New shop find: Leaf & Kettle

Found another great tea shop, drank some more superb teas — this time north of San Diego in Del Mar, Calif. The local tea-meetup gathered at Leaf & Kettle to learn about this excellent independent shop and to sample some of their offerings. It was one of those nights when the social chemistry sparked a bit (unusual for meetups), the shop impressed, and the tea absolutely wowed.

Leaf & Kettle has been open in a fancy outdoor mall for a couple of years. It's a classic, simple shop built around a tea bar, behind which are a few dozen stainless steel urns full of teas. Their alluring inventory is available online.

Jenna, the manager, poured three teas for our group. First, the organic Kagoshima Sencha, an aromatic spring green from Japan. The first cup was typically vegetal, even grassy (in that good Sencha way). The surprise was the second cup, produced with a counterintuitive shorter steep, which produced more bang for the buck, as it were. One of those teas that seems so light but really packs a wallop.

Next was the stunner: their Hunan Honey Black. Dry, it smells like brandy and freshly baked honey buns. In the cup, it's a rich black tea with a dessert finish — not uncomfortably sweet, not at all off-putting — tasting of chocolate-covered graham cookies. I say that with some irony, because those exact treats were on our table; this tasting note, however, was jotted down before eating one, which I did while enjoying the second steep (which really brought the unsweetened cacao flavor to the fore). The pairing was supreme.

The closer was a tea cocktail of sorts: she mixed an oolong and a fruit herbal (she also added some sliced fresh strawberries) over ice in a cocktail shaker, shook, and poured into glasses with ice and fresh mint sprigs. Very tasty, smooth, refreshing — if you go for the iced stuff. We asked for a second steep of the oolong by itself, Formosa Silk, which was an earthy delight — milky, buttery, a hint of sauteed mushrooms maybe. Had to buy some of that, eager to pair it with dinner.

It is a wonderful feeling, particularly after relocating to a new city, to find that tea shop that connects, that seems to offer just what your palette craves. Leaf & Kettle, hurrah, does so without the come-on of so many tea start-ups. Just a smart, classy joint.

Kettle's on, soup's on

Every now and then, I run into posted recipes for tea soup. The variations are myriad, but the best ones, in my experience, center on green tea and salmon.

This is the one that crossed my path recently, a quickie from Samovar which trims away some of the traditional Japanese ingredients in favor of a few extra steamed veggies. The one that's always worked for me is this one: blanching some veggies, poaching the salmon, then steeping the tea in the broth. A little matcha for presentation is a fine idea.

Of note: there's also an old meat-fish-and-potatoes soup colloquially referred to as Fisherman's Tea, though tea is not an ingredient.

The power of the powder

We recently moved across the country, which meant several days shacking up with hospitable, patient family and friends as well as crummy lil' motels. (I once wrote a song called "The Couch Tour," and here we were decades later embodying it.) Translation: My tea regimen was a mess. I'll spare you the kvetching about the perils of in-room coffee makers, friends who don't have kettles, and bloody Lipton bags.

But I'll share a tip I thought I'd shared here before: Rishi's on-the-go matcha and sencha.

I first encountered these through some samples, which proved valuable additives to my music-festival kit bag. As a pop music critic, packing for a three-day fest such as Lollapalooza or the great Pitchfork Music Festival (both in Chicago — the latter occurs this coming weekend with a lively lineup) involved planning for hydration and energy. While a cup of hot tea could be had at Pitchfork and was refreshing even in the scorching summer heat, tea products often are in short supply at such events (though Sweet Leaf has been a frequent Lolla sponsor). But what can you find everywhere at a festival grounds? Bottled water.

Enter Rishi's clever product. Their portable packets of matcha and of powdered sencha tea are midday life savers in such conditions. Pop a bottle of water, take a sip (to free up a little room), empty the small packet of tea powder into the bottle, shake like a MF. Presto — a cool bottle of energizing, invigorating and hydrating tea! Useful in a pinch throughout our moving experience, but invaluable for outdoors afternoons and events.

Teas I've been tasting

I don't do a lot of reviewing on this site, but here are some splendid teas I've been drinking recently ...

