Currently Listening: Talking Tea Podcast

It’s a holiday for my readers in the States and for me, that means a car trip. Which means podcasts. So I thought I’d share a podcast I recently started listening to: Talking Tea. The most recent episode on climate change, bugs, and how it’s affecting the tea industry is fascinating, but the episode that really hooked me was the previous one about how gender and imperialism shaped the marketing of tea to the west and persists in our modern ideas of tea. I mean, give me some 19th-century politics, and throw in some tea, and I’m as happy as a clam.

The structure of the podcast, at least in as much as I’ve listened to it, is an interview with someone who has a profession that is related to tea in some fascinating way. I’ve listened to interviews with an historian, a tea house owner, a tea and gastronomy educator, a scientist, and a tea culture blogger so far. The guests always have such interesting stories to tell and I thoroughly enjoy learning about some new facet of tea culture or history about which I hadn’t thought before. And the tea and cheese pairing episode inspired me to try my own tea and cheese pairing!

Perhaps the most enjoyable thing about the podcast is host Ken Cohen’s interview style. So often I listen to interviews and my main thought is “Wow, the interviewer really likes the sound of his own voice.” But Ken sits back and lets the guest shine. You almost feel as though you are learning along with him, rather than listening to him teach you by using the guest. And the vividness with which he describes surroundings during the conversation helps you feel like you’re right there with them.

I’ve found so many new people to follow on social media just in the week I’ve been listening to back episodes, and I look forward to much more as we go into a season of travel. And it inspires me to take a harder look at my own passion for tea so that I can try to express it the way he and his guests do. If you’re a podcast listener and looking for something related to tea, I recommend you give his podcast a listen. I found it on the Apple podcast app, but you can find all the ways to listen at the website linked above.

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Tuesday Tasting: 2015 Menghai Tea Factory 7542 Recipe Raw Puerh from Yunnan Sourcing’s “Intro to Puerh”

This week, I’m starting a little series where I share tastings from the puerhs in Yunnan Sourcing’s sampler called “Introduction to Puerh.” I got this after my stitch and sip video where I was thinking that I should learn more about puerh. I’ve had really good luck with Yunnan Sourcing’s curated oolong samplers, so I figured they’d do a good job with a puerh sampler. The sampler has six different teas, half ripe and half raw puerh, with examples of each from a classic recipe, a single estate, and an aged sample. The aged samples are both older than fifteen years.

So on to this tea. The 2015 Menghai raw is a piece taken off a larger cake. I used 7.4g in a 120-ml gaiwan with water at 190F. The dry leaf, as you can see, is slightly broken from the compression into the cake, and has a medium-deep brown color with some lighter bits. It looks to have small leaves. After warming my teaware and the dry leaf, I got aromas of raisins and date bread.

I rinsed the tea and found the wet leaves gave off aromas of dried fruit on the gaiwan lid and damp earth on the leaves themselves. I steeped it starting wth ten seconds and increasing by five seconds each time, for eight steepings.

The first steeping had a light amber colored liquor and sweet malty aromas on the gaiwan lid, sweet and earthy aromas on the wet leaf, and a sweet fragrant aroma on the liquor itself. The mouthfeel was light, with a sweet and herbal flavor. The second steeping, some herbal aromas started coming out of the lid, while the leaf aroma settled into earthiness and a fruitcake and brandy aroma arose from the liquor itself. The liquor was slightly darker and had a rounder mouthfeel, with a spicy flavor reminiscent of alcohol.

By the third steeping, the bitterness started coming through. The lid and leaf aromas had taken on a henna aroma that I associate with raw puerh, and the liquor had a brandy aroma. The flavor had a pronounced but not unpleasant bitterness in the back of the throat with a floral and herbal quality to it, like hops. there was a little dried fruit in the flavor with no astringency and a syrupy mouthfeel.

On the fourth steeping, the bitterness mellowed and moved into the front of the mouth, with an almost umami savory quality to the flavor. The fifth steeping, I noticed more funky earthy aromas from the leaf and a purely bitter, non-sweet flavor from the liquor, with a tiny bit of dryness on the finish. The sixth and seventh steepings held steady with henna aromas and balanced bitterness with a dry finish. By the eighth steeping, it was still the same and I decided to finish the session.

