Loving my Japanese teas today with Gyokuro Uji Superior from Zen Tea!

A really nice example of a Gyokuro from Uji in Kyoto. The cooler the temperature gets here in Los Angeles, (and it was down to a 'freezing' 50 degrees Fahrenheit last night, brrrrr!) the more I crave Japanese teas. I don't know why, but even more than a dark rich Yunnan shou puerh or an oolong, I tend to dream of and partake in Japanese teas this time of year. Not only have I got my Kyusu and Yuzamashi out but I have been collecting artisan Yunomi cups as well. In fact I sit biting my nails the past few days just waiting for my first Petr Novak pieces to arrive. Can hardly wait. This is the most gorgeous cup I have ever seen, and will be dedicated to the best Japanese teas I can find!

Zen Tea's Gyokuro Uji is a nice verdant green and a little goes a long way, at least when using a 100ml hohin. I did not measure by grams, but just took a largish 'pinch' and enjoyed three consecutive steeps with the water temp at around 175f. What a nice way to finish supper, (even if supper was Mexican chicken tacos, that I, of course, being a horrible cook, failed to make a success out of.)
Who cares? I've got tea!
I love Zen Tea. The attention to quality has been apparent with everything of theirs I have had. I enjoy their website and love trying new things they have procured.
Tonight is sushi night, which means I don't have to cook, thank goodness. The sushi at our local place is fine but the tea they serve? Shameful! Tonight I will be taking my own tea and asking them to bring me a pot of water, I will have Zen Tea with me, a small hohin in my purse and a feeling of gratitude for Zen Tea in my heart!

Gaba Tea from Teca Tea in Houston

(First steep, after a short rinse. Leaves just starting to awaken.)

This is my first Gaba. To paraphrase Fred Flintstone, "Gabba-dabba-GOOD!"
It's really delicious. I don't know anything else about it aside from this one is from Nantou, Taiwan and was supplied by Teca Tea who I am quickly learning are well-loved online vendors, good people and owners of Ten Yen Teahouse in Houston. If this teahouse is as good as it looks from the photos I've seen, I'm ready to move to Houston. Seriously. People love this brick and mortar establishment. Plus I miss living in Texas, I actually do.
The GABA, which stands for something, look it up if you care, is said to have certain properties for health. I personally do not care. If tea of any kind has health benefits, that's cool, but it isn't the goal. I care about NOW, and this particular tea, moment by moment, sip by sip is making my head say, 'Hell, YES' and that is my benchmark. Period.

If I even see a tea on a website that touts all kinds of health benefits, I go to another website. I am not looking for health but for a perfect moment. and with high grade tea, I find I get to have perfect moments a lot these days. Used to be every few years, and usually involved being in the same room with such personal luminaries as Tom Waits, Spalding Gray, Kurt Vonnegut, but as I grow older I find I can access perfect moments through tea. Not as often as my hedonist soul craves, but certainly on a weekly basis if I keep trying new things at the rate I am now!
Teca's Gaba tea is warm, honey-hued, floral, delicate yet full bodied..... its a lot of things. All good so far!
I started out with four grams last night in a 160ml gaiwan at 200f, a bit strong but I wanted to have an intense introduction. I left the leaves to sit in the gaiwan overnight, and this morning moved them into my Smacha auto brewer and filled it up, giving me a large 6 ounce cup to sit and enjoy instead of gongfu style. Both ways of brewing created excellent sessions. I have a feeling this is a tea that might like to be pushed, so I am going to go pour another 8 ounces of 200f water in the infuser again and see if it is still as flavorful, I am guessing it will be!
Big deep bow to Richard Lin of Teca for introducing this newbie to something I am sure I will learn a lot more about, I might even go read what the back of my large bag of GABA rice has to say. I don't avoid good health, you see, I just let it come to me, so if I have a choice between Uncle Ben's instant white rice and a rice that yells GABA at me, I'm no dummy, I always go for the good stuff!

Jingxian Jin Jun Mei from Camellia-Sinensis, 'Beautiful Golden Eyebrows'

Really delicious example of Jin Jun Mei. I chose to brew it very lightly in a 100ml hohin with about two grams to start.

Thanks to Camellia-Sinensis for this tea and reader, do look for it when they have it back in stock!

