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“GM sample #2/31 The boyfriend requested something “fruity” from the GM sampler, so this seemed like the one to try. This is… interesting. Not what I expected. The honey is the strongest flavor,...” Read full tasting note
“Didn’t get to have this at work so I’m having it now that I am home. Holy crap does the dry leaf smell like pears! Big, juicy, mess-making pears. Wow! That’s a slight, possible floral smell...” Read full tasting note
“Sipdown no. 49 for the year 2014. A sample. Pear! I must say that this sipdown business is quite enjoyable. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Okay, a small one. But I can use all the...” Read full tasting note
“GM Sampler | Tea 3 of 31 Honey Pear | http://bit.ly/cy1HXR Gotta Catch ’Em All | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn This tea made me so angys!!! Like, for real, pissed. I want to photoshop a big frowny face all...” Read full tasting note
Our Honey Pear begins with top-quality black tea. Then we add the sweet flavor of ripe fruit and rich, smooth honey. Reminiscent of a succulent Mid-Eastern dessert treat, this loose leaf tea delivers a full-bodied, amber liquor and a sweet, rich flavor that is delicious hot or iced.
Golden Moon is dedicated to offering outstanding, whole-leaf teas of the greatest quality and finesse. All Golden Moon Teas are hand-plucked and meticulously crafted to enhance leaf character, aroma, color, clarity, body, complexity, and above all, flavor.
GM sample #2/31
The boyfriend requested something “fruity” from the GM sampler, so this seemed like the one to try. This is… interesting. Not what I expected. The honey is the strongest flavor, but it’s not sweet exactly – like someone separated all the honey flavor from the sugar and just added the flavor. Well, the ingredients do say “pollen” so I guess that makes sense. The black tea base is actually a little harsh for my taste – even at 3 minutes I can taste some bitterness. The pear comes through more as the tea cools.
Will try this chilled next. Used 1/3 of the sample (~1.3g, hooray for tiny scales) with 3.5oz water.
ETA: Very good chilled, on the second and third infusions; the sweetness comes through more. The 3rd infusion was looking pretty weak though, so I’ll stop here
Didn’t get to have this at work so I’m having it now that I am home.
Holy crap does the dry leaf smell like pears! Big, juicy, mess-making pears. Wow! That’s a slight, possible floral smell added to it that is maybe the honey? No idea. 98% of this is full on pear smell.
So my timer went off and I went into the kitchen to pour my cup? HOLY HONEY MONKEYS, BATMAN! I was still a few feet from the counter when I got slammed with succulent fruit juiciness and honey. The honey smell is very obvious now and makes it smell like pears, soaked in honey. Quite why they are soaked in honey, no one knows, because it stops them tasting like pears and makes them taste like honey… and if you wanted honey, you could just… buy honey. Instead of pears.
ahem But I digress.
Sipping on the tea though and the BAM ness of the honey pear is in the scent and the actual taste is much more normal and sane. There is honey, then tea, then pear, then honey again. It is like a lightly flavored pear tea was sweetened with honey. Or maybe a gentle tea was sweetened with honey and then had a splash of pear juice added.
This is smooth with a little dryness showing up right after I swallow but quickly fading. It’s sweet but in a wild, honey/musky fruit way. And the body is pretty light. No desire or need to chew the tea here (which I might actually enjoy…) I really want to see how this will turn out when cooler, but I may be too impatient (and it may be too yummy) for me to see. I think a bit more pear is coming out, but again, I’m impatient.
So this all sounds great, right? So why is my rating just at the lime green happy face and not higher? This seems like it has all the elements of wonderfulness: strong and recognizable smell, no chemical taste, the flavoring doesn’t overpower the tea, no additives needed to make it yummy….
I dislike honey.
Yeah, I know. I’m weird. Just not a big fan of honey. Sure, I’ll mix it with mustard and dip chicken into it. I have occasionally put it on a biscuit. But generally, I’m pretty particular about my honey. I go for the lighter, sweeter honeys – orange blossom over plum (which strikes me as a very dark-tasting, wild honey), the local wildflower honey over sourwood honey. I don’t even really like the taste of the ‘typical’ clover honey. And this honey strikes me as a slightly-darker-tasting-than-clover honey. So while I recognize that this is a good tea, this is just something that’s not up my alley.
