12/30/07 Part II

I had some Yunnan Jig later in the day anyway. Much better. I felt better after I had it.

The letter from the Adagio people:

Hi Russell,

Thank you for your note. I personally haven't had Teavana's Golden Monkey,
but I would be safe in saying that they are of the same quality- however
Teavana decides to mark up the price is their company policy.

Our musical names go with the theme, but for the most part, you can figure
it out by looking at the tea base name, for example- Ceylon Sonata- is the
regular grade of Ceylon black tea, Ceylon Waltz- a bit of a higher quality
of Ceylon. It also helps to look at the price. Many tea companies give the
same teas various names to be creative and to differentiate themselves from
other tea companies- our names are all musical, to go with our company's
name and theme.

We definitely encourage trying out various brands and types of teas in order
to build your pallet and recognize when you're getting ripped off for low
quality tea, and when you're getting a good deal on high quality tea- hope
this information helps! Have fun discovering the world of fine teas. :)

Please visit us again soon,

Adagio Teas
http://www.adagio.com

This is just a great response. I love them more for it.

12/30/07

So I forgot to put in the response email from Adagio. Ooops. Meanwhile, more Christmas tea: orange, lemon, some other fruits, and spices...just masks the natural tea flavor I like. It seems that I probably should be putting sugar in that tea with all those normally sweet things (except the lemon, of course). It does seem to be premium quality tea. I used my new teapot. It's an improvement in one area: the top is large enough for me to put my whole hand in so I can clean the pot. But it drips something fierce when you pour it. So my search for teapots goes on.

Today was the Ceylon Sonata. Ho hum. I should have gone for the Yunnan Jig...I needed more flavor, more "kick"...

12/27/07

I had the Keemun Concerto today. I made it a bit light, when I was looking for a stronger flavor.

I got lots of tea for Christmas. My sister gave me a beautiful enameled cast iron teacup. My mom got me Christmas loose tea, which came in sealed silver bag. It's flavored with something...I don't remember what. She opened it before I wanted to, and now it's just sitting, unsealed. I haven't even put it in a ziplock back. Bad. Two different co-workers gave me tea: mostly in teabag form, and not-even-tea type stuff, like Rooibos, Mint, and some other kind. I got real tea, too, but it has artificial flavorings in it...It's drinkable, but not great. I also discovered the Twinings is now selling Earl Grey tea loose in 100 g containers (about 3.5 oz) at the grocery store!

I got Ahmad tea...all the teas say that they are the "finest" but I'm beginning to wonder what that is, or what it means.

Lastly, I got a reply email from Adagio, and I have to say I'm impressed. I'll put up the response later today if I think about it.

12/21/07 Part III

A letter I wrote to the Adagio people...

Merry Christmas! I love the Golden Monkey. I was on the teavana.com website, and they are charging $18.50 for 2 oz. of Golden Monkey, whereas you charge so much less. Do you know why the difference? I am a customer of yours, and a loyal one, so I'm just curious more than anything.

One other thing, though. I notice that you have musical names to go with your teas. That makes it difficult to compare your varieties with other tea sellers...

I'm not sounding so loyal...I'm just trying to explore the different teas (mainly black teas at this point). Thanks for your help!

Also...do you know of any teapots that have infusers where the infuser has a handle that can be used to pull the infuser out of the pot without having to reach into the pot and burn your fingers (and contaminate the tea), or use some other tool to do that. Because if you don't pull the infuser and tea leaves out of the pot, you have to serve it all at once. Not ideal.

Thanks for everything!

12/21/07 Part II

Golden Monkey...I looked at the Adagio website, and it's $4 for a 2 oz tin, whereas for the same amount at teavana, it's $18.50! Yikes. Not sure why the difference. I'm having the last of the Golden Monkey from Adagio right now, it's a bit weak, and so not as good as I'd like, but still drinkable. It's still soothing to the soul.

Meanwhile, I came across the cast iron teapots...they are soooo nice! And expensive. But I'm back to the infuser problem: they have the infusers that fit into the pot, but how are you supposed to remove them once the tea is done steeping??? They don't have any kind of handle or anything to get them out of the near boiling, cooling liquid. An improvement, no doubt, but still not good enough. There needs to be a handle on these infusers and a slot in the lid to let the infuser handle stick out.

12/21/07

Went to Teavana last night. Lots of teaware, but no tea. They have it in cans behind the counter, so you can't get to it without involving one of the people that works there. They say they have the top 5% of tea from the best tea gardens, but I don't know what that really means. I'll have to research that. They two different Rooibos teas, but I don't like it, and it's not really tea...

12/19/07

Keemun Concerto! Good stuff. Especially when I make it not too strong. No cloudy tea, no bitterness from over-steeping...just good tea. I know why the infuser doesn't make me happy: it's because there's too much tea in it. If I do it right, then it works out. Still not optimal, but good nonetheless. I still have to figure out how to get the amount of tea right for each type of tea. More for the Ceylon, less for the Keemun...and so on.

