Teasippings

North American Tea Championship Iced Tea Class winners

2011-06-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

North American Tea Championship Iced Tea Class winners

The results of the 2011 North American Tea Championship were in on June 1. This is just the first time I had a chance to write about it.
I found it very surprising that Rishi did not have any winners this time. They have scored big with their iced teas in the past.

There was a time when I would not drink the RTD iced teas, but in recent years, their quality has improved. ITO EN in particular makes a great unsweetened brew in their TEA'S TEA line. It actually tastes like tea, not tea soda. I am not quite sure how Snapple became a first place winner. I am going to have to try their bottled tea again. To me it always tastes like slightly tea-flavored soda or juice drink, not much like tea.

I much prefer to brew my own iced tea. I use Tetley's British blend. It's a blend of Assam and Ceylon. It has tiny leaves for quick brewing, but the tea has a good flavor. This makes me think that the tea is the broken pieces of good tea left behind after processing as many teabag teas are. As James Norwood Pratt has said, the dust of good tea is better than the full leaf of bad tea. Or something like that. I forget his exact words.

Last year I used green teas for iced tea for the first time. I find that green teas can be even more refreshing than the black teas. One needs merely be more aware of the more subtle flavors of green teas. The Tea Spot's Boulder Blues is my favorite green iced tea, though I am going to try their Jasmine Petal green tea soon.

I also have the lightly oxidized Darjeeling that Shiv gave me. It is very sweet and subtle. I think it will be delicious iced.

Tea--there’s an app for that. Now you can order tea on iPhone - National tea | Examiner.com

2010-09-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Tea--there’s an app for that. Now you can order tea on iPhone - National tea | Examiner.com

This is my most recent article on Tea Examiner. I sort of had to chuckle at the idea of it. Why would anyone need such an application? Actually, the information on the Teavana website does not say whether this is one application or two different ones.
I cannot fathom anyone needing an iPhone to find out how to steep his or her tea or to time it. I cannot imagine being so lazy about buying tea that one would want to do it by pushing buttons on the phone.

I do buy tea on the Internet, but I like to look through several sites to make my choices. This application limits the buyer to only Teavana, which is the point, I suppose. They would want an app. to buy only from them to increase their sales.

I enjoy reading the websites of the various tea companies. That not only gives me a wider choice of teas, it exposes me to new information. There are teas I would never have known about let alone tried if it had not been for looking through the websites of The Tea Spot, Teas Etc., Rishi, Kusmi, and Adagio, just to mention a few.

Speaking of the Tea Spot, I have been taking my Tuffy Steeper everywhere. When my daughter took 3 days to have her baby, having my own tea and my Tuffy at the hospital was a huge comfort. The fact that my daughter had been in labor for more than two days was enough to completely frazzle me. Like many tea drinkers, I turned to tea to hold me together. Weak hospital tea made from cheesy teabags was not enough. So I took my Tuffy and some sandwich bags of good tea, put my Tuffy into a hospital cafeteria Styrofoam cup, used their hot water, and paid for tea even though I used my own. It was worth it to drink real tea instead of stale tea dust.

The Examiner.com new publishing tool is available, so I will be able to get to the tea reviews now. If you do not read Tea Examiner, you will find them here.

The rooster teapot has nothing to do with this post. I just liked it.

Tea Examiner to be on Lainie Sips podcast Wednesday, September 8 - National tea | Examiner.com

2010-09-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

Tea Examiner to be on Lainie Sips podcast Wednesday, September 8 - National tea | Examiner.com

A great deal is happening right now. For one thing, I became a grandmother on August 13. Her name is Delilah June, seven pounds, 15 ounces.
My daughter had a hard time of it, and I was there with her off and on for about 5 days.

I think my Tuffy steeper from The Tea Spot helped me a lot. I took my own loose tea and my Tuffy steeper and used the cafeteria's cup and hot water. I paid for tea. I was not going to explain what I was doing. I just was not in the frame of mind to tolerate drinking food service teaba tea. I wanted good tea.

