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Today started with some Kabuse sencha from O-Cha, fresh vegetables with a little sweet floral note; then a bit of Shan Lin Xi winter oolong from Floating Leaves, rich and delicate light roast tea; and finished with a long session with Forest Genie puerh from Hatvala, a lovely puerh-style loose tea that I shared for a thermos session a week or two ago, but today enjoyed all to myself--it is remarkably tolerant of a broad range of infusion styles.

starting the new year off with a very specialty from Morning Crane via TeaBuy Korea: Nok Goryeo Dancha from Sin Mog. This is an amazing tea that comes compressed in a tuo-shaped ball composed if delicate small leaves that cannot be pried apart without breaking a lot of them--I imagine that traditionally it was supposed to be aimed to loosen it up before you would open it up, and then you'd use all the leaf in a short time. but since I want to be sparing with this amazing tea, I'm resorting to picking it apart and of course saving every bit of broken leaf.

it smells floral and fruity and wonderfully of tea when you open up the jar. When infused, the liquor is something between a very floral and delicate white tea, a slightly more vegetable green tea, and a delicate balhyocha.

Wishing everyone happiness like this throughout the new year.

[edited to fix autocorrect of laurel back to intended floral]

Sound delicious @debunix, thanks for sharing!

Just learned from NPR that it is national hot tea day in the us.

https://nationaltoday.com/national-hot-tea-day/

Apparently it is also the Feast of Fabulous Wild Men Day...
https://nationaltoday.com/feast-of-fabu ... d-men-day/


Cheers

without even knowing it, I've been celebrating national hot tea day with friends and colleagues all day....first Da Hong Pao from Wing Hop Fung, and now on to Halmonicha from Jeon Yae Yuen.
Mmmm.... hot tea is fine on a very chilly day.

A new toy has arrived, a tiny porcelain kyusu, about 100 ml. Brewing a sencha from 2023.

I've been celebrating national hot tea day with the last of an average unsmoked lapsang. Fortunately, I bought only 25 g. I have some Margaret's Hope Moonlight from Thunderbolt I need to try ... or I could finally break out those Daxue Jiadao samples.

@debunix, I always forget about Japanese kyusu because most of them have side handles. Please let me know if you ever find a back-handle kyusu in that size. Enjoy your new toy!

Starting the day with a dianhong/jiaogulan grandpa mix. Getting ready for an intercontinental flight with a 2-year old, calls for something no-frills and simple

Bi Luo Chun Supreme (first harvest)
Light sweet and mild green tea

I am in the Austin, TX area for a wedding, and thought i'd take my Dad to West China Tea. I've never been before, but Sohan's "Gong Fu TeaCha" videos helped get me started with my obsession! It was great meeting him, and we tried a lot of great teas. His "Smoke bomb" Young sheng and "Stone Axe" Shou were fantastic, and to top it off, he poured some nice 2013 aged white tea (Which was indeed treasure). Thank you to Sohan and Nick for your great service and conversation!

Working on Spring cleaning and organization today. I found a left over bag of Hojicha from 2018 in a ziplock bag along with other tea samples. Surprisingly, it's still pretty good. Anyone tried to age Hojicha?

I have a Horoku, a pot I bought to re-roast tea. I’ll try brewing my unintentionally aged genmaicha before roasting it.

Janice wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 23, 2024 4:32 pm

I have a Horoku, a pot I bought to re-roast tea. I’ll try brewing my unintentionally aged genmaicha before roasting it.

If the genmaicha is pretty good now, you might re-roast only half of it, in case the re-roast hurts the tea instead of helping it.

It's been a lovely tea day. I started with some water left on the sencha leaves from yesterday's morning sencha (from Obubu), because yesterday morning I was in a rush and could not 'finish' the session. I somehow hit upon a very nice dilution of that cool concentrated infusion with fresh hot water, and it was quite pleasing.

Then I knew I needed portable tea to be moving around as I prepared a journal club presentation for noon today, and went back and forth from sitting to pacing to sitting to the treadmill, gathering throughts and clarifying what the paper was about.....and I infused some of the lovely Daxue Jiadao Qimen black tea in a large pot, and after a good long while, poured that into a small thermos with some cool water already inside to not burn my tongue. I consider this a rather harsh brewing fashion but this fine tea accomodated that easily and gracefully, and got me through my presentation prep and delivery.

Now, after a nap to catch up on some of the missed sleep from reading and working late into the night and early in the morning, I'm enjoying a grandpa brewed session of some Alishan 'Secret Garden' tea from Floating Leaves. This 2023 harvest was freshly opened today, and though it was not vacuum packed, it was still wonderfully fresh and light and sweet. It's going to be a fine companion as I work through the evening (gotta make up a bit for that nap and prep for tomorrow's workday).

I had a rather light tea day. I worked on finishing some 2023 Anji Bai Cha to make room for my 2024 green teas, grandpa steeping 3 g in about 250 ml of water. It lasted at least five steeps and retained much of the green bean, asparagus, and umami profile I like about this tea, probably because it was vacuum sealed until I started drinking it near the beginning of March. I still got some peach and citrus, but probably less than when it was fresh. I feel sad that I've almost accomplished my mission and there will be no more of this tea in my cupboard.

I also had a nice session of a 2023 Jin Jun Mei made from Huang Guan Yin material (6 g, 120 ml, 40/60/80/100/120 seconds). Setting the timer got annoying pretty quickly. It was a delicate, rosy, herbaceous JJM with some cocoa notes and a little dryness. It's probably not what a traditional JJM should taste like, but I could drink floral teas like this all day!