Keemun Concerto tastes like there's just a hint of lemon...I do like it.

12/18/07

I made the Ceylon Sonata today, a bit weaker...and I regret it. Ceylon tea should be stronger.

Pouring of tea...designed to be slow. And deliberate. You can't pour any faster than the pot, because if you try, it will just spill out the top.

Yesterday I steeped the tea too long, and it was bitter...

12/17/07

I have no idea what I had to drink for tea this morning. So I've figured out that too strong of a tea makes for cloudy tea. I wish I could figure that out. Maybe get a scale instead of trying to eyeball the amount that goes into the infuser that I hate so much.

Over the weekend I had lots of cafe con leche. My kitchen is a disaster...but I won't go into that right now. It's just easier to microwave the water and scoop dried coffee-milk into a cup, and add sugar. It makes me feel full, though. Sometimes too full. Not a pleasant feeling.

12/13/07

Well, I'm almost out of Golden Monkey. Everyone at my job laughs at the name, but I love it. It is a unique tea. It's a bit too hot to taste, but I can already tell, as it cools, that it will be a great tea again today. It is a unique flavor, and very subtle...I don't have the vocabulary for it...it's also one of the best, I think. I'm going to buy a much larger tin of that just for me.

I'm noticing that the other teas are starting to blend in with each other in my mind. Not enough distinquishes them. I like them each a lot, but while they are unique, they aren't different enough...vocubulary failing me again here...I like the Ceylon Sonata, it's a great black tea. I like the Keemuns, too...though the Encore is better than the Concerto. I'm staying away from the Darjeeling #22, but the Yunnan Jig is pretty good...Assam Melody...haven't had that in a while.

12/12/07

I made Yunnan Jig this morning, but very strong! I knew it when I was putting the leaves in the infuser, but still, it's strong! Again with the infuser. Maybe after Christmas. It also doesn't taste as good...not as happy today with my tea. I don't want to start over, either...it would be a waste.

I'm going to buy a larger tin of the Golden Monkey...that's the one that's going the fastes, and one of the top items that I like...

12/11/07

Keemun Concerto + Oatmeal for breakfast = lots of trips to the bathroom. Good stuff. I still hate my infuser, at least as it relates to my teapot. It's just not big enough. I saw a teapot on the internet that does what I want it to do, except it was all stoneware...maybe that isn't so bad.

12/9/07

I'm sick today, or was, I guess. I'm feeling better. I made the Gold Monkey (down to half a small tin) this morning. Unfortunately, I made it a bit weak on accident: I spilled some of the tea leaves out of the infuser on the way to get water. Making weak leads me to the conclusion that maybe the stronger I make it the more it will make me have to go the bathroom. I didn't really have that problem today. On the other hand, maybe it's because I didn't eat breakfast first. I had oatmeal today, but that was after the tea. There needs to be a standardized amount of tea depending on the tea itself.

12/7/07 Part II

So, I think I'm getting used to drinking the tea...having the entire pot of tea, with the caffeine that goes with it, is a problem. I have to go to the bathroom about 5 times a day at work, and it's becoming a problem. I love the tea, but I don't like all the going that I have to do. I know it's the caffeine...sigh.

12/7/07

Yunnan Jig. Good stuff. I'm feeling a bit sick today, so this helped. I think I got it right today, and it was pretty good. Strength-wise, that is. I don't really know what else to say about it.

I know one thing I want for Christmas is the book about the different kinds of drinks: coffee, tea, coke, wine, beer. I also want new tea stuff...

12/5/07

I didn't drink tea yesterday. I had coffee at Cracker Barrel. I love that stuff. I made a darjeeling last night for Amanda, though.

Meanwhile, today, I've got Darjeeling #22. It's pretty good today! I got it right.

I have a thought about tea vs. coffee. On my way into work today, I'm thinking, Cafe con leche. That is wonderful! But it's heavier, and not 'clean' like tea is. Not sure how to describe it. Tea is cleansing, I think. And it's a good compliment to the oatmeal I eat most mornings for breakfast. It all feels clean...yet satisfying. I guess with cafe con leche I can feel the fat in the milk, or the creamer...coffee does have a body and complexity not found in tea, at least, not in the same way.

12/3/07

I like the Keemun teas so far. Keemun concerto was today's tea. I like the way the dried leaves smell, and their texture.

I'm developing a problem with my teapot dribbling a little bit off the spout. Not sure what to do about that. Goes back to getting a 'better' teapot. I'd love to get one of these metal ones, but they cost $80! Too rich for my blood. I may have to invest in that anyway...Maybe I can design my own teapot...