The teas I took with me were The Tea Spot's Bolder Breakfast and Boulder Blues and Thepuritea's Red Dragon Pearls. I am sure it did not hel my daughter, but it helped me so I could help her.

The most recent exciting thing to happen is that the charming and very knowledgeable Lainie Petersen is going to interview me on the Lainie Sips podcast next week. You can read all about it in the article the link goes to.

As soon as Examiner.com gets its new editing software together and we make the transfer, I will be writing lots and lots of reviews. I will try to put the link on Tea Sippings, but sometimes the link buttons work and sometimes they don't and sometimes I just do not get the time.

Review: Zealong Pure, exclusively from Chicago Tea Garden

2010-07-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Review: Zealong Pure, exclusively from Chicago Tea Garden

I finally had the time to really pay attention to the sample of Zealong Pure that Tony Gebely sent me from Chicago Tea Garden. This is the kind of tea that should be drunk in serene surroundings, like on a patch of grass next to a clear pool of water fed by a trickling fountain. Unfortunately, I drank it to the sounds of the unsupervised children in my apartment building running up and down the stairs screaming and shouting.

Still, I tried to let myself be as serene as possible. I steeped this tea a total of six times. It was fabulous. It is a very, subtle tea, with an under-note that reminded me, very faintly, of cinnamon flavored cactus candy. The taste is barely there, but it is there. I would not have missed this tea for the world. It was almost like drinking delicate flower petals that had been liquified. Amazing.

I drank the tea from the glass in the slide show. I wanted to be able to see the beauty and clarity of the tea as I drank it. I drank each cup of this tea very slowly. It took me about five hours to make and drink each steeping. It was one of the loveliest tea experiences of my life.

Thank you, Tony, for letting me review Zealong. Reviews of the other two are coming soon.

Chicago Tea Garden now has Zealong

2010-07-10T04:18:00.000-07:00

This week I finally managed to get the article about Chicago Tea Garden's exclusive on Zealong published on Tea Examiner. The number of topics piling up to be written about seems endless.

Tony Gebely said he is going to send me some tea samples. I can barely wait to try the Zealong. I used to have a real thing for oolong. It was my first loose tea experience on my own. I bought some jasmine oolong in China Town in Los Angeles. I was 15 and with my church group. The other teenagers were really surprised at my purchase. They had bought useful things such as plastic fans and back scratchers.

But I was already in love with tea. I bought the jasmine oolong and a green tea. I loved the way both of them smelled. I had never smelled anything so fresh and natural as that green tea. I can still taste it in my memory. There are probably some official tea cupping words to describe it, but to me it was just green, like the green of nature. I had grown up on black tea, a taste I now recognize as Ceylon tea. I still love that flavor. But the green tea and the jasmine oolong were very exciting to me. It was what started me on a quest to experience as many flavors of tea as I could.

The Zealong will be a new experience. I am trying not to anticipate how it will taste. I cannot help wondering how being grown in New Zealand will affect the flavor and color of the tea. I hope I will know the right words to describe it. I have a good sense of taste and smell, though, and I make up my own descriptions for the tea whether they fit the standard cupping vocabulary or not. I am sure readers will know what I mean even if I do not know the exact proper words.

Red Rocks and Cream, a Tea Spot Chef recipe for ice cream

2010-06-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

Red Rocks and Cream, a Tea Spot Chef recipe for ice cream

My friend, Karen Harbour, is a professional chef who cooks with tea. Every week or so she sends me a recipe to try and to post on Tea Examiner. This one sounds particularly good, but it has too much fat and cholesterol for me. That doesn't keep me from wanting to share it.
If you have an ice cream make, this would be a great recipe to try.

So far the teas I have liked best from The Tea Spot are Bolder Breakfast, Boulder Blues, Earl of Grey, and their Darjeeling. Their Darjeeling was a little more fruity than I am accustomed to, but what I am accustomed to is Twinings, which I have come to realize is not the height of flavor in loose teas that I once thought it was.

