Omg, I'm doing a review!! This is a new height of professionalism for this blog. There is a specialty tea shop which just opened up in Smith St, Melbourne, and I'm booked in to talk and drink tea with Hannah, the proprietor, next Thursday. So if you're thinking oolong, if you're thinking Keemun, even if you're thinking Darjeeling- is it all it's cracked up to be?? - then those questions may well be answered then. And if they're not, then I'll endeavour to answer them at some later time in blog space.
Ciao!
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Sunday, June 30, 2013
The splitter tea
Today was the day I gave in to insomnia and got up at 5am, made tea and bread with honey, turned on the heater and took a bit of time alone. It's been quite delicious, though I'm aware I'll need to get up in 8 minutes and go and have an entire day.
Lapsang souchong is an amazing tea, in my opinion. It's got big leaves, which are traditionally smoked on bamboo racks over smouldering pine logs. Most people either love it, because it reminds them of campfires and being outside and warmth and time with friends, or they loathe it because it's a flavour often associated with savoury food, and they struggle with its place in tea. For me, smoke and tea go together because I've been camping a lot and I like tea out of a billy, not a plastic kettle, and I like to sit round a campfire first thing looking over the river, drinking my tea and listening to the birds, which I can hear now, just waking up.
It's almost 'go and have an entire day' time. I hope you have a wonderful day, whether lapsang souchong seems like a great tea or an abomination to you.
I think flavour balance is a huge thing. I disagree with a lot of the pricier earl grey blenders, because the bergamot overwhelms the tea. I love earl grey, but I'm a fan of restrained bergamot. Similarly, lapsang is best if the flavour of the smoke doesn't drown out the tea flavour.
If you like Twining's Russian Caravan, it's got a little bit of smoke in it. It's pretty weird working in a modern office and wandering round with a cup of lapsang, with other people saying 'I smell bacon or something' and giving them the cup to smell. I've watched some intense reactions, from 'wow' to 'yuk'. Personally, I would never say 'yuk' to someone else's food, but there you go.
Lapsang souchong is an amazing tea, in my opinion. It's got big leaves, which are traditionally smoked on bamboo racks over smouldering pine logs. Most people either love it, because it reminds them of campfires and being outside and warmth and time with friends, or they loathe it because it's a flavour often associated with savoury food, and they struggle with its place in tea. For me, smoke and tea go together because I've been camping a lot and I like tea out of a billy, not a plastic kettle, and I like to sit round a campfire first thing looking over the river, drinking my tea and listening to the birds, which I can hear now, just waking up.
It's almost 'go and have an entire day' time. I hope you have a wonderful day, whether lapsang souchong seems like a great tea or an abomination to you.
I think flavour balance is a huge thing. I disagree with a lot of the pricier earl grey blenders, because the bergamot overwhelms the tea. I love earl grey, but I'm a fan of restrained bergamot. Similarly, lapsang is best if the flavour of the smoke doesn't drown out the tea flavour.
If you like Twining's Russian Caravan, it's got a little bit of smoke in it. It's pretty weird working in a modern office and wandering round with a cup of lapsang, with other people saying 'I smell bacon or something' and giving them the cup to smell. I've watched some intense reactions, from 'wow' to 'yuk'. Personally, I would never say 'yuk' to someone else's food, but there you go.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Poo err
I'm on a tram, surrounded by conversations. Everyone is on their way to a Friday night thing, and we're plugged into smartphones and tablets and hanging from straps. The man beside me is wearing spats.
Black and green tea are the teas we love, but there is another kind, which is red tea. It's semi fermented, and you can sometimes get it in bing, or compressed disc form. This is where tea gets interesting - they used to compress it into discs, bricks or bird nest shapes so it was easier to transport by camel. You're almost drinking Chinese history.
One of the main red teas is pu erh, which is supposed to be really good for you, but I drink it because its got a wonderful earthy taste. Like all tea, watch out for a sodium hydroxide aftertaste, which would mean you bought the cheap one.
Pu erh is meant to manage cholesterol, but don't let that put you off...
Anyway, here's my stop. Have a productive Friday night!
Black and green tea are the teas we love, but there is another kind, which is red tea. It's semi fermented, and you can sometimes get it in bing, or compressed disc form. This is where tea gets interesting - they used to compress it into discs, bricks or bird nest shapes so it was easier to transport by camel. You're almost drinking Chinese history.
