A.C. Perch's Thehandel

I’m in a green mood this morning. A lot of healthy stuff comes in the shade of green. That’s why call them greens. :)

I was originally amused by this one. I’d never seen a genmaicha before where puffed rice were all coloured green. I thought it looked hilarious, but figured it might have been done for the decorational value. Next, it surprised me by being very sensitive to steeping. If you brew with the leaves floating loose in the pot like I do, it MUST be decanted after steeping, because it will turn ridiculously bitter if left to its own devices.

Over on LJ, though, a resourceful person known as Iguanahey looked into it a bit and found that it was actually a variation of Genmaicha called ‘Uji Genmaicha’, in which a measure of matcha was added to the usual mix of sencha and rice. This would explain the mildness of flavour and the sensitivity to steeping.

I think I prefer the ‘usual’ Genmaicha that I had before, but this is really really nice too, and I’m dreading running out.

I think I should have let the water cool a bit more before brewing today. The rice of course have a toasted flavour, but it seems a bit more burned than usual this morning. Eh well. That’s what you get when you don’t have a thermometer and go by gut (and memory. Many’s the time where I’ve had to boil new water because I’d forgotten the kettle and it had gone way too cold) when brewing green and white.

I’m very fond of Genmaicha. It’s one of my favourite greens. This one is from A. C. Perch’s in Copenhagen and a completely unexpected addition to the cupboard. I bought a book from there, which I think I mentioned in my previous post. It’s partly about tea in general and partly about the history of the shop. Apparently, as I discovered when I got it, when ordering the book on the publishing day they added a tin of Genmaicha. Freebie tea! I’m a fan. :D

It smells lovely. A delicate fragrance that smells more of tea than it does of rice. It’s been a while since I’ve had any Genmaicha, so it might be that my memory is playing tricks on me, but it looks to me like there are more unpuffed rice in this one. I’m rather amused by the fact that the puffed rice are actually green too in this one. Never seen that before. It looks funny. :)

The steeped tea smells more or less like the dry leaves. Delicate and mild and more tea-like than rice-like. I like that. It rather pale in colour too.

The flavour seems very mild to me. It’s been a while since I’ve had any green, or white for that matter, so my tongue is probably temporarily ruined by black, oolong and pu-ehr. After a few sips, I stareted getting over that, though, and I started picking up a little more flavour. At first it’s mostly just the flavour of the tea, and then when swallowing the rice comes into play. It can’t under any circumstances be allowed to over-steep though, because it turns bitter really quickly.

I like this Genmaicha a lot, and I’m very likely to come back for more. And I’m not just saying that because it was free and came in a nice tin. Win!

Also, it feels absolutely wonderful for my mysteriously sore throat. Double win!

Good morning Steepsterites.

I’ve made this a bit unpleasant today. The tin I keep it in is tall and narrow, so it’s a bit difficult to get the scoop in and get a proper spoonful of leaves. I think I used too much leaf today. I tried to compensate with a shorter than normal steep but it hasn’t really worked. Not short enough.

It has that nutty bitterness that just sits on your tongue and constantly reminds you that, “I’m drinkable, yeah… But I’m not supposed to be here. Oolong, ur doin it rong!”

And that’s really distracting, you know? It makes it impossible to taste around it like you can with some other mistakes. Or maybe it’s just impossible this morning, I don’t know.

Either way, I surrender. Now I want something else.

Anything else.

I needed a plain tea after all those flavoured once earlier today. I made this one somewhat stronger than I normally do in the hopes that it might give the flavour, and particularly the aftertaste a bit more punch.

It didn’t really work.

All I got out of it was a whole lot of astringency and that kind of hay-like, flowery, prickly sort of flavour that you get when something is severely oversteeped or too strong.

This also spares me trying out that uber-long steeping, or stewing rather, of oolongs. I sincerely doubt it would be something I would like.

And now I suddenly realised WHY I’m doing my backlogs out of order.

This is from this morning on the way to work. I was feeling really tired and in an oolong-y mood, so I made this for my travel mug today.

This tea is not suitable for travel mugs. I couldn’t smell it at all and when you don’t get the full experience, you just get a tea that has an annoyingly sour taste. It was drinkable, but suddenly, without the smell, it just turned all blah.