The spent leaves were an even olive-green color and showed mostly broken leaves. I’m excited by this as a really excellent example of the delights of bitterness in a raw puerh, and I’m curious how the other samples compare.

Outings: A Tea Date at Ching Ching Cha

Be sure to check out my giveaway on Instagram, where I’m giving away one of Nazanin’s lovely pomegranate gaiwan pins!

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to finally find the time to meet up with my friend Nazanin from Tea Thoughts. We’d been meaning to meet for tea at a tea house in Washington, D.C. called Ching Ching Cha for a while, so when we both had time this weekend, we jumped at the opportunity. It’s such a unique space, both as a business and the space itself.

Ching Ching Cha is on Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown just next to one of the crossings of the C & O Canal. The storefront is shared with a salon upstairs and is rather unassuming. In fact, from the outside, it looks quite dark, and the only sign that there’s a delicious tea house inside is the small chalkboard of specials. When you walk in, there is a corridor with benches that leads into a row of teas and books for sale, and then you turn to see the tea room and the rest of the shop.

The first thing you notice when you get into the tea house properly is how much natural light it gets. The building has a large skylight to provide entirely natural light in the main area. On one side of the shop is a platform with two low tables and cushions. You’re supposed to take your shoes off before stepping up onto the platforms, so it stays clean. There are also about eight additional tables with chairs. It is small and gets busy quickly, at least on a weekend, so I was glad we showed up right when they opened at 11 a.m.

Each table has a traditional burner with a pot of water over it. The water stays very hot and is replenished by the wait staff so you can refill your own tea as much as you want. We looked at the menu and each decided on a tea. We both got oolong. Mine was a greener rolled Alishan oolong, while Nazanin got a roasted Phoenix oolong. They both came on a draining tea tray in a traditional clay pot. We were well-versed in the style of steeping, but we saw the staff showing others at the tea house how to steep the tea.

We also got several plates of shareable foods: dumplings, tea egg, curry puff, and some sweets. All the food was delicious and went wonderfully with the tea, but the tea remained the star of the show.

My Alishan was very delicate and creamy with a beautiful floral aroma and flavor. It had a silky mouthfeel and almost smelled like a milk oolong, but without the rich buttery notes. I lost count of how many times we steeped, but we sat there steeping and sipping and nibbling over the course of two hours. I had so much fun playing with the clay pot, since I’ve never used one before and I’ve wanted to buy one.

After we finished and it became clear that the tea was finally exhausted, we paid and moved into the store to browse. All of the teas that they have on the menu were available pre-packaged, though they also have big cans of them stored toward the back of the shop. They also have an impressive array of teaware, ranging in price from just a few dollars to several hundred.

They also have tea trays for sale that are the same as the ones they use for their service in the tea house, so I bought one, since I no longer have a wooden deck to use as a giant tea tray. I also got a strainer for my sharing pitcher and a cake of pressed dried roses that smells amazing. It was a thoroughly enjoyable outing and one that I highly recommend to anyone who loves tea or knows a tea lover. I know I will be back again, hopefully soon!

Tuesday Tasting: Anji Bai Cha from Yunnan Sourcing

Today’s Tuesday Tasting is the Anji Bai Cha from Yunnan Sourcing. I first found this tea when I was researching an historical tea video and I found out that the tea called “Anji Bai Cha” in a primary source about Song Dynasty tribute tea actually referred to a green tea, despite the name “Bai Cha” meaning white tea. I learned that this prized cultivar was lost until the 1980s when a bush was discovered that was believed to be the same cultivar as the tea prized by the Emperor Huizong who wrote a vivid Treatise on Tea that described the practice of preparing tribute tea in the Song Dynasty. The tea was called “Bai Cha” because the raw leaves are so pale, and only turn green when they are heated to stop the oxidation process. So I bought some at Yunnan Sourcing to try, even though I knew I wouldn’t be pressing, roasting, and grinding it to prepare true Song-Dynasty-style tea.

