Cold Days of Winter

While I love seasons, and even snow, I do find that I feel I am a bit sensitive to the cold weather outside. This is one of the reasons I love tea, as I feel the warm kettle contributes much appreciated warmth to the room, all while bringing about a great deal more enjoyment than just warm air flowing through the registers.

It also brings up what teas are best for cold winter days? Short answer seems to be anything that is prepared with boiling or just off boiling water.

But I feel it has a decent bit to do with the flavors presented also. I do not know if it is because I got my start drinking coffee in the middle of winter when I wanted something to help warm me up in the morning, but I find roasted teas are great for the cold days of Winter, not to mention teas with a very strong and bold flavor common to most black teas. This also applies to some extent to aged teas, notably aged puerh and aged oolong.

Today I did a bit of experimenting as I wanted to see if bold flavors and boiling water were key for teas I love during winter. Sadly there seems to be another component, which I guess I will describe as "Greenness." To really test this I took a 2010 sheng, which I brewed with boiling water, and it certainly has a very strong and bold taste, but in the end I was not really surprised, while the tea was physically warm, the effect it had on my body was a bit cooling.

Somehow gyokuro though seems to walk the line, while it is aged, it is also very green. I think gyokuro might be a bit of an exception as it has the strong presence of the umami flavor which makes it rather comforting, fulfilling, and to a certain degree quite soup like.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

My love affair with White Hagi ware continues, the hohin pictured was a Christmas gift, and now makes Gyokuro a much more affordable proposition in terms of consumption. But I will say I had a wonderful tea session today, sitting cross legged on the kitchen floor in front of a large window looking out upon a snow covered landscape, while drinking from hagi that matched the view perfectly.

It actually had me wondering, while I love enjoying tea outside, or at least near a window with a view of the outside, it almost presents a new possibility in terms of setting the mood. I mean how great would it be to have teaware that not only matches the mood but also the seasons.

Although the more I consider this the more I am concerned that there may be problems with certain seasons, at least in terms of color schemes. But as I said in my post about time of year and tea cups, I feel the shape and size is rather important, and now I am wondering about whether seasons and colors out side should play a part also.

Realizing it would be rather expensive to get teaware in just about every single color, I think it would be easier to set the mood by bringing the colors in with other items, much in the manner often talked about on Tea Masters blog, and Chadao (Europe).