Each month, LP and I meet for brunch at Esselon Coffee in Hadley, Massachusetts in order to “collect data” in our quest to find our favorite tea on their extensive tea menu. After years of saying to each other, “Which one is the tea I love?” (to which the other responded, “I dunno. Which tea do I love?”) we finally decided to ferret out our prize once and for all by taste-testing all the teas. Therefore, LP and I can be found at Esselon one early-afternoon each month engaging in thoroughly highly scientific, thoroughly ridiculously subjective research. We usually sit by the window (LP likes to be available for fans and paparazzi) and are the ones laughing way, way, waaaaay too loudly. Sometimes after brunch we head over to Trader Joe’s to “greet our fans” and perform in a large room with narrow aisles (as LP likes to call it). And go grocery shopping (as I like to call it).
The Mildly Linear Rating System (from worst to best):
Must Flee---Sorry---Oh Gee---Good Tea---Glee---(subcategories: Glee-Teehee and Glee-Jamboree)---Yippee!
THE TEA TASTING TEST RESULTS
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Very cool flow chart from www.planet-tea.com
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Monkey Picked Ti Kwan Yin: Rating – Good Tea (both of us)
Upon arriving at Esselon, there was little doubt that this tea tasting was going to be a slaphappy affair. Yesterday was LP’s last day at an arduous job with a huge commute and her final week there had been stressfully busy, plus her dog (my niece) just started heartworm treatments (very painful), and LP was rockin’ only a few hours of interrupted sleep. I knew all I had to do was throw her a treat every now and then and sit back to watch the fun.
The first treat was my word-of-the-day (supplied by my dear friend Jenni): “fooferaw” which, according to Mirriam-Webster’s, is defined as “1. frills and flashy finery; 2. a disturbance or to-do over a trifle : fuss.” Of course, this lead to deep contemplation over how to create a trifle (or eat one.)
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| Image taken from our peers at www.teareviewblog.com. |
Onto the tea. When ordering the Monkey Picked Ti Kwan Yin, LP asked for “Tae Kwan Do.” This joke seemed to be lobbed to an unreceptive player as the woman behind the register simply ignored our childish shoving and giggling. Hmph. Spoiler alert: Monkey Picked tea is no longer picked by monkeys. This was a great disappointment to me, as I love monkeys (though would not want to see them enslaved by evil tea farmers, so perhaps it’s for the best.) According to the Esselon website, this tea is “plucked from cliffsides typically 5000 feet or higher, is a very light roast. Ti Kwan Yin and has a bright, lemony, soft flavor.”
The initial sniffing of the tea lead to a conclusion by LP of “spinach…wet spinach.” Upon further olfactory inspection I decided it smelled distinctly of another greenery, one which its medical uses are currently in legal dispute in California. “Liquid Mary Jane” was my final assessment, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Upon tasting, LP thought she could taste the lemony flavor, but I am certain that was purely a placebo effect brought on by reading the description of the tea.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but LP really embraced her role of tea connoisseur this month in a way that I might suggest is a wee bit cocksure. (Excuse my French.) You see, she threw around a great deal of fake tea tasting verbiage and even insisted she knew the correct way to pour tea (in a consistent, counter-clockwise manner…though I think I owe her an apology for scalding her fingers when I tried to replicate her style.) LP even felt that chewing on a leaf would be the next reasonable step in our process, which she promptly did before I could stop her (I was laughing too hard to make a proper attempt, I must confess.) But I think LP learned her lesson about the leaf tasting, impressively without losing a speck of her pseudo-connoisseurship, as she quickly spit out the leaf, pronouncing the nibble “a bitter backlash like a bad break up.” It was the alliteration that convinced me that LP needs to be taken down a leaf or two.
Bao Zhong – Pouchong: Rating – Sorry (LP), Good Tea (Pam, referring to heavily steeped cups)
Although we loves us our Esselon workers, they dropped the brewing ball on our Bao Zhong (pronounce “bao jong” for the record.) This tea requires a long brew time, which it did not get, and so our initial experience of it was quite negative. I thought it smelled like wet dog. LP set me straight however, “Honey, that smells like dirty sink water.” I don’t know what dirty sink water is, and I don’t ever want to know. LP continued, “You know what that smell is, if you wet a dirty sock and you run out-” I interrupted her rant. I didn’t want to know where she was going with the wet dirty sock on the run metaphor.
According to the Esselon tea guide, “Bao Zhong is considered its own class of tea, as it is the least oxidized oolong, exhibiting characteristics of both oolong and green tea. A very bright tea, vibrant in color, aroma, and flavor. Grassy, with notes of lemon, lilac, and melon. The first steeping can be overpowering in its brightness but each successive steeping mellows and softens the flavor.”
We found it to be none of these things, unless, as LP said, “brightness means an empty, wet sock.” LP sighed upon further testing of the first cup of Bao Zhong and said (in her best Humphrey Bogart voice), “That’s not it, kid. You want me to buy you another pot of tea?” I graciously declined, touched by her courteous gallantry. LP sighed deeply, and said in a serious manner, “This is the tea critic’s life…” I nearly peed my pants laughing at her profound resignation.