The first thing I noticed about this tea is the needle-y leaves. They are long and skinny, like the needles of a Douglass fir or white pine. I decided to steep it in gaiwan, gongfu style, but have since determined that it might be better to steep this tea in a method that is more suited to delicate green teas. But here, I will describe my gongfu tasting.

I used 5 grams in a 150-ml gaiwan with 170F water. From the dry leaf, I got some powerful vegetal aromas. I rinsed it and sniffed the wet leaf. The wet leaf aroma was sweet, herbal, and with a floral component that I guessed as sakura. It reminded me a lot of a Japanese sencha with sugared sakura leaves and dried sakura blossoms. I then steeped it starting with five seconds and increasing in five second increments.

 

After the first steeping, the gaiwan lid smelled green and creamy while the wet leaf smelled of asparagus. The liquor was a pale jade color with a warm, sweet aroma. The mouthfeel was juicy with light brightness, and more of that sakura flavor. It got thicker and sweeter as it cooled off while I sipped. The second steeping was stronger, with stronger green aromas from the lid and sakura and asparagus aromas from the leaf. The liquor was still a pale jade, but had a spicy aroma that I guessed as clove. The mouthfeel was thicker, but still juicy and not cloying or syrupy, with tart, green flavors, like purslane.

The third steeping gave tarter aromas on the lid and nuttier on the leaf. The liquor had developed that clove or allspice aroma and the flavor was similar to the previous steeping. The fourth steeping had green floral aromas on the leaves and spicy aromas on the liquor with a slightly sweeter flavor. By the fifth steeping, the flavor had started to fade, and the aromas had gone somewhat spinach-y. The sixth steeping brought back that floral asparagus aroma with a lighter, but still present flavor. By the seventh steeping, I decided to steep it out for a minute and determined that the tea was done.

The spent leaves are only slightly lighter in color than the dry leaf, and still have a vivid spring green color. They are quite small, narrow leaves and have a deep crease down the center that is characteristic of the cultivar. While I thoroughly enjoyed this tea in gaiwan, join me this coming weekend for a video in which I share a session with steeped in a more traditional style for a green tea.

On Vintage Clothing Shopping Triumphs and Fails

When I first started this blog, one of my very clear goals was to share my love of vintage style. I fashioned my beauty routines after historical practices I read about and had started buying more vintage clothing to create a vintage and vintage-inspired wardrobe. Over the years, my wardrobe has fluctuated, but I still love a little vintage style. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that many of my previously purchased vintage pieces fell victim to my occasional bouts of decluttering. Add to that a new personal effort to be more sustainable, which translates into attempting to reduce the amount of clothing I purchase new, plus changes in both my body shape and needs at work from pregnancy, and I was in need of a few vintage and secondhand basics. First, I made a plan for my color scheme, and since most of my clothing is neutral colored, with some jewel tones, I decided that neutrals (black, white, dark navy, grey, brown, and cream) paired with two accent colors would work. Since they are my favorite colors, my accents are green and purple.

I started, as I usually do, on Etsy, but soon grew somewhat disillusioned with both the prices and the need to ship from different countries. I realized that for some of my basics, if I wasn’t buying new fast fashion, I at least needed to find a place to buy secondhand that fit my schedule. So, after watching a video from Rachel Maksy, I decided to investigate ThredUp, an online thrift store of sorts. I started by putting together a custom “Goody Box” of ten different blouses that fit my pseudo-Victorian/Edwardian aesthetic, but with effectively free shipping (if I kept at least one item) and an easy-to-navigate return process when I didn’t want to keep everything. I ended up liking two of the ten blouses (I almost liked three, but ended up with an odd shoulder pads situation). While ThredUp isn’t perfect, it was a great way to buy secondhand for someone with enough going on in my life that I can’t really browse thrift shops for gems on a regular basis. And I particularly like that I can filter by material, so I can only look at items made with cotton, linen, silk, and wool.

