Yunnan Gold - Adagio

I bought two samples of Yunnan Gold from Adagio, one through the Black Savant sampler and one on its own.

The Yunnan province is will known for its teas, most of the pu-erh production in in that province, and the teas there are pretty renoun. I've had Yunnan Gold from Jon Singer in packets he bought from Imperial Tea Court ("Liralen, you HAVE to taste this!"), and it always epitomized what "tea" should taste like. No bitterness, just enough tannin, a rich complex gold (no nuts or cream/butter tones, just... what I've always thought gold should taste like) and that underlying taste that simply is tea, comfort and gentle stimulous and a complexity of sweetness and depth that I've always loved. We'd brewed at sea level in a Yixing pot that I had though to use for white teas, but it worked so well with this that I have kept it for that. I should dig that pot up again.

This sample had something to live up to.

Water Temp: Full Boil (at 5000+ feet that's about 200 degrees Farenheit +/- a few, at sea level it should be about 212, which might bring out more of the complexities) in my Russell-Hobbs.
Brewed: 2 level teaspoons 4 minutes on the dot in a Chatsford 16 oz pot with 12 ounces of boiling water, all under a cozy as well to keep what heat there was in.

Leaf scent: Tannin and wood loam and rich body
Leaf appearance: Gold through and through
Liquor: Deep gold, no red hints or yellow or green, just deeper gold than yellow could be.

It was the richness that I remembered. Not quite as strong or as deep, but I might blame the not really boiling water, as it had enough character to remind me of what I'd been craving and it was satisfying enough. Or it was just the tin or they'd held it too long. I'll have to try this in the ingenuiTEA right out of the microwave (yeah for superheating!) to see if it's the water (though it's a balance between flattening the water by boiling it too much or the heat it can get to). Or else, hey, maybe the old teaman was right... my taste buds have wasted away on a diet of mostly coffee. ;-)

So I'll give it a 7 out of 10, with the original memory of Singer and I sipping and talking with Fezzik curled at my feet and the rain outside the window as the 10 of yore.

Added Aug. 7, 2005. I have a head cold, which is probably why things were so muted. I'll have to try this again and update it when I have my nose again.

Yunnan Gold - Adagio

I bought two samples of Yunnan Gold from Adagio, one through the Black Savant sampler and one on its own.

The Yunnan province is will known for its teas, most of the pu-erh production in in that province, and the teas there are pretty renoun. I've had Yunnan Gold from Jon Singer in packets he bought from Imperial Tea Court ("Liralen, you HAVE to taste this!"), and it always epitomized what "tea" should taste like. No bitterness, just enough tannin, a rich complex gold (no nuts or cream/butter tones, just... what I've always thought gold should taste like) and that underlying taste that simply is tea, comfort and gentle stimulous and a complexity of sweetness and depth that I've always loved. We'd brewed at sea level in a Yixing pot that I had though to use for white teas, but it worked so well with this that I have kept it for that. I should dig that pot up again.

This sample had something to live up to.

Water Temp: Full Boil (at 5000+ feet that's about 200 degrees Farenheit +/- a few, at sea level it should be about 212, which might bring out more of the complexities) in my Russell-Hobbs.
Brewed: 2 level teaspoons 4 minutes on the dot in a Chatsford 16 oz pot with 12 ounces of boiling water, all under a cozy as well to keep what heat there was in.

Leaf scent: Tannin and wood loam and rich body
Leaf appearance: Gold through and through
Liquor: Deep gold, no red hints or yellow or green, just deeper gold than yellow could be.

It was the richness that I remembered. Not quite as strong or as deep, but I might blame the not really boiling water, as it had enough character to remind me of what I'd been craving and it was satisfying enough. Or it was just the tin or they'd held it too long. I'll have to try this in the ingenuiTEA right out of the microwave (yeah for superheating!) to see if it's the water (though it's a balance between flattening the water by boiling it too much or the heat it can get to). Or else, hey, maybe the old teaman was right... my taste buds have wasted away on a diet of mostly coffee. ;-)

So I'll give it a 7 out of 10, with the original memory of Singer and I sipping and talking with Fezzik curled at my feet and the rain outside the window as the 10 of yore.

Added Aug. 7, 2005. I have a head cold, which is probably why things were so muted. I'll have to try this again and update it when I have my nose again.

Errands, a Rose Bush, a Nap, and Cedar-Planked Salmon

Written on Aug 7.

