Charles' Tea House

Lung Ching

2008-06-18T12:43:00.003-05:00

I'm sure I've posted about this one before, but it's worth covering again. Lung Ching, also known as "dragonwell," is a super-popular type of Chinese green tea. Sort of like Sencha is to the Japanese, Lung Ching is what I think of when I think of your everyday Chinese green tea. And I do that quite often. Like just about everything it comes in a variety of grades, and like everything it is worth your while to get your hands on one of the better grades. The one I've got here is great -- the leaves are dried flat and average about 3/4" in length. I'm going to have to go check out some other Lung Ching teas to see if this is unique to this batch, but these leaves smell like dark chocolate. It's unmistakable and I don't remember ever noticing that before. Of course tea and chocolate are both loaded with alkaloids (I think -- me: not a scientist) so maybe that explains it.

Anyway, it should be noted that you can't really judge tea by looking at dry leaves, no matter how pretty they are or how much they smell like Mars bars. When brewed (for about 2 minutes in 170-180 degree water) the tea is a very pale green, almost yellow, not at all like those Japanese teas. Also unlike the Japanese teas the brew is very buttery and mellow without a grassy taste. I've never seen a chemical analysis but my experience has been that Lung Ching is very stimulating, which I presume is those alkaloids hard at work.

Gyokuro

2008-06-11T10:19:00.004-05:00

Everyone knows that Japan is awesome, so it should be no surprise that Japanese tea is also awesome. It is. Awesomeness abounds. As far as I know, most of the low-end, mass-produced tea they drink (and they drink a lot) is imported from elsewhere, but the higher-grade orthodox teas grown in Japan are always really great. If ever there was a positive stereotype it's that the Japanese have a knack for making great stuff, be it little toy robots or green tea. Oh, and the girls are all pretty, but that's another post. Anyway, on the surface you won't find a whole lot of variety in their teas -- they're all green and there are only about 5 common types -- but there is a lot of room for subtlety and I challenge you to find a bad one.

Today I'm drinking Gyokuro, which loosely translates to "$$$$" in English. It's the top of the line, and well worth the outlay. If the only green tea you've ever had came from Starbucks then you will be surprised by this. It is so damn green it looks artificial, and it smells kind of like peas & corn, but also like freshly cut grass. Early in the morning, while there's still a little mist in the air. If you do it right, and I will tell you how, there is no bitterness at all.

Boil your water and pour it into your cup or teapot. Leave the lid off, and let it sit there for at least two minutes. Once it has cooled some, add your tea leaves -- I like it pretty strong so I usually use at least a heaping teaspoon per cup, maybe a tiny bit more. Let it steep for 90 seconds, remove the leaves and enjoy. You'll get at least three good brews out of it, maybe more, and you can steep it longer each time.

Lastly, here is a crummy photo I took of this tea. It's made even worse by my half-assed attempt to capture the bounty of tea spilling forth from the bag all cornucopia style. Well, I prefer posts with photos so here it is:

Samples

2008-06-05T08:57:00.004-05:00

There are so many intangible benefits we receive from attending the Tea Expo (at least that's what we tell the wives) but there are some very tangible benefits as well, namely samples. Tons of them. At times it feels like Halloween. Some vendors give out tote bags, others tea, it's a winning combination. Mind you it costs plenty to register for the show, fly out to Vegas, stay in a 'spensive hotel and maintain the Andrews & Dunham lifestyle but it doesn't stop me from feeling like we got something for nothing when I gaze upon our haul.

Most of the samples we picked up this year are teas that we will seriously consider for our roster. It will be a roster of fineness. Owing to our aforementioned but still mysterious bizness plan we are looking at a relatively narrow price range and tried to grab a bunch of teas that will fit the bill. Nevertheless, that didn't stop us from graciously accepting some very high grade offerings which I will consume on your behalf and possibly tell you about. Erik made the mistake of trusting me with the lot, so I'm going to tear through this fancy stuff as fast as can until he realizes his error.

Tea Expo!

2008-06-03T09:54:00.003-05:00

I took this picture while I was attending the 2008 World Tea Expo. No, it wasn't held in Paris, France. That stunning replica of the Eiffel Tower you see there is in beautiful Las Vegas, U.S.A. Oh the stories I could tell. Well, I can't really tell any of them, Vegas and all, but I can tell you all about the Tea Expo and perhaps offer a few travel tips while I'm at it.

The Expo itself was a blast. Each year it gets a little bigger, and each year Erik and I have a bit more of a clue about what the hell we are doing. Now that we actually have a strategy for our business (more on that later) we had fun trying to explain it to people, and since we're taking a different approach than most fledgling tea enterprises we were greeted with a mixture of encouraging enthusiasm and polite skepticism. I was pretty heavily caffeinated after a few hours on the show floor so I mostly relished bantering with the skeptics.

