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4/13/13
Camping. I have always loved camping. Smelling your sweater when you get home, all smoky and smelling like citronella and soot and meat. I love it. So when I got home with my first little sachet of smoky 'Lapsang Souchong' black tea from Steeped and Infused here in Toronto, I was super excited.
Lapsang Souchong, a black tea from the Wuyi region of the Fujian province of China, is a lower grade of black tea that has been smoke-dried over pine fires. The aroma of this tea is crazy exciting. Camp fires, smoked salmon, and pipe tobacco. There is even a slight fruity note in there by the second and third steeps.
I sat myself down in my little tea nook and grabbed my basics. Now, you don't need all the things I have here, this is just one of my every day tea set-ups.
Today I am using: a kettle, a tea pot for my hot water, a thermometer, a mesh insert and a serving cup, the gong fu tea pot and my favourite glass tea cup. I have other tools but right now this is all I need!
I like to pour my boiling water straight into my tea pot so that I can get the big clunky kettle out of the way and keep an eye on my temperatures. That reminds me, grab a simple thermometer and pop it right in the spout. Now we can keep an eye on our water temperature while we select our tea pot.
This little guy. My tiny glass gong fu pot. I love this dude because I can enjoy a little taste of tea without ruining the patina on one of my yixing pots. (I will be talking about yixing clay and gong fu style tea brewing later)
I also enjoy being able to see my tea while it steeps!
Time for the tea! I have just under two teaspoons of my Lapsang Souchong measured out here. It smells awesome...
Once our water has reached its required temperature (for a black tea we dont really need to wait longer than a minute off the boil) we are just going to pop our tea into our little pot and fill it up with nice steamy hot water.
Then we get to relax for about 3-5 minutes and think about life or space or pudding.
Oh yes...lookit it go.
Okay, now that the tea is almost ready, its time to grab our tea cup and serving pitcher. I haven't found a fancy strainer yet so I just use one of my spare strainers from another pot.
I also opted for my glass tea cup just because it matches...I can be SUCH a girl sometimes.
Now...depending on the type of tea, you wont always need a strainer but you never know what tiny fleck of leaf might sneak its way past the spout.
SNEAKY!
(pop the used strainer onto one of those drip trays I mentioned earlier...they really are handy)
Another reason for using a serving pitcher is if you plan to share your tea. Pouring the tea into the pitcher mixes it all up so nobody is getting a lighter or heavier flavour.
There we go. now we can re-fill our gong fu pot and strain it into the serving pitcher for a second round.
Im not going to lie...I didnt actually like this tea.
Don't get me wrong! I loved the experience and I would happily do another tasting. I just wouldn't drink a whole cup. The aroma was thick and smoky-sweet. The flavour was a little overpowering and while it carried me off to happy memories of camping with my family and roasting weenies on the fire, I also just felt like I was drinking a camp fire. Not in a good way.
I will give it this, I am really excited to COOK with this tea and I am really REALLY excited to find a tea to blend with. I wont give up on this tea. Lapsang Soushong is a unique experience to say the least. I will sip on it again but don't expect to catch me downing a mug of it any time soon. Perhaps I will try a Russian Caravan style blend and throw one of my favourite Oolong teas in there to soften that smoky punch. Hmm...
UP NEXT: A Pu-ehr for people who arent ready for Pu-ehrs! 'Rose and Mint Pu-ehr'
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