Saturday was errand day. Half a dozen stops and Jet getting more tired and whinier with each one. Now that I have his cold I can kind of understand why, but I think he's just in one of those phases. One of the early stops was Home Depot, to get a bit of cedar for cooking the On Special sockeye around here. It's only $6.99 a pound for wild, NW caught, sockeye salmon!! One of the few fish still on the OK list to eat. Anyway, John and I wanted to try it on a cedar plank, and an untreated cedar picket was something like $1.25! Yay! So we bought it, John sawed it down, and we soaked our cedar plank for the evening.

At the same Home Depot was a kind of sale on potted rose plants. One plant, in particular caught my nose. It was that rich, honey scent of a great tea rose, and it was an unprepossessing flower and plant. White, frilly flowers and pale pink stripes, and the strip on it said, "ORANGE something blah" but it was only $5.99, and we had some credit, and there were two sad holes in the rose garden for bushes that hadn't survived from last year. So I bought it and it filled the car with its scent as we did other Stuff.

When we finally got home, we had some lunch and Jet declared that he was NOT HUNGRY and was NOT TIRED and was NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING... and... uhm.

I helped him build a little fort of pillows and told him that if he lay for 10 minutes with his eyes closed I would turn on the green Thomas movie for him. He tossed and turned and told me his eyes were closed, and I said, "Just be still and close your eyes for ten minutes." "You'll tell me when my time is up?" he asked. "Yes. I promise I'll tell you when your time is up," meaning that when his hour and a half nap was up I was going to definitely wake him up.

He lay there and was still and within six minutes he was snoring. Whew.

That's when John urged me to go and just get the rose bush planted. So I did. Watering can and shovel and rose and gloves and some organic compost with mineral additives to put in the hole. Of course, when I arrived it was a little after 2 pm, or when the sun was still really high in the sky and good Southern people everywhere would be having their siesta if they were intelligent.

I wasn't. I did, however, turn on the sprinkler system, tried to fix what I could, and then in the mist and spray, I dug the hold, added the compost, turned out the plant, opened up the roots a little, and then planted it. Deep. And covered it as best I could with that clay soil, and watered it some more. Then I paid attention to the other bushes that weren't getting quite enough water, and took notes on the problems with the system.

When I got home, I emailed the rose group about the problems, and felt pretty good.

I also woke up Jet after a 2 hour nap and started the Thomas movie for him, and we made peanut butter, chocolate, yogurt, ice, milk, and banana smoothies. I'd tried to stop at an "Inta Juice" but they were so busy that they had a line of three cars and asked me to wait for at least five minutes. So I finally drove away just as the girl said, "Okay..." So I was craving a smoothie, and Jet, still fresh from post-nap depression needed something too, and he laughed when I squirted chocolate sauce into it. He liked it. Yay! Protein boost!

After his movie he was pretty happy, and John wanted to ride again, so they went down to the basement, and had fun while I went back to King Soopers and bought salmon for dinner. Just that, the cold was catching up to me, and I had no need to think if I just got what I had to get. So I did, and went home, and started Jet's rice before doing some video games with Jet. Then I started the corn and salmon on the grill.

The corn is from a stand just across the Diagonal from us. They just started a vegetable and fruit stand this summer, and they seemed pretty earnest about it. Small farm syndrome, have to find a way to make the ends meet and selling it direct gets a FAR better price than taking it to the processors. The guy there took John and Jet on a walk across the fields to see how watermelons grow and they peered at the irrigation channels for crawdads. Good to get the personal touch that we paid for.

The salmon took longer than I expected, but then I had the grill open to not burn the corn. Plank cooking really needs the top to be closed. Next time I'll probably do the salmon first, make sure its cooked, then take it off and do the corn in the open top. The salmon would have been fine a bit cooler, I think.

It all tasted wonderful. The salmon was good and smoky and the corn was chewy and toasted and nicely caramelized. Yum.

Jet ate his dinner, and then demolished three mango mochi balls quite happily, promising me to help me anywhere I might need it when I'd given him my second one. I took that promise at its heart when we went upstairs and had showers and baths. Jet loves his bath and shower time, so much so that he just won't get out. I suspect that if we did the bath every night routine, it would be easier, but it was extremely hard to get him out. But when I invoked my promised "help", he looked at me, and then pulled the plug. He wanted to see the water go down, but when it was down, he climbed out, got dried off, and then did pajamas. With some protests, but he did it, and then when the routine of getting his teeth brushed and everything happened, he just went with the flow of it and got to sleep about 10:30. Yeah. Late.

I was tired, but felt better than I felt this morning. It was good to get the rose bush planted.

Errands, a Rose Bush, a Nap, and Cedar-Planked Salmon

Written on Aug 7.