However, those that like pears and honey both? Will probably love this one. Now I vote that GM makes a pear tea (I don’t think there is one in my sample box, right?) because this tea minus the honey, I think I’d LOVE.
That was a nice review this sounds good to me.
I love honey and I love pear, so this is yet another GM tea that I would/will probably love.
Aww, you don’t like the honey! I love this tea, I would get it again. The scent was definitely too strong for me though. I can’t deal with the ripe fruit smell. As it cools the smell dies down =D just be patient!
This sounds divine, the way that you describe it. Maybe a pear flavored blend that I might actually like, rather than the abomination of a ruined white sitting in my cupboard right now…?
Mmmmm. This one sounds awesome. I, too, really love honey and pear, so I’m sort of saving this one. :) At least the flavors were really delicious, though!
Seriously all, if I liked darker honeys, I would love this. But if the honey isn’t so light is it almost lemon-colored, I don’t really enjoy it. But yeah, I fully support the wonderness of this tea – to others, just not myself! :)
I gave the second steep to the husband and I think the smell threw him off a bit, but he said that once it cooled a bit, the pear and honey tastes really came through and were identifiable and natural. He tends to prefer VERY strongly flavored things so I think he was a little disappointed with the fact that the tea taste came through some, but I count that in GM’s favor.
This one sounds amazing but I love honey so yeah, it would! Sorry it’s not your cup of tea X-D but if I had been hoping for a fairly straightforward pear I would have been disappointed, too.
Well, now I’m hoping for a straight forward pear because I bet GM would do it well! But mostly I was hoping for a honey taste that was less… well, real honey tasting. Or not as obvious. But I do have another cup’s worth of the leaves yet and I won’t have any problem enjoying that. Because while it isn’t something I’d go for intentionally, it is a good cup.
Thank you for writing this. I can now confirm that I will be ordering a tin of this when I put my GM order through. Because, you know, I know y’all care. [Hah.]
Nice review! I just put in an order of about 10 samples from Golden Moon and I’m glad I added this one because I definitely LOVE honey.
Micah – you could have done their sampler set… 31 teas (their entire catalog) for $20. :) I’ve been pimping this all over Steepster, just because a lot of the stuff in there (especially the flavored and blended stuff) is pretty high quality!
Sipdown no. 49 for the year 2014. A sample. Pear!
I must say that this sipdown business is quite enjoyable. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Okay, a small one. But I can use all the feelings of accomplishment I can get. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be making a huge dent in my collection yet, but that’s just because for every sample I sip down I find another one I add to the pile. LOL.
In looking back at my first note about this, I see that I said I was confused about this one enough that I wanted to buy another sample when I placed my order. Indeed, that is what came to pass. I placed a mega-order with Golden Moon after doing my initial sample taste-through. Of the 31 samples, I think I bought close to 20 of them in a full size. There were only a couple of GM teas I completely scratched off the list. I can’t remember what those were but think the licorice was one. The rest were in this category-not sure, try again.
So here I go, trying again. Last time around I steeped this in boiling water for 3 minutes. This time I’m going to try it at a slightly lower temperature and a little longer. Teabird quite liked this one judging from her note and she steeped at 205 for 3:15 (she also suggested steeping more than once, which I will try). ifjuly also liked this and used boiling water but went to 4 minutes. The sample packet suggests boiling at 4-5 minutes, but I generally find going more than 4 minutes for black teas is suboptimal. I’m going to try 205 for 4 minutes.
This time around, I am getting much more fruit aroma from the dry leaves. It’s pear-like, in an apply sense. There’s also a fair amount of honey-pollen to the fragrance. I’m getting less floral and more fruit/honey this time around.
The steeped tea’s aroma definitely has a pear scent. I also smell honey, and I note that the first time, I thought the honey dominated. Not so here. The liquor color is, again, a honey color.
The flavor is again, very interesting. Yes, it’s definitely honey pear. But not consistently. Sometimes it’s a little more like apple, sometimes it’s a little more like pollen, and in some sips it is none of the above. I’m getting a little bit of bite in my throat from the tea base, too, which isn’t my favorite sensation.
