Tea Writings

A blog about tea from the desk of Cecilia Tan
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Tea Art

July 22, 2009 By: ctan Category: Tea Musings, Tea Reviews

Today I visited the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, especially to see the”Lords of the Samurai” exhibit.

It should shock no one reading this that the Japanese ruling class of 1100-1868 were very into tea. They were strongly influenced by China, and many noble families collected tea implements (bowls, scoops, etc…) from Viet Nam, Korea, and other “exotic” places, and kept them as prized family heirlooms. One bowl in the exhibit had been cracked and fixed up with gold. Many of the individual implements were given poetic names like “Queen of the West.”

You may be familiar with the term “raku” to refer to a kind of pottery. The name originates from a family of ceramicists, and one person in particular, Raku Chojiro, who popularized a style of rustic individual pieces, each being completely unique and more naturalistic than the prim, painted ceramics from China. They have a bowl in the exhibit which Raku Chojiro made himself! (Pictures and more details here. They also have the original scrolls of the Book of Five Rings as copied by Miyamoto Musashi’s apprentice. For a martial artist like me, that’s a bit like seeing the Gospel actually written in some Disciple’s hand.)

Some of these prized tea things were so highly valued that the high ranking families had paintings made of them.

I ended up buying some sencha in the museum store after looking at the exhibits. I bought “Sa” brand sencha, which has various “award winning” claims on the box and a fru-fru marketing blurb, like most fancy teas seem to have these days.

The sencha is good. I’m on the second steeping on this chill and foggy San Francisco evening. The tea has that grassy flavor, a hint of that rubbery side coming out that is so common in sencha and dragonwell, but not in a detrimental way. I don’t think I dare go for a third steep, though. It will likely turn bitter before reaching a reasonable level of flavor.

Speaking of bitter, throughout the convention I was attending all weekend, I made a trip pretty much every day to Starbucks, where I purchased the Tazo “China Green Tips” every day. The first day it tasted quite sweet to me, but each successive day it seemed to be getting more and more bitter, even when I definitely did not oversteep it. I finally figured out today that everything tastes a bit bitter to me right now, even chocolate malted milk balls. Weird, no? I’m not sure if it’s my allergies acting weird, or my brain being out of whack, or what. The first day, I found I quite liked the China Green Tips and I will definitely try that one again sometime when my taste buds and/or brain have gotten over this bitter phase.

Today’s tea: citron oolong

May 11, 2009 By: ctan Category: Tea Reviews

Today I am drinking Rishi brand’s Citron Oolong. I originally bought this tea because I liked the Rishi Orange Blossom blend, but couldn’t find that in the store, so bought this instead.

My first impression of this tea was that it was as lemony as Lemon Pledge. Which is to say, too strong. But now that I am reaching the end of the can, where all the little specks and bits of things are, it tastes fine. This makes me think I might have liked it better all along if it had been run through the spice grinder once quickly before steeping…?

Not only that, I am now on my third steeping of this basket of leaves, and it’s still quite delicious. Maybe I’m just in a more citrus-y mood than I was in all winter, but I think I’ll have to give this tea another try… but mix it better first. Or just go back to the Orange Blossom.

I’ve also really enjoyed their sencha yuzu, which is very expensive, but very very nice if you like yuzu. If you hate the taste of grapefruit, you might want to avoid yuzu flavored things.

UPDATE: Fourth steeping was still quite delicious! I could easily get a fifth out of it that would be a pleasure to drink. I’ll clearly be digging to the bottom of this can the next time I buy it.