Stash Tea's organic Lu'an Gua Pian green tea has been a delight, a summery green throughout this thus-far mild winter. It's an open, flat leaf, like a Japanese green, but with a sweet taste — more floral than vegetal, especially on the finish — and a bright yellow liquor. Great on its own.

A colleague from China passed along a packet of wonderful green tea from the Enshi Huazhi organic tea company. I'd relay more details if I could read the package. Bright green in the cup, good grassy flavor, great for gongfu.

A new location for Adagio Teas has opened in downtown Chicago, and on a rainy afternoon I finally stopped in for some sampling. I made two discoveries. First, I'm not much of an herbal drinker, but I'd just had a massage and was looking for something without caffeine — and I had a pronounced craving for hibiscus. I was guided to the Wild Strawberry, full of fruit (pieces of apple and berries), hibiscus and rose hips. Totally not my thing, but I really enjoyed it and bought some; not a bad dessert tea. The star in Adagio's lineup, though, is the Fujian Rain, a fired oolong with an eye-opening balance of flavors: woody, barely smoky, and every cup tastes like you steeped it with mineral water.

Radiation fears bedevil Japanese tea growers

Who woulda thunk the tea experience one day would include Geiger counters?

World Tea News reported this week that the Japanese government "is testing 100 tea processing factories and has halted shipments from the Warashina district of Shizuoka City." Four prefectures now are under scrutiny. (Also in the WSJ.)

In Japan, the miniscule amount of tea grown in the north is nearly all consumed locally. The green tea that's exported is primarily grown in the south and southern islands, far from any threat of radiation contamination following the March 11 offshore earthquake and resulting nuclear power plant disaster. (See a map of Japan's tea-producing regions in relation to the power plant here.) Still, governments everywhere are setting up testing protocols for Japanese tea to screen for any contamination.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I attended a green tea tasting at Tea Gschwendner. The company's master taster Thomas Holz mentioned that TG has been screening all its Japanese tea just to be safe, and has yet found nothing alarming.

Either way, with shipping halted and some harvests suspended — including this anguish voiced by a tea farmer forced to destroy his early harvest — Japan may suffer a tea shortage this year. There's still no reason to fear drinking Japanese tea, but expect prices to be meddling.

A matcha moment

Tasting my way into the Rishi Tea line

Rishi Tea was recently in Chicago, offering a tea tasting at the Metropolis Roasting Garage (an airy warehouse space in Andersonville where they roast the coffee beans). Metropolis, often cited as the city's best coffee house — and thankfully in my 'hood — started selling and steeping Rishi's teas a while back. Hallelujah.



Already a big fan of their China Breakfast — a superb, all-Yunnan black beauty — I was happy to have some one-stop shopping of their other flavors. The organic and fair-trade green jasmine raised my eyebrows, and I'm not always a jasmine kind of guy. Two flavored oolongs are worth noting, too, for different reasons. The plum oolong is surprisingly awesome — a sure-footed oolong with mild oxidation and a tangy but light fruit flavor and a crisp finish. I'm going to try this after a meal, either with dessert or in place of it (or between courses? it's kind of a great palate cleanser). Rishi's new coconut oolong, however — ick. Tastes exactly like licking a freshly oiled sunbather, and not in a good way.

Our Nada: A clean, well-lighted place

Splendid new teahouse discovery, via the Chicago Tea Lovers Meetup group!

Nada Tea & Coffee House is one of those places I've been meaning to visit for a couple of years, and the Meetup group finally gave me the excuse/opportunity to head in that direction. What a splendid afternoon we had — not just because we were chatty and warm as the wind howled and the snow swirled outside. Nada's the real deal, a narrow spot neatly paneled in bamboo (the place is smoothly designed by renowned architect Douglas Garofalo) and offering a fine menu of Japanese teas and some food.

What grabbed me right away was when I saw co-owner Hiro behind the counter whipping up a bowl of matcha. No matcha-flavored beverages, no pre-made matcha — just quality powder frothed with a bamboo whisk by a well-trained fellow from Japan. Hallelujah. They offer a few twists on this preparation, too — in a mug with whipped cream, Matcha Viennese, etc. — but nothing outlandish.