Second steep: In general, mellower. The flavors do seem to blend together somewhat better this time. I’m getting that waxy mouthfeel I got during my original tasting.
I think what I’m looking for in a pear tea is more an essence of fresh, ripe pears, unmitigated by any other flavors, such as honey.
After giving this a good second run, I’m ready to conclude it isn’t for me. If someone served it to me, I’d drink it and enjoy it, but I don’t see it being something I’d reach for if I kept it in the house. Bumping the rating down a tad to remind me it’s not a reorder for me.
GM Sampler | Tea 3 of 31
Honey Pear | http://bit.ly/cy1HXR
Gotta Catch ’Em All | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn
This tea made me so angys!!!
Like, for real, pissed. I want to photoshop a big frowny face all over the Honey Pear picture.
I think I’ve professed my love for pear in enough gory detail already, but if you missed that log – I LOVE IT. Like, scary love. And I like honey well enough. So to say that I was excited to try this tea is a bit of an understatement.
The dry leaf smelled like bazooka joe. And medicine. This put me on edge right away, because it tripped my WTF alarm straight off. But I dumped the sample into the infuser and began the process of making the tea.
When I pulled out the infusing basket, I smelled the wet leaves.
Strawberry runts and banana boat suntan lotion. I’m really confused at this point, but I sip it anyway.
You might have read my post about how much I loved Art of Tea’s Caramelized Pear, which uses apple bits to achieve the pear taste to great effect. This tea is like what I imagine using the power of apple to pear for EVIL would be like, because the tea tasted like bad, mealy, apple. It was Bad, Bad, Mealy Brown apple. Once I had that mental image in my head, it was impossible to shake and there was no way to enjoy the tea after that.
Building upon the suck that is mealy apple, the tea had this bitterness to it that would get really high and sharp at some points. And to make matters worse, at the back of the throat the tea created this horrible sour taste.
I sat with it long enough to eventually get a hint of sweetness at the tip of my tongue, but unfortunately it was impossible to recover from all the bad. I had to dump the cup, but I consider it an accomplishment that I got halfway through it.
I honestly think that this was defective because it does not at ALL sound like what the majority of the other people got, and while I think that tastes diverge this was just…wrong.
uht-oh!
That’s terrifying. I wanted to like it so much, and did not. I didn’t have trouble finishing it, but I didn’t enjoy it…mostly because I felt like the flavor was too much for me. It wasn’t completely repellant though! I have half of a sample left, and my intention is to try to make it and ice it and see what comes of that. I’m going to see if I can’t pick out some of these bad notes when I do, just to see if your sample really had to have been defective. It’s entirely possible!
Ouchies. :\ This is one of the ones I have left in my basket to try, just because I thought I’d love it. It’s so divisive!
Wow. I kind of liked it. The pollen made it taste so much like honey. Maybe you don’t like pollen?
@TeaEqualsBliss Indeed!
@sophistre Please do. I’m curious, because it’s not like it tasted overwhelmingly of pear or honey – I probably would have liked that. It just tasted of disgusting.
@teaplz I really very much think that there was something wrong with my sample, so don’t let my experience deter you! Given when you ordered/received your sampler, I think you’re likely safe.
@fcmonroe Hmm. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten pollen before that I can recall, so maybe? It didn’t taste anything like what other people were saying that they were tasting, though. And since my preparation methods didn’t differ wildly from other people and I know that what I get out of tea runs roughly parallel to some of those people, I’m going to tentatively blame it on the sample.
Poooooorrr takogti…. your batch seems really messed up. Doesn’t GM have a customer satisfaction guarantee policy?
Many many thanks to the benevolent RICKY who sent me a generous sample of Honey Pear. Like others have said, the dry tea does not give away much in its odor. The brewed tea is sweet and delicious. It is very pleasantly sweet, just slightly astringent, and while the aftertaste of pear emerges quite nicely, it does not taste overtly of pear.
