All About Tea

The full name of this tea is actually “Arya Estate Early F1 (EX-1) Darjeeling FTGFOP1 (Organic)” imported by Upton Tea. I don’t know whether I should either curtsy or wait for the judge to award “Best in Breed”.

A sample of this lovely tea was a gift from a friend I met through my spinning wheel group. We’d talk tea, science fiction, wool fibers, writing, acting, farming, podcasting and anything else you can think of. She and her herd of goats, many artisanal cheeses and entirely too much raw wool recently moved to Arizona to be with her new husband, a rancher and farmer.

I treated this tea like a typical darjeeling, bringing my water to a full rolling boil, then steeping it for about three and a half minutes.

The brewed tea was a beautiful golden color with a wonderfully mild and smooth, slightly sweet (even without any sweetener) taste. There was nothing too over powering and no aftertaste to speak of. The taste might be a little too mild for some darjeeling lovers but I found this tea went well with everything I had for my afternoon lunch, including a spicy deli meat, crispy raw vegetables and sweet bing cherries and artisanal goat cheese.

Not bad, and definitely a tea to recommend.

It’s been so long since I acquired this tea, I don’t even remember where I found it anymore. Although, to be honest, I know I bought it just for the lovely printed wooden box it came in.

The pamphlet inside reads, “Himalayan Highland Tea Company” … out of Lewisville Texas. Regardless of the packaging and unconfirmed origins, it turns out to be a lovely tea.

Paleswan is a hearty black tea grown in far eastern Nepal. The included pamphlet describes it as “spicy, aromatic and full bodied without a bitter taste”. Interestingly enough, I thought the dried leaves looked a little “paler” than the darjeelings and assams I’ve been drinking lately and there was an abundance of golden color in the mix.

The box suggests steeping four teaspoons in seven cups of boiling water for five minutes, but I decided to go with my preference for most black teas and steeped only three teaspoons for three minutes in water I’d brought to a roiling boil.

It brewed up with a lovely cherry wood color, a deep reddish-brown that I makes me want to use it dye some wool for a sweater. The taste is as lovely as the color: smooth and medium-to-full bodied, with a sort of caramel-chocolate taste that I’m having a hard time really putting my finger on. It’s not really as spicy as I would have expected. (Bearing in mind that this tea has sat in my cabinet for probably ten years now, I was expecting clove or cardamom-type spicy.) The after-taste does remind me a bit of nutmeg. There’s a touch of bitter in that after-taste but nothing unpleasant. Malai chiya dinuhos. (Nepali for “Please give me tea”.)

A bit of Google research turned up one possibility for purchasing a similar tea: Highland Tea. Even the box looks similar. (My little pamphlet says the artwork on my tiny wooden tea chest  is an illustration from The Complete Guide to Ayurveda by Gopi Warrier & Deepika Gunawan, M.D. copyright Element Books Limited 1997.) Unfortunately I could find little else on “paleswan” type teas other than the distinct impression that teas from Nepal are increasingly grown through sustainable agriculture, via cooperative farms and without pesticides. It’s definitely worth investigating a little more.
नमस्ते (Namaste.)

I. Want. This!

It would go SO WELL with my dinosaur  creamer!

There are more space-themed teapots here, my favorite being Take Me To Your Leader.

Hopefully someone out there in Tea Land can help me with this one.

While browsing the web, I stumbled across one of the sexiest single serving tea/teapot combination I’ve seen in a long while. Unfortunately, I’ve only a picture of it:

Does anyone know who the maker/artist is of this lovely design? Has anybody tried this set? (I’m wondering if the seal works well when turning it over and removing the top after steeping.)

Tweeee!

Even the name makes me smile.

Joanne Linder emailed me about her Etsy shop, Vintage Twee, for “an enchantingly English range of hand crafted décor for the loveliest tea party, wedding or shower” and I had to have a peek. Oh, the lovelies! See? See? See?

You manly tea-drinking men may find this all a little too frilly for your tastes but HEY, you already have WOLVERINE so jut leave us ladies some leeway with the pretties, ‘kay?

Seriously though, I love the fact that these are all hand-made with such a romantic Victorian flair. It’s homey, cozy, and couldn’t you see them paired with this heart-shaped tea set from Wagokoro-Ya?

Is it fate that I discovered the following videos just a day after attending a NASA Tweetup (STS-130) at Johnson Space Center?

Patrick Stewart narrating for the environment, tea and NASA.

I heard about this first on Twitter, via @teashopgirl:

Clever and Creative Tea Packaging

The origami tea bags are lovely, I’ve used the side-arm tea bags and the pyramid tea bags before (that’s another blog post someday), the hanger tea bags are terribly cute and I must acquire some, but I’m not sure how I feel about the the cigarette tea bags.

According to a study by Drinking Tea May Trim Men’s Waistlines.

Tavalon tea kindly provides us with a picture of said trim waistline on their Voice of Tea blog.

WebMD explains that:

A new study shows that men who drink more than two cups of tea a day have trimmer waistlines than men who drink coffee or nothing at all. But the same doesn’t hold true for women.

[...]

Researchers say the role between tea drinking and a trim waistline in men and women merits further study.

I agree. So where do I sign up to be a part of this study?

I’ve got another tea article up at English Tea Blog: Tea Recipe – “Tea-ramisu”

I was surfing the Internet recently, just minding my own business, and I stumbled across this tidbit:

Hugh Jackman – aka Wolverine – to be the face of Lipton Ice Tea

Hugh Jackman, the actor most famous as the testosterone-fueled Wolverine in X-Men, is to show his softer side in a global advertising campaign for Lipton Ice Tea.

Jackman, who also played the rugged stockman Drover opposite Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, has signed a three-year deal to front a multimillion-pound campaign, the first he has starred in outside his native Australia.

The European marketing director for Lipton Ice Tea, Francois Bazini, said that it was Jackman’s singing and dancing performance as a host at last year’s Academy Awards that convinced the company to sign him up.

“He has a great personality liked by men and women,” said Bazini. “He is very different from many other actors. He is a true entertainer who can dance, sing and act. We will use all of his skills.”

[...]

Singing. Dancing. Hugh Jackman. For tea.
Who’s the cool kid now, coffee?

Note: The previous comment in no way implies I dislike my coffee brethren who have really cool coffee-making and coffee-drinking toys and accessories that apply perfectly well to tea too and who’ve had actors that warm my nerdy heart (*cough*Scott Bakula/Folgers*cough*) sing coffee’s praises.