Tea samplers presented some simple, quality teas, and I had a superb hojicha, which was a perfect mate to the Oyakodon rice bowl. Others enjoyed some wonderful looking traditional soups, with plump udon noodles, and sandwiches. I took home a couple of scones: meh.

The joy of the place was in its simplicity and quality. It's just a good teahouse. The name says "tea & coffee," but I can't imagine who'd come in here for coffee.

"Nada," by the way, does not mean "nothing" here as it does in Spanish, we learned (so forgive my Hemingway allusion in the title of this post). The teahouse is named for a district in the city of Kobe famous for its sake.

Darjeeling in Des Moines? This is getting good

This is a photo, believe it or not, of an epiphany. We write our little tea blogs and we hang out with tea people and we get on a first-name basis at a shop or two or ten. Like any niche, it's easy to forget this isn't really a treehouse, a club, a benefit exclusive to those of us with even a smidge of knowledge, feigned or hard-earned. But here I was, in a really nice tea shop in, of all places, Des Moines. This guy — in the sweatshirt for his drywall business, complete with Christian fish logo — flips through the menu with his wife and talks brewing temperatures with the gal behind the counter. I expected only Lipton bags during my first of many future visits to this town (relocated relatives), certainly not a great shop with what looks to be finely sourced teas sought after by burly Iowans in caulk-covered boots. I stood there for a moment and realized just how widely tea must be getting around, that the marketing articles aren't just being optimistic. They've even opened a Teavana or two in my Oklahoma home town. It made me really happy, and really excited.

The shop, Gong Fu Tea, has been in Des Moines' East Village neighborhood for more than six years, no less. A few minimalist tables up front, a nice long service counter in the middle, and some teaware and tasting tables in the back where customers can schedule gaiwan and gongfu services. This display of tea jars runs along the wall ...



The owners, Mike Feller and Rusty Bishop, have sourced some good teas, available online (they also have a monthly tea club). I left with several, including a pretty marvelous hojicha — golden-brown and toasty and awesome with some noodles and peanut sauce earlier this week. (Feller contributed comments to this story in a recent Des Moines Register.)

Great tea is almost everywhere! Long live the cha!

New Year's luck: From greens to green tea

We've stocked the black-eyed peas and mustard greens for our New Year's Day repast. We're not bad-off like many others we know, some still struggling after layoffs long ago, but like anyone we're not shying from good luck rituals and talismans as this new year rolls in. The black-eyed peas and greens tradition goes back to the Civil War — as Union troops ravaged the South, they left behind black-eyed peas and greens for the animals, but these are nutritious eats that allowed many Southerners to survive the winter. Mom always told me, too, that the beans represent coins and the greens are greenbacks. So we're chowing down.

Make tea part of your new year festivities, too. In Japan, a tradition exists to serve Big Happy Tea! It's just basic green tea or matcha, served on New Year's Day as a means of taking on good luck. According to a thoroughly informative book I acquired in London this year, Chado: The Way of Tea, A Japanese Tea Master's Almanac, the tradition of new year's tea in Japan goes back to Emperor Murakami (926-967), who became ill, drank tea around this time of year at the temple for the Goddess of Mercy, and recovered. As the tale spread, commoners began drinking tea on New Year's Day, hoping to acquire some of the same timely luck for the next calendar. Back then, they made the tea with water drawn precisely at 4 p.m. and poured the brew (made by the youngest member of the family) over pickled plums. After that, veggie soup with rice cakes.

Oh, and don't forget to sprinkle flakes of real gold on the tea.

(p.s. Here's my post from last January about a local Japanese new-year tea demo.)

Delicious Nippon! Japanese green tea

I'm in love with this video (shared via the Facebook tea group) with some good information about Japanese green tea. Got some down time during the holiday? Curl up with this. Come for the interesting presentation of tea facts, stay for the animation and the worst. background music. ever.

Tea in Portugal: From the aisles of the isles

My quest for some tea from the Azores — the Atlantic islands due west of Portugal, and governed by that once pioneering tea country — was finally rewarded a few months ago. After striking out in my attempts to contact the actual tea producers on the islands, Lucia, a t2 reader at a university in Rome, shared with me a couple of samples of the teas she had purchased locally (thanks again!). I'm just now getting around to trying them.