Anyway, I'll go into more detail in the ensuing posts but I will offer these two Las Vegas travel tips in the meantime: If you can avoid it, do not stay at the Luxor. Also, if you happen to be a dude and you buy one of those yard-long daiquiri cups you are almost guaranteed to have an argument with your girlfriend. We saw that story play itself out too many times not to mention it, so please, keep that in mind.

Yorkshire Gold

2008-04-22T11:28:00.003-05:00

So I'm in the tea doldrums lately. Haven't had any great samples come my way, and the Tea Expo is still a while off. Just lazy I suppose but I've been drinking this totally boring Yorkshire Gold from Taylors of Harrogate. I picked it up at one of those wealthy-person supermarkets that usually have a good tea selection. It's loose tea, but it's machine farmed so a) it doesn't taste all that special, and b) the leaves have been chopped up to a uniformly small size so it brews up really strong and fast. That's probably the thing it's got going for it. The strength of a grizzly. The quickness of a puma. Anyway, here's a photo of the bag. I've positioned it next to a piece of tinfoil, a ball-point pen and a binder clip to show how easily it blends in with other ordinary things:

I just visited their website and they do seem like nice people, so now I feel kind of bad for saying that their tea is dull. Well, there's nothing wrong with being dull, in fact it is admirable to seek out beauty and goodness in the ordinary and the everyday, no?

Drink Up

2008-04-02T19:35:00.002-05:00

Here's another great reason to load up on tea: It will protect your brain from the rest of your body. According to this story from the BBC, a new study indicates that caffeine helps protect the brain from the damaging effects of cholesterol in the bloodstream. Like we need scientists to tell us that caffeine is good for our brains. Sheesh.

Upton Tea Importers

2008-03-14T14:12:00.003-05:00

You know who's awesome? Upton Tea Importers, that's who. This morning Mrs. Tea House discovered the base unit of the electric kettle we bought from them two years ago was smoldering. She sent them an email with the pic below and received this response almost immediately:

"We will be glad to replace the kettle base for you, at no charge. It will be mailed out to you today...We're going to forward your photo to our manufacturer so they may investigate what could be causing this to happen. We're very sorry that you experienced this and thank you for your patience."

That's just plain old, really good customer service in action. Also, I love their catalogs which always include a lengthy history lesson like this one about Tea and Horse Trading.

Bzzzzz

2008-02-25T10:26:00.004-05:00

If you call me in the morning and I don't stop talking for about 20 minutes, then you'll know I'm working on my new perfect caffeine formulation. Sometimes a tea blogger just needs to wake up, and I'm no exception. You know I'm crazy about the high-end stuff but there are times when the tea bag is king. I take an ordinary bag of Tazo "Awake" and submerge it in hot water. After a while I drink the water. Once I'm done with that, I do the same with a Whole Foods 365 House Brand cheapie Organic Black Tea bag. Then I start talking. If you really want to know about the subtle differences between the Fall'79 and Spring '80 GD tours, call me at one of these times and I will tell you all about it. I will leave nothing out.

Obviously, there are so many great things to be said for unique and special orthodox teas but I will give this to their low-grade brethren: They are amazingly consistent. Real hardcore tea blenders wearing lab coats see to it that I get exactly the right amount of caffeine every single time.

Peppermint

2008-02-15T15:01:00.006-05:00

Winter is dragging on here in the Mid-Atlantic region which means constant hot bevs. I have my limits with the caffeine, so at times I need a good herbal tea just to keep it rolling along nicely. Some people get bent out of shape when herbal tea is called "tea" since it's not really tea at all but I'm not one of those people. If it's a hot drink infused from some sort of leaf then what the hell, it can be tea. I'm all about pragmatic beverage classification.

One great thing about herbal teas is that they can only be so good. Kind of like soda, and unlike wine (not including bum wines), the difference between cheap and expensive can be hard to discern. In fact, the cheaper the better. One of my favorite herbals is straight up peppermint, and try as I might, I can find none better than Celestial Seasonings. They've recently changed their packaging but it's still the mintiest game in town.

Thought I'd spruce up the post by adding a picture of a model wearing a superhero cape holding a box of herbal tea. It's an old marketing trick.

Caribou

2008-01-28T09:37:00.000-05:00

My office moved recently, so instead of a Starbucks downstairs there's a Caribou next door. I'm inclined to like them, not because I'm a Starbucks hater (I'm not), but because they seem to sort of give a crap about tea. They seem earnest, which is ironic since they play up this completely artificial lodge vibe that would be horrible if it came from California, but it's OK coming from the Twin Cities.