After my initial Goody Box, I bought a few more things on ThredUp, including another couple blouses, some blazers, and a skirt. Only the skirt was a miss, but only because I misjudge the silhouette online, and it will still come in handy if I ever need to dress like a normal professional rather than a professional hobbit. But the jackets were some real finds. I found a jacket that is a modernized version of an historical-style riding jacket, as well as a velvet blazer that is probably from the 80s or earlier (because the company it’s from went out of business in the 80s). It’s interesting because nothing is labeled “vintage” on ThredUp, but they do definitely sell some things that might be considered vintage (I just keep reminding myself that when I was a teenager in the 90s, 70s was considered “vintage,” so, yes, 90s can be vintage now).

But now on to the main event: Etsy. Eventually, I realized that ThredUp wasn’t really going to fit my needs for skirts, so I returned to Etsy. Knowing that I would be spending more, I decided to get two wool skirts, to replace the two skirts (one cotton and one linen) that were my standard work rotation in the warmer weather. I wanted one to be black and one to be a neutral non-black color, or one of my accent colors of green and purple. Then, I needed to get an accurate waist measurement and determine how long I needed the skirt to be to fall below my knees, which is what I feel most comfortable wearing. Sadly, the amazing purple wool skirts I found were all too small for me, but I found a lovely black wool skirt and a brown tweed wool skirt. I was struck when they arrived how much nicer they were than the previous skirts I’d remembered buying on Etsy. The fabric is sturdy but not scratchy, and there is even little piping sewn into the black skirt to create a ridged embellishment. Plus, the waist measurements were scrupulously accurate. And the seller who sold me the black skirt even included a lovely scarf as a little extra, which is fun thing about buying from Etsy sellers.

Of course, this post is called “triumphs and fails,” not “vintage triumphs,” so now we come to the fail. While I was on Etsy, I started looking around at some of the vintage “[decade] does Victorian” blouses and fell in love with an adorable Victorian-inspired silk blouse. The main problem with Etsy is that there is no consistency in how vendors disclose the condition of their items, so when I didn’t see any particular issues called out in the listing, I splurged. But when it arrived, the cuffs were frayed and missing some stitching, not terribly so, but badly enough that I would have felt like it needed to be repaired before wearing it to work. After going back and forth with the seller, they decided they’d rather just accept a return than have me get a quote for repairing it, which is fine, but it meant that I had to pay to ship it back overseas. So there is a sense of buyer beware on Etsy. Don’t be like me; contact your vintage sellers and ask about condition before clicking “Buy.”

So there is my current status on fall/winter fashion. I’ve created a largely second-hand or self-thrifted (i.e., from my own closet because the most sustainable option is to wear what you already have) wardrobe with strong historical influences. I’m certainly not “fashionable,” but I feel like my clothes show the strongest sense of personal style that I’ve ever had, and I feel the most like myself. I’ll definitely be wearing these clothes in future tea videos, so you’ll get to see them even without modeling shots here. Happy dressing!

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One last thing: For anyone who has watched my most recent tea video, today is the birthday of the lovely friend who made the handmade mug I use in that video (and that frequently makes an appearance on Instagram). If you wish her a happy birthday in the comments, I’ll certainly pass along the well wishes!

NB: This post is not sponsored or affiliated with any of the companies mentioned.

Tuesday Tasting: Tea Sparrow October 2019 Tea Box

NB: Tea Sparrow sent me their October box for free in exchange for posting a tasting. All thoughts are my own. Links are not affiliate links.

This week, I’m sharing a bit of a different tasting. While I generally drink unflavored pure teas and often taste my teas gong fu style, I am a firm believer in evaluating teas on their own terms rather than trying to shoe-horn different teas into gongfucha. I was recently contacted by Tea Sparrow, a company that sells subscription tea boxes. Most of their teas are flavored, but everything is organic and natural and they use biodegradable packaging, so I was intrigued to try. Plus, I know plenty of my readers are not necessarily solely interested in drinking fussy pure teas and might appreciate knowing about some good flavored teas. They sent me their October box, which included two caffeine-free herbal teas, a flavored green tea, and a flavored black tea, so I thought I would do my tasting using their brewing parameters.

But of course, this isn’t a review; this is a tasting. So I still made sure to check aroma and look of the “leaf” at various points during the brewing. And I made a point to really roll the flavors around in my mouth, the way I would with any other tea. Let’s see how the October teas do with a full tea tasting.