In the past year I have tried teas from Teas Etc., Dilmah, Tetley, Rishi, Celestial Seasonings, Republic of Tea, The Tea Spot, and Kusmi, just to name the ones off the top of my head. I learned that the reason white tea had no taste to me was that I was brewing it completely wrong. After finding weeks of conflicting information, I experimented until I found the method that worked for me. I now use 8 ounces of spring water at a temperature of 150 degrees and steep for about 6 minutes, making each successive steeping 2 minutes longer. The flavor changes with each steeping.

I still flavor strong black teas. I like the kick. But I have discovered a taste for green and white teas as well. My next tea experiment, when I finish my Darjeeling and White Tea Experiments will be comparing Japanese and Chinese green teas. I have been making lists of teas that I want to try and buying one or two at a time. I wish the classes were not so expensive and so far away. Oh well, with the help of friends who know more than I do and my own good nose and taste buds, I will muddle through.

If I had known how much I did not know when I started to write Tea Examiner, I might not have taken the job, but then I would have missed out on some of the greatest experiences of my life.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Actually our family celebrated yesterday. My mother is far away from me, but my daughter and I celebrated with our husbands at Mimi's. It was her first Mother's Day as a mother, though her baby is not due until August. I really wanted to honor her as a mother because my first Mother's Day, when I was six weeks away from giving birth, my husband told me I was not a real mother. He did not even say "yet", just not a real mother. When are you more a mother than when the child is in your womb?

I wanted to go to Mimi's because I just love it there and so does my daughter, but also because my Mother first introduced us to Mimi's years ago.

Another thing my mother introduced me to was tea. She gave me the Blue willow tea set that was my first as a child. She also taught me how to drink tea. We had many tea parties at my little wooden table.

I never broke any of that tea set, but years later my little brother decided to climb the shelf where it was stored and pulled over the whole huge shelf ensemble. Every piece was smashed except for the teapot and the lid to the sugar bowl. I was terribly upset, but of course I could not be mad at him. He was only four. Four-year-olds do not understand gravity. They just undersand they want to climb. Still I would love to find another child's blue willow tea set like that someday, but if they still exist, they are probably very costly.

Take a quiz, protect a forest, get free tea | MKStuder on Xanga

2010-01-11T18:59:00.001-08:00

Take a quiz, protect a forest, get free tea | MKStuder on Xanga

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Roast Porkloin Recipe-Yum | MKStuder on Xanga

2010-01-08T15:21:00.001-08:00

Roast Porkloin Recipe-Yum | MKStuder on Xanga

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Teekanne Wants to Giver you Free Tea | MKStuder on Xanga

2010-01-08T14:56:00.001-08:00

Teekanne Wants to Giver you Free Tea | MKStuder on Xanga

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The Biggest Tea Prize Package Ever! | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-12-17T15:01:00.001-08:00

The Biggest Tea Prize Package Ever! | MKStuder on Xanga

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Kusmi of Paris Teas | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-19T15:14:00.001-08:00

Kusmi of Paris Teas | MKStuder on Xanga

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New Moon Opening Day Party | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-19T13:59:00.001-08:00

New Moon Opening Day Party | MKStuder on Xanga

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Helping yourself Stay Well this Winter | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-14T17:40:00.001-08:00

Helping yourself Stay Well this Winter | MKStuder on Xanga

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Gluten Free Alternative Thanksgiving Side Dish | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-12T16:59:00.001-08:00

Gluten Free Alternative Thanksgiving Side Dish | MKStuder on Xanga

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Lemongrass can kill cancer cells | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-08T14:17:00.001-08:00

Lemongrass can kill cancer cells | MKStuder on Xanga

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Bacon Flavored Tea! | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-06T15:14:00.001-08:00

Bacon Flavored Tea! | MKStuder on Xanga

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Thanksgiving Recipe You Must Try | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-05T16:28:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving Recipe You Must Try | MKStuder on Xanga

