Ethan Kurland

[Ethan Kurland]

List of available teas (posted on bottom of page 8) has been updated. Please note that both the High Mountain Organic Roasted Oolong has only one packet available. Also, I have been drinking the new teas since mid-November & they are wonderful. Added an organic white tea from Nepal.

[Ethan Kurland]

White tea from Nepal:

My list of teas for sale on the bottom of page 8 has a new addition: Himaylayan Snow, an organic white tea from Nepal. I think I have not had this tea for a few years. Some years had poor conditions for white tea & some years I had trouble communicating w/ my source in Nepal. This year I worked harder on the communication because I missed the tea & I have noticed members have had difficulty obtaining darjeeling style tea lately.

Anyway, the tea is very flavorful, giving us the tastes we seek from tea from Nepal & Darjeeling. (I won't pretend to be able to separate 1st flush & 2nd flush well.) There is a very pleasing brightness to the brew. I don't add the word "fresh" because it leads to thinking of green tea & this Himalayan Snow has no hints of green tea's vegetal .... this a white tea w/ white's best feature, body to its soup that is light & thin-feeling while full of flavor w/o even a hint of being acrid. To have so much flavor, this type of tea's blend of flavors w/o any astringency is wonderful. The flavor's strength gets significantly weaker from infusion to infusion, but somehow it is enjoyable to drink even as "tea water". 100 grams for $42 (42 cents per gram); 50 grams for $25.

[Ethan Kurland]

My oldest brother is enduring massive doses of chemotherapy which makes eating & drinking difficult for a few days every 3 weeks. He is finding this white tea, Himalayan Snow, very tolerable & enjoyable even on his worst days. "Delicate yet tasty" he has told me.

Delicate is a good word. A defining flavor of tea from Nepal & Darjeeling that I had enjoyed years back is there most delicately & unspoiled by a bothersome astringency that often came w/ such tea.

Anyway that unique flavor is good to have in one's cupboard even for those of us (including me) who have moved away from drinking such tea very often. (For me, a few times a month.)

Also, this tea is definitely best enjoyed by drinking when it is hot. I often drink teas after they have cooled quite a bit, but this loses a lot once it gets too cool.

Cheers.

[Ethan Kurland]

Muscatel. "Muscatel" grapes, muscatel wine was what would not come into my mind for weeks. A common, desired flavor for a category of tea of Darjeeling & Nepal. The Himalayan Snow has it very nicely for us; &, has I started tasting the unique flavor after some years away from it, I've moved from wanting it a few times a month to a few times a week.

My apologies for the lack of words that haunts me in my later years.

[Ethan Kurland]

If you want some tea from me, please contact me soon. I'll be traveling soon. No orders taken for tea from May 3rd through June 28th.

Any advice about Penang, Malaysia is welcome. Will spend 6 days at a totally new place for us. We have not done that for decades.