Saturday was errand day. Half a dozen stops and Jet getting more tired and whinier with each one. Now that I have his cold I can kind of understand why, but I think he's just in one of those phases. One of the early stops was Home Depot, to get a bit of cedar for cooking the On Special sockeye around here. It's only $6.99 a pound for wild, NW caught, sockeye salmon!! One of the few fish still on the OK list to eat. Anyway, John and I wanted to try it on a cedar plank, and an untreated cedar picket was something like $1.25! Yay! So we bought it, John sawed it down, and we soaked our cedar plank for the evening.

At the same Home Depot was a kind of sale on potted rose plants. One plant, in particular caught my nose. It was that rich, honey scent of a great tea rose, and it was an unprepossessing flower and plant. White, frilly flowers and pale pink stripes, and the strip on it said, "ORANGE something blah" but it was only $5.99, and we had some credit, and there were two sad holes in the rose garden for bushes that hadn't survived from last year. So I bought it and it filled the car with its scent as we did other Stuff.

When we finally got home, we had some lunch and Jet declared that he was NOT HUNGRY and was NOT TIRED and was NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING... and... uhm.

I helped him build a little fort of pillows and told him that if he lay for 10 minutes with his eyes closed I would turn on the green Thomas movie for him. He tossed and turned and told me his eyes were closed, and I said, "Just be still and close your eyes for ten minutes." "You'll tell me when my time is up?" he asked. "Yes. I promise I'll tell you when your time is up," meaning that when his hour and a half nap was up I was going to definitely wake him up.

He lay there and was still and within six minutes he was snoring. Whew.

That's when John urged me to go and just get the rose bush planted. So I did. Watering can and shovel and rose and gloves and some organic compost with mineral additives to put in the hole. Of course, when I arrived it was a little after 2 pm, or when the sun was still really high in the sky and good Southern people everywhere would be having their siesta if they were intelligent.

I wasn't. I did, however, turn on the sprinkler system, tried to fix what I could, and then in the mist and spray, I dug the hold, added the compost, turned out the plant, opened up the roots a little, and then planted it. Deep. And covered it as best I could with that clay soil, and watered it some more. Then I paid attention to the other bushes that weren't getting quite enough water, and took notes on the problems with the system.

When I got home, I emailed the rose group about the problems, and felt pretty good.

I also woke up Jet after a 2 hour nap and started the Thomas movie for him, and we made peanut butter, chocolate, yogurt, ice, milk, and banana smoothies. I'd tried to stop at an "Inta Juice" but they were so busy that they had a line of three cars and asked me to wait for at least five minutes. So I finally drove away just as the girl said, "Okay..." So I was craving a smoothie, and Jet, still fresh from post-nap depression needed something too, and he laughed when I squirted chocolate sauce into it. He liked it. Yay! Protein boost!

After his movie he was pretty happy, and John wanted to ride again, so they went down to the basement, and had fun while I went back to King Soopers and bought salmon for dinner. Just that, the cold was catching up to me, and I had no need to think if I just got what I had to get. So I did, and went home, and started Jet's rice before doing some video games with Jet. Then I started the corn and salmon on the grill.

The corn is from a stand just across the Diagonal from us. They just started a vegetable and fruit stand this summer, and they seemed pretty earnest about it. Small farm syndrome, have to find a way to make the ends meet and selling it direct gets a FAR better price than taking it to the processors. The guy there took John and Jet on a walk across the fields to see how watermelons grow and they peered at the irrigation channels for crawdads. Good to get the personal touch that we paid for.

The salmon took longer than I expected, but then I had the grill open to not burn the corn. Plank cooking really needs the top to be closed. Next time I'll probably do the salmon first, make sure its cooked, then take it off and do the corn in the open top. The salmon would have been fine a bit cooler, I think.

It all tasted wonderful. The salmon was good and smoky and the corn was chewy and toasted and nicely caramelized. Yum.

Jet ate his dinner, and then demolished three mango mochi balls quite happily, promising me to help me anywhere I might need it when I'd given him my second one. I took that promise at its heart when we went upstairs and had showers and baths. Jet loves his bath and shower time, so much so that he just won't get out. I suspect that if we did the bath every night routine, it would be easier, but it was extremely hard to get him out. But when I invoked my promised "help", he looked at me, and then pulled the plug. He wanted to see the water go down, but when it was down, he climbed out, got dried off, and then did pajamas. With some protests, but he did it, and then when the routine of getting his teeth brushed and everything happened, he just went with the flow of it and got to sleep about 10:30. Yeah. Late.

I was tired, but felt better than I felt this morning. It was good to get the rose bush planted.