New and Improved!!

Many of you that have been in the shop this month may have noticed the absence of our usual tea-pot-and-china-cup service. We still serve the same great teas - just in a different container.

Our new space does not allow for a kitchen - a necessity for serving tea in pots and china cups - so we've had to change to paper. However, if you would like to drink your tea old style, you are welcome to bring your own cup or mug; we just can't wash it for you. The good news is that our fabulous neighbor at Dinners Ready will let us use her convection oven so we can still serve fresh scones! And, we'll still have tables for you to sit at and enjoy your treats.

It's gonna be fabulous!! :-)

About Blended Teas

Many of you have asked about our flavored or blended teas - how do they add the flavor? what makes it a blend? So, I did a little research and I found a nice article that talks about tea blending:

http://www.teatimeworldwide.com/About_Tea/tea-blending.html

The quick answer is that essential oils are usually used to add flavor to loose leaf teas. All the little pretty bits of flowers or fruit are often just there for decoration and don't add anything to the flavor of the tea. Tea is often blended using big blending drums that rotate to mix the different ingredients. This is why most blended teas (like English Breakfast, for example) have smaller looking leaf pieces - the blending can cause the dried leaves to break up a little. Or, in the case of lower quality bagged teas, the fannings or crumbs that are left after all the good stuff is culled out are used for blending. 

Some of our most popular blends include Deb's Green Pear, Scottish Breakfast, Cherries in the Snow, and our own Village Yarn & Tea blend.

Next week I'll talk about Tisanes which are blended "infusions" that do not contain any tea leaves at all.

Ruby #18

Ruby #18 is a black tea from Taiwan, named after the tea garden from which the leaves are picked. This very special tea is a hybrid of the Camellia Sinensis Assamica from India and the wild Taiwanese variety growing near Sun Moon Lake. A chameleon of flavor, sometimes chocolatey, spicey, or sweet and caramely. It is always complex and wonderful. (I think it has a lovely honey aftertaste, myself.) Because it is so special, the price is $10/2 oz but worth every penny.

Surrounded by green mountains, Sun Moon Lake is the pearl of Central Taiwan.　Sun Moon Lake is the largest natural lake in Taiwan.　The Eastern part of the lake is round like the sun, while the Western part is shaped like a crescent moon - hence the name "Sun Moon Lake".

In the middle of the lake (between the "sun" and the "moon") is an island which has long been a sacred place for the Shao people. This island (Lalu) is off-limits to visitors. Only the Shao people can go there to worship their ancestors. When looking up information about this area I found lots of beautiful photographs and descriptions of trails that visitors may walk. What a lovely place to visit! (some day, some day)

Goodies

Goodie number one: Yarn Keeper Bracelets

When we were at Madrona, Victoria and I saw someone walking around knitting with their yarn hanging from their arm on a bracelet thingy. Victoria came back to the shop and did some great detective work and found out where we could buy them! We have two types - one with a row counter and one without. Very handy! (Or is that "wristy.")

Goodie number two: New Tea Flavors

If you have stopped by the shop in the past few weeks you may have sampled a new tea from Golden Moon called Coconut Pouchong. I don't care if you don't like coconut, this stuff is amazing!! We liked it so much we decided to try some other teas from Golden Moon (GM) and they are pretty darn good as well. Here is a list of all our new teas:

• Coconut Pouchong (GM) - Winner of Tea World Expo's 2007 Best Tea Award
• White Ginger (GM) - White tea leaves and Yin Zhen buds blended with freshly dried ginger root
• White Persian Melon (GM) - White tea with the essence of fresh summer melon (great iced)
• French Breakfast (GM) - An estate tea from the high mountain region of Ceylon with a honey, Merlot aftertaste - perfect with a sweet afternoon pastry.
• Kalahari - A fruity blend of fully fermented Rooibos
  

Our next blog: "New Spring Yarns" or "Fiberpalooza" or "Why Ellen Smashed the Label Maker!"

What!? A tea blog entry?

I know, I hardly EVER post anything about just tea but I want to change that. I guess we just don't get as much of a response about tea entries as yarn related entries.

What's new in the tea department:

I've just started ordering tea from Golden Moon Tea and the first two flavors have arrived - Coconut Pouchong and White Persian Melon. OMG - the coconut is to die for and can be used as a substitute for the water you use when making rice. Imagine some exotic dish with coconut infused rice on the side...... yummmm. And the melon smells like fresh cantaloupe and is great hot or on ice. I also have a new Darjeeling First Flush from Rishi that is light and lovely.

I love tea and I love talking about tea so if you ever want to learn more about it, just get me started!

Making Oolong

I was just reading another great article in my Tea & Coffee trade mag about the making of tea. It is amazing the amount of human labor that goes in to making tea - good or bad - and what a great deal we get when we buy it! Making really good tea is very labor intensive and takes a great deal of knowledge to do it right. When you see some of the higher quality teas going for upwards of $250 per kilo, it has a great deal to do with the process, not just the flavor and aroma.


Oolong is considered the fussiest of teas to produce. Here is a quick lesson in how a tea is catagorized: green and (most) white teas are not oxidized; black teas are fully oxidized. Oolongs fall in the middle and are only partially oxidized - this is where the skill is needed to know when the tea is at the right oxidation stage.

The process of making the tea goes something like this:
1] leaves are plucked and scattered over large flat basket trays to wither a bit
2] leaves are tossed BY HAND to "bruise" the edges. The amount of bruising is important; too much and you expose too much of the leaf to oxidation. There are several resting periods between tosses. This part of the process can take 7 hours or more!
3] the leaves then go into a bamboo rolling tumbler for more bruising. This is when the experts come in to check on the amount of bruising to determine if the leaves are ready for the next step. Now we're talking 16 hours into the process.
4] more resting for the leaves (and workers, I imagine).
5] now the leaves are ready to be dried - this stops the oxidation process - and about 50% of the moisture has been removed. This is the rolling stage.

More sorting and stabilizing happens until it is finally stable and ready for drinking. A very long and involved process!


Picture this: One person in one day plucks 12 - 15 kilograms of fresh leaves; five kilos of fresh leaves make one kilo of finished oolong; 10 kilos of withered tea gets two and a half kilos of tea to the rolling stage. (1 Kilo is just over 35 ounces; that will make about 450 cups at the American taste level - i.e. weaker than most Asian drinkers.) And remember, most of the pluckers are women!

Enjoy your next cup of tea!
Deb