The tea day

Me and my mom named today in advance as "the tea day". My mom has been looking for a new teapot, so I took her to Teaz on Granville - they have a really nice selection of practical teapots (lot of the ones we've seen so far have been pretty but impractical). My mom liked the selection - however there was no perfect ten so we moved on to Granville Island to meet Mark and Debbie at the Granville Island Tea co. They don't sell pots, but they sell tea - enormous amounts of it.

My good fortune continues - when I come there it's all empty, but within minutes the whole place fills up and rush hour starts. Same today, so Mark and Debbie didn't have that much time to chat - but we tasted and smelled some nice teas once again. My mom fell in love with the most expensive tea in the shop - the Organic Orchid Oolong - this tea is grown among orchids and harvested when the flowers are in bloom and has a wonderful delicate taste. As most other our visitors she got some blueberry rooibos, and among other things some lapsang souchong which can be difficult to find in Finland - but in all her preference has been very much into Chinese teas.

When we went to Chinatown the other day, we got several different types of rare Chinese teas which we have been sampling since. By far the most interesting one of these has been Pu Erh - tea which is sometimes classified as red tea although Chinese themselves call it black (and what we call black tea they call red - go figure). The colour of Pu Erh is dark ruby red though - especially when you pour it into your cup - but in the cup it's really black, like Coca Cola - so I can understand both names.

But the taste. First we weren't quite sure what to make of it - it's definetly different to any other tea I've tasted. The smell is very earthy - and for me it takes me back to walking in the rainforest on the edge of the sea. Something about the rotting wood and the seaweed... may sound weird or unpleasant, but after couple of cups we totally fell in love with it. Maybe only for a connoisseur but definetly recommmended if you want to try something different.

Pu Erh - also spelled puerh, Pu'Erh, Pu-Erh - can be found as loose leaf, but can also be stored differently to most other teas. It's often dried in the sun, then the leaves are steamed and pressed into cakes, and often aged for at least a year, but anything up to 40 years. Mark even gave my mom a little nest-shaped cake as a gift from his own stash (in the photo). Pu Erh is also esteemed in Chinese medicine and is said to aid digestion, stimulate nerves and is said to be great for losing weight - we didn't notice any weird side effects though, but agreed that it's not a tea you want to drink every day.

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