Welcome to my blog. I hope you will join me for a cup of tea!
All tagged The Tea Squirrel
Let’s face it, most of us are more or less openly obsessed with matcha. Personally, I’ve learned to embrace my matcha obsession and even though my go-to is traditionally whisked, I’m always on the lookout for good flavor combinations with matcha and especially for matcha-based beverages that are naturally sweet.
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.
A couple of weeks ago I attended World Tea Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Here’s what happened.
Happy National Iced Tea Month! I’m celebrating with my new favorite iced tea recipe, you don’t want to miss it! Right this way —>
This year I celebrated my birthday in New York City. I had not been in NYC in 4 years and back then “tea tourism” was not as high on my list of priorities as it is now. After a long weekend of celebrations and sightseeing, I carved out some time for tea-related things. NYC has a high concentration of tea spots, so it was not easy to prioritize. Luckily, I had sent out a message to my NYC tea friends and fellow tea bloggers beforehand and I was looking forward to meeting them in person and to their tea recommendations.
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.
If you - like me - are into hiking, the Bay Area and Northern California have a lot to offer. At least once a week, I crave spending time outdoors surrounded by nature (have you ever come across the Japanese tradition of "forest bathing"?). I find it uplifting and de-stressing. Nature is beautiful and inspiring and the perfect backdrop for a tea session, don’t you think? I’m incredibly lucky to live so close to scenic coastal trails, forests of towering redwoods, hills and farmland, waterfalls and mountains. This time I’m taking you hiking along the California coast, to Año Nuevo State Park, near Pescadero, about an hour drive from San Francisco.
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.
Hayes Valley is one of the most charming neighborhoods in San Francisco and a fine dining destination, full of independently owned shops and boutiques. I decided to explore it by taking a look at the tea it has to offer. Despite not having many tea houses or tea shops, there’s plenty of high quality, loose leaf tea in Hayes Valley! I have a few gems in store for you, are you excited?
Why do we love matcha so much? Personally, I love its color, sweetness, cocoa butter notes, hints of freshly cut grass (even better if there’s some umami taste), rich persistent foam and creamy mouthfeel. Honestly, I’ve been wanting to take it to the next level of tea geekness for a while. Unexpectedly, I found an intriguing method for matcha evaluation on the Kettl Tea blog (*). When I managed to find and get my hands on 2 single-cultivar matcha, the stars aligned. I had to compare them in a systematic way. The idea of “decoding” matcha is pretty exciting and I ended up learning more than I had ever expected to.
Some days, I find myself craving matcha. Does that ever happen to you? I crave the chawan in my hands, the powder on my fingers, the swoosh of the chasen, the pattern of the tiny bubbles on the surface and the aromas and texture and flavor. It’s irresistible. Some other days, I crave whatever edible and colorful pops up on my Instagram feed and that’s exactly what happened when my sister Chiara made her matcha madeleines dipped in white chocolate and those popped up on my feed… they’ve been on my mind ever since!
This is a very experimental tea brewing and tasting session with a black tea from Nepal. Instead of Western style, I brewed it in a gaiwan (but I have to specify, not gongfu cha style) to push it to the edge of flavor and aroma, to get a more concentrated brew. It was a series of trial and error and adjustments to the brewing parameters, but I’m happy with the results.
Flavor is a combination of taste and smell, which is why I believe that to be able to fully appreciate tea, training your nose is equally important as training your palate. The Tea Squirrel visited The Aftel Archive of Curious Scents, a charming collection by Mandy Aftel, renowned natural perfumer and book author who also works in the realm of flavor.
What is tea and murals? It all started with the realization that beauty can be part of my everyday life anytime, anywhere. Be present in the moment and you’ll be surprised how much beauty you will find, often in the most unexpected of places, sometimes in a cup of tea, sometimes just around the corner. Tea deserves more attention, and so does art. I’m pairing the two by showing you the most vibrant and fun murals while drinking tea. Grab your cup, let’s go!
It’s a beautifully mild and sunny winter Saturday in San Francisco. My friend and fellow tea blogger Mike (The Tea Letter) and I are headed across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County, north of San Francisco. On the way, lush eucalyptus groves give way to towering redwoods. It’s a beautiful area and one that I often come to when I go hiking. Our destination is Lagunitas, where a very special tea tasting awaits.
The inspiration for this blog post comes from fellow tea blogger Lu Ann of The Cup of Life, who basically invented this. It’s about “keeping track” of tea, because - as someone once said - “tea is more than just a beverage, it’s about noticing your own habits.”
No matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, we’re still in the dead of winter. January has brought a lot of rain and grey, overcast skies to San Francisco and I cannot deny the intoxicating allure of bold, charcoal roasted teas. I let my imagination run wild and I picture myself in a forest of tall, majestic redwoods (that’s what we have around here), sitting by the fire and clutching a warm tea cup filled with fragrant Da Hong Pao.