All in all, I don’t think I would buy a full order of this tea, but I might consider it. I think that the flavor of pear is elusive and delicate and hard to capture. When I think of Golden Moon’s Melon Tea, which I adore, I think that this one is a failure—perhaps a noble failure, but it just does not hit that great mark of prominence. If I wake up tomorrow jonesing for this tea, I will be certain to revise my note.
One aspect of tea that is important to me is “memory”. Do I remember the tea when it’s not in front of my face? Do I think of it fondly? Do I make up endearing little nicknames for it? Do I anthropomorphize the tea? I can remember good teas that taste wonderful. That’s a bit different than remembering a tea because of the time and place (you can bet I was thrilled with myself to be drinking tea in London’s Tate, but I am not certain that it was the tea as much as the location and the Turner excitement).
So we will see if Honey Pear makes another entry into my life. Will it be a very minor character or will it become a friend? Is it merely going to flirt with friendship? Or am I the one flirting with it?
“Th’event”, as Shakespeare often and very economically said to indicate that time and the future will reveal the outcome.
Wonderful thoughts on “tea memory.” I must admit that I had a very memorable tea this morning that I’m still trying to decide where it fits in the Shakespeare cannon. The tea (which will be revealed later) was the best part of my day. :)
A good tea can indeed be the high point of a day. I absolutely agree.
I love the way this one smells dry and steeping. Very very ripe to the point of musky pear, and lots of mysterious, sexy floral honey perfume (you have to be on board with honey’s true smell beyond sweetness; other notes about how it’s amped up honey but separated from honey’s sweetness are spot on, as is the copy description of syrupy floral Middle Eastern desserts but without the spices). Smelled so good I was anxious to try it, impatiently tapping my foot for it to finish steeping.
The finished color is a surprisingly dark rich pretty red. The tea base has a slightly raspy, woody texture (fitting given fresh pear’s texture) and the pear and honey flavor is toned down (the aroma remains heady and strong though). I like this. It’s not as straightforward or sweet as Joy’s Teaspoon’s, more musky-floral and complex. Also a clean finish, reminiscent of pear’s clean-sweet aspects.
Wow! I don’t think I ever had a tea quite like this! It was STRANGE and DELICIOUS! I felt as if I was having an exotic treat from a far off land…in the middle of my parlor in New Jersey! The pear really did taste like a perfectly ripe pear – I loved the taste!! and the honey was really flavorful in almost a musky sort of way, and I didn’t find it overly sweet. It’s certainly not something that I’d want every day, but when I’m in the mood for something unusual, this would be a perfect one! I would purchase a full size of this tea for when the mood struck.
As you can probably tell, my Golden Moon sampler came yesterday :) I ordered it on Monday afternoon and it arrived on Wednesday – excellent turnaround! The ordering process was painless, and I was updated with a tracking number when it shipped.
Whee for the GM sampler! Hehe, glad you joined our ranks, Jacqueline, and I can’t wait to read your reviews!
My problem today? What tea to try next!?!?!?! ;) Right now it’s a contest between White Ginger, Vanilla Mint and Sugar Carmel Oolong. I LOVE problems like this!!!!
How cute is everything in that box? I don’t want to gush, but yeah! It’s been one of my favorite tea experiences so far, that sampler. When do you get a chance to taste ALL of a company’s output? Oh, that’s right, NEVER. So yeah, enjoy it all! :D I haven’t tried this one and Sugar Caramel Oolong yet!
Squee, I’ve been debating getting their sampler set for ages! But I just ordered from 52teas… Oh, inner conflict.
I agree – the presentation is beautiful and I will reuse that pretty box for sure. The labels really speak to my aesthetic as well – I love moons and even have a moon tattoo :) and I love the old fashioned yet not dated look. Excellent design!! Of course it would all be meaningless if the tea wasn’t excellent and so far, so good! I also like that they support Lotus88. I can see this as a beginning of a lovely relationship with Golden Moon.
tease – when you’re ready – I think it’s a great value and very, very fun.
I sometimes get antsy keeping to a tea budget (both financial and volume wise – if I have to much I don’t get to enjoy it, and things get lost in the shuffle) but I know it’s for the best!