Pina Colada Green Tea

I will admit, when I saw this tea, my first thought was

Anyone who reads this blog knows that not only am I not usually a fan of flavored teas, but “dessert-y” type flavors like this are at the bottom of my list of likes (top of my list of dislikes?). But this is a tasting, not a review, so here we go.

Right off, I could smell the coconut through the package, and it had an almost sunscreen-y aroma, but as soon as I opened it and poured it out into a warmed teapot, the scent became this rich, very true coconut aroma. It’s actually a very warm scent, which is odd for what I thought would be a summery tea. The dry green tea is medium olive-ish green and has moderately small, straight and flat leaves. It almost looks like a Japanese green tea (or a Chinese green processed like a Japanese tea?). There are also pieces of sugared pineapple and flakes of toasted coconut. I tasted one of the pineapple pieces and it’s sweet and has taken on the coconut flavor.

I first steeped this tea using one tablespoon, which was 4.8g, in a 250-ml glass teapot with 180 F water for two minutes, as per the instructions. The wet leaf had an almost savory aroma and the liquor was pale gold with a light coconut aroma. The dominant flavor was green tea, with noticeable umami and a lightly astringent finish. The coconut was an undertone to the flavor, with no noticeable sweetness and a surprisingly warm flavor.

Out of curiosity, I took the same leaves and cold-brewed them for three hours. The cold-brewed liquor was buttery and fragrant with a more pronounced fruity flavor.

Organic Vanilla Mint Rooibos

They are not kidding when they say this tea is “peppermint forward.” Again, I could smell the peppermint through the package. The dry leaf is an obvious blend of rooibos and dried peppermint leaf. The dry leaf smells strongly of peppermint, but the addition of vanilla and rooibos adds a rich depth that reminded me of a York peppermint patty. In my notes, I put a parenthetical that it “clears your sinuses.”

I used one tablespoon, which was 4.4g, in a 12-oz. mug with boiling water for five minutes. The liquor is a deep reddish brown and has a distinct aroma of each individual component, rather than blasting your sinuses with menthol like the wet and dry leaf. Peppermint is still the strongest flavor and it is a menthol-y peppermint, not a green peppermint flavor. Rooibos is the second most prominent with a rich woody flavor and the vanilla is subtle and reads as chocolate to my tastebuds, without that weird artificial vanilla flavor that happens with vanilla-flavored teas.

Organic Crimson Currants

This was the first tea I tried from the box, the day it came, as my evening cup. I like to unwind with a warm beverage after I put Elliot to bed, and I get tired of lavender-chamomile. This is a blend of dried fruit, rosehips (which are also a fruit), rooibos, and lemongrass. You can see all the components in the dry “leaf.”

I steeped one tablespoon, which was 6.5g, in 250 ml of boiling water for five minutes. The liquor is a deep crimson color and has an almost thick look to it as it pours. It has the same fruity aroma as the dry leaf. I made a note that it looks like stage blood (corn syrup and red food coloring)! The first flavor that hits you is tart, probably from the rosehips and hibiscus. It’s a thicker tartness than hibiscus usually gives, but without the sickly, almost tomato-y flavor I sometimes get from rosehips. It has a syrupy mouthfeel but no actual sweet favor. There is a little bit of lemon-candy flavor from the lemongrass. The berries are very subtle and I didn’t taste any rooibos from this at all. My final note is that “this tea is what ‘Red Zinger’ wants to be.”

Organic Masala Chai

This, I tasted both plain and with milk and honey, since masala chai is actually a drink made with tea, not just a tea, so the traditional drink involves dairy and sweetener. The dry leaf shows a lot of whole spices like clove and cardamom among the very typical-looking Indian tea leaves. I can definitely smell the cinnamon flavoring, as it had strong, sweet cinnamon scent, like Ceylon cinnamon, but the ginger is also present as a base note to the dry leaf aroma.