I bought a box of Irish Breakfast tea and inside I found these lovable little tea balls:

Don't tell me these aren't lovable, because they are. The tea is fine, not spectacular but better than Tazo bags. My one criticism is the balls are too small. I'm saying this with a straight face. Keep the same amount of tea in there, just make the balls bigger so the leaves have more room during the brewing process. Otherwise, go get 'em.

Sports Tea

2007-12-18T10:24:00.000-05:00

It took years for Erik & me to figure out the obvious: If you're willing to fork over some cash, your humble dreams can come true! The last 'Skins game we went to was just cold enough for us to pioneer some tea in the stands, which has long been a dream of ours, albeit an humble one. Since tea isn't the the first beverage of choice for most football fans (in this country, at least) we had to take some initiative, show some sachet if you will. After an outlay of $8.00 for two cups of hot water we made some nice, manly Darjeeling with the little homemade baggies Erik brought. Worth every bit of $8.00.

Instead of Disease, Try This...

2007-10-19T13:38:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I posted so I figured why not reconvene with a little health news. We all love feeling great, and we all know that Green Tea is a healthy bev, right? Sure we do. Let's indulge ourselves, though, with this article which has the longest, most detailed list of health benefits I have ever seen. Seriously, there is nothing this tea won't do to keep you alive. Nothing.

Kanchanjangha

2007-06-27T12:01:00.001-05:00

OK, my photographer appears to be on strike so I've got to go ahead without visuals here. I am nuts about this tea I have from Nepal! I got a pile of samples from a coop of Nepalese tea growers and each one just kicks ass. Nepal is nestled right in there geographically with some heavy duty tea regions but for some reason it just doesn't have the clout. I'm guessing politics, age-old hatred and the like are at play, but basically Darjeeling is relaxing poolside while Nepal is watching it from outside the fence. The result is a tea that tries harder. Also, they are so eager for people to buy their tea they are handing out really top-notch samples.

What I really like about these teas is they tend to be of a very high quality but with a twist to distinguish them from your standard awesome tea from India. Awesome-but-with-a-twist is the Andrews & Dunham way. I'm drinking one now from the Kanchanjangha Estate. it has the astringency of a Darjeeling, the earthy clay taste of a Chinese green, and the sweet grassy aroma of a Japanese Sencha. And a lot of caffeine. The other thing I really like about these teas has nothing to do with tea, but with the romantic associations I have with Nepal from listening to Rush albums, watching Indiana Jones movies and generally longing for far-away exotic places.

Balls Inspection

2007-06-19T10:27:00.000-05:00

Trying out some of the great tea we got at the Expo. Today it's these little balls of Yunnan tea which we received as a result of one of our aforementioned halting conversations. You might have encountered those little green jasmine pearls at your local tea shoppe and these are just like them, except they are not green. No. They are black & gold and make a tea that looks like coffee. I'm on the 3rd infusion and it still looks/is stronger than most coffee.

I'm walking around the office, showing off my tea.

World Tea Expo!

2007-06-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the 2007 World Tea Expo in Atlanta and, as is our custom, we had a fantastic time. All weekend long we were knocking back little cups of tea while having funny, halting conversations with people who spoke little English. Erik got to flex his limited yet awesome knowledge of Japanese to the delight of some of the exhibitor ladies while I got to watch the eye-rolling of their male boothmates. Domo arigato, Erik-san. And, of course, we made lots of headway with our fledgling enterprise. More details to follow once we get some of our photos uploaded.

Wednesday

2007-05-09T16:05:00.000-05:00

I come and go as I please.

Eyes Buggin'

2007-01-18T12:37:00.000-05:00

As you may know, Erik (see issue 7 - ed.) and I are in the process of getting in the business of making huge piles of money as purveyors of fine tea and to that end we are adrift in samples. My eyes are buggin' from all the tea we've been drinking. You wouldn't think the sampling of tea would be particularly taxing but it turns out there is a staggering amount of unremarkable tea to be sampled. We are providing a service to our fellow tea drinkers by sorting through all this sludge. Some might recommend a measured, careful tea tasting technique but not us. We are freestyle all the way. No swish and spit at Andrews & Dunham - we engage in full on street tasting, real-world tea sippin'. This is not business-casual. I am wide awake.