11/30/07

Keemun Concerto...I must have made it strong enough, because I feel the jitters a bit from the tea. But it doesn't have much flavor, though it is a bit cooling, and very smokey. I got a tea booklet in Missouri over the summer, and I was reading through it the other day. Very interesting...I'll have to remember to comment about in more detail later. Meanwhile, not much to say.

11/29/07

When I do it right, I love it! The Assam Melody I did with the just the right strength, and it turned out wonderfully! I don't think I was as much a fan of this before, but it had the right color, and taste, where I could taste it without it being too powerful. This tea turned out great. It's moved up in my list of 'teas that I like'.

Meanwhile, I have found that with the infuser, the tea dust that settles in the bottom of the pot doesn't usually come out until I hit the dregs. So I get good tea out of two cups, and then the dregs I can just pour out. No cloudy tea, no tea dust, no leaves.

11/28/07

Today, we're drinking the Ceylon Sonata. Still figuring out the strength, and how to handle the infuser problem. Maybe it doesn't have a solution, except to refashion an infuser that's deep, and wider, and has a better handle, and refashion the lid, too. I wonder why no one has done anything like that.

As for the strength, any time I see a picture of a cup of tea, it's far lighter than I would prefer it, in terms of color, which presumably means it would also be less strong.

I wonder what secret there is that people have with tea leaves remaining in the water for too long. How do they do it? No one seems to say. They just enjoy their tea, have great pics of tea plantations, and that's it. Maybe asking for mechanical details of this process is too much. Too much minutiae...

11/27/07

Today's tea was Yunnan Jig. Not sure what happened today, but the tea tasted good, yet there was a metallic flavor in there. I'm not a fan of my teapot, nor the infuser, since it doesn't go deep enough in the teapot, which doesn't allow for the tea leaves to expand right, and the lid doesn't go on with the infuser in there...When I do drink the tea, it is faster, because it cools in the cup quicker since I brew in the teapot, and I drink it faster since I can just pour another cup, rather than have to go through the brew in the cup process all over again.

And let's talk about stimulation! With me drinking the tea faster, I've gotten quite a boost! Sometimes I'm just jittery, though yesterday I felt extremely alert and aware of what was going on around me, almost like someone had lifted some kind of veil. Today I'm not so "extra aware"...maybe because I didn't sleep that much last night.

I'm not sure why it's so hard to get a decent teapot/infuser combo, either. I've done some looking, and can't seem to find anything. I wonder if there's any philosophy on this that I'm missing. Maybe someone can get me a book on tea for Christmas.

11/26/07

Today, I'm drinking Golden Monkey. Ahhh pleasure! It's soo good after drinking the unappealing darjeeling. I think I'll throw the darjeeling out when I get home. It smells good when it's brewing, but that's about all.

Back to the Golden Monkey. I think I made it a tad too strong, but it's still enjoyable. I brought my teapot to work...I do have another one at home, I forgot! I can leave the blue one there. Because the blue teapot makes three cups, and I drink two, I'm trying to share what I have with someone, but not sure who. I've got to be careful, though, because making that much more at once means I'll go through it more quickly...

11/25/07

Darjeeling again. I'm beginning to think that this tea has had its day, as its flavor and 'coolness' has gone. It's just kinda plain and ordinary. I played with the amount again, using less this time, and it just turned out to be lighter without any real benefit in taste change. I should just use it up quickly so I can get some more.

Separately, I find the process of making tea to be crude somehow. Tea leaves, dried, placed in hot water. Then they get into your cup. The teapot drips a bit out of the spout. The time to steep, the cloud that sometimes gets into the cup, other details. It doesn't seem very elegant. You have to get the tea leaves out of the cup, or the pot, and it's messy, and wet, and you have these brown, unfurled leaves to deal with. They don't come out of the pot well, or the tea basket infuser, or they sit in the bottom of your cup. Then your cup gets tea stained, and you have to scrub it, or bleach it (no, I don't bleach my cups).

I don't drink tea for the health benefits, but because it's interesting that something simple like a plant in water could have so many flavors. Or something. Maybe I just think it's exciting to drink tea. It really is quite an experience.

11/24/07

Today I had the Darjeeling. Not sure which 'flush' it is. I've discovered that for this tea, the timing of the picking of tea makes a difference in its taste. The #1 from Adagio is better than the #22, but the Darjeeling I have from the Soulard Market is somewhere in between. And then there's the strength of it. I need to start making it in the pot more to figure it out. When I like it better is when it's not too strong. It can't be too weak, either. If I do it right, then it has the wonderful cooling sensation that I like so much, even though it's hot.

11/23/07

Today, we're drinking coffee. Not at work today, at my sister's. Duncan Donuts coffee. Vanilla something coffee. It's good stuff.

