http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/index/ en alnedra.mofi@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-03-20T09:09:13+00:00 http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/a_trip_to_chinatown/ http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/a_trip_to_chinatown/#When:13:27:00Z [Miss Neddy: Today another good friend of mine es el queso has kindly agreed to do an entry for me, about his trip to San Fransisco’s Chinatown. He also runs a very interesting blog What I Had For Dinner Tonight. Check it out!] I was in San Francisco’s Chinatown today, as part of a friend’s pubcrawl/gift exchange, I was on a bit of another mission, however, looking for some good tea and an infuser mug to use so I could brew less tea and re-infuse it, something alien to the American disposable teabag mentality. We started our day with dim sum at a place called the Four Seasons, where we sampled all kinds of shumai and dumplings and pot stickers. We then moved on to a series of bars, and drew names and bought three gifts for under $10 from the touristy shops around the bars while most people drank a healthy amount. Miss Neddy had suggested TenRen as a reliable place to get decent tea, I had been many years before, but not recently. The front half of the shop now sells bubble tea, which I avoided. I went straight to the back where there are shelves filled with bright brass canisters full of tea. She also suggested I try the rose green tea if I was to go, so that is what I asked for first. It was very pretty and had a magnificent floral scent, so I had the nice woman serving me pack some up. She then went right for what I wanted, the jasmine pearls, I’m still not enough of a connoisseur to really know if it was fresh and top-grade, but the color looked good to me, and the sent was magnificent. I probably bought more than I should have, but I really do enjoy it. I looked around at their tea sets and cups and didn’t see anything that really inspired me. So I went up the street to a slightly more modern looking tea shop called Vital Tealeaf, where my friend and I got roped into a tourist-special tea tasting…. which was free, so we went along with it. We sampled a lovely earthy pu’erh, a wulong that was almost as nice as the one I get from http://www.yixingxuan-teahouse.com/ [Miss Neddy: This is the Yixing Xuan Teahouse’s website, the teahouse in Singapore that I frequent] ), and one that was called Monkey Picked, although the tea server allowed that the tea was no longer picked by the monkeys. It was actually fun, and interesting, although he insulted the jasmine tea I had just bought, when my friend said it was her favorite; he likened it to considering Budweiser a good beer. Nevertheless, at the back of the shop, there was just the mug / infuser I had been looking for… so I ended up actually buying two. I still haven’t found a new teapot, but all my friends marveled at how small and delicate the standard Chinese teapot was compared to what we were used to. All in all, it was a fun summer-like day, and my tea supply has been restocked! Tea, Green, Jasmine, Tea Related 2008-04-14T13:27:00+00:00 http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/jasmine_tea/ http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/jasmine_tea/#When:00:30:00Z The most famous floral scented tea is probably jasmine tea.  The Chinese name for jasmine tea is xiāng piàn 香片 “slivers of perfume”.  Tea leaves are placed beneath a silk screen over which is spread a layer of fresh jasmine flowers.  The tea leaves are left to absorb the floral perfume and the flowers are then discarded; cheaper teas may be made using up to three changes of flowers, but the more expensive teas may require up to nine changes of jasmine flowers.  The tea used to make jasmine tea may be white, green, wulong or black.  The dark, smokey fragrance of most black teas means that they make poor partners with the light floral fragrance of jasmine; jasmine black tea is therefore often made from poor quality leaves with little intrinsic fragrance, or tea leaves with unpleasant odours that the manufacturer hopes to mask.  Better quality jasmine teas are more usually made from green or white tea leaves whose own delicate fragrance will complement that of the jasmine.  Poor quality jasmine tea often have whole jasmine flowers mixed in with the leaves in order to deceive the ignorant: this in fact a fault and ought not to be mistaken for a sign that the tea is “genuine”.  Jasmine tea should never have whole jasmine flowers in it, because the flowers make the brew bitter. Bìtán piāoxuě 碧潭飄雪 “Snowflakes floating on a jade-green pool” is one of the most visually stunning jasmine teas available, and is best served in a clear glass bowl.  It is made with Bìluóchūn 碧螺春 “Jade spirals of spring” as a base and upon infusion with hot water, white jasmine petals float to the surface of the delicately sweet pale-green liquor.  In common with the green tea from which it is derived (see previous entry on green tea), Bitan piaoxue is extremely sensitive to water temperature, thus making it very difficult to brew correctly: water that is too cool will fail to release the fragrances of the tea, but water that is too hot produces a liquid with the flavour of used engine oil.  In common with all green teas, Bitan piaoxue also has a short shelf life of less than six months. Tea, Green, Jasmine 2008-01-21T00:30:00+00:00 http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/flower_teas/ http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/flower_teas/#When:02:58:00Z There is a fashion now of handmade tea balls with flowers sewn into the balls. Various blossoms can be used, but one of the most traditional and most popular is the jasmine flower. The jasmine flower used for Chinese teas is quite different from the jasmine flowers that Indians use to decorate and scent their hair. The Chinese jasmine is a much smaller blossom and its fragrance is more delicate. There are many, many types of jasmine. Don’t believe me? Check out the wikipedia list of species: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmine Jasmine teas may or may not contain the actual blossoms. You might be impressed by cheap jasmine teas containing a heapload of blossoms among the tea leaves, but this does not mean the tea is of a high quality. Once used to infuse tea leaves, the jasmine blossoms have no more fragrance and are essentially useless. Good teas may be matched with their own weight in jasmine blossoms three to five times to attain the desired level of fragrance, and the used blossoms are discarded. You can tell the difference by how many times the tea leaves can be steeped and not lose its fragrance. A decent jasmine tea can be steeped four to five times, a good one seven times or more, and the best teas can be drunk over and over again all day, the luscious jasmine fragrance fading with each subsequent steeping, but never entirely gone. Tea, Jasmine 2007-11-28T02:58:00+00:00