Azusa Tea Club (5/28/2011) - Focus Tasting: Green Tea

5/28/2011 at Baldwin Park
Azusa Tea Club is having its monthly meet up despite of Memorial Day long weekend break. The 6 green teas we cupped are: Dragon Well, Pilochun, Gyokuro, Green Pearl, Gunpowder, Taiwan Green. We also discussed for a proper infusion of each tea for tasting. The most apparent difference found in Gyokuro and Dragon Well. With lower temperature of heated water and make the second infusion to taste.
Our members were "lucky" to taste the Azusa Pouchong that I just finished about 2 hours before the Meeting... What a fun experience!

Hand made Azusa Pouchong

5/27/2011 (Friday)
Plucked the tea leaves from our little tea garden in the front yard of our house in Azusa Mountain Cove. The altitude of this tea garden is about 868 feet high, and I am not sure what kind of cultivar we have. (*I do hope someone can tell from the photo.)
I planned to make a small batch of Pouchong.
The leaves were brought over to our office. I did outdoor withering and indoor withering based on the experience of 2009 TOST in Wenshan. I did use our small baking equipment to do the firing... then...hand rolling, baking, hand rolling and baking...
We have our first tasting with our friends in Azusa Tea Club on 5/28/2011.
The dried leaves smell fresh and good...yet the taste simply not strong enough...and the taste is kind of flat... Not a happy result yet plenty excitement. Just a lot more to learn..

Please also enjoy the YouTube movie.

2011 ITASA Midwest @ Northwestern University (4/16/2011)

I always like to visit this campus.
We thought April weather should be warm and sunny...not this day, though. Windy and rainy, extremely cold when we walked over from the Hilton with one of our host Joyce.
Well, the students warmed Josephine and me up almost immediately with their full-house enthusiasm while we arrived our classroom. We surely have a lot of fun with these ITASA Midwest friends. I know we will return next year, maybe to different campus.

2011 ITASA West @ UC Berkeley (4/8/2011)

How time flies...
It seems that I was here at this campus last April on Cal Day right after 2010 ITASA West Conference@UCSD. Meeting with different groups of students to have tea with. This time, Josephine got good many good photos that she took from the past TOST trips, edited together, she made a very impressive presentation. Pictures can say more, especially with those moments still deeply rooted in our heads. I believe she did entice many of ITASA friends - yes, their Next Stop:
Taiwan!