To start off, I brewed one tablespoon, which was 5.9g, in 250 ml of boiling water for five minutes. The liquor “smells like Christmas,” according to my notes. There is a strong cinnamon aroma. Interestingly enough, the flavor is not overly cinnamon-y. The ginger comes through nicely and I get a little of the cardamom. It has a spicy finish, but the dominant flavor is from the Assam, with a big malt flavor, currant notes, and not too much tannin.

Adding honey to it brought out the cinnamon, and milk brings out an almost chocolatey quality. I also re-steeped this with boiling water for five minutes, giving it a little stir, and found that the ginger and cardamom were more pronounced, even when I added honey.

So there are my tastings of the four teas that came in the Tea Sparrow October 2019 box. And if you like flavored teas and are interested in trying a box, or buying any of these teas on their web store, you can use the code “TeaLeavesandTweed” on their site for a 20% discount on your first order or your first month of the subscription.

Skin Care Update, Fall/Winter 2019

I have another beauty review in the works, so I thought I should write a current skin care update with my baseline favorite products right now. Of course, my skin had gone through some serious changes over the last two years, with my pregnancy and postpartum, and I’ve also made some choices in my personal consumption habits that have affected my skin care. The last time I wrote about my regular skin care routine, it was in the context of how I’ve had to change my habits as I balance parenting responsibilities and self-care. Before that, I wrote about my pregnancy skin care over a year ago.

Of course, nothing is constant in parenting, and I eventually had to change up my routine again because Elliot’s sleeping patterns changed. I could no longer count on any longer chunks of sleep at night, so I decided that getting to bed as soon as I could was more important than facial massage. I still have roughly the same routine of cleanse, hydrate, and nourish, but I’ve discovered some new favorite products.

Last time I wrote, I had discovered the Voltaire and Chatelet oils from The Library Apothecary. Well, since then, I’ve fully become a Library girl (it’s like a Glossier girl, but with less pink and more amber glass). I’ve started using Mara’s Rose Oil at night after cleansing and hydrating, and following it with her Elder Balm, which is a wonderfully fragrant experience that also happens to both nourish and calm my skin. I even add a little dab in the mornings under my mineral sunscreen to prevent it from becoming too matte. If she came out with a cleanser and a hydrating serum, pretty much all of my routine would come from her, minus actives and sunscreen. And I promise this isn’t sponsored — The Library Apothecary is a one-person operation and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t exactly have an advertising budget.

The other major development is that I am no longer using Glossier Milky Jelly. In my efforts to create a more sustainable skin care routine, I decided to try the Trilogy Cream Cleanser, as it is packaged in a glass pump bottle, rather than plastic. It has a skin-friendly pH and doesn’t foam, and I’ve found it a reasonable swap for my skin. It is scented with essential oils, but I find the aroma strangely appealing now that I’ve been using it for a while, and it doesn’t irritate my eyes, which is why I had previous had to stop using every other cleanser I tried besides the Glossier. Do I wish it were unscented? Yes. Am I willing to try the unscented version that uses an oil that my skin has disliked in the past and is more expensive and hasn’t been explicitly pH tested by a blogger I trust? No.

I’ve also switched to a very bare-bones hydrating serum from Timeless Skin Care, as well as using their pure squalane oil for my first cleanse (I’m using it up after buying a giant pump bottle for Elliot’s cradle cap, which went away after one treatment). I apply three pumps of squalane to dry skin and massage to break up sunscreen and lipstick. Then I remove it with a flannel soaked in warm water and follow with the Trilogy cleanser. Three times a week, I use my Bell-Evolve Lac-Luronic serum (I’ve also been using it as a deodorant — thanks, Tracy!), and then apply hyaluronic acid and Rose Oil, followed with a pea-sized amount of the Elder Balm. I use a tiny silver vintage spoon that my mother gave me as part of a set to use with my vintage Brambly Hedge teaset, but since Elliot is still a few years away from enjoying tea time with the good china, I don’t think he’ll mind if I borrow this little choking hazard to scoop my fancy skin balm. I’ve been told that it’s a “dupe” for the May Lindstrom Blue Cocoon, despite clearly being superior because it’s purple and also doesn’t contain the one ingredient that always causes me to break out.