The chance to sample them was rewarding; the actual taste, not so much. I knew from reading about them that Azores tea was not quality. The only tea grown as a commodity crop in Europe, it's cranked out for high production. The cha verde, green tea, from Gorreana, is pretty awful. The dry cut/shredded leaf is dusty and dirty, though it smells lovely and grassy; the brew looks dreadful, murky, like dishwater; the murky brownish tea has little flavor to speak of. Bummer.


Gorreana's orange pekoe (left) has much more going for it. This dry leaf was tightly rolled and twiggy, much more handsome. The resulting liquor is a beautiful amber color, with a warm, peaty scent. The taste is ... OK, nothing to sing about, a plain black tea. As the New York Times wrote in 1879, "The flavor of the infusion [is] by no means to be despised." I would agree with the back-handed compliment.

Postscript: A short while ago, I interviewed Hamilton Leithauser, lead singer for the band the Walkmen. Their latest album is called "Lisbon" (and lordy it's good, great retro sounds in the studio plus Hamilton's warm, wheezy ways with his voice). "We went there twice while recording the record," he told me, speaking of Lisbon. "Titling the record that just made sense in our minds. It's such a unique place, so incredible looking. It has its own feel, like nowhere else in the world. It's sort of out of the way, without the big museums and stuff to draw tourists. ... It felt like us, like someplace we could understand. It has its own feel. It's sort of out of the way. There aren't museums, etc., that draw you in like other places. The way it's laid out — it's built on a valley that leads down to the ocean. It's just this big swath of tile, little streets and beautiful buildings — nothing grand, just small joys. The whole city is built for cafe culture, with outdoor terraces all looking over the downtown on all sides. Great views wherever you go. I don't remember drinking tea there, but I could see it happening, on all those terraces. Good port, though. This special dish there is a nasty salty cod — it's gross, so salty you can't believe they eat it."

Adding some sparkle to everyday iced tea

It's already chilly in Chicago. This morning had a definite autumnal bite, and after walking the dog the flip-flops were put away for the season. So, drat, I meant to write about this while the weather was still a bit steamy ...


One of the things we encountered on our European travels early this summer was sparkling iced tea. In the vast majority of cafes we visited, when one of our companions, Richard, asked for iced tea, he was served a bottle of sparkling, usually a Lipton variety.

Richard, it's important to note, likes nearly all of his liquids to be as sparkling as his personality. At home, in fact, he possesses his own carbonation system, with which he adds bubbles to his drinking water. It's pretty marvelous: a faucet, a Brita filter and a SodaStream Penguin Water Carbonator — no more wasting money and glass buying Pellegrino or Perrier. Richard "penguinizes" everything he can, so when we returned home, of course (and at my urging), he tried penguinizing his own tea.

It's tricky and messy experimentation, as most liquids refuse the carbonation if they already have something else dissolved in them. Richard found it easier to brew the tea separately, and strongly, then add the sparkled water. Here's his conclusion:

1. Prepare steeped tea, 3x strength; chill.
2. Prepare simple syrup [Water and Sugar, 1:1]; chill.
3. Place about 1T of syrup in a highball; add squeezed quarter of lemon wedge; fill 1/3 full with strong tea; and top with penguinated water.

As for buying it bottled, I still haven't located sparkling iced tea in any U.S. stores yet, though Lipton says varieties like this green tea with berry flavors is in stores (and was just launched last year). But given that it's just another bottled drink that's mostly high fructose corn syrup, I haven't looked that hard. Nestea and Lipton both have sparkling varieties throughout Germany and some of northern Europe.

p.s. Here's a great recipe for homemade sparkling tea with lemon, cucumber and mint!

Not a spot of tea, just a drop

A note leftover from our summer travels: One other item I purchased at the Sing Tehus in Copenhagen was a packet of Green Kiss tea drops.



They're basically lozenges, little football-shaped green drops with ribbed sides, a hard-candy confection of sugar and matcha powder. I'm kind of addicted to Ricola lozenges, as it is, so it was nice to force a switch to something tea-related. They taste just as you'd expect, like a sweet dose of matcha. I find them handy when I'm running errands or between afternoon appointments and unable to work in a cup of actual tea. It's not a huge shot of green tea, but it's better than nothing.