Havukal Silver Tips

2006-10-16T14:27:00.000-05:00

Been working through some samples in the Andrews & Dunham tea tasting lab - today's selection: Havukal Silver Tips. For those of you who don't know, Havukal is a estate in Nilgiri, which is a mountainous region in southwestern India, which is a great big country on our planet. I'd never heard of Havukal either so I had to do some frantic internet research so I could pretend to be smarter than Eric and know all about it. it's OK, he does this to me all the time. It's something we do.

So the tea... To be honest I had no idea what to do with it. The dry leaves are big, pretty straight, fuzzy and pale like a white tea, but also had some darker colors like a Darjeeling black so I brewed it up a couple of ways. First try was with water at 180, steeped for 2 minutes. This was accidental, as I thought the water was warmer than it turned out to be but it worked fine - very subtle, round taste with a hint of that malty sweetness you get in a Darjeeling. Second try was with hotter water and a 3 to 4 minute brew - didn't seem to lose anything but didn't gain much other than a darker color something like apple cider. Still pretty damn subtle. I'm either a loser who can't appreciate subtlety (this is highly possible) or this tea is not quite there. I chugged through it, felt briefly contented and now can't remember much to recommend it.

This is not unlike the chick flick I watched with my wife the other night (because I'm so thoughtful and caring) which had plenty of plot and dialogue and good acting (no nudity), made me feel happy, then sad, but left me unable to determine whether I could recommend it to a friend or not. No matter, we'll just talk about sports & tea instead.

Donuts

2006-10-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

Spent the week out at the seaside with my lady and decided to forgo my usual nerdly ways by not taking a bunch of tea along with me. Instead, I chose to rough it and trust providence to steer me to the right hot beverage at just the right moment. My report from the field is as follows:

-it's hard to get a good cup of tea these days

-beer makes an excellent substitute

-hot donuts are always nice

-can I go back to the beach now?

Really, living cup to cup is hard these days. The best thing I found was from Revolution tea. They make appealing one-serving boxes that contain pretty fine tea in deluxe sachets. Plus: Most of the goodness of loose tea, all the convenience of a tea bag. Minus: hard to find. Mostly what I found was Tazo, which is like pretend real tea. It's OK when brewed with really scalding hot water - that seems to bully it into having some flavor, but otherwise it has no character. It makes me sleepy it's so boring.

The real find was a little chain of Donut shops called the Fractured Prune that serves up extravagantly adorned, lovingly hand-dipped, hot donuts. Screw the tea. Here's a picture of me with an unsatisfying cup of Tazo tea and an extremely satisfying hot donut (note the empty plate, evidence of its departed brethren):

Good News, Sort Of

2006-09-13T11:36:00.000-05:00

Good news: A new study informs us that consumption of green tea can have a beneficial impact on cardiovascular health. Bad news: Only if you're Japanese. Also bad news: Because we eat too much pig fat here in the West. More bad news: Pig fat consumption is on the rise. Related bad news story: To many, pig fat is so damn tasty. Tonight: America: Killed by flavor.

Does anyone really care that much? I stand by my belief that the best reason to drink tea, green, black, or otherwise, is because it tastes good and it makes you feel good right now. Live in the now, buddy. As Van Halen once said, "Right now."

Think about it.

Yeah, now you begin to see. The wisdom of Sammy Hagar is as powerful today as it was in the early '90s, my friend. Peace out.

Tea Bag Machine

2006-08-22T14:35:00.000-05:00

the Fuso tea bag machine:

Iced Tea Round-up

2006-08-22T14:27:00.000-05:00

I'm very lazy so I pretty much never make my own iced tea. Too much effort required - multiple containers, ice cubes, you know, all that business. I'm pretty well-trained around the house so using ice cubes means refilling ice trays (old school!) which just pushes the whole project over a line I'm not willing to cross. I do, however, love to drink the stuff and have found that the tea has to be "OK" but not too good or else the whole thing is crap. For this reason I really like the iced tea at Starbucks which, I believe, is a newish offering. Their tea is OK - not great - but they make it really strong and add ice and it's pretty fine on a hot day. Even better, it's priced comparably to a Big Gulp which makes it one of two or three things you can order at the Buckstar that won't make you feel like a money-wasting chump. Also, the process is hidden so you never see the tea bag which means there is no chance of accidentally reading the clever tidbits of copy on the package (hint: not clever).

