Random Steepings

This is my collection of English and Chinese tea wares. The two large white china pots are my basic brew set – I brew in the middle pot and pour off the tea into the second pot to serve. 24oz brews, 12g of tea per brew.

In front are my new toys – the gaiwan which just arrived today, and two yixing style pots I picked up in the past month. The one is for pu-erhs, and the water chestnut is for oolongs.

1/19/14 First morning tea for stuffy nose. 3 tsp tea, 1/4 cup milk, 1 tbs sugar, 1 quarter of fresh ginger, 8 oz boiling water. Sugar, milk and ginger in the mug first, boiling water poured over, steeped until I get around to drinking it, but never fewer then five minutes.

Caveats – my single cup is never as good as when Uncle Lakhi makes the big pot of it on the stove whenever we get together.

I’m feeling a little unwell in my stomach, so I’ve made up a pot of this blend. Hopefully the ginger in this will especially give some soothing comfort. Don’t want to get sick just before we go away for a vacation!

This is a smooth blend with juicy orange and warming spices that I made to replace a “Christmas” tea that I’d run out of. Maybe not as complete as that original tea, but still very good and made out of what I had on hand. Hubby will ask for this as a morning cup, and that makes it rather rare so I’m happy to oblige! Haven’t tried it cold yet (probably without the added cinnamon stick), but I bet it’d be pretty good!

I mixed up this blend on Wednesday while I was at work. I must admit it’s nice to work at a place where I can drink as much tea as I like, and they have almost every Mighty Leaf blend out there. I’m really looking forward to all of the blends I’ll be able to combine and try out. :3

Anyway, I kind of mixed these two together on a whim. I really wanted a Maté for the energy (& I’m trying to stay away from coffee), and I was feeling a little nauseous so I grabbed the ginger to try and relieve some of that.
I used one tea bag of each tea, and steeped them for 5 minutes in 20oz of 208 degree water. I was craving something mildly sweet, so I also added 3 “pumps” of Simple Syrup.
The tea brewed to a “honey amber” type color, and the scent was fruity with a mild undertone of spice (much like cardamom or cinnamon). Flavor wise, the ginger wasn’t very pronounced to me at all. Mainly I tasted lemon, mate, and an unidentifiable fruit(s). It left a very minty aftertaste in my mouth, as well.

Overall, the blend was pretty good. I think I will continue to drink it on a pretty often basis because of its energy qualities (the Ginger Twist has Ginseng in it as well), but other than that it’s not something I would choose to indulge in out of pure “liking”. It did help with my nausea as well.

That’s about it and I’m being rushed off the computer, so there ya go!