Tea-Village of Thailand Jin Xuan #12 Oolong also known by the prettier name, Oolong Golden Lily

Tea-Village's Oolong number twelve brews up a soft yet bright golden and is very floral and full bodied from the get-go. I used 5 grams in a 180 ml gaiwan with the water at 203f and the scent of the leaves filled the room. Apparently in the 1950's some local ethic Chinese people's moved to Thailand and began to produce this tea in the northern mountains of Thailand where they settled. (Don't quote me on this, just something I heard or read, what do I know?) In any case, this is a good #12! As strong as it is I would venture a guess that I could have used far less grams, perhaps as little as three grams per 160-180ml of water and seen and tasted even more pleasant steeps. This was not an unpleasant session at all, I just think I can stretch the small amount of this tea I have into lasting longer by decreasing my grammage! And I know I am going to want to have at least a few more sessions with this tea before I find the bottom of the bag empty.

A rare treat of a Darjeeling white tea, an Arya Pearl.

From Teca Tea, a wonderful Arya white! Precious tiny little leaves and bud, light as a feather, brews up sweet and transcendent, everything you would hope for in a first flush white Darjeeling. Used three grams in a 160 ml gaiwan with water at 180f, no rinse as there was no need, so utterly clear and pure tasting.
Like flowers after a rain has washed them clean, light scent of greens and hay, a wonderful tea for Fall!

I now pronounce you Tea and Cup! Mazel Tov!

(The happy couple.)

Found a dynamite Japanese green tea, special yet easy to access and gets lots of, and introduced it to my Ringware Yunomi ala' Octopus last night and let's just say they were made for each-other. The proud parents of the tea are Buddha Teas and the proud parent of the cup is Ringware Pottery.
This will not be an open-marriage. This tea has so many strongly pronounced flavors that I promise the cup it will never share its capabilities to hold tea with any other green. Nope! Not even something similar, not even a basic ryokucha, or a matcha, nothing! This tea with this cup, wedded and bedded and all for the best, (and as we Jews say) 'Dayenu!'

The tea of which I speak will get its own blog write-up since it deserves it and is so totally kick-ass, so this is just a short preview.

( First brew after the nup's!)

I am talking here of Buddha Teas 'Matcha Yuzu Ryokucha'. Got it? So go get some if you like a vibrant green tea, matcha mixed with lovely verdant green pieces of ryokucha and are interested in a little dash of something rather citrus-y from the Japanese fruit called Yuzu.

The marriage was done with the help of my Takaname Kyusu of course, and was sealed with many steeps which left this human wedding guest having to pee every ten minutes for the next three hours. Worth it! (Even if it did interrupt  Dr. Who to my families constant consternation.)

Viking Moxie Tea helps this 'old lady' out big-time on a rather tough day!

Damn. I am wiped out, my dudes!
A day of doctors visits, poked, prodded and plied with questions.
I need something (mainly) herbal.
And today was just the beginning of a journey to find out what the hell is wrong with my sweetly aging, zaftig bod. That being said, I will add the novelty factor of getting old really is very high. Who knows how much longer that will last but for now it is awesome that I still think I am 'playing' at getting old. Like its dress-up time. I can wear really ugly socks I bought at Rite-Aid AND wear them with knock-off (and used thrift-store) 'Birkenstocks?' Really? That's frigging awesome! Goodbye forever to garter belts and heels, this is the new and improved version of me, just fatter and way more achy.
Anyhow, perfect timing to try a sample of Mox Tea that came my way yesterday. Where is that herbal infuser I use for messy rooibos? Now, which cup to use? Oh yes, that HUGE whimsical creation from RingWare. And I am off to try it out...

(These two are a perfect match! The infuser sits on top of this gorgeous Yunomi type cup just right. UPDATE! This Yunomi cup got married last night to some Japanese green so will no longer be dating this tea or any others! Have to just use a nice big mug for my Moxie!)

It's a pretty brew, and tasty too but far too hot and I need it now so I do the usually unthinkable and add some Trader Joe's Vanilla Almond milk. The Moxi website says I can add sugar but then I would have to kill myself.

But the almond milk I'm OK with. I may live on.

The blend is nice, a little more cinnamon than I really need but at least its real cinnamon and not a flavoring which I cannot 'abide'.

Let's see exactly what's in it for I am feeling a helluva lot spunkier after my big mug and am now on muggo numero two-o!

9 Traditional herbs: Rhodiola Rosea; Gotu Kola; Gingko Biloba; Icelandic Moss, Green & Black Tea leaves; Rose Petals; Cinnamon; Cloves

I feel as if I could find something that tasted almost as good in a tea bag, but it would be all fannings and shake but I am not that person. Also no way would there be those first four listed ingredients, I don't even know what a couple of those are. Moss? And I am a visual tea-drinker, I want to see a good looking brew, in fact I would go so far as to tell Mox that I would be delighted to see even more large pieces than I am seeing in this sample and hope with my first order it will be even prettier in the vessel than this session is, and seriously, take a  look at those leaves and buds and what-not, they already are looking very attractive.