In the morning, I cleanse with a half a pump of the Trilogy cleanser, and then apply some vitamin C serum. I’m currently using Mad Hippie‘s because I can buy it locally. After that, I hydrate and apply one pump of Chatelet oil, followed with a lentil-sized amount of Elder Balm if it’s a dry day. Then I apply my sunscreen, which is currently the Marie Veronique Everyday Coverage in Extra Light Tint, which isn’t my favorite, but it ticks the boxes I need for now, but it’s oddly gritty, so I’m still looking. Unfortunately, every time I try to return to an organic sun filter, my skin freaks out, so I’m sticking with inorganic right now. I have a new one on the way, though.

I’ve actually stopped wearing pretty much any other makeup other than tinted sunscreen and lipstick, unless I’m doing photos or a video, so my routine is quite minimal indeed. And my biggest sustainability habit has been to stop buying sheet masks. I still have a few left in my mask drawer, but for the most part, the only mask I do is a weekly clay mask that I mix myself from bulk purchased green clay mixed with matcha. And my regular daily routines seem to provide enough hydration so that I don’t need anything else.

So it is from this baseline that I will be testing some new products. Right now my skin is the calmest and clearest it’s been in my adult memory, so I’m hesitant to shake things up, but I do have a few review products that I’ve been sent, so stay tuned for that.

NB: All products were purchased with my own money and I was not given any incentive to feature them here. All thoughts are my own. None of the links are affiliate.

Tuesday Tasting: Mystery Oolong from Yunnan Sourcing

This Tuesday’s tasting is a tea I found in my tea cupboard that I cannot link to because I don’t know precisely which tea it is! I know it came from Yunnan Sourcing, in my oolong tea subscription box, and was from Autumn 2018, but beyond that, I have only what I can glean from my eyes, nose, and tongue because I accidentally cut off most of the label when I opened the packet.

You can see that it is a rolled oolong that has a bit of roast and oxidation on it. The leaves are obviously rolled, but super tightly like some oolongs. I used 5g in a 120-ml gaiwan and steeped it at 190F. I rinsed and then steeped, starting with 15 seconds and increased each steeping by five seconds (except for the seventh and the ninth).

From the dry leaf, I got aromas of pipe tobacco, roasted nuts, and a faint bit of woodsmoke. After the rinse, the wet leaf smelled creamy, with notes of caramel and leather, and just a little cannabis. After the first steeping, the lid of the gaiwan smelled of toasted hazelnuts while the wet leaf smelled of spent firewood. The liquor was a medium amber-gold color and smelled of tobacco. It had a creamy mouthfeel with flavors of browned butter and a maple syrup aftertaste. The empty cup had the aroma of vanilla and wood.

The second steeping gave a slightly richer color liquor that had more roasted aromas coming through. The lid and leaf both smelled of charcoal while the liquor still smelled of tobacco. The flavor had a bit more tartness or tannin with a bit of mineral dryness and a sweet finish. The mouthfeel was custardy and I got sandalwood on the finish. The third steeping had more sweetness still, with the same roasted and tobacco aromas.

On the fourth steeping, I noticed a cedar smoke aroma. The flavors were much lighter and I noticed I was feeling some body warmth. By the fifth steeping, the aroma seemed to be fading, along with the flavor, but I still noticed a biscuit flavor and a very smooth finish. The sixth steeping brought out charred flavors: charred meat on the aroma and a charred oak flavor, like a whisky. The seventh steeping I actually only steeped for maybe 20 seconds because I forgot to wait for it to steep before straining it. I got more of a meaty flavor, almost like a stew from this steeping.

By the eighth steeping, it seemed pretty done, though I still got that characteristic tobacco aroma, so I did a ninth and final steeping for 90 seconds, which gave the last bits of a smoky, meaty aroma and left me feeling a bit jittery.

Oddly enough, the spent leaf was a deep green color, not brown like the dry leaf and roast would suggest. It was the color of pickled grape leaves. They were still quite shriveled and upon inspecting them closer, there were no fully intact leaves. A final sniff of the leaves brought out aromas of spinach or kale and a light marine aroma.

Perhaps in the future, I would be able to actually identify a tea from such a tasting. Any guesses?