Difficult to find in the States, of course, but you can order them inexpensively from London's Harvey Nichols here — and in different flavors: regular matcha, cherry, lemon and mint.

Lollapalooza, Lady Gaga and cans of quenching tea

A month away, welcome back, all. What have I been doing in the meantime? Sweating and hiking through Lollapalooza, for one.

I bring this up here only because the biggest performer at last weekend's annual concert festival here in Chicago's beautiful Grant Park was tea-lover extraordinaire, Lady Gaga. (Of course, we keep calling her a famous tea lover — but the tea cups she carries around as apparent fashion accessories are always empty.) I did my utmost to lurk backstage, hoping to spot our lady taking tea. Alas, nothing. Here's my review of her performance, though, plus all our other Lolla coverage, if anyone's interested.

In other Lady Gaga news, rumors abounded a couple of weeks ago that the pop star was the focus of a bidding war between tea companies vying for her spokeswomanship. This report and others suggested she was going to sign with Twinings, and there's talk of a special Gaga blend. Little Monsters Matcha, anyone?

Another Lollapalooza note: One of the sponsors again this year was Sweet Leaf Tea (their Lollapalooza blog is here). Weather was just not-hot enough that I didn't feel I had to constantly be chugging water all three days, so I was able to enjoy several of their bottled teas to stay hydrated. The cans — cans! — of green tea with citrus, and some with mint, were pretty great. I always say this, but getting the sweetness just right in bottled teas always seems to be a challenge. These Sweet Leaf varieties aren't too sweet; they're nicely balanced and really quaffable. Superb on a very noisy summer day, anyway.

Europe: Tea shops in Copenhagen

We recently returned from more than two weeks in northern Europe, cruising through the ports of the Baltic Sea: Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn (Estonia) and Warnemunde (Germany). The journey started with a few days in Amsterdam, where the Dutch consolidated such trading power in the 1600s and foisted China's favorite herb on us. While there was some fine tea to be had in Amsterdam, it paled in comparison to the inventive shops I visited in Copenhagen, Denmark.

There is, of course, A.C. Perch's, the oldest operating tea shop on the continent. (If you include England, the oldest tea seller is London's Fortnum & Mason.) Still crammed into its original tiny space in central Copenhagen, the warm little nook has a thriving business with locals and tourists alike. With room for about a half dozen customers at a time, the tea sellers are whisking canisters under noses and measuring tea with deft, speedy movements.




I wound up chatting with a fellow at Perch's about their new Bolivian tea, grown in former coca fields (cocaine and tea both like their altitude, er, high), which I sampled and then promptly bought a few hundred grams of. It's a mix of two different green teas, one of which is steamed, and it is, as the ladies used to sing, fine and mellow.


On the west side of the city center is a somewhat new place called The a la Menthe — a cozy Moroccan-themed spot with sunny windows, colorful tables and a variety of mint tea preparations. I hit this place first but wish I'd saved it till later in the day. It's a bright take on tea, and the food holds equal footing — north African fruits, chicken salads and curries, plus samosa and falafel. To complement the chow is a small but focused menu of teas, from the house mint specialty (a handful of mint leaves with green tea, and surprisingly not too sweet) and a curious orange tea to basic green and Earl Grey. The staff I encountered was pretty rude, but I was asking a lot of questions in the middle of what seemed like a lunch rush. Can't help it.


The most exciting discovery, however, was Sing Tehus, a Japanese tea house not far off the main pedestrian mall running through Copenhagen's center. Run by a woman who clearly knows her chado, Sing Tehus specializes in Japanese green and white teas, plus a few extras (I bought a vivacious Vietnamese oolong). A kind woman named Marie filled me in while pouring me a taste of new shincha — so fresh and plucky, it was as if the calendar rewound a couple of months to the dawn of spring. The corner shop is a half story above the street (unlike the other ground- and below-level shops) with big windows wrapping around, letting the rare patches of sun illuminate the racks of fine teaware — from basic porcelain and iron pots to a serious, massive old kettle and brazier. It's the kind of place I wish I lived nearby, and with any real luck someday I will.



Alas, I never had a Danish in Denmark to go with my tea. I wouldn't have anyway, I guess, since the Danish refer to danishes as Viennese.