I think Micah and I got defective tea, because my review is going to sound a lot like his did. With everyone rating this relatively high, it makes me scratch my head. The flavors sound like something I’d love, but this did not come out happily for me. To borrow an angrboda turn of phrase: poot.
takgoti – my husband didn’t like it and it came from one in the same wee package! It’s so unique that I could see it being a tea that people would have really strong feelings about either way.
Yeah, my friend didn’t really enjoy this tea much either, so it’s not you Takgoti.
Sample two out of ten this week!
Actually this one is sort of cheating a bit, because the whole point of these sample challenges is to get some of the older ones that I’ve had around for a while used up, and this one I just got today. I did a swap with Infusin_Susan and this one was included as one of a couple of bonus samples.
It’s even more cheating for sample week, because this isn’t one that I think would end up lying around untried for very long anyway. It sounds so interesting! I’m totally intrigued by the idea of honey flavoured tea. I’m not sure honey and pear would be something I would come up with on my own, but why not?
The aroma was definitely strongly honeyed, both dry leaf and after steeping. I didn’t get much pear on the aroma, mostly just the honey. I find this odd, because it seems the majority of people have found it to be strongly pear with a little honey around it and my impression is exactly opposite. Maybe they’re right? Now I’m sniffing at this and am suddenly unsure of what I think it smells like. But I do still think it has more honey than others seem to think.
The flavour is strongly pear, definitely. It makes me think of the big light green ones that turn yellow as they ripen and they have little brown dots on them. I can’t remember what the sort is called. Lukas?
I’m getting honey almost exclusively on the swallow and the aftertaste, but not in the flavour proper. But is this a bad thing? No, because that’s what honey taste like. It has a stronger flavour just when you swallow and it leaves a good strong aftertaste, and this is exactly what this tea mimics. It’s not enough to make something taste like something else. One also has to pay some attention to how that something else is actually experienced in its proper form. I think I’ve just realised when a flavoured tea is the Perfect One and when it’s just good.
That said, I wouldn’t call this the perfect pear tea or the perfect honey tea. I don’t know, I find the combination a bit odd, I suppose. I’m sure it’s great as a dessert, but I’m not sure I think it works super-well as a tea flavouring.
I’m not getting any real impression of the base black, other than I seem to be picking up a small amount of astringency, but not very much. It could be anything really.
I’m glad I got to try this one. I’m quite enjoying it.
Thanks Rachel for another tea from your sale! I was happy to get a chance to try a bunch of one cup samples from Golden Moon! When I opened the package for this one, I was hit with a blast of pear fragrance. Authentic or not, this was definitely pear and it also had something floral about it. Steeped, the color is a medium amber. The pear and the floral flavor is delicious to me, anyway. It doesn’t have that odd artificial flavor. The base is perfect: present but not overpowering of the lovely pear. The second steep has less pear flavor but I get to appreciate the nice black tea base. I wish I could describe all of these teas better than just saying if the pear flavor is present or not. ah well. I wouldn’t say there is anything noticeably honey-like about it, but I wouldn’t mind stocking this one in my collection if I needed a go-to pear tea! I had a third steep since I knew I would miss it but that cup was mostly oaky (probably the seven minute steep time.)
If anyone ever wants to do a shared Golden Moon order, let me know since they don’t take Paypal. (That would be good though since it would be splitting 3.5-4 ounce tins. This one and the Sinharaja for sure.) I’d have to try more of my Golden Moon samples first though! :D
I took the day off yesterday and spent it out and about, hence my lack of tea notes. This is the last black tea I have to try from my Golden Moon order, and I can see that it seems like I will like this tea, or just think it’s too weird.
The dry leaf gives the aromas of what I might expect: intensely pear, with a strong accompanying note of rich, floral honey. It smells a bit like a pear hard candy, with actually a hint of “green apple”. I dunno, I can’t quite place the particular aroma that smells like a candy I’ve had before.
