Oolong Owl’s tea discoveries!
Hey tea owlets! This is my 100th post on Oolong Owl! Thank you, my tea owl readers! I hope you all have just as much fun reading my posts as I do writing them! Also, lots of love to you tea sellers out there who get their teas attacked by stuff owls here at Oolong Owl! Wow, I didn’t know I had this many Owls! Thankfully, I have lots of tea to feed all the them! Continue reading, hoot!
MY FIRST PU’ER CAKE! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! I mentioned previously that I’ve been shopping for pu’er cakes. I did lots of research and set a budget. After checking ratings, I discovered Mandala Tea has a great lineup, along with their own exclusive cakes. They also have really great customer support! This Mandala “Wild Monk” Raw Pu’er 2012 caught my eye for it’s promise of smokey and creamy notes, without any bitterness. It is also a 100g cake, so it is small enough to be affordable and low risk for a new to pu’er cake tea owl like me to try. I got this cake, and… Continue reading, hoot!
I had met some other tea lovers in person from Steepster the other weekend and we had a tea swap. One had brought a baggie filled with pu’er tuochas. I was happy to take some off her hands! The problem? We weren’t sure what tuocha was what, since there was very little English on the packaging. She did inform me there was some sheng/raw pu’er in there, but not sure which ones. I’m not experienced enough to tell any of the little cakes by smell, if that is even possible to do. To my surprise, Tuochas are smaller than I thought… Continue reading, hoot!
I finally got a Gaiwan! WOOOOOT! A bit of history – I prefer gravity steepers. Once I got mine from DavidsTea, I was hooked. I later on got Adagio Tea’s IngenuiTEA (which I dislike due to its narrow size). I wanted to try a more traditional way of steeping tea to see the difference, but also experiment. I shopped all over ebay and online tea shops. My in-laws are going on a cruise in China later this year and I didn’t want to wait that long for a gaiwan. My Gaiwan came from Yunnan Sourcing’s US shop – I was attracted to the light… Continue reading, hoot!
Happy Easter 2013 everyone! I hope you are having amazing tea today! I don’t overload on sweets on Easter, the day after Easter I do as I raid all the grocery stores cheap leftover easter candy! Muhahahaaa! Anyways, my first blooming tea! I HORDE blooming teas. I have a bunch that I never used. My husband bought me a bunch at the LA Farmer’s Market. They were really cheap. I might as well use one to test out this tea pot. In fact, I dunno what flavor this one is. Alright! Let’s go! I had to read up how to… Continue reading, hoot!
Wanna add some extra tasty to your tea without adding sugar? Does your tea unfortunately fall flat on flavorings? Need some extra spice in your staple cup of tea? Try some of my tea addition suggestions! 1. Vanilla Bean Pod Say what? This sounds expensive! I buy my vanilla bean pods from Amazon.com, which you can get a big package for cheaper than 4 single pods at a grocery store. I originally got the pods for making my own vanilla extract, however sometimes I use the pods for baking. When using a pod, you slit the vanilla bean open, scrape out of the inner goodies… Continue reading, hoot!
/Sad owl My sakura print tea pot broke. ;___; What had happen was I was cleaning my pot. I had done a bit of baking soda scrub to get out the tea stains on the inside, as well as cleaning the spout. The baking soda made the pot slippery and it fell into the sink. And broke. I love having a 2 or 3 serving tea pot instead of a large mug as my tea stays hotter. The crappy part is that I’ve broken a couple of these pots already as I’m a klutz and these pots go through quite… Continue reading, hoot!
Once you get into teas you realize the HUGE number of great tea sellers and variety of teas. The world of tea opens up once you step away from the grocery aisle. There are tea sellers who carry cheesecake, root beer, bubble gum or cake flavored teas. Fandom teas are out there inspired from Dr. Who, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Tea sellers who sell grown in the wild teas picked from a hill somewhere in China. With that said, if you wanted to try it all – you’d need to spend lots of cash. Or, if you are… Continue reading, hoot!
I’ve this question often regarding matcha – same question I had before I started drinking matcha. The big question – Don’t I need a fancy bamboo whisk, scoop and matcha bowl to make matcha? matcha bowl (chawan) with bamboo whisk (chasen) and scoop (chashaku) The answer: No Thinking I needed a bunch of gear to make matcha put me off from buying good matcha for years. I love matcha – I’d get green tea lattes at coffee shops and bubble/boba tea shops. I’d go to asian super markets and buy “Matcha Milk Tea” kits were all you do is add… Continue reading, hoot!
Swweeet! I did an order with Den’s Tea, an online seller of Japanese Green Teas. If you are looking for some solid Japanese green teas, I highly recommend them. They have a really good deal going on, with their $3 Novice Sampler pack! (pssst, price includes shipping!) I snagged one a month or two ago, and it came with like 5 bags of tea, a couple 10gram packets of loose leaf teas and a $3 coupon! So, with this new order, I used the coupon, thus making those samples free, hehe! Here’s my recent order: Hmm, that’s a big box for just the… Continue reading, hoot!