And here’s the reason for the out of order backlog.

I’m having second steep now. I saved the leaves mostly because I didn’t have time to clean out the pot before leaving, so I figured now that I came home, I might as well just steep them, having already learned that they can easily carry a second steep. I needed this. It’s just much much much better when I can get the full experience, and when I’m not putting two thirds of my attention into trying to wake up properly.

Fourth steep while watching Midsomer Murders. Only ten minutes left of the episode and I STILL think they ALL did it. Gah!

It’s hard to believe that this is the tea that initially disappointed me with lack of flavour. I must definitely have brewed it wrong the first time, because today I’m founding an astounding amount of flavour. It’s a bit weakened but not that much. Yes, I added a few fresh leaves to the third steep, but not remotely enough that they could carry two whole steeps all on their lonesome.

I’m beginning to change my stance about how much I think it lives up to the high price. Tastewise, not really, but… I can’t think of the right word. Like… the endurance of the leaves? How many times they can be used successfully? In that regard, it is definitely worth a purchase. I still think it’s very expensive, but it gained a little more worth in my eyes.

(OMG the vicar did it??? But but but but but he was the nicest person around! I did NOT see that one coming.)

I’m having a resteep of this with my dinner, so it’s the third steep. I added a pinch of fresh leaves to the pot to give it a little extra kick.

I know I said the aftertaste gets cancelled out when you’re eating something too, but there you are are. The leaves and the pot were already there and I was feeling lazy.

Inspired by the post about it earlier today though I also boiled some broccoli in salted water with butter, and I smelled the steam as it boiled. I was right. That was EXACTLY the note I found in the tea this morning. I feel all satisfied with myself for having noticed that.

It seems very similar to the first two steeps, but I think if I hadn’t added a few fresh leaves it tastes sort of like it might have been a bit faded. I probably ought to not have added it in order to get a ‘clean’ third steep, but I thought it might just get weak. I’d rather have an inaccurate third steep than a weak clean one.

I was so disappointed by this the first time I had it. It was really expensive, nearly 100 kr for 100 g, which is a price you normally see in white teas and flowering display teas. And then it had so little flavour. It was almost unbearable.

Today has continued to suck, involving the local tax authorities who are trying to trick me into paying the same bill twice. I wouldn’t be so irritated by this if it hadn’t been for the fact that paying this bill last month is a major contributing factor to november having to be stingy-month. growl

I needed something soothing and I haven’t had a pure oolong in ages, so I’m going to revisit this one. My expectations of it aren’t quite as high this time, so I’m going to be starting over. Hopefully I can shift the rating up a bit too, because ‘30’ is just… I feel really bad about having rated such an expensive tea so low. So let’s pretend that this is the first post I make about it.

The leaves are large and twirly. They’re a bit on the darker side, although not as dark as a black tea. Some of them have that golden in-between colour. Pretty in the in. They have plenty of aroma. Sweet and with a note of tobacco.

(so far so good)

Once they have been steeped, the leaves turn a nice light green again. I’ve never noticed that before. I’ve given it a good long steep to get as much flavour out of them as possible. A C Perch’s recommend eight minutes, so that’s what they got. Actually they got nearly 15 minutes because I forgot to pay attention. In the cup it has a nice golden-ish red colour, like autumn leaves just before they fall off the tree. I’m using a fairly tall mug and I can just exactly see the bottom of it. The aroma of the brew is sort of reminding me of broccoli that has been boiled in lightly salted water with a small lump of butter in it. I wouldn’t say it’s a broccoli note, but when I smell something vegetal with a weak butter note and a weak salt note, broccoli is the thing that first comes to mind.

The first sip of the first steep was primarily bitter. This, obviously, has to do with oversteeping. As mentioned I was aiming for 8 minutes and forgot to pay attention so it got nearly 15 instead. They don’t say anything about recommended temperature other than ‘freshly boiled water’. I can taste very little else than the beginning bitterness, so I think it’s safe to say that pretty much ruined this. How annoying. But on a day like today, hands up everybody who’s surprised. Anybody? No?

