Ah, Ceylon and a short story

Ceylon: a black tea from Sri Lanka. There are, of course, green and white varieties of Ceylon. But Adagio's offering in their "Black Sampler" is Ceylon Sonata, a black tea. The higher quality offering is called Ceylon Waltz, but as a novice I ordered the more economical option.

Tea: Ceylon 'Sonata' from Adagio
Amount: 3.6g (110mL Gaiwan, ~1g/30mL)
Water: (first several infusions) Just off boiling, decanted for cooling.
(latter infusions) Just off boiling, short cooling period before pouring. (I should mayyybe get a thermometer)
Infusion: Several short infusions ranging from ~15s to ~75s

My initial impression of this tea was the brief sweetness at the tip of my tongue, a nice roundness through the rest of the sip, and something familiar. But I decided to let the tea wash over my senses and ignore that for a moment. Yes, overall a nice roundness and consistency through most of the infusions. Sure, the flavor weakened a bit as did the color, and the bitterness became a bit more pronounced. That's fine. That's tea. Appreciation comes for all of its elements. But whatever. It kind of brings me to something that probably needs to be said here: I like a lot of things. Some could say I like too much.

So now you have it. I do appreciate good teas, and i definitely like them more than bags of chopped leaf powder. Then again, I do enjoy southern iced tea (more as a meal accompaniment though). And that brings the familiarity with the Ceylon Sonata. It tasted like unsweetened (un-iced) tea.

I decided to use our good friend Google to find what I could about Ceylon teas. As it turns out, the bane of gourmet tea drinkers uses Ceylon tea (though likely the uhm 'most economical possible') in its "Iced Tea" bags. I guess at least several others do, too, considering the similar taste in the different brands' teas. But it's no reason to set this tea aside. Actually, it may be a good tea to use to introduce iced tea drinkers to loose tea. If they're every made hot tea, they've probably just plopped a single cup-sized bag into a mug of hot water for 'a few minutes' or 'until it cooled enough for me to drink it.' The familiar flavor will keep from frightening them away. The more complex flavor will interest them.

Of course, the hard part follows: Not only are you left with convincing your new loose Ceylon tea convert to use less (and eventually no?) sugar, but also to try other kinds of loose tea.

Then again, tea is about the drinker and not always about the tea. If someone like bagged tea, that's fine. there's no reason to force anyone to drink one or the other, if that's what the person likes or not.

So now, it's on to the story.

Two days ago I had a root canal, and afterwards I stopped by my sister's job to say hello and what-not. I mentioned this blog. She apparently misheard me and started typing "teen elvis" in stead of "tea novice" into the url! I guess I was still slurring more than I realized!