Our amazing hosts Dae and David effortlessly produced a never ending parade of colorful and delicious foods.
A breakfast fitting of Amish champions.
Hong Kong bun.
Korean corn pancakes with a warm, gooey cinnamon and sugar center.
Al dente pasta Bolognese with whole garlic cloves and a secret ingredient for the bold — chili oil. A special recipe from Chef David.
Besides tea, music, and arts & crafts, the festival offered plenty of food options. We made sure to sample as many as possible. Before digging in, we cooled off with some chilled noodles.
Then, grilled fish balls on a stick.
Short ribs in broth.
Rice and tofu?
Taiwanese burrito — sticky rice and beans.
We were hardly the only ones trying to get our hands on the delicious eats; some of the vendors ran out of food before we made it to the front of the line.
I was quite surprised to hear a fairly distinctive band doing a stage set at Passport to Taiwan.
The Hsu Nami are a post-rock group held together with the fluid sound of the erhu. I also hear nylon guitar on one track. I picked up both albums, but if it isn’t your thing, don’t sweat it.
Photos by Pamela.
Spring has arrived on the east coast, finally allowing us to enjoy tea in a more natural environment. Few people are more adept at blending nature and tea ceremony than the Taiwanese, so it makes little sense not to emulate them now. A 2009 winter Li Shan fits the weather perfectly.
This morning’s tea recalls a weekend spent among friends in Flushing, NY. Both times I have been here I often felt I had been transported outside the US for a few moments — I think this is the closest you can get to Asia without leaving the North East.
We had a grand time drinking young puerh with Kai at the Fang Tea Expo — 2008(?) Bulang Shan, mao cha from 1000 year old Yiwu tea trees, and a mid-roasted Taiwanese oolong.
After refilling the parking meter for what felt like the 5th time, we were treated to endless generosity by Annie and her husband at Luh Yu Tea Emporium. We drank a Da Yu Ling and their custom label 2008 Nannuo puerh cake. A very good old arbor tea that we expect has some excellent aging potential based on some early experiments.
We feasted with a gaijin’s attempt at Shabu Shabu — delicious, but we expected we can get better results next time. Our brilliant and delightful 4 year old companion Doris (who we know to boss adults around in at least English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Fujianese) decided that she was in no mood for hard boiled eggs that day.
We ended the evening with a stop by Benito’s, where he wowed us with his own private collection of Taiwanese artisan teaware, paintings and competition teas. The modest gentleman sent us away with samples, as usual.
I expect to return to Flushing again before spring is over. Be sure to enjoy the gentle warmth and soft light before the sun turns too harsh.
In search of the elusive Tea Pearl, brave friends gathered at The Tea Gallery for the first NYC Tea Meetup. Being the inaugural I decided to document this one in some detail — I expect that I may drop off sooner or later as the journal of record.
When I arrived Tim had already wrestled Winnie out of her seat and had taken over as Tea Master. In a large pot of Taiwanese clay, Tim brewed up several rounds of the unknown tea. He tried to get us to ignore his brewing chops by suggesting that the real tea master only focuses on lingering flavors and aroma, not the initial impression of the brew. Nice save!d
This was a nice tea, whatever its source. Thanks to Tim for providing it. We returned to this tea several times.
Winnie regained her chair to brew this Yancha in her own style. Roast was apparent but plenty of other flavors and a great mouth feel came along to the party. Brew #3 was knocked out of the park, but the tea dropped off quickly afterwards. The aroma of the tea was very impressive, changing from brew to brew but remaining vivid. For me this tea had a lot of “downer” qi. Dae agrees. I wonder what this tea would do if pushed hard.
Michael returned home and took over brewing. Tim returned after fetching his friend Tony from Hong Kong — a friend rediscovered in NYC after 25 years. Best of all, Tony loves tea and was glad to join us.
A vintage gaiwan was soon stuffed with wet, rinsed leaves. We drank this for several rounds in Michael’s signatures knockout style before the leaf was fully open.
Then, he started to combine two batches, to leave some in his new Yixing.
Our organizers Mike and Katy furnished us with a fine selection of snacks to put off the munchies from Michael’s powerful brews. Tim was too tough to partake in any snacks. The “bo’lay” was not too strong for Tony. He was well seasoned!
Tim and I have been talking about this tea ever since Winnie mentioned it a few weeks ago. Now she is attempting to hide it from the tea drunks. The shy tea eventually reappears as a nightcap.
Dry leaf smells like black licorice certainly, but also something reminds me of the Long Jing Hong Cha experiment. Adrian thought that tea was more of a hei cha than a hong cha (fermented vs oxidized), and that is certainly the case here.
Wet leaves had a very intense aroma, Tim placed it as d’dok cha, a Korean puerh.
Taste was smooth and light, hard to pick much out. This could be due to the small quantity of leaves used, but more likely because of the earlier abuse from Michael’s 15 minute Bing Dao brew — Time to quit for the evening.
Brandon
tea addict.