Dumping the first steep then, and going straight to the second. In my opinion any proper oolong should be able to handle at least one resteep, so I’m not too concerned about it shifting the review. The second steep involves a kitchen timer, so as not to make the same mistake again. It’s much much lighter this time around. A more orange-y golden, but the aroma is exactly the same.

No bitterness this time. I’m thinking I must have made it up too weak that first disappointing time. It has a nutty note, some astringency if you really search for it, and a clear leafy primary flavour. Well, I say ‘primary’, but the thing is it only really comes through if you get a large enough sip. If you just take tiny little nips, all you get is the nuttiness. It’s especially brought out if you slurp a bit and get it nicely mixed with air while tasting. A very very VERY small barely there flowery note too. I can’t even find it in every sip.

To begin with this doesn’t have much in the way of after taste, but as you take a few sips, it starts to build up. If you’re eating anything with the tea though, you’ll ruin it. Every time you take a bite, you have to start over.

All in all, I’m feeling much more happy about this tea now than I was before, and I’ve shifted the rating up considerably. Is it worth the high price though? No, not really. You can get lots of similar or better oolongs at half the price this one cost.

Turns out Nepal has a tea production. Who knew? I didn’t. Apparently Nepal produces quite a lot of tea, mainly black and green, and the tea from the easternmost regions are very similar to Darjeeling (and has in fact been sold as such due to the Darjeeling name being so valuable).

Quite by coincidence when looking for something else, I came across a Nepal Top Oolong at A C Perch’s in Copenhagen which was definitely something I wanted to try. Fairly expensive with nearly 100 kr per 100 grams. This translates to about €13.4 or $19.2 for 100 grams, which was the smallest quantity they would allow me to buy through their webshop.

The leaves are relatively dark and look nicely twirled. There isn’t really a lot of scent to them though.

The steeped tea is very light and yellowish in colour for an oolong and it smells sweet and somewhat nutty. The scent of it promises so much more than it actually delivers. It’s a very mild flavour and almost no aftertaste at all, which makes it a nice tea, but it gets boring pretty quickly.

As it develops there is a little more aftertaste, but still not very much. It wasn’t until the last few stewed dregs that I really got anything of the sort, and by that time it was turning slightly bitter.

It’s definitely not a good morning tea, it’s much too delicate in flavour for that. I’d take it for a tea break later in the day and probably not while eating something, since that would overpower what flavour it has.

It’s a nice enough tea, but it’s just not interesting enough for me to get more of. Especially not at this price.

I have a countryman on Steepster now! flails Before, the closest I got, I think, was Rijje in Greenland, which… it’s close, but not quite the same. Anyway, Andreastt recently discovered ACP and had a question about this here raspberry oolong that you may have heard of. :p I tried to answer to the best of my ability, but decided it was probably better to make a cup and check that I actually think what I thought I think.

Besides, any excuse for a cuppa. :D

Since it will be a teensy tiny minority who will actually be able to read the conversation in question, let me just summarise. I mentioned a few of my absolute favourites from ACP, and I was asked how fruity-tart the raspberry oolong was or whether it was all done with essence of fruit.

I answered that it contains lots of dried fruit, but that it was probably doubtful how much flavour these gave off. It did suggest to me, though, that there was more than mere essence of berries involved here and that, if he didn’t care for very tart things, it might not be something for him.

To me, though, it is quite oolong-y at first. It’s got that wooden sort of flavour of a generic oolong, and then towards the end of the sip, there is the fruit flavour, which definitely has a bit of tartness to it. Not super-tart, but there is a small bite in it. Actually the fruit-flavour is really present throughout the sip, but I find it’s most prominent just before I swallow. As if it just needs a splitsecond longer to unfold in the mouth.

It is not, however, quite as tart as I initially remembered it.

It’s been ages since I had some of this, and today it seemed just the thing. I’m glad I picked it. Somehow it gets even yummier when had seldomly rather than when had often.

It got about twice as long a steep as I would have normally done, mostly on a whim. yu76tyggggg oh look, a cat on the keyboard. This is not a tea that I’ve had a lot of bad oversteep experiences with, and I suddenly decided to see if a longer steep (I do short steeps normally) would have any impact on the result considering how much leaf I normally use.

