2011 Jin Dayi

Last Sunday morning I was missing puerh so much, I could not help but brew up something. My husband said perhaps moderation early morning could be the key.

I had these most generous hunks of the Jin Dayi from Ira that I've been wanting to try but truthfully  I had been afraid to.  I am not the biggest fan of Dayi sheng as most of them pack too powerful a punch. Hobbes can withstand many a potent Dayi cake but such agressive strength in young sheng translates into multi-day physiological woes for me.

This Jin Dayi has to be a cake for aging. Even in the second sip, it gave me a sheng headache right behind the eyes. I forged on but I felt a bit manhandled by this tea. I am still trying to recover from the sheng-hangover today and feel so sleepy that I have only one eye open to tap out this post.

In the past, young sheng was not commonly drunk as it is now. Is drinking young sheng regularly bad for your stomach and liver? My body protests at even thimblefuls of this young sheng so I must listen. I'll have to tuck this cake away for another decade at least.

Claudio Corallo Chocolates

We finally meet- the much lauded chocolate from Claudio Corallo. Praised from chocolate doyen Chloé Doutre Russel to armies of chocophile bloggers, these bars were lovingly crafted in the far distant corner of Sao Tome e Principe. While artisan bean-to-bar chocolate makers have proliferated in the past decade, those that actually grow the beans is a rare group. Corallo has suffered malaria thrice working in the equatorial heat of his plantation, but he is quite undeterred in his pursuit of creating the best bar in the world aided by his entire family.  Corallo's production is apparently so finicky that they hand remove the bitter germ of the cacao- something you could not do in the West due to prohibitive labor costs.

I selected four bars- 70%, 73.5%, 80%,  and a 100% along with a Ubric #1 which has drunken raisins infused in the distillation of the of cacao pulp shown above. The bar's are rustic and unevenly thin giving a more wild and untamed feeling to the bar.

So how is the final result?  This perhaps may be one of the few non-gushing review of Corallo to be found on the internet.  The bars are extremely well done but I found the taste somewhat mild and the bass notes on the 75% and 80% did not hold my attention. The cacao nibs on the 73.5% had a lovely nuttiness.  Corallo bars are from a "heirloom" forastero and despite all the perfection and care given,  the bean variety I humbly think lacks the native complexity of a criollo.  For those not acquainted- cacao comes from three main varieties

• criollo - the rarest original cacao, less than 1-5% of the world production, and is a low yielding variety holds the most depth and complexity. 
• forastero- hardy robust breed that comprises the bulk of the world's production and tend to have lower ceilings of flavor more like a merlot grape. One of the rare exceptions would be Arriba bean (Nacional) from Ecuador and Republica del Cacao makes toothsome arriba bars at a great price ($3-5).  
• trinitario - hybrid of the two, they often get used as flavor components of a bar.  Rio Caribe and Carenero from Venezuela are the most commonly available trinitarios  at bay area grocery stores.  San Francisco's Amourette makes a worthwhile 100% Carenero Supreme bar ($5-6). Trinitario bars from Trinidad where they first hybridized are harder to find and you may have to go to chocolate shops like Fog City.

From a chocolate vendor site  http://www.chocolatiers.co.uk/products/claudio-corallo-100, we find this quote: 

He(Corallo) has stated "Good chocolate is not necessarily a problem of variety," he says. "It is a problem of work."  

Corallo likens chocolate to great wine and while pretty good bars can be made from forastero, I don't think the greatest wines can be made from merlot grapes no matter how much the vinter has exacted his or her magic. 


There are criollo bars I've loved- Chuao and Porcelana where I was simply enthralled- such bar short circuit my thinking.  Porcelana is like a fine Yiwu with high notes.  These Corallo bars are some of the most expensive I've procured and for $12.50 for 50g, I want criollo/trinitario-like depth and complexity. Corallo has to realize that he's not competing with Lindt but all the other high end artisan chocolate makers like Amedei, Domori, Rogue, and my favorite Amano.  My current favorite is Amano's Dos Rios($7 for 2oz) which is of unknown variety but has a intriguing natural bergamot taste to the bean.

I love plenty of non-criollo bars that are a fraction of the cost. I'll have to save them up for a post on delicious budget chocolate. For example, Santander for $2.75 is pretty fabulous.   My husband was not impressed with Corallo and stated he preferred San Francisco made Dandelion over Corallo but I'm not a Dandelion chocolate fan but I love their cakes.