Brewed up, it smells much more like the black tea base. As it cools a bit I get more of that honey and pear aroma from the dry leaf starting to take over the cup. As to the taste, you can count me in the fans of this tea. The aroma of the dry leaf is pretty faithfully translated to the flavor, but with a lovely black tea base that fits in well with the flavors. It’s a bright base, and not especially malty, so that it reminds me of a darjeeling. I would consider the pear the primary note, with the somewhat floral honey backing it up. This honey reminds me of eating comb right from the beehive: it’s fresh and dark and wild (and delicious). I don’t find the tea “weird” at all, like many others, but perhaps that’s because the flavor is already one in my repetoir. I’m really enjoying it and it’s one I would probably keep around.
I enjoyed this tea from Golden Moon. I think I liked the second infusion even better than the first, because some of those harsher notes you mentioned in the black tea soften a bit and the pear and honey flavors become a bit more prominent.
Wow this is one of the bigger samples then! After being REALLY disappointed w/ adagio’s white pear, I have some hopes for this.
Pear is a difficult flavor, because it is such a subtle fruit that is easily overwhelmed. Which reminds me, I purchased the white spiced pear tea from 52 Teas – but I haven’t yet tried it. Perhaps later this afternoon, I shall open the package!
Very true LiberTEAS, the black base concerns me for that reason- not just cuz I don’t care for blacks.
I’m doing a second steep now – will update the post after trying. I’m optimistic, for the same reasons you mentioned LiberTEAS – second steep is usually mellower, and the flavors seemed strong enough to last. Cofftea, I just got the scale a couple days ago, so I’ve been measuring everything. The White Persian Melon sample was only 2g, this one was 3.8 :)
Other people have measured these samples- some are as light as 1.8! :( Mine goes to .01.
Tea Bird – which tea scale did you get? I’ve been looking on Amazon for some but haven’t come to any conclusions yet. Also looked on Upton’s website for theirs ….
Lauren, I know you didn’t ask me but I hope you don’t mind my advice. I got this one and LOVE it. http://www.amazon.com/WeighMax-Precision-Digital-Pocket-Scale/dp/B001QB2N1G/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1271032415&sr=1-16 I, too, looked at the UTI one when I was looking at their matcha sets… but they don’t have the precision of .01g accuracy. W/ low density teas there are is a lot of leaf that goes into .1g or even .05g. Whatever scale you decide on, I would strongly suggest getting one that has a sensitivity of at least .01g. I looked for one even more sensitive but couldn’t find one. I take mine everywhere- it just can’t go thru the xray at the airport.
Mine also goes to .01g, with a max weight of 500g – maybe got the same one?. I’m liking it so far, but obviously have no idea how it’ll do over time. It uses two AAA batteries, which were included. For $15, I’m quite pleased. Link here http://tinyurl.com/y52fga6
Bah! Humbug! All this talk of scales! LOL!
LiberTEAS, no one said you had to like or even use them. But some people do.
Where were you guys when I spent, like, 4 hours on Amazon the other night on scales? Thank you both very much! The more I get into teas, the more I think I need this kind of equipment – I’ve been using my measuring spoons and am a bit disappointed with the highly inaccurate nature of it for tea leaves.
Tea Bird, same brand but slightly different model. I love that yours has a place to put an extra battery! Great for going on vacation.
lauren, my love for whites especially, but also oolongs made me get a scale… measuring them is SUCH a pain in the butt. It also came in handy when my friend gave me some dried spearment and lemon verbena from her garden because the leaf size was not altered in any way. A tea scale probably wouldn’t be as neccessary for someone who drinks mostly blacks.
Tea Bird, I’d love to hear the details of your theory on having a different scale for every type of tea. As much as I LOVE mine and am a complete tea gadget addict, that seems to be over kill even to me lol.
Cofftea: I know that. I was joking. That’s why I included the LOL in my comment.
I am just so anti-gadgetry when it comes to tea… I like it to be simple. This is why I don’t drink as much Matcha as I think I would like to – because I don’t want to get my chawan, chasen and sifter out. LOL! It took me a couple of years before I actually broke down and bought myself a tea kettle, and now, second only to the refrigerator, it is the most used appliance in my kitchen! hehe! The truth is, that if I were to get myself a scale, I probably would find it just as indispensable. I just cringe at that thought though. I don’t like it when gadgets become indispensable. Simple, simple, simple…
The more I get into this new-methodical-way-of-tea-ing, the more I appreciate the posts where the steepsterite posts oz/g to water ratio along with all the other tea parameters (water temp & steep time)! It’s so very helpful to me when I am trying a new-to-me tea!
