Seven Cups

This is one of my absolute favorite teas. I have yixing dedicated to it :)

Two cups, steeped relatively long, for sipping while sitting in the sun in the backyard while taking a break from work. Working at home is just the thing.

Another round of tie guan yin after cinnamon braised pork and sweet potatoes. Both excellent.

Two very large cups after a large dinner of home-made mah-po tofu with ground pork while watching a Shaw Brothers movie.

Two more cups after dinner — this time from the new batch. Yep, my tea order arrived yesterday and all is well.

Only two cups of tie guan yin last night — this is the last of it until my next shipment from Seven Cups arrives. Hope it’s today.

Two cups of silk tie guan yin after dinner (pasta with walnut garlic sauce) while watching Wong Kar Wai’s magisterial Ashes of Time Redux.

My usual three cups of tie guan yin after dinner last night, sorely needed considering the sauerkraut pizza we ate.

We drink 2-3 cups of tie guan yin oolong just about every night after dinner. It’s the perfect post-prandial tea, being light, aromatic, and very good for the digestion in the bargain.

I’ve been drinking this tea quite a bit lately, almost to the exclusion of everything else — even my usual pu-erh. I’m particularly impressed with its re-steepability and its ability to take a really long steeping to produce a strong, fragrant cup without bitterness.

Drank this after dinner instead of the usual tie guan yin. Not sure why, but it suited nicely — especially since there’s a scene in the novel I was reading about drinking a darkish reddish tea and telling pirate stories.

A lazy spring afternoon drinking tea and reading a volume of T.H. White’s short stories. Four or five steepings, the third and fourth very rich.

Four or five steepings of this was all that saved me from going over the deep edge yesterday while attempting — and failing — to get any work done while working at home.

I drank this tea this morning — and thought I’d just continue on throughout the day with the same tea (thought not with the same batch of leaves). The supply is running low; time to order more.

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite morning teas, though I’m not sure that it will ever displace my lapsang/pu-erh custom blend.

Rich and deep and capable of some very long steepings, though I usually only let it go for 45-60 seconds, preferring to keep it light and full on the tongue.

Lately I’ve been drinking this as part of a lapsang/pu-erh blend, but today I decided to take it on it’s own. Six infusions from 1-4 minutes long, each yielding a fine, smoky tea that one feels the need to inhale deeply for several minutes before even drinking.

Tea and working in the garden, transplanting this and that, digging here and there. Then more tea.

Today my custom pu-erh/lapsang blend fortified us as we worked in the garden, transplanting and dividing perennials and creating a new 10×50 foot bed full of daisies, monarda, salvia, lilies, and hostas. We worked for an hour, drank a cup, worked for another hour, drank another cup — until we were done.

For some unknown reason, we drank this after dinner last night. It didn’t have the same relaxing and digestive effect that the silk tie guan yin did. Must remember to stick with the oolongs after dinner and leave the heavily fermented yunnanese teas for the morning and afternoon.

This isn’t usually a tea I drink in the morning, but it seemed just the right thing today. Excellent as always.