One of the main red teas is pu erh, which is supposed to be really good for you, but I drink it because its got a wonderful earthy taste. Like all tea, watch out for a sodium hydroxide aftertaste, which would mean you bought the cheap one.
Pu erh is meant to manage cholesterol, but don't let that put you off...
Anyway, here's my stop. Have a productive Friday night!
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Price
There has been a bump in the price of tea. Ok, there has been a bump in the price of everything, but I'll narrow it down to tea.
A couple of years ago, tea was about $3.50 a cup. Which was a bit extortionate, until you realise you're not actually buying tea, you're renting a little bit of space without worries or unpleasant distractions, like loose cupboard doors and loads of unwashed washing, like you have at your house, where you could easily make yourself a cup of tea for about 20c and three minutes' labour.
Now it's always $5.50. And you can tell it's extortionate because the tea people keep using the word 'just'. 'That's just five fifty, they say, staring at you balefully over your cup of tea that you're both aware has cost them $1.20 to make, including three minutes' labour hire and fourteen cents of power and water. And the tea server, you both know, is waiting resignedly for you to say, 'Five fifty for a cup of tea? Are you mad? How can you possibly justify that? How is it that I don't get any change from a five dollar note? How?' And they are trying to head you off early by using the magical 'just' word.
But you don't do that. Like most consumer sheep, you dig deep and find five fifty for a cup of tea. Over and over and over. Just to have a sit down. Just because you're meeting a friend. Just to have someone else do something for you, just for a minute, just when you're tired and have a cold.
Just. Because you know your fifteen dollar a week tea habit adds up to a one-way flight to Bali over a year, $750, for something you could take with you in a thermos for no money at all.
So, well, prices rise. Some people are now on enormous salaries, and they won't notice a 40% price rise/gouge, and they are the consumers, not you.
And they make the rules.
And they are the consumeriest consumers of them all, much more consumery than you are, all alone on your park bench with your thermos of tea.
Loser.
A couple of years ago, tea was about $3.50 a cup. Which was a bit extortionate, until you realise you're not actually buying tea, you're renting a little bit of space without worries or unpleasant distractions, like loose cupboard doors and loads of unwashed washing, like you have at your house, where you could easily make yourself a cup of tea for about 20c and three minutes' labour.
Now it's always $5.50. And you can tell it's extortionate because the tea people keep using the word 'just'. 'That's just five fifty, they say, staring at you balefully over your cup of tea that you're both aware has cost them $1.20 to make, including three minutes' labour hire and fourteen cents of power and water. And the tea server, you both know, is waiting resignedly for you to say, 'Five fifty for a cup of tea? Are you mad? How can you possibly justify that? How is it that I don't get any change from a five dollar note? How?' And they are trying to head you off early by using the magical 'just' word.
But you don't do that. Like most consumer sheep, you dig deep and find five fifty for a cup of tea. Over and over and over. Just to have a sit down. Just because you're meeting a friend. Just to have someone else do something for you, just for a minute, just when you're tired and have a cold.
Just. Because you know your fifteen dollar a week tea habit adds up to a one-way flight to Bali over a year, $750, for something you could take with you in a thermos for no money at all.
So, well, prices rise. Some people are now on enormous salaries, and they won't notice a 40% price rise/gouge, and they are the consumers, not you.
And they make the rules.
And they are the consumeriest consumers of them all, much more consumery than you are, all alone on your park bench with your thermos of tea.
Loser.
Monday, February 25, 2013
The weather
We have a thing in my household, a new thing of appreciating the weather. See, in my town, it's normal to whinge about the weather because it's notoriously changeable and whatever clothes you put on in the morning, there's a chance they'll be inappropriate by the afternoon. But we decided to love and appreciate our weather, her highs and lows, her brooding moods and abrupt storms and oppressive heat and melting humidity.
We decided our weather is like an opera singer, and that without her emotional extremes, she would lose her essential character and become an emo or a disco floozie or one of those tedious popular bands with nothing to say. As it is, she is dramatic and intense. Yesterday we baked in sunshine and today we drowned in floods. I'm not exaggerating. I sloshed to work today like a car ad, with wings of water fanning out from under my wheels. Amelie liked to run her fingers through a sack of grain (who doesn't?) and I like to slosh through puddles in a car making water wings and a whooshing sound. Also, with the delays and traffic and the general city people thing, I was half an hour late for work and was therefore able to run through my whole choir repertoire in the car. Mozart, Handel, Verdi. Carole King. What gifts the weather brings.
