I was sampling my first Keemun this morning as mentioned in today's earlier post and felt pulled to do something else with it. It's such a perfect black tea to 'play around with'.
So I put the full 9 gram sample into my new, (and until today, unused) Japanese ceramic kettle, and opened up this years bag of Tea Masala. This year I bought a box/bag from Everest on a recommendation. Often I make my own Chai spice blends and I have lots of fresh ingredients but thought I'd give this a try. LOVED it, all I needed to add was a little agave and honey. There is a lot of peppercorn in this blend, very spicy! Not much in it aside from Black Pepper, Dry Ginger (I may add a chunk of fresh next time) Cassia, Cardamom, Nutmeg, Clove and Black Cardamom.
I took the dry 5 grams of Keemun and put it into the kettle with an eyeballed amount of water, enough for a lot of Chai, maybe 4-5 cups, and the slightly used leaves from my initial Gungfu session with the Keemun, added approx a teaspoon, maybe less of the Masala spice blend, and let it cook on the fire til the temperature gauge told me it was 203f. At that point I tasted, was astounded by the pepper, and added some raw organic agave sweetener and a dollop of honey. WONDERFUL, if I do say so myself! Had two bowls and put the rest in the fridge for chilled Chai tonight. Happy to share, do come visit soon!
