Welcome to my blog. I hope you will join me for a cup of tea!
All in Tastings
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to attend a very special Korean tea tasting in the Arts District of Los Angeles. The tasting was held by Jessica Choi at The Good Liver, a curated home good store.
I won this cake a while ago at a giveaway on Instagram and it had been sitting - untouched - in my tea cabinet for a while. Puerh is meant for aging, so I was not overly concerned and I was waiting to be in the mood for it. Let me tell you, I’m rarely in the mood for puerh. I can hear all the pu-heads gasping in horror. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it a lot, but not for solo tea sessions. Strange, isn’t it? Anyways, I somehow associate young (or relatively young) raw puerh with grape skin notes, but I could not detect those here and I did not miss them because there was plenty of other intriguing notes going on.
Machiko is known to have the distinctive aroma of sakura, cherry blossoms, and fukumidori was described to me as bitter but in a good way, which is not a priority for me when choosing green tea from Japan (umami is at the top of the list usually). Apparently, Japanese tea drinkers seem to enjoy bitterness in their green tea and I was curious to see what that was like. Read on to discover my tasting notes and thoughts.
It was a damp, chilly, foggy summer night in San Francisco and I was having dinner with my husband at a fine dining restaurant, a newly opened neighborhood gem. Things were going pretty well, beautiful space, amazing food, thoughtful and friendly service. It couldn’t have been any more perfect until the dessert menu arrived. On a whim, I decided to order tea with my dessert, because the selection seemed promising. Big, big mistake, Anna, big mistake, sweetheart.
My tasting notes of a very unique and intriguing tea, Ceylon Uva with Camellia Sinensis Flowers.
My Japanese tea journey of discovery took me to the narrow, winding streets of Setagaya ward in Tokyo to what has been dubbed “the world’s first hand-drip green tea shop”, Tokyo Saryo.
Last December, my tea travels took me to Japan. In Tokyo, I finally explored the amazing variety of Japanese tea. In this post, I’ll tell you more about the Sakurai tea experience. If you’re doing only one tea thing in Tokyo, let it be that.
Kyoto is one of those places where I get what I can only describe as a fizzy feeling of excitement, sheer happiness bubbling up for no apparent reason. It’s the texture of the linen door curtains I gently move to the side with my hand, the brightest pop of yellow of the beautifully fan-shaped gingko leaves, all the shades of fire coloring the Japanese maples, the sound of water trickling into a stone basin, the soft rustling of a paper-paneled sliding door, the perfume-y smell of the cedar wood soaking tub, tatami mats under my feet. Four years had gone by since last time. This time, tea was at the top of my list. Here’s what happened.
Have you ever heard the quote “where there’s tea, there’s hope”? I took the liberty of rewriting that into “where there’s excellent tea, there’s the tea squirrel” because wherever you can find top notch tea, you can be sure that place is on my radar and you might find me there to enjoy it. So naturally I had to visit Oyatsuya, a pop-up Japanese dessert and snack tasting with tea pairings in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco.
I don’t know very much about Sweden, the only thing I know is that their pastries are my new obsession. One kind in particular, Swedish cinnamon knots, also known as kanelbullar. In Sweden sweet treats are a very important part of fika, the Swedish coffee break, which is more of a lifestyle, actually and alternatively can include tea too! Join me on the blog as I pair these delicious pastries with 4 different teas!
Picture me sitting with a cup of tea in my hand, inhaling the fragrant steam rising from my small tasting cup. It feels so good to pause and enjoy. Sometimes I let my mind wander and imagine the journey of those tea leaves and all the energy and resources that went into making it. It’s impossible not to feel grateful for it, don’t you think? One thought leads to another, some questions surface. Are we using those energy and resources wisely or are we wasting them? Are we being kind to our planet? Find out how you can make your tea time more sustainable!
I had seen puer tea stuffed in mandarins before but I had never seen Korean black tea stuffed in a dried, hollowed-out yuzu. If you’re not familiar with yuzu, it’s a citrus fruit which is similar to a grapefruit and a mandarin orange in flavor. Check out this unique tea, let’s taste it together!
While tasting a 2018 Yiwu raw puer by Bitterleaf, I practiced my macro photography skills (I have a new lens, yay!) and mindfulness with some gorgeous sea shells I found along the coast on a beautiful beach in Mendocino, California.
Let’s discover Korean green teas. Join the Tea Squirrel for a Korean tea primer and tasting comparison of Se jak and Woo jeon.
Last Saturday I attended the grand opening of Stonemill Matcha Cafe, the newest addition to the San Francisco tea scene. Keep reading if you’re curious about my first impressions and pictures. Right this way —>
Tea is an incredibly versatile beverage. Have you ever tried sipping tea while savoring high-quality chocolate? If the answer is no, you’re missing out on a unique sensory experience. Tasting tea and chocolate together can help amp up both of their delightful nuances. And because we all secretly need an excuse to eat more chocolate, this looks like a perfectly acceptable one, and it’s virtually guilt-free, because, after all, it’s also a tea tasting.
Darjeeling and Assam are the most renowned tea producing regions in India, but they are not the only ones. The tea I’m tasting today comes from the Nilgiris or Blue Mountains in the state of Tamil Nadu, in Southern India. According to the Indian tea association, Nilgiri tea accounts for about 10% of the total tea production of India.