Now I'm sitting in the evening sunshine with a pot of dandy and honey and some exhausted dogs at my feet. There's terrible wear and tear on them in stormy weather because the thunder gods roar and threaten them and they have to run and hide under our feet and in our beds. They are even more responsive to the weather than the humans of the house. And we are responsive. All this rain and sunshine, we will be sprouting and photosynthesising and blossoming and thriving under the hand of our fickle mistress, the weather goddess. Bless her.
We decided our weather is like an opera singer, and that without her emotional extremes, she would lose her essential character and become an emo or a disco floozie or one of those tedious popular bands with nothing to say. As it is, she is dramatic and intense. Yesterday we baked in sunshine and today we drowned in floods. I'm not exaggerating. I sloshed to work today like a car ad, with wings of water fanning out from under my wheels. Amelie liked to run her fingers through a sack of grain (who doesn't?) and I like to slosh through puddles in a car making water wings and a whooshing sound. Also, with the delays and traffic and the general city people thing, I was half an hour late for work and was therefore able to run through my whole choir repertoire in the car. Mozart, Handel, Verdi. Carole King. What gifts the weather brings.
Now I'm sitting in the evening sunshine with a pot of dandy and honey and some exhausted dogs at my feet. There's terrible wear and tear on them in stormy weather because the thunder gods roar and threaten them and they have to run and hide under our feet and in our beds. They are even more responsive to the weather than the humans of the house. And we are responsive. All this rain and sunshine, we will be sprouting and photosynthesising and blossoming and thriving under the hand of our fickle mistress, the weather goddess. Bless her.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Not a good day to own an iphone
I'm off to England. Brother's wedding. I thought hey, maybe I can upload some music to my phone before I leave. I thought this three months ago. Turns out, I can't. I won't bore you with the details. Why invent such a brilliant phone and back it up with such a lousy program?
Oh well. The adventure starts here. Today. Now. The sun is setting over Melbourne, and I am on my way.
Oh well. The adventure starts here. Today. Now. The sun is setting over Melbourne, and I am on my way.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
not again
Yes again. Moving. I ask you.
Of course in times like these, when house moves happen once per quarter, I turn as usual to tea.
Green tea today. I have drunk so much of it I'm exuding antioxidants. Of course, the dramatic, awful moves (and this was another one) happen interspersed with visits to friends to pour out tales of woe and heartbreak, and tea is involved, of course, then as well.
This is a difficult moment as I have poured out the tale of woe and heartbreak so many times that I'm all taled out. Of course, I don't have anything else to talk about other than I saw a wonderful house staffed by a man with green eyes, white teeth and a gentle, intelligent way of being. I won't move into his house but it was wonderful to meet him. My friend Sharla - there aren't words for her. She is a friend with the power to realign your world when it has slid out of kilter without you knowing. We try so hard to be perfect, all of us, and we never will. Isn't it nice, though, that we try?
Sips some more tea.
Sharla and I agreed that it's nice to be a wanderer. But that there comes a time when you need to interface with the world and its clocks, and other people and their concepts of time. Moving house is a dreadful time but it is also a clean time when you can leave a bad environment and move forward. Sometimes it's good to be gone and then again sometimes it's nice to stop running. Or so people tell me.
Of course in times like these, when house moves happen once per quarter, I turn as usual to tea.
Green tea today. I have drunk so much of it I'm exuding antioxidants. Of course, the dramatic, awful moves (and this was another one) happen interspersed with visits to friends to pour out tales of woe and heartbreak, and tea is involved, of course, then as well.
This is a difficult moment as I have poured out the tale of woe and heartbreak so many times that I'm all taled out. Of course, I don't have anything else to talk about other than I saw a wonderful house staffed by a man with green eyes, white teeth and a gentle, intelligent way of being. I won't move into his house but it was wonderful to meet him. My friend Sharla - there aren't words for her. She is a friend with the power to realign your world when it has slid out of kilter without you knowing. We try so hard to be perfect, all of us, and we never will. Isn't it nice, though, that we try?
Sips some more tea.
Sharla and I agreed that it's nice to be a wanderer. But that there comes a time when you need to interface with the world and its clocks, and other people and their concepts of time. Moving house is a dreadful time but it is also a clean time when you can leave a bad environment and move forward. Sometimes it's good to be gone and then again sometimes it's nice to stop running. Or so people tell me.
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