I think we have a winner, herbal and some caffeine? This tea is abiding right by this old dude.

(Yeah, I want it to look like this!)

David Holden Ceramics, and the most beautiful Yunomi I have seen in my life.

Searching for a way to start writing about and collecting pottery, especially tea cups from artists began with an Etsy search. While contacting a handful of artists in the states, I stumbled upon David Holden Ceramics and lost myself for some time looking at the images of his work. I dropped him a note to say 'hi' and ask about how many millimeters certain cups held, and he went and read my blog and we found we both loved Japanese teas, hence my search for the perfect Yunomi. We then chatted a little more about teas and I told him about my very rare in quality Tencha and he said he hoped one day to try Tencha which is very difficult to find so we decided it would be nice to trade. And also if I loved his cup he would get some good publicity on my blog, in case anyone else aside from me even reads my blog!

The cup is even more than I had hoped for, it has a thick, warm glaze that is super smooth, and its size is as if it were made just for my hand.
I truly don't know what else to say so here in photos is my journey today with this cup!

( Enjoying a rousing session of Bulang Shu while spending some time with the new cup seeing how it feels about varying water temperatures. I do so love to make a mess of my tea table, such fun.)

Dong Fang Mei Ren from Tea-Side of Thailand is AAA-plus!

Thai company Tea-side sent me a Dong Fang Mei Ren which is marked #AAA. I don't know what that means, but if I were to get to grade it, like a school paper AAA sounds about right! This Dong Fang Mei Ren, or as I have more often known it to be called, 'Oriental Beauty' is my favorite kind of Oolong tea. My favorite kind of tea period. I would have no problem, once my huge supply of teas to taste come to an end, in focusing and drinking nothing but different kinds of Oriental Beauty for the rest of my days. I have had some amazing ones, and some disappointing ones, and for me to be disappointed is a rare thing since my tea drinking is so relatively new. However, I have had a lot of OB's, and was happy enough to realize when tasting a poor one, that I could recognize it as a bad example! You, of course haven't heard about that tea, or others I disliked because I am here to write about things that I liked. And this Dong Fang Mei Ren is in the top three best I have had.

It is different in some pretty neat and subtle ways compared to other OB's I have had. My first thought when smelling the leaves in the hot gaiwan before first rinse were not the usual floral notes but buttered vegetables and bread! That was new and different!
Love this tea and now I want to try even more of this sort of Oolong offering from Tea-Side! I decided to brew the first few steeps in a less than gongfu fashion. I used less leaf at 3.5 grams in a larger amount of water, a 160ml gaiwan and I let it steep 1 minute at 205f. I will go back and try my usual parameters but I have enjoyed this brewing style the last few days and thought this tea would brew well under those parameters, which it most certainly did.
Gorgeous leaves, carefully packed and pretty as you would expect a good Oriental Beauty to be, this is my kind of session. Pure and perfect with each consecutive steep!

For my tea friends living and thriving in sobriety.

As tea has become so important to me and I have 'switched' (as I like to call it) from any type of booze to every type of tea with the same passion I once had for sake and vodka gimlets, a very wise person said something to me I want to share..... hope this person doesn't mind, s/he will remain anonymous but deeply appreciated by me for taking time to write me, a veritable stranger some thoughts..... it goes like this:

"I know we don't know each other well yet, but I want to lay something on you directly, and I hope you take it with an open mind. When we are getting clean (I quit partying about 13 years ago, it was a mess), we have to understand that the nature of addiction is not only about our substance of choice, but is also tied to the way we think. Tea is a very good and healthy beverage, but if you take it too far, it does have detrimental effects on the health. Tea can cause kidney stones if you drink too much, and can also be long term bad for your kidneys. As someone who has been clean for a long time, I want to suggest that one of the best ways to deal with cleaning up is diversifying behaviour. Tea was a great start, but you also have to go even further. I originally cleaned up by doing tai chi, later got into the tea thing as a result. It has been an amazing journey, but there are so many areas of life outside of those hobbies, and a lot of them were really hard to face. Remember that caffeine and L-theanine are drugs, and that over indulgence in them isn't a viable way to cure the problem of addiction, which starts and ends in ourselves. Keep drinking tea, keep blogging, but also, I want to really encourage you to open up other doors too, have a good hard look inside, and enjoy your newer, cleaner, better, and happier life!!!!!!"