I don’t have different scales for different tea types; not sure where you got that from, Cofftea. I do actually have a second scale, but it’s for general kitchen purposes with a 1g-5kg range. I wanted a little one for tea in general, and large leafed teas in particular, because trying to measure white tea by the “teaspoon” was driving me crazy.
LiberTEAS, that’s fine… but then why do you even have a chawan and chasen? It seems like a waste to buy something and then not use it.
I’m very into authentic/historic preperation so I use it a lot. That and it’s just my opinion that if I’m going to invest in anything, I want it to come out the best possible… and I am ABSOFREAKINLUTELY horrible at winging it and having it come out both good and consistant.
~lauren, that’s why I do it! If someone loves a tea, I always want to know exactly how they prepared it so that I can try to replicate their parameters. Also so that I can replicate my own, when I get it right ;) Making tea is just like any other recipe to me in that respect.
I think I understand your position, LiberTEAS, afterall teas have been around since 2737 BC (I wiki’d this a while back) and simplicity really does have it’s draw but then again, I am so new to this methodical tea drinking, it does help me define the way a tea is supposed to be in theory (without any guessing on my part). Today, after deciding to drink Jasmine Pearls, I searched hi & lo for some idea of how many pearls I was supposed to put in for 10 oz of water …. LOL.
lauren, I can help you with that… or at least I can tell you what parameters work for me. For EVERY tea that doesn’t have unique steeping parameters (i.e. every Japanese green is different) and chai, I use the ratio of 2.25g of leaf/6oz water… so the number of pearls used would depend on how heavy they are. P.S. this is another tea thats a PITB to cram into a teaspoon:)
Lauren, I got the upton scale and I’m happy with it. It may not be as precise as the other one mentioned but it’s fine for my needs. I tend to experiment with putting in a bit more or less anyway from try to try. It’s the right blend of simplicity and method for me at this point though I can see myself becoming more anal about this as I go along. ;-)
Thanks y’all for the advice, insight & tea scale suggestions! Keep ‘em coming, I’m a learnin’!
Lauren: For me, seven is the magic number when it comes to pearls. That is for my 8 ounce glass tea mug – another “gadget” that I don’t like getting down to make tea. LOL! But I do get it down for jasmine pearls because I do enjoy watching them unfurl and I do get it down for blossoming teas for the same reason.
Cofftea: I have the chawan and chasen because I do enjoy matcha very much. I just don’t enjoy the ceremony/ritual of the gadgets. But, the chasen does give my matcha a nice foamy consistency that I appreciate and I love my chawan… I collect teacups and teapots. I just don’t like to get all that stuff out a lot, because then I have to clean it and put it away. If I were by myself in this house, I’d probably have this stuff out and not have a problem with it… but, hubby kind of loses it when my tea stuff “spreads” LOL
I hate cleaning (anything really) as well. But drinking from a bowl is just way too fun lol. And I also get your point about the spreading… but those things help me enjoy my tea. I found I don’t like my matcha cold, but I have a suggestion for you if that’s something you like. Pour cold water, milk, or a mix of the two in a water bottle, add matcha, and shake- I made cold matcha lemonade (unsweetened) last nite and was shocked at how much it foamed! Being able to screw on the cover really made it easy to shake it good. You could try it hot as well but you’d have to be careful to not melt the bottle. If you’re gonna buy water in a bottle, might as well use it more than once.
I finished watching a movie and I come back to check my mail + steepster and I see about 36 emails in my inbox… it seems it all came from this thread and the talk about scales =]
I have a similar tiny scale like you Tea Bird =]
That’s my fault, Ricky – I solicited their expert advice (if I had done it earlier, I would’ve saved myself a LOT of time perusing Amazon & Upton the other day) on tea scales. Sorry about the inbox explosion! But then again, it’s us! it’s fun! it’s much better getting mail from us than all that spam!
