enjoyed the side dishes (banchans) and the broths were comforting however the duck soup lacked quality duck pieces...mainly bones.

Lunch at home using leftovers. ..love adding pickled turnip and carrots to savoury dishes.

Aged tea....mmm.

Matcha bingsoo from The Cups on Yonge.  Thanks to my friend who came to enjoy this with me one hot afternoon! 

At the North York Centre farmers market held every Thursday. ..bought the sweetest cheddar from Monforte Dairy.

Enjoying a weekday lunch special at Ten Ren's Tea at Times Ave.

Made half decorated hedgehog cookies with some cookie cutters I bought a while ago.

That's it for now.  Hopefully I'll be able to do some more dedicated posts soon.

Bitterleaf Teas' Raw and Ripe Puer Gift Pack

A little while back I made the decision to start drinking more puer tea so this post is an update.  Bitterleaf Teas was the brand I decided to start with for several reasons...the first being I wanted more than half of what they were selling!  Their teas sounded great and their teawares were so beautiful.  If you check out their website or Instagram, almost every photo gives off a feeling of serene calm, beauty, and quality.  I have to admit, I can be swayed by pretty things (lol!). But, I also like to read reviews and there were also many positive online reviews.  What I also liked was how well they described the teas and steeping suggestions which makes it a little easier for someone new.  Prices also seemed reasonable - I'll have to buy and taste more teas from different sources to really made a judgement though.

Thus, I ordered a number of teas from Bitterleaf Teas and one of the items was a gift pack containing a raw (sheng) and a ripe (shou) puer.  These teas were a great introduction to puer for newbies like me and thought I'd share my experience.

First up was the ripe puer, Black Beauty 2009 Meng Hai Imperial Ripe Puer.  I'm still getting familiar with the different areas/mountains as each area produces certain characteristics but I have to admit it's been slow learning for me right now.  If you're new like me, Teadb is a good resource and here is a link to some info about Menghai County.

I'm not exactly new to ripe (shou) puer but am new to quality ripe puer so this was an easy one for me.  For those that have not tasted ripe puer before this one would still be nice to drink but would be unlike the usual teas available in the North American market.

Brewed using 1g per 30ml as suggested.  

Boiling water.

Rinse: quick.

1st steep: 3 secs.

Subsequent steeps: +3 secs and then +5 secs.

First off, this is very fast brewing!  I'm used to brewing at 45 secs to 1+ minutes for other teas so it took some getting used to.  The colour of the tea soup is very nice deep red. The tea was earthy, malty sweet, and smooth; very refined.  My personal experience is each infusion wasn't too different except the first was lighter than the 2nd and 3rd as expected, but my palate is not as sensitive as more experienced drinkers.  By the 3rd steep my tongue was tingling!

3rd steep, beautiful deep red tea soup

I brewed this for my mom but at a much higher ratio of leaf to water, just extended the steeping time and it still was very good.  Even oversteeping doesn't yield a bitter cup which she again was surprised at as she was for sure thinking it would be bitter.

Definitely recommend this ripe puer for easy brewing and the smooth refined taste.  Very drinkable!

Now onto Hummingbird 2013 Meng Hai Old Arbor Leaf Sheng Puer.

Love the initial smell of the leaves...they are so fragrant and sweet, I couldn't wait to get started on the brewing!

I haven't had sheng puer in a long time and the first time I didn't really have much guidance or knew what to do.  This time after reading more blogs and reviews on steeping and since a guide is provided with the tea, my tea session went pretty well.

The tea was pressed into mini cakes which made it easy to brew as well, about 8-9g per mini cake.  I brewed this following their instructions:

1g to 20ml water
Boiling water
Rinse: 10 secs
1st steep: 7 secs
2nd steep: 10 secs
Subsequent steeps: + 5 secs

1st steep:  Really lovely!  Light apricot colour tea soup.  Floral, mildly sweet taste.
2nd and 3rd steep: The bitterness hits but there is an underlying sweetness.  
4th steep:  The bitterness starts to mellow down and the sweetness is rising.
5th steep:  Sweet notes of apricot or maybe raisin, it's thicker and the huigan is stronger.  Really nice!  Slightly more drying in the mouth though.

