A Rose by Any Other Name
I wrote yesterday about the rose black I bought this weekend at the Ten Ren tea shop in Chinatown NYC. When I arrived home, I found my latest order from Holy Mountain Trading Co. had arrived, too!
Yesterday evening I tried the Dragonfruit and Roses Green, while today I am drinking the Strawberry & Rose Melange Green Tea.
The dragon fruit is also known as a “pitaya,” and the only time I’ve eaten it was in the breakfast buffet at the Beijing Hotel, where we stayed overnight one night on my family trip through China in 2007. It looks kind of like a red and white kiwi fruit, but doesn’t taste like one. One of the other names for it is the “strawberry pear” and overwhelmingly that’s what the Dragonfruit & Roses tea tastes like, pear.
I don’t sugar my tea at all, but the pear-like scent and flavor are so strong it almost seems sweetened. Interestingly, I don’t really seem to be getting much of the rose effect here, either in the scent or flavor. It’s a very bright, nice tea but only suitable for those who like them really fruity.
Meanwhile, today’s cup has the Strawberry & Rose Melange Green, and from the scent, which was so strongly strawberry, I thought I would end up with two really sweet teas two days in a row. But interestingly, although the scent is lip-gloss sweet, the flavor of this tea is subtler, a nice sencha-like green coming through, very mildly astringent. Again, though, not much rose effect, but a fine cup to appreciate the tea flavor and all the hints in it. I’m surprised, because I would have guessed these two teas would be the opposite. Just goes to show why you really have to taste everything to know!
I’ll be buying more of the Strawberry & Rose Melange, not sure on the Dragonfruit, and still in search of the perfect rose tea.
I remember having an awesome rose tea years ago, I could swear it had actual rose petals in it among the tea leaves. But I haven’t any idea at this point where it was from. I’m pretty sure this was pre-Tea Tray even. I’d love to have it again.
BTW, may I recommend (for WordPress) the WordPress OpenID plugin?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/openid/
It allows people to login using third-party credentials (like LiveJournal, Yahoo, Google) – makes the signup process even faster. No configuration or maintenance necessary, works fine with WordPress 2.7.1 (I’m using it with 2.7.1). Just drop it in, activate it, and the login page will now offer OpenID as well as normal login.
1Oooh, thanks for the plugin recommendation. I’ve been leery of adding too many after experiences with some wonky ones on the previous install of WP that circlet.com is still running on. I’ll go add it right now.
If you really want a rose “tea” experience, lots of tea places will sell you just the siberian rose buds which can be brewed by themselves, too. I’ve got a bunch, although lately instead of making them into tea, I’ve been infusing white port with them.
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