It turned out just as it should. Maybe even with a little more depth to it, but I’m not sure if that’s not just something to do with how I remember it. It is a good while since the last time I had any of it.

I’m on the second steep of it now, same time as the first and my normal second steep time. Less berry, as much oolong. Still very nice indeed.

I think I’ve said it before, but I feel sorry for all you americans who can’t just go and get some of this whenever you like. Not unless you’re willing to pay some probably pretty fierce shipping.

I brought a little of this with me to work to day to share with my boss. As mentioned previously we tend to drink the same tea at work, but lately we’ve grown a little weary of the Assam we usually have. That’s a good tea, actually, but at work we rarely have the time and conditions to pay proper attention to it when brewing. Besides, we thought it would be nice with something to choose from.

I showed her AC Perch’s website and asked her to have a look and see what sort of stuff she would like. This was one that caught her eye, and I could happily tell her that it’s awesome!

Normally, we make a one litre pot and have that during the day. Normally, a little is even discarded at the end of the day. Today, I made a pot of this one for us, and it was empty before noon. That really says a lot, doesn’t it?

We have now decided that we shall get a 100g bag to keep at work of this one, and I’ll be taken that opportunity to reinforce my own supply as well. It is, after all, another Standard Panel tea.

Guess what I’ve got again.

And I must have got it from a new batch this time because previously when I’ve bought it, I’ve received oolong leaves with whole black currants and chunks of raspberry in it.

This time, chunks of raspberry? Try WHOLE raspberries. And not just one or two that got through the raspberry-chunking-machine unscathed. No, there are many of them. Many many raspberries.

(It’s so hard to not fish them out and eat them!)

Still as nommy as ever. Om nom nom.

Making tea in a hurry before I change my mind again. I’m finally trying to get through what I’m behind on the dashboard and first Morgana had Kusmi’s Samovar and I thought, “Oh, I should have some of that too!”. And then I scrolled down a little more and Rijje had this infamous raspberry oolong and I thought, “Oh, I should have some of that too!” And… You get the pattern, right?

So I hurried up and made a cup of this before the confusion was complete.

The obligatory sniffing of leaves in near-ecstacy that this tea requires was a good chance to take a look at the amount of leaves. We are dangerously close to a decupboarding here. I’ll have to do something about that post-England, I think.

Yummmm nommy.

Whew 9! Days! Back! I probably ought to stop following some people and try to make it easier for myself to keep up. But I don’t want to stop following anybody. Maybe I ought to have a secondary account with the smaller following list. Angrboda Lite. Nah, it would just get confusing. I guess I’ll just have to do the unpleasant and go through my follow list. This is not working. (How did I avoid breaking my back on a ginormous follow list before I stopped trying to follow everybody????)

I felt like celebrating with Rijje today. And for that we need a good old favourite that, to my surprise, it’s been quite a while since I’ve had.

If it’s been so long since I’ve had it, HOW COME THERE’S SO LITTLE LEFT IN THE TIN, HMMM???

Who nicked it? Fess up!

Ack, I have the first niggling pokings of a headache. How annoying.

Only way to fix such things that I know of is to have some favourite tea. It’s already getting a bit low in the tin again. Granted I shared some with a couple of you, but still… I think I’ll order a bigger batch when the time comes to re-stock.

For those of you that I’ve been waving this one teasingly at, I just saw a review over on Teaviews.com today about a strawberry oolong, which you can read about here http://www.teaviews.com/2010/06/04/review-naivetea-strawberry-oolong-4/
Maybe it would be a suitable replacement when this one is only really available to people in Denmark or people willing to pay a fortune in shipping. Reading about the strawberry oolong made me think of this one, at any rate.

TeaEqualsBliss inspired me. I wasn’t actually going to post about having this, but I’m doing it anyway. So we can all see the inspiration.

Or something.

this tea is chosen based on how easy the tin was to open anhd also because i bloody well deserve some spoiling.

the only reason i’m posting anythung at all is to say i’m going to be quiet and lurky for a little while because i managedto cvut the tip of my right index finger at work so i can’t really use it for anything. this is all typed with one hand and as you can see it’s not really ideal. i don’t have patience for this. but i can still use the mouse so i am around, i just can’t really type much. it’s niot as bad as it sounds only two stitches, it’s just in a reallu impractical place.