So the Starbucks iced tea is pretty good. This is what I'm trying to say. Here I am, all loving Starbucks, humming along to the compilation CD I impulse bought at the counter, trying to decide whether to get the current logo or the original logo for my next tattoo. Meanwhile, across town these Honest Tea people are making a difference with their wholesome, organic, good karma-enhancing, ethical corporation-style bottled teas that I find myself buying at the hip, urban eateries I sometimes visit and you know what? I don't like them. I want to like them, I want to cheer them on and feel good about where my money goes but I don't like the tea. It's weak and I'm confused by the sweetening. Is it sweetened? if so, make it sweet. Otherwise, don't bother. It tastes like maybe there used to be a sweet drink in there and they forgot to rinse out the bottle before filling it with weak tea. Oh, I thought you were going to wash those. You didn't wash them? Damn. I always forget to do that. Come to think of it, I believe they got their start in a garage filling old snapple bottles with weak tea so I may not be that far off the mark.

blah blah Tea blah blah

2006-08-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

Yunnan tea seems to be cathartic, for me at least, and so three solid days of the stuff has me jonesing to write some crap on the interweb about tea. Yeah, it's been a while but I talk to all three of the people who read this once, maybe twice a day and I live with one of them so it's no big deal, really. Really. So I'm on the Peet's Yunnan again. Yunnan is rumored to be one of the oldest varieties of tea, perhaps, in fact, the very most oldest of them all. It's so damn good I can see why it would be the alpha tea and if it's not I'm willing to revise history as needed to make it so. News flash: It's still good. Hasn't changed any. Just fine, thanks.

Anyway, now is a prime time to revive this writing habit as I am on the cusp of becoming a fledgling tea entrepreneur and I feel the need to document the process - watch this space for sensitive industry secrets! Watch as I undermine our profitability! Watch me blow the whistle on Erik's ethical lapses! The shock & awe of the 2006 World Tea Expo in Vegas is slowly wearing off and has been replaced by a comfortable sense of inevitable success and fortune through tea sales. In fact, Erik & I have been so slack about getting our crap together to do this that it has started to feel a little like a real job, which in a way makes me feel like we're already well on out way to grand achievement. Less is more. Yin and yang. Trust me on that.

Oh, and just to prove we really were at the World Tea Expo for at least some of the time we were in in Vegas (wives, take note) here's a photo of me with a clearly insane person who is a) not a stripper and b) sort of has something to do with tea:

Thar Be Leather Couches

2005-09-28T05:37:00.000-05:00

One problem with being a drinker of fine teas is that if you fall (or are pushed by the state) out of your comfortable routine it's hard to get the day right, from a tea perspective at least. Yesterday I wound up at the Prince Georges County Courthouse with about 400 of my fellow citizens to judge my peers. I'm not complaining, just stating fact. Anyway, it turns out some of my peers are none to bright - the defendent in my trial was caught in possession of a tractor trailer full of leather furniture. There has got to be a better way to make a few thousand dollars than stealing a truckload of leather furniture. Most would agree furniture is one of the most pain-in-the-ass things to haul around, even if it's legit. Add police surveillance to the mix and you've got trouble. Fur coats are pretty light, as are most drugs, necklaces, sneakers, bootleg DVDs and so on. Cars are heavy but they have wheels and engines built-in for easy mobility. Furniture is gateway contraband. Next thing you know the kid is stealing freight cars full of construction materials, tractor motors, refurbished dumpsters. Live and learn, I guess.

All this is beside the point, as the point I'm making is it's hard to get a good cup of tea in a place like a jury assembly room. I even had the presence of mind at 6:30 AM to bring a few bags of Rum Punch Pirate Tea from the Metropolitan Tea Company. The tea is fine but luke-warm water and a styrofoam cup guarantee marginal results. I am complaining now.

Big Red Sun, Y'all

2005-09-13T17:38:00.000-05:00

I've managed to take the entire summer off from writing this, inadvertently illustrating two key principles of tea culture: 1) tea drinkers are spontaneous and 2) what's the hurrry? There's really nothing that's going to happen in the "tea world" that anybody needs to hear about right away, if at all, so relax, have some tea.

So anyway, here's what I did this summer: drank tea. In fact, the hotter it got the more I put back so I've got lots to tell you about. I think the number one find was Harney & Sons Big Red Sun, which is a blend of Kenyan and Ceylon teas. Harney & Sons have done a very good job of creating a brand that looks English and old-fashioned while in fact being New English and old-fashioned up in lovely Connecticut. Big red Sun is one of their "HT" blends, a series of unconventional blends designed to keep up with all the hip and happening urban teas that keep springing up in severe, designy tins and vegan pop star-owned tea houses. I guess it's more Sons than Harney. What it is, though, is all business. I drank that stuff so fast I can barely remember what it tasted like. Shortly before I blacked out I recall thinking it had a honey sweetness reminiscent of a high grade Formosa Oolong but the nice fullness you get from an Assam. Perfect first cup of the day tea. Also high marks for the appealing flat-finish red tin because looks do matter.