Paired with sugar cookies at about steep 6.

6th steep: Similar to the 5th.
7th steep: Grassy and sweet.

Unfortunately I had to stop here.  The aroma of the wet leaves was very sweet like raisins so I'm sure it could have given more.  Loved this raw puer as it changed several times in taste and feeling!  The bitterness was also not too strong that someone new to raw puer could still enjoy this tea.

Pretty nice looking leaves

If you're new to puer this would be a good starter pack. They also sell each individually and the Hummingbird is offered in mini cakes or a full sized cake.  There are a few other starter packs I've seen and also sets that have been curated to give you a sense of what different mountains/regions taste like.  Thinking about getting those too.  Especially good since there is so much out there that it's hard to decide what to get.

So far this has been a great beginning!

Starting My Puer Tea Journey

I got my package of Puer tea from Bitterleafteas on Friday!  Very excited!   

My teas of choice have been Taiwanese oolongs and I'll still be drinking these, but I've been trying to branch out more.  Puer is a type of tea that is considered fermented and most people I know of Cantonese descent that go to "yum cha" or dim sum will know it as "bo lei cha" the dark tea that is earthy and sometimes undrinkable depending on where you go.  That is how I knew Puerh tea when I was under 20. 

About 10 years ago I bought my first cake of Puer from a tea shop in San Francisco Chinatown.   I was not educated at all, didn't know anything about it and don't remember the random shop I stopped  into.  I'm SURE I overpaid, especially being a tourist!  I was actually looking for an oolong that would resemble the natural cooling - menthol like feeling I got after having an oolong tea at Ten Rens Teahouse.  The man did not know what I was talking about and we ended up tasting Puer and that was how I ended up buying a cake.

The Puer tea cake was a ripe puer (there are ripe and raw puer teas) and it was smooth and earthy and I did enjoy it.  But afterwards I drank more oolong and feel in love with oolong teas (and began my never-ending oolong tea journey).

Fast forward several years and I had my first raw Puer experience and was surprised by how different it was from the ripe.  It was quite bitter as it was young, but I still thought it was pretty unique as there was more to it than bitter.  However, I think I was scared off pursuing Puer because I didn't know how to judge whether I was getting the real thing, whether I was over paying, how to store it, and there were not as many Puer sellers in North America at the time - online sales were not what they are today.

Then came the blog reading last year...

Somehow I came across a number of bloggers that border on 'obsessive'...I mean one blogger who I now faithfully check in with almost daily has a stock of over 500 teas!!  And this post from a blogger who was nominated for a Saveur blog award is an example of the complexity of tea knowledge that I only hope to have one day.  I've also started to follow a few on Instagram like @boychik2989, the variety of tea and teaware that gets posted will really inspire you to explore different teas.  The only downside...my wallet tends to get a little lighter as I start to buy more tea and teaware!

Here is a munchies.vice article on a gathering of wine and tea drinkers and here is one reddit thread that followed.  The main point...how is flavour judged and is it paramount in whether a tea is good or not?

Initially, first thoughts is flavour is extremely important and people would question why that is even a question.  But, when you dig deeper into the experience of tea drinking there is also the component of fragrance, mouthfeel/body, aftertaste (or huigan), and what sparked the discussion, "how it makes you feel". 

For me, how a tea makes me feel partly is determined by my mood.  There are times where some teas although taste great may not be great for the mood I'm in and I opt for something else.  There are also times that this one might have notes of peach and this honey...I like both flavours so is one better than the other?  Of course it then depends on other things you look at.  Finally, it could just end up being how you feel after drinking the tea and the act of brewing tea.

Getting back to puer specifically, here is a final post about puer tea collecting which I think was really good in articulating what it means to be a collector of puer tea and touches on the fact that this type of tea is living, it is still fermenting.  It also makes me want to buy some puer too!  (I caved and ordered some puer tea from Bitter Leaf Teas as you can see!)  It also references back to the munchies.vice article mentioned above.

Anyway, for those looking to expand their tea knowledge please do take a look at these blogs.  There is always something to learn.  And now it begins...