What do you call a large box of new tea?

A good start.


Needless to say, I was very excited to get my box of new tea from my favorite new catalog, Upton Tea Importers. Its a serious Sears & Roebuck esq' book that comes out quarterly printed in black and white and has little or no pictures. While the website is much more user friendly and has fantastic pictures, reviews and search functions the old timeyness of the physical catalog (ie. it contains an article on the historical connection between tea and the opium wars) is the best way to browse. I opted for putting my order in online though to speed things up and got the order in about four days.

You can order things in British style tea tins for $2 or the vacuum sealed packets seen above. Everything comes with a personalized label with date of packing and suggested amount/temp/time. The labels come off the bags and can be put on your own tins. So now everyone can see that the tea in my collections was indeed packed for Eliezer Silver and not some impostor.

This order included...

	ZG18 125g packet: Chun Mee (Moon Palace) packed for: Eliezer Silver $4.40 1 $4.40
	TT88 125g packet: Formosa Oolong Spring Dragon packed for: Eliezer Silver $14.40 1 $14.40
	ZO10 100g packet: China Oolong Se Chung packed for: Eliezer Silver $4.90 1 $4.90
	ZG45 100g packet: Pi Lo Chun Superior Organic packed for: Eliezer Silver $12.80 1 $12.80

It also came with a free sample of Sungma Estate SFTGFOP1 Second Flush which is cool because I have wanted to try out some more single estate black teas. Thus far the only black tea's i've ever really liked are blends like Irish Breakfast so these samples might be a good place to start.

Overall, having not tasted anything yet, very impressed. More reviews to come once I have time to drink it.

New things are coming...

This tea ain't gonna steep itself! I gotta start updating this more.

What i'm drinking now:

I made a strong cup of dragonwell this morning. I've found that rather than brewing longer or hotter for a stronger cup of tea its better to just used more leaves. This cup was brewed a bit too long and has gone a little on the bitter side.

Fancy man enjoy's tea

This killed me. I'm about to enjoy a cup of dragon well, then off to work at the flower shop where I wear pink dresses.

What I'm drinking now: white tea that was good...then strange after I dropped my roll and cream cheese in it.

Supermarket Tea

I love Wegmans. They are a east coast supermarket chain that doesn't market themselves specifically as "green" or "organic" (see a nationwide chain with a Whole history of bad union relations) but has a great local section and lots of organic produce. I think because they are just on the east coast all their suppliers are much closer and thereby fresher. They also have a great natural foods section that has a surprisingly good loose tea selection.



Yesterday I picked up some White Silver Needle (see above), Green Dragon Well, and Tai Kwon Yin (I can't believed I spelled that right the first time) oolong. I've gotten their Dragon Well and its just as good if not better than others that I've had. I made a pot of the Tai Kwon Yin today and it was fantastic. A bit sweeter than I've had in past batches of the popular oolong but very smooth and complex even after 3 brews.

Tea chat had an interesting topic on this which had some educated guesses as to who their distro is. Check it out.

Their teas aren't graded but they are definately at the level of something like a Republic of Tea grade which is definately under a fancy grade but realy good. I realy think that the freshness of a tea however is just as important as grade and these teas taste very new and don't produce the dusty flavors that I've noticed in teas that have been on the shelf for too long.

What i'm drinking now: Numi gunpowder at Zebu in Red Bank. A message to all baristas, TEA BAG ON THE SIDE PLEASE!

What i'm drinking now: "The better stuff" Snapple Rasberry iced tea. Snapple has a long way to go in the tea dept. but the switch to sugar is a good step.

What i'm drinking now: I'm at Ibby's falafel in freehold, their "special iced tea" is fantastic.