Nom nom nommity nom.

Nom.

Nommity.

Nom.

Did I mention nom?

Oh Rickyyyyyyyyyy! Guess what I’ve gooooot!

I made a little pot of this, drank it and resteeped. And angels started singing.

Oh berry! Oh oolong! Oh welcome back in my cupboard.

Green moods don’t last long when you discover that the green you made wasn’t the green you wanted. I was packing up tea samples for Jillian and Bethany (if she’s still interested), and spotted this tin and decided I was really in an oolong mood now instead.

Mostly because whenever I see this tin I have to take the lid off for a couple of sniffs. Yummy.

I can definitely see myself stocking up on this again when it’s gone and I’m beginning to dread the day when it is.

Inspirational tea for the WIN! Literally, actually, as I just hit 50094 words on NaNoWriMo. Just now.

Leonard Cohen is now singing ’I’m your man’ for me and I’m on the second steep of this now. The tea itself can handle a resteep quite well, but the berries, not so much. At this point it might as well just have been a regular plain oolong. A nice one definitely, though. It has plenty of flavour and plenty of lingering aftertaste. Like it’s crawling down into every little nook and cranny of my mouth and sitting there saving the nummy for later. Slightly astringent at first contact with the tongue but it goes away again.

Also, it makes me think of those of you who now and then describe a tea flavour as ‘baked’ and I can’t for the life of me figure out what you mean by that, but this tea reminds me of it, so maybe it IS bakey and only my subconsciousness is registering it?

I should probably make a pot of Pai Mu Tan since that one has turned into my celebration tea, but really, I’d rather see if I can get a third steep out of this one. So I’ll do that.

I felt like something fruity, so I put the kettle on. And then I was too slow in cleaning out the pot, so it had cooled a bit before I was actually ready to use it. And since I had cleaned the pot in hot water (and the hot tap water gets really really hot where I live) the pot was already nice and warm. So that left me wondering if I should boil new water and use this to scald an already warm pot or what to do.

And then I thought of my raspberry oolong and decided to just pretend that it had been my plan to make that one all along (instead of the blueberry from Adagio). Perfect really.

I’m spending the day trying to bury myself in the last little bit left before I can say I’ve won NaNoWriMo. 2K to go. Estimated 30K to go before I reach the end of the story. The plan is to reach the 50K words to win NaNo and then continue writing and eventually finish the story. I’m not interested in publication at all, but when I’ve finished the story (If I ever make it) and it’s been rewritten and heavily edited I know where I want to upload it on the internet and will of course share the location of it if and when that time comes.

Anyway, this tea is going to help me do this today. It’s to give me some focus and concentration. Maybe I should have used a crappy tea, since if all goes well, I’ll end up with half a completely forgotten cup.

I have my tea. Leonard Cohen is singing ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ for me. I’m ready.

Good morning Steepster.

Someone has, while I’ve been sleeping, logged a white tea with blueberry. You’ll forgive me for not have paid attention to who you were, sorry. At any rate, it inspired me this morning. And you would think that this inspiration would mean to make something with a white tea. Or something with blueberries. Er… well it’s got berries in it. And it smells heavenly. All sweet and fruity and it’s full of dried berries. It’s the sort of tea that you almost don’t even have to drink. Just sit around and sniff the tin. Yum.

Due to the nature of the cup I’m using this morning I can’t really tell you about the colour, but it looks like a light golden one while pouring. The brew smell primarily of oolong with a heavy berry note on top. I get associations to desserts and cakes and bakeries. A nice raspberry muffin, oh yes.

This development continues in taste. Where the dry leaves smelled heavily of berries and the brew was sort of half and half leaning towards the oolong, the taste is very primarily oolong and then a nice fruity sweetness, as if has been sweetened with fruit instead of sugar. Note, I haven’t actually added sugar or anything else. It’s extremely rare that I add anything to my tea, and if I do, I promise you’ll hear about it. But IF I had sweetened it, it tastes like I’ve used fruit instead of sugar, and… Okay this is turning strange. I’m even beginning to confuse myself. I’ll just stop.