For sheer enjoyability and mindless deliciousness (besides my all time favorite Taza bars), I tuck into a Majani bar. Majani bills itself as "the first chocolatier in the world to make a chocolate bar" and they still do a fine bar that is very accessible.

I am reminded of a post from Mattcha about a lone Korean monk who cultivates only a few tea bushes. I was so taken in by the poetic image of the monk picking tea leaves that I almost whipped out my credit card to get some. But Matt honestly revealed at the end of the post that the tea turned out to be not that interesting. 

Caffeine Content of White Tea

Last night I could not sleep and I awoke up bleary eyed this morning like my usual under-performing self. All I had the day before was two cups of white tea from less than 20 leaves- I fell for the common myth that white tea has the least caffeine. A colleague who I've been sharing tea with confirmed this bai mu dan-white peony with about third buds had some extra octane.

The myth about white tea having the lowest caffeine content compared with green and black tea probably stems from the Fujian varietal for certain kinds of white tea which purportedly has less caffeine. While absolute generalizations cannot be made, white teas could contain higher concentrations of caffeine for the following reasons according to this ratetea article:

• White tea tends to be largely buds which contains the highest levels of caffeine in the tea plant. Caffeine being the plant's insecticide needs to protect it's most tender parts.
• Minimal processing leaves the caffeine in tact.

So I can devise a series of experiment to prove the new wisdom.  I'll bring in different types of white tea (silver needles) and let my colleague rate the caffeine content. Since he's a hardened coffee drinker trying to wean off, I'll know the caffeine content is serious if he feels it.

As for myself,  I drank nothing but water tea today at work and will do so for a while. I threw in one lonely pod of cardamom to cheer myself up.

Life without Tea.. Almost

It's terrible. It's as if my qi has been unblocked in the past six days without tea. I zip along early morning smiling even. I used to grumble at those overly perky morning people of superior virtue- so called "morning larks".

Now that I have time to make a proper breakfast, I've been poaching oysters and eggs in almond milk. Nothing makes you feel more luxurious and decadent than eating oysters for breakfast then finishing off with a dessert.

It's not as if tea was like alcohol or heroin eating away at my life. But completely unexpected, I've experienced surprising multiple improvements in the last few days with all this extra energy-

• I've finally mastered fluffly maple syrup-based macaroons.  
• I made serious progress in creating a chewy texture with tapioca/coconut/almond flour in a gluten free olive-oil orange cake. 
• I created a new system to organize my husband's t-shirt trunk. 
• After months of trying, I finally improved my sprinting speed today.
• I cleaned the kitchen numerous times efficiently without pending threat of house guests. 
• I returned my library books on time. 

But I really miss tea drinking so today I brewed up some white peony in the morning sent to me by Wilson.  My life did not relapse back into sloth. I'll probably tire of such virtuous living and go back to tea drinking next month. Oh no! It's past ten- my new bedtime now. Good night!

Morning Cup of Chicory

Two days without caffeinated tea and I fell asleep just by lying down and closing my eyes!  I awoke both days at 6 naturally. I normally struggle to leave bed by 8:30 on work days, sometimes past noon on weekends. My adult life has been marked by insomnia leading to late late night "research" and bleary eyed mornings.  Was this solely the hand of caffeine? I almost want to drink more tea to find out!   

Unlike coffee drinkers who have a horrible physiological time of going cold turkey with brutal headaches, fatigue, irritability, and even depression, I'm finding the amount of caffeine I had with tea I can titrate off easily in a day.  It's the psychological comfort of milky tea I miss most in the morning. I don't ease into my morning  Hongchas without the preliminary India teas.  

I'm grateful I've got my chicory tea made to tide me over. Made from roasted root of the chicory plant, it's a common coffee substitute with a mellow roasty malty flavor and a boatload of health benefits from digestive and liver support to boosting anti-oxidative activity. Too bad it's NSFPW - not safe for pregnant women. When my pregnant friend was visiting, I wanted to surprise her with a delicious coffee substitute but I didn't even let her see it as chicory is a uterus stimulator as is parsley.

Now my brain is spinning on what to do. For this month, it's chicory and substitutes.