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Tea Sandwiches for Vegans Recipes | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-11-04T19:15:00.001-08:00

Tea Sandwiches for Vegans Recipes | MKStuder on Xanga

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Great Yam Recipe | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-10-29T14:45:00.001-07:00

Great Yam Recipe | MKStuder on Xanga

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National Chocolate Day and Tea | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-10-28T15:53:00.001-07:00

National Chocolate Day and Tea | MKStuder on Xanga

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Guayaki Yerba Mate unveils Ache's Pride Special Reserve

2009-10-22T13:48:00.001-07:00

Guayaki Yerba Mate unveils Ache's Pride Special Reserve

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Fall recipes: Cranberry apple green tea punch

2009-10-19T14:18:00.001-07:00

Fall recipes: Cranberry apple green tea punch

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Breast cancer fundraiser | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-10-02T17:30:00.001-07:00

Breast cancer fundraiser | MKStuder on Xanga

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Northwest Tea Festival opens Saturday

2009-10-02T14:03:00.001-07:00

Northwest Tea Festival opens Saturday

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Apple-Black Tea Cider Recipe | MKStuder on Xanga

2009-09-28T23:07:00.001-07:00

Apple-Black Tea Cider Recipe | MKStuder on Xanga

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My Review of World Teas in a Hand Carved Box, India

2009-09-24T14:06:00.001-07:00

Originally submitted at Cost Plus World Market

World Market Exclusive! Tea is the most popular beverage in the world, so it makes sense that our search for the best discoveries would include a selection of quality, plantation-grown loose leaf tea. In a one-of-a-kind hand carved tea box with a wooden spoon, tea strainer and three of India's ...

I bought World Teas India It was great

By Tea Examiner from Long Beach CA on 9/24/2009

Pros: Attractive Design, Durable, Nice small sections, Easy To Clean

Best Uses: Assam great for breakfast, Everyday Use

Describe Yourself: Tea Drinker and Writer

This assortment of teas is a great way to try out teas that are new to you in small amounts. The Assam is wonderful for breakfast. Wakes you up better than coffee. The gingered Assam was very interesting, and the Darjeeling delicate and fruity.
I like that the box comes with an infuser and a little wooden teaspoon. The box is definitely reusable for things like new tea in small amounts, sorting beads or buttons, or anything you want to sort. My only concern is that the box isn't really airtight and so the tea must be used quickly

(legalese)

World Tea East opens today

2009-09-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

I wish I could be there. They have winners from the World Tea Championship and other major tea producers on exhibit as well as education on the tea business, everything for food pairing to how tea impacts the world ecology and economy. You can find my article about it here. Rishi Tea sent me two of their artisan organic fair trade teas to review. I loved them both. The Tropical Crimson is bright red and looks as though it would be sweet and fruity, but it really tastes more floral. The scent reminded me of the hibiscus flowers that grew in my yard when I was growing up. I checked the label, and sure enough, hibiscus was the main ingredient. That's not uncommon in herbal teas, but it's usually masked by the stronger herbal flavors. I really enjoyed being able to smell and taste the hibiscus in this one.

Earl Grey

2009-09-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

For breakfast this morning I drank Twinings Earl Grey tea. I love the aroma of Earl Grey. I wish they would make Earl Grey scented candles or potpourri. I suppose I could put out some Earl Grey in a dish, but then I'd hate to waste tea that I could drink instead.

So, after I brewed my tea, I sat in my big chair and sniffed it for a while. I love to just breath in the fragrance of the tea before I drink it. I think it's essential to the tea-drinking experience.

I have several articles I want to write for Tea Examiner. I don't know where to start. I guess with the review of the Rishi artisan iced tea mixes they sent me. They were really lovely. The Tropical Crimson looked as though it would be sweet and fruity, but it wasn't. I was mellow and herbal, smooth. More later. One of my cats is trying to rub my face off. She either wants attention or food.