Maple Cream tea

Perhaps I should call this post "Maple Tea revisited."  Maple Cream tea is pretty much a loose tea version of last month's review subject, maple tea.  I really enjoyed the maple tea, and figured, a loose version with cream added would be even better.  Surprisingly, the cream didn't add much to the tea.  True, it is loose tea, and so brews up a higher quality cup, with less astringency, but flavorwise, I have to say, it's pretty much the same.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great cup of tea, it's just that in every other case, the addition of cream flavoring makes for an absolutely amazing cup of tea with the addition of sweetness and a velvety texture.  Score:  85 (B)

That may well go on record as my shortest review ever, so I'll throw out the notion of my latest brainstorm.  I've been slowly gathering interest in blending my own teas, and it has occurred to me that all of the basic flavor elements in Talisker, a truly excellent single malt from the Isle of Skye, are notes of particular teas.  We have smoke via Lapsang Souchong, malt and oak via Assam and Keemun, and pepper with Yunnan (aka Dian Hong).  Given my less than amazing success at replicating Irish Breakfast, a fairly basic blend, it may not quite be the amazing cup I hope for, but it should prove an interesting project.  Updates to come.

A First attempt at Mixology

In my review of Nilgiri, I noted that it was a key component in Irish Breakfast, a common and flavorful blend.  In fact, the two most basic components of Irish Breakfast, Nilgiri and Assam, were sitting right next to each other in my cupboard, so it was only a matter of time until I decided to give mixing my own Irish Breakfast tea a go.  This past weekend found me at a loss as to which tea I felt like making, and I decided, today was the day.

I've read a little here or there about mixing teas, and it's as simple as mixing two or more teas together, but also a bit more complicated than that.  Different teas, and especially different leaf sizes will require different brewing times, so we have to be sure that the leaves of each constituent tea are as close in size as possible, then figure out just how long we're going to brew our creation.  Luckily, my Assam and my Nilgiri are roughly the same tea grade, and they both brew for about three or four minutes, so for my first attempt, a lot of the guesswork is taken out of it.

With a sense of "Let's just do it, and see what happens" (this may be why I am not an engineer), I dumped about half a teaspoon of Assam and half a teaspoon of Nilgiri in my pot, added boiling water, and steeped.  The result was a cup that tasted close to, if not exactly like Irish Breakfast.  The flavor was close enough to encourage me to keep trying, yet far enough off to make me wonder what I did wrong.  Am I missing an ingredient?  I know some Irish Breakfast blends feature Ceylon, but I didn't think it was obligatory.  I do think I could use some work on my ratios; I think I probably added too much Nilgiri and not enough Assam.

So, then, my first attempt at mixing my own blend was not a rousing success, but neither was it an abject failure.  I'll keep at the Irish Breakfast, I think, until I get it down, before I try something more complicated.

Coming up next, a week devoted to Earl Grey!