Sunday, February 15, 2009

winter tea

hi friends,
thought id just post a quick thing here to hopefully stimulate some new action on the blog. i like this blog and i dont want to see it die.

ive been drinking alot of tea lately from tao of tea.
my favorites right now are their
nepali oolong - its a nice earthy oolong with a flavor unlike other more typical oolongs from asia. maybe its the soil or the mountains or the vibes, who knows....its good.
yuqian dragonwell - if you like a good dragonwell, this one is quite nice. its got some cool peppery tones in there

and im out now, but i really really enjoyed the high mountain green oolong from imperial tea. its an affordable tea with high spirits!

music today = warren burt 'harmonic colour fields' - just intonation and weird tuning systems synth drone and ambient music

music ongoing = my forthcoming album for kranky, 'mutually arising'

what have you been drinking and listening to?

7 comments:

Scott Goodwin said...

I drank some of this Jing Mai bing I bought while working at Tao. It's entirely made up of silver tips, so it's a white bing. I don't know if I was brewing it at a lower temperature originally because I thought it would still be delicate or if it has just aged really well, but the flavors were amazing. I sat down with it and did full gong-fu for the first time in a few months and it was really fun. The Jing Mai 06(??) itself had more of a young green puer taste, with a strong but really pleasant astringency. It also had an interesting mouth feel that produced a mouth-watering effect, somewhat like eating hua jiao (Sichuan peppercorns or prickly ash), but without the numbing sensation.

Other than that I've been on a coffee kick for a while now due to social pressure. Though I just had this dried "cherry" coffee husk stuff that Stumptown is marketing. They use it to make a highly caffeinated tisane, but eating it straight up was super addictive. It had a strong dried cranberry flavor and texture with really faint cocoa notes.

Scott Goodwin said...

I guess Tao still has the 06 Jing Mai bing cha! http://taooftea.com/detail2311-2006_Jing_Silver.html

Though I'd email first to check if they have it in stock.

billygomberg said...

I'm all out of my Pu-ehr and Five Peaks Green that I bought up when my local market closed in November. I need another paycheck to put in an order with divinitea.com (my old market's wholesaler) but am itching for a trip to any mysterious tea shop on Canal st.

I've been substituting with some Rishi pu-ehr which has been ok, and have a nice Lapsang Souchon that is running low.

what have I been listening to? a couple lovely concerts in NYC recently, Group Bombino....I also need a trip to the record store!

glad to see a fresh post here.

Alex said...

Nice post, Greg! It would be nice to get this blog moving again.

I've been drinking quite a bit off my puerh stash (stuff that's finally aged enough to be good and drinkable). I have upwards of 30 cakes from 1998-2003 period, so things are looking good in the puerh dept for me. I've been drinking this really killer bao zhong from reliable old hou de, too: http://www.houdeasianart.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1085

Listening: Jasper TX (this guy is good!), ASUNA "This," various Richard Skelton related things... Just scored a copy of the sold out Drumm 2xCS on Hospital that I thought I'd missed... looking forward to that for sure.

jay said...

You guys should really start up this blog again....I'm enjoying the past posts.

Anonymous said...

I've discovered Pu-erh tea and it's my new favorite. I have some other teas I've been drinking but that's mostly to get rid of them. Pu-erh is going to be my everyday tea eventually, and really sooner than later. --Spirituality of Tea

strive4impact said...

I've been drinking a lot of the English Tea Leaves brands lately since I've just started working with them. It's amazing all the things that can be done to bring combinations of flavors together. I had no idea before working here... I thought it was all pretty much Celestial Seasonings and Lipton. Really cool to have so many flavors and experiences through something as seemingly mundane as tea. Hope you keep this blog going.

Jonathan
English Tea