Until tomorrow, when I will share with you a documentary I watched on tea recently.

Tonight I improvised a masala chai by steeping Upton Tea Import’s Orange Spice Imperial tea in a teapot, poring the liquor into a saucepan with 2% milk and pure cane sugar, and bringing the mixture to a boil.

Orange Spice Imperial tea according to Upton’s website is “generously scented black tea, with cinnamon, orange peel, vanilla bean, and a bit of clove.” While this tea does not make an authentic Indian masala chai insofar as the ingredients are not quite right, it does make for a delicious treat. I am debating on whether to try Upton’s Chai Spice Tea or just stick with this nicely flavored blend. As some of you know, Upton provides great deals on samples – for as low as $1.00 – so there is no reason for me not to try the Chai Spice. Look here for a comparison over the next couple of months.

Do you want to know all there is to know about masala chai? Read Wikipedia’s entry on the subject here.

I am always looking for new ways to make chai, and even different blends. Let me know your favorites.

This tea is rather astringent, which is not surprising for a black tea. It, according to the boyfriend, has an earthy aftertaste. The tea is a little too bold for my palate. I may have overdone the amount of tea leaves with two and a half heaping teaspoons.

This evening while watching basketball I drank a China Competition Grade Top Tie-Guan-Yin, a personal favorite oolong of mine – but then again all oolongs are personal favorites. I can honestly say that I have not had a oolong that I did not enjoy. This tea comes from Upton Tea Imports.

I received two grams or .1 ounces, which was just barely enough to make eight ounces of tea. I could have easily added another half teaspoon of tea to my infuser.

Description from Upton’s website:
This handmade specialty Oolong is the finest Tie-Guan-Yin we have seen in recent years. The liquor is smooth and sweet, with a complex, orchid-like aroma.

In looking at their website, Upton only sells this tea in two grams and 10 grams. I feel very fortunate to have been able to experience this tea. The floral aftertaste is very apparent and extremely delightful.

The liquor, as you can see, is a pleasant yellow-green, which was very clean.

Read about pu-erh tea. Learn about post-fermented tea: the tea that is better when aged. There are many zealots in the tea-drinking world who swear by their pu-erh cakes. Tell me, where do you buy yours? Consider me completely wet behind the ears in this area.

Photo courtesy of user Iateasquirrel on Wikipedia. Photo of a Xia Guan Tuo Cha.

Tonight I review the festive Christmas Tea from Upton Tea Imports. Christmas Tea, or Mélange Noël, is a blend of black tea with cinnamon, cloves, vanilla and cardamom. It is decorated with orange peel, rose petals and almond pieces.

Upon smelling this tea, the first thing that came to mind was potpourri. The taste, however, was not as artificial as the smell. For me, the flavor of cloves really came out in my first brew of this tea. As described above, Mélange Noël is extremely spice heavy, but this adds to the drinking pleasure. It reminded me of a lactose-free chai.

I drank my tea with a slice of homemade banana bread courtesy of the boyfriend. It was a great combination. I especially enjoyed dipping the banana bread in the tea.

Today I decided to dig into the Assam Orange Pekoe black tea a co-worker had brought back from India. The tea had been sitting on my desk for several weeks, but for some reason I did not get around to brewing it until today.

Knowing that a different co-worker was also a lover of tea, I asked if she was interested in partaking of this personally blended tea. She was interested, so I brewed two cups. I brewed the first cup – my co-worker’s – for about four minutes with 1 1/4 tablespoons of tea. She said the tea was excellent and not too weak. While I steeped mine for 20 seconds shy of four minutes, and found it a little on the weak side. The tea is extremely fresh and of very good quality.

Orange pekoe as you may know is a grade of black tea. For a full list of grade terminologies, please see below.

Grade terminology

Choppy – Tea that contains many leaves of various sizes.
Fannings – Small particles of tea leaves used almost exclusively in tea bags A grade higher than Dust.
Flowery – A large leaf, typically plucked in the second or third flush with an abundance of tips.
Golden Flowery – Tea that includes very young tips or buds (usually golden in colour) that were picked early in the season.
Tippy – Tea that includes an abundance of tips.

Whole leaf grades
The grades for whole leaf orthodox black tea (in ascending order) are:
OP – Orange Pekoe – Main grade in tea production. Can consist of long wiry leaf without tips.
OP sup – Orange Pekoe Superior – Primarily from Indonesia. Similar to OP.
F OP – Flowery Orange Pekoe – High-quality tea with a long leaf and few tips. Considered the second grade in Assam, Dooars, and Bangladesh teas, but the first grade in China
F OP1 – Flowery Orange Pekoe First Grade Leaves – As above but with only the highest quality leaves in the F.O.P classification
GF OP1 – Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe First Grade Leaves- Higher proportion of tip than FOP Top grade in Milima and Marinyn regions; Uncommon in Assam and Darjeeling.
TGF OP – Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe – Tea with the highest proportion of tip; Main grade in Darjeeling and Assam.
TGF OP1 – Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe – As above, but with only the highest quality leave in the T.G.F.O.P classification
FTGF OP – Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe – Highest quality grade. Often hand processed and produced at only the best plantations. Roughly one quarter tips.

Broken leaf grades
BT – Broken Tea – Usually a black, open, fleshy leaf that is very bulky. Classification used in Sumatra, Sri Lanka, and some parts of Southern India.
BP – Broken Pekoe- Most common broken pekoe grade. From Indonesia, Ceylon, and Southern India.
BPS – Broken Pekoe Souchong – Term for broken pekoe in Assam and Darjeeling.
FP – Flowery Pekoe – High-quality pekoe. Usually coarser with a fleshier, broken leaf. Produced in Ceylon and Southern India, as well as in some parts of Kenya.
BOP – Broken Orange Pekoe – Main broken grade. Prevalent in Ceylon, Southern India, Java, and China.
F BOP – Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe – Coarser and broken with some tips. From Assam, Ceylon, Indonesia, China, and Bangladesh. In South America coarser, black broken.
F BOP F – Finest Broken Orange Pekoe Flowery – The finest broken orange pekoe. Higher proportion of tips. Mainly from Ceylon’s “low districts”.
G BOP – Golden Broken Orange Pekoe – Second grade tea with uneven leaves and few tips.
GF BOP1 – Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe 1 – As above, but with only the highest quality leaves in the GFBOP classification.
TGF BOP1 – Tippy Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe 1 – High-quality leaves with a high proportion of tips. Finest broken First Grade Leaves in Darjeeling and some parts of Assam.

Fannings grades
PF – Pekoe Fannings -
OF – Orange Fannings – From Northern India and some parts of Africa and South America.
FOF – Flowery Orange Fannings – Common in Assam, Dooars, and Bangladesh. Some leaf sizes come close to the smaller broken grades.
GFOF – Golden Flowery Orange Fannings- Finest grade in Darjeeling for tea bag production.
TGFOF – Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Fannings.
BOPF – Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings – Main grade in Ceylon, Indonesia, Southern India, Kenya, Mozambique, Bangladesh, and China. Black-leaf tea with few added ingredients, uniform particle size, and no tips.

Dust grades
D1 – Dust 1 – From Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Africa, South America, and Southern India.
PD – Pekoe Dust
PD1 – Pekoe Dust 1 – Mainly produced in India.

Source: Wikipedia entry on “orange pekoe”

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