London: Gin and tea with Jane Pettigrew

Afternoon tea requires good tea, good food, a lovely setting and, ideally, charming company. A cocktail doesn't hurt, either. Last Friday, during my exploration of afternoon teas in London, I hit the bullseye with all five.

The Palm Court of London's Langham Hotel (seriously, are all these rooms called the Palm Court?) claims to be the birthplace of the very tradition of afternoon tea. So you might expect a staid, stuffy and somber affair weighed down by history. Not here. The Langham's Palm Court is a crisp, bright room with unexpectedly modern flourishes, from the understuffed chairs to the pianist slipping in Elton John and Coldplay tunes.



My guest for tea that day was Jane Pettigrew, the name in books about tea, particularly in her native Britain. Together we sampled the Langham's special twist on afternoon tea, the G & Tea.

It's a menu based on the flavors of a gin and tonic, which is what you get first, expertly mixed and in a nice tall glass. Then comes the tea, based on the botanicals of Beefeater 24; it's a green tea base with added juniper berries, coriander, lemon peel and other whole ingredients. The result is a strange but enticing tea, kind of musty and musky, the juniper slightly overpowering the taste of the actual tea. It's very light, and it's tasty with the food.

During our conversation, Pettigrew began a litany that I would hear repeated throughout London, one that accuses most Britons of knowing little about tea — despite how much of it they drink. "If you stop the average person in London, most of them have nothing to say about tea," she said. "If you mention white tea, they think you mean black tea with milk in it. Tea has been ignored and abused in this country for centuries, turned into something unrecognizable from its natural wonders by the big packers, the Tetleys and PG Tips and such." France, Pettigrew says, is the European tea mecca now. "We're very lazy about food and drink, with all the fast food. Marks & Spencer's main business is ready-made meals. We don't cook. In France, people's palates are still important, and more finely tuned. They cook, they take longer with the experience. So now that tea has found them — a country suited to the fine hues of wines — it's really taken hold. And it's a broader palate of teas in Paris. Here, our connection to tea started from the empire in India: black teas. In France, the historic connections are more in Indo-China and Vietnam, so they are open to a greater variety of teas."

The Langham tea menu offers quite a variety, though, including British-grown teas from the Tregothnan estate near Cornwall, as well as a choice yellow tea and a cooked pu-erh. We opted for a second pot of the Jing Ceylon, which was good company for the desserts, including ginger cookies and a far-out Cointreau-orange cream cake with a chocolate dome. One other nice thing about the Langham service: the edibles are presented on the classic three-tiered trays, but these are on floor stands. They meet level to the table, so there's more room on the table surface. Nice touch.

Pettigrew overflows with information and suggestions of other tea spots. One of them turned out to be the best place I visited in all of London. More to come ...

(I also later followed up on an earlier recommendation of hers, from an article in World Tea News: a bustling restaurant called Royal China in Queensway at the NW corner of Hyde Park. Before eating possibly the most tender chicken I've ever had, the waitress asked me what kind of tea I would like: "Jasmine, fine or strong?" Turns out their "fine" tea is a lovely, woody Taiwanese oolong. The "strong" tea is a black tea, though the waitress called it "red.")

You've got a pink kink in your think

This weekend we enjoyed a Saturday afternoon lunch on Chicago's famed Devon Avenue, which features several blocks of Indian restaurants and shops. After stuffing myself with chana masala and chai, we wandered into one of the food markets. In the tea aisle, I found a few interesting items, including ... pink tea?

It's a plastic jar of green tea leaves, labeled "Kashmiri Pink Tea." The pink part comes from a complicated preparation process, detailed on a poorly printed and folded piece of pink paper just under the lid. The recipe is basically a different take on chai using, of all things, baking soda.



I tried this out today, melding the pidgin English of the jar's instructions (which call for "backing powder") with some recipes found online (like this one, this one and mainly this one). I used two pots. In one, I boiled water and added the green tea, along with some crushed cardamom and a pinch of salt. After this boiled down a bit — and become a strong, dark green tea — I added half a teaspoon of baking soda, plus a half cup of cold water. The pot fizzed, and the tea went noticeably reddish. The power of chemistry. While that simmered a while longer, I heated milk, ground nuts and a cinnamon stick. In the end, both were strained and poured together (like the Malaysian teh tarik makers). The result: a strong chai, surprisingly smooth, with a bitter underpinning.