Hey, he’s the one that sets his email settings LOL.=D
Hahah, it’s okay. I don’t mind all the emails. I’m slowly working my way through them =], but they just keep piling up!
For the most part I just delete them and go off my notices.
Notices, notices, notices…. uhoh 1961 notices remaining
Don’t you EVER click on them to clear them out??? LOL at least the number doesn’t go down as you read them (I wish they did though), click it once and it starts over.
Haha, I click on it every once in a blue moon =P
For the most part I only use dashboard, recent/all and email notifications.
LiberTEAS – I just saw your comment – SEVEN for 8 ounces? Oh, I used too many of my precious pearls today! OH NO! I wish I thought to PM you or something and ask your advice … I knew that you really enjoyed jasmine pearls from some comment you had made earlier in one of your posts. Sigh. SEVEN, huh? BUMMED NOW I used 34 for 10 oz.
LiberTEAS… you consider a glass mug a gadget?!
Lauren: Yikes… yeah, that’s a bit too many. Seven has always been my magic number for pearls. If you like a tea a little stronger, you can up by a few, but 34 is a lot for 10 oz.
Cofftea: Yes, because it is not something I use on a regular basis. I have 3 mugs that I use on regular rotation, they hold about 16 ounces of liquid. This is just perfect for my smart brewing system, which brews about 16 ounces of liquid (simplicity at it’s finest) These are a breeze to clean because I can put them in the dishwasher. (simplicity) My regular, essential devices that I use are my mugs, my smart brewing system, a tea spoon for measuring, and my tea kettle. Any variation from these devices are additional gismos or gadgets – niceties that are not absolutely necessary to get the job done – but are nice to have and occasionally give me a little variety on my normal routine. Example: If I want Matcha, I suppose I could simply stir some matcha into my mug with hot water, but, it makes for a better matcha to get my chasen and chawan out and use them. But, I don’t want to have to get these things out every day.
I believe that tea should be as simple as possible. For some, that means weighing on a scale to get just the right measurement of leaves. For others, this means winging it. I’m the kind of gal that likes to wing it. Now my hubby, he’s a planner, and he would – if he were a tea drinker – want to weigh and be precise. I think that’s why we balance each other out so well.
I realize I may have come off as snarkly when I talked about gismos and gadgets, but honestly, I truly have a great respect for it. It’s just not in my nature to be like that. But, for those of you who are, that’s great. I say, keep doing what you’re doing. If it makes your tea more enjoyable that way, that’s cool. For me, it would make my tea less enjoyable and more like math. And I hate math. LOL
Haha LiberTEAS I hate math too. And I’m normally so extremely not type A (I’m not type B either as I have no creative side/talent so I have no clue what the heck I am), but a recipe I can follow and a method for making tea is just a recipe. I normally only make 1 serving of tea at once (I have the ingenuiTEA and love it as well) so I actually don’t do that much math…. only when making chai- and I know I like 4g of leaf in 6oz water for chai so I’ve committed to memory that a 16oz serving would be 10 2/3g.I can be type A, get my tea perfect and not really do much math- yay! lol.
Cofftea: I don’t follow recipes either. LOL
How do you get anything to taste good? Are you just lucky? Maybe if I had your luck I wouldn’t be so tea anal. LOL
I guess I’m lucky. I like to play around with spices and stuff… so I get a general idea of how something is made or what goes well with it and I just play around with it. I have a family with three pretty picky eaters, and I’m the only one cooking, so I must be doing something right because nobody is starving!
But then, cooking is so very much like art for me, and so it’s like a passion. But… baking… that’s another matter all together, I don’t like to bake because measuring and following recipes is essential to successful baking. I can bake, and do very well with it, but I don’t enjoy it as much as cooking because of the need of being precise with baking.
Go figure… I can wing it when it comes to blending, but when it comes to the preparation I need formulas lol.
Baking n cookin by winging. Uhhhh I’m scared :P. Just a tad. Well I can understand winging when it comes to cooking but baking. Hmmm how’d those cookies turn out =P
I am sorry if I was misleading in my post… but I don’t wing it when I bake. I measure, I follow the recipe to the letter. And I don’t like doing it. That’s why I bake far less often than I cook. :)