Yesterday, though, I had some waayyy strong tea. My sister's in-laws are Iranian, and they made Earl Grey tea, but he steeps it for 20 minutes! It makes for a very strong, bitter cup of tea. Yikes! I was offered some baklava to go with it. It was about the only way I could keep drinking it. It was loose tea as well. When I found out that they had it, I had to have some! I was surprised when he said how long it would be before it would be ready, then I found out why. Whew! It was a good day yesterday.

My brother in law's mom said that English tea is the best. Since I'm not sure what that is, I don't know. I didn't think to pursue it, since there was so much activity at Thanksgiving at her house.

11/22/07

Thanksgiving day. Normally I drink my tea at work, as part of my 'getting started for the day' ritual. Today I'm home, drinking tea made in my teapot. Organic Nilgiri. I got it in the Soulard Farmers' Market in St. Louis is July. I don't remember the name of the shop, but they have all kinds of coffees and teas and spices, and a bunch of other stuff. It's a very Old World kind of place in the New World.

The tea itself is also unremarkable. I guess I'll have to do some research to find out why people seem to like this tea. I've seen a few people sing its praises in their blogs, but I don't get it. It just doesn't thrill me.

11/21/07

Today we're having Assam Melody. I'd tried it at home, in my teapot, but at first I'd made it too strong, and then tried it again and it was too weak. The process I use for making tea is different at home, since I have a teapot, than at work, where all I have is a coffee cup (with different words for coffee on it, like espresso, or roast amaretto -- I love the irony of it), and a stainless steel infuser, about the size of the cup. It works out well. I have a better idea of how much tea to put in the infuser than in the teapot.

The teapot didn't come with an infuser, which is a pain, since you have to pour all of the tea out of the pot when it's done steeping, since you can't take the tea out. What's worse is that there's no hole in the lid for the chain of a basket infuser, and no space for one that sits in the pot.

Back to the tea itself: it's not a very distinctive tasting tea. It's kind of plain, and ordinary. Doesn't really stand out.

11/20/07

So, we're having Yunnan Jig today. It's a great tea! Very smokey, though, but not in a bad way. I think I'm done with double brewing my tea leaves. It makes for a weaker, less flavorful cup. I'm also concerned about the caffeine part, since I saw a method decaffinating tea by brewing it for 30 seconds (which gets out 80% of the caffeine), and then brewing again in fresh water for the remaining brewing time. This means that I'm getting far less caffeine out of the second cup.

Another issue that I come across is that my cup gets stained by the tea. I have to scrub out the stains, though I guess I could bleach involved, but that's no fun, either. I need to bring my tea pot to work.

One last thing. It's taken me a while to realize that the different teas from Adagio have musical names: Harmony, Concerto, Sonata, Melody. I guess that goes with Adagio…according to Wikipedia's disambiguation page

Adagio (from Italian ad agio, 'at ease') may refer to:

Adagio, in musical notation, a tempo marking indicating that the music is to be played slowly

I imagine that they want you to drink your tea slowly, or maybe simply be at ease.

11/19/07

Today, we're drinking Ceylon Sonata. I'm not sure how I did it differently today, since it doesn't have that same flavor as the first time I had it. Maybe the tea itself has changed since I've opened the tin so much. Maybe I didn't make it as strong. Just don't know. I'm also experimenting with steeping the same leaves twice, just to see if the tea holds up for the second cup, (Ooops. I rhymed. Sue me :-) because I saw it on a website/blog about tea. I tried it yesterday with the Golden Monkey, and that turned out okay. Today, I just got brown water, without much flavor. I'm finding that I like stronger teas, but not too strong.

In other tea news, I forgot to bring my teapot, and forgot the other two tea tins. Maybe tomorrow. (Lot of maybes today)…

Went to the Empress Tea Room, and it really is a room. Okay, two rooms. And almost exclusively women. High tea was all that they were serving on Saturday, and it is $16.95 per person. Yikes! There's a British place out on North Dale that does tea for $5. Haven't been there yet, but worth exploring.

11/18/07 First Post

Today, we are drinking Keemun Concerto. It's got a smokey aroma to it, both in the leaves and the brewed tea, and as it cools it's got a slight bit of citrus-y flavor, without the sweet or tart. It's also pretty smooth. I looked up the word "keemun" on wikipedia, and it says "fruity" or "pine"…I had Keemun Encore before in my first batch of teas, and loved that one, not so sure about the Concerto.

The Ceylon Sonata is more of a traditional tasting tea, like the kind you would get out of a tea bag. It's just richer somehow…I lack vocabulary for describing all of these tastes and flavors, and don't care much for what vocabulary there is for describing flavors, because it seems pretentious…

The Golden Monkey is a great tea! It wasn't bitter, or have an unusual flavor…it's in my top tier of great teas. I have about 3:Darjeeling #1, Keemun Encore, and Golden Monkey.

So there ya go. :-)