And, yes, it was kinda pink. (Some recipes include pink food coloring, which is just cheating.) But it's not something so delicious that I'll be going through all this rigamarole again. Unless you come over and ask for some pink tea.

Chain gangs: Starbucks' gigantea, Jamba's gyp

•• You know your chain is too big when your primary competitor has become McDonald's. That's what's happened now to Starbucks, which is test marketing a new size of beverage in the face of Mickey D's attempt to undercut Seattle's best.

Some McDonald's are selling 32-ounce iced teas for a buck, trying to lure customers to their new McCafe coffee and tea offerings. Starbucks is countering by adding a size to its menu. In addition to tall, grande and venti, Starbucks is testing out the new Trenta, a 31-ounce monster cup of iced tea ($2.60) or iced coffee ($3.30). The test markets are Phoenix and Tampa — warm places where a Big Gulp of tea might not sound so ridiculous.

How quickly we forget. I remember when I lived south of the Mason-Dixon, most restaurants served iced tea in ginormous cups, with two shovels of ice cubes and half a lemon. Even in winter.


•• Jamba Juice is trying hot, tea-based drinks again. Last week they trotted out new chai and tea latte options, plus six different Mighty Leaf teas. An A for effort, but they fall seriously short of the last hot tea drinks they tried. Both blends I sampled last week seemed purely powdered. I opted for soy in both, and despite this being a shop that has actual soy milk available for its smoothie drinks, my server both times seemed to add only powdered ingredients to the hot water before blending it. Boo.

The chai tastes fine, though I agree with another reviewer: It's an odd seasonal flavor to debut in March. The Heavenly Green tastes like decent matcha, but again — powdery. Sigh.

Green tea snow ice cream and more

It's a weird winter when my native Oklahoma has had significantly more snow than my current Chicago home. But we're finally due a big dump tonight, and my kettle's at the ready. Forget snowmen: it's time to get out there and make a snow pot!

Actually, if the snow on your outdoor tabletops or lawn is clean enough, make some snow ice cream. There are hundreds of different ways to do this. This is the one we've tried that actually gets some decent results (though you'll need to eat it quickly, as the snow melts easily): Beat a pint of whipping cream till it firms up, then stir in a can of condensed milk, a spoon or two of vanilla extract and sugar to taste (1/4-1/2 cup?). This being a tea blog, of course, when I tried this out last winter I added a scoop of matcha green tea powder. Fold in fresh snow — until it achieves a thick, creamier consistency. Voila!

About those tabletops, we might recommend catching freshly fallen stuff instead. Before or during le deluge, set out a nice big mixing bowl or a wide pan.

If you want to make actual ice cream flavored with green tea, well, then this is yet another gleeful opportunity to link to this bizarre video in which a dog explains how to do just that.

Or simply heap some snow in your cup or kettle and make tea. Arctic naturalists and Himalayan hikers do it all the time. Here's an outdoorsy video demonstration (chopping your own wood is, thankfully, optional...):

The winter season was ideal for making tea. With snow easily accessible, a hearty scoop with a stone pot placed atop a fire would melt the snow, and then boil the water up to the proper temperature. Snow water had a very pure and crisp taste, so Mithos & Tuna wanted to enjoy it as much as they could. This was possibly their last day together for some time, so they felt that she could be a little generous with their tea consumption.
— from Fire Emblem: The Rune of Shadows

Of note: Snow tea is an actual tisane once common in China. It's not actual tea but a rare herb, heralded for lowering blood pressure. But the snow tea herb, it seems, is endangered due to overharvesting. This "red snow tea" certainly looks absolutely delicious (now that's why you keep some glass teaware in the cubby!), but let's wait and see if this delicacy comes back before contributing to its decline.

Instead, try Teavana's Snow Geisha white tea — white tea blended with sour cherries and cranberries. Delish.

Also, dig these "snow tea cups"! Nice shape, and the glaze looks like they were fashioned from new-fallen snow. (With matching pot.)