And indeed there was a dampening of pants when I mistakenly spilled my first pouring of Bao Zhong. At first, we wondered if the evil Pouchong spirits were cursing us for dissing their brew. But then it became apparent that perhaps the spill was angel-sent. For the second cup of Bao Zhong tea, which had benefited from a long steepage, was a whole other…well, I guess I could say, a whole other cup of tea. As LP testified, “You went from sock to tea. And that’s a good leap.” Indeed!
I really did enjoy the well-brewed cups of Bao Zhong, finally settling on my “Good Tea” rating. LP couldn’t seem to get past her initial impression (“Brightness? It’s dim like a light bulb!”), which took her from her Monkey Picked alliteration to Bao Zhong assonance as she concluded, “The tea, the B.Z., is a sorry.” We agreed to disagree, or as LP said, “T.E.H.O.” (pronounced tea-ho), meaning “to each her own.” I think she was just calling me a ‘ho though, which I won’t even attempt to debate. In the end, we ended the friendly disagreement by quoting “Ally McBeal” with a simple “Bygones.” We invite you to take a well-brewed taste of this tea and share your own opinions with us. (Especially if you agree with me.)
[The following are teas we have taste-testing in the past:]
Ceylon White:
Rating – Sorry (from both of us)
For details, see below.
Yin Zhen Silver Needle (white tea): Rating – Sorry (both)
Esselon only has two white teas, so we decided to test them both at our first trial. According to www.whiteteaguide.com, white tea is the “mightiest of the teas.” What makes it so dang mighty? “Simply put, white tea is the least processed form of tea, made of beautiful silver buds and select leaves which have been steamed and dried.” LP and I are suckers for works like “mightiest” and “beautiful silver buds,” (sounds like a girl you’d want to meet, right?) so it was a no-brainer that we start with the white teas. When my tea arrived, I was momentarily flummoxed by my teapot, which refused to dispense my tea. I tipped and tipped, but the tea stubbornly remained in the pot. We were making such a ruckus the server came over to help. I may have accused her of providing me with a trick pot (Later LP said, “So what did you think, Pam, that you were being Punk'd by the servers at Esselon?!” Uh, could happen. Totally.) Somehow the server poured my tea into my cup with a humiliating amount of ease. This sent LP and I into a long bout of hysterical laughter. When we told our spouses this story, neither of them found any humor in it whatsoever.
Once we weren’t at risk for spewing tea through our noses, we tested our white teas. I must confess, we were both disappointed. We found the teas too delicate, thin and subtle for our crude mouths.
Bai Hao White Tip Oolong: Rating – Glee (LP), Good Tea (Pam)
This is a fun tea to order but challenging to say without sounding culturally insensitive. I enjoyed its woody bouquet. It reminded me of the cedar A-frame cabin “Up North” (northern Michigan) we had when I was a kid. This tea had “a lot going on” and seemed delicately complex. A very enjoyable scent. According to the Esselon website, Bai Hao “is also ‘tippy’ meaning a high proportion of the tea is made up of tender white buds which give the tea a soft, delicate flavor.” LP and I both like tender white buds though we prefer a more engaging and in-your-face brew. We don’t know what the f* “tippy” means, and we’re too old and ADD to really understand it at this point in the game.
Darjeeling 2nd Flush Oolong: Rating – Glee-Jamboree (both)
We rated this oolong as Glee-Jamboree because it was like a happy party in our mouths. (In a good way.) We both enjoyed the bouquet, which we described as “heady” (that was me) and “meaty” (that was LP.) The word “astringent” came to mind, which LP contends is a fancy-pants tea word for “bitter.” Apparently, we both like astringent teas. LP called it “winey” (not whiney, which is what she called me.) My taste buds were not in tuned for subtleness at testing time (LP claims it’s because I had wicked PMS), so I simply noted it as warm, comforting and ultimately pleasingly “tea-ish.” LP delighted in the fullness and woodiness of this Darjeeling 2nd Flush, saying she could taste it “all the way down my mouth. It’s like licking wood.” I fully concur, my only caveat being that I felt like my teeth were wearing fur coats after drinking this tea. It’s too bad the name of this tea makes me think of a stubborn poop in the toilet. Nonetheless, we would definitely order this tea again.
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Pam and LP making comedy together
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About your teatotalers:
LP-
LP is a married mother of two adorable doggies (one of whom is my nephew, the poodle.) LP grew up in the Upper West Side (Manhattan, duh) where she acquired many city smarts that fail to do her any good whatsoever in western Massachusetts. She no longer, however, thinks carrots grow on trees. To know LP is to love her, especially if you are a child, a small animal or me. She is funny, wise, and truthful. Also, when she was twelve, she was in a Movie of the Week (“The War Between the Tates”). LP is the best BFF in the world. We both agree that we couldn’t love each other more than we do already, but we remain ever open to the possibility.
Pam-
I am a married mother of two people who are taller than me. We are a homeschooling family. I like to teach. I like to write. I love to perform, especially comedy and super-especially improv comedy. LP and I have been performing improv comedy together for over seven years in our troupe The Ha-Ha’s (formerly The Ha-Ha Sisterhood).
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