Who Can Resist the "Choco-Bear"?

Tonight is my tea seminar and I realized I forgot to bring something to at least nosh on before we start tasting teas since class is right after work. I stopped by the Japanese-style Watanabe Bakery on King Street on my way to work to grab a little sandwich pack and could not resist the lure of the "Choco-Bear." Its a cute little sweet bread with a chocolate pudding like center. They also have "Apple Elephants" and "Custard Turtles" but my friend the "Choco-Bear" won out as my morning snack choice!

Raspberry (or Strawberry) Lavender Lemonade

I have been thinking of raspberries the last couple of days. I talked to my Mom on Sunday night and she was telling me they had spent the morning picking raspberries on my sister's, in-law's property and I realized as much as I love Hawaii--I miss Oregon, the Northwest and being able to go pick and eat fresh berries right off the vines. Actually to be truly honest, I only miss about the first 10 minutes of the picking (after that it's pretty much hot, prickly and tiring) but I definitely miss all of the eating! Then last night I was thumbing through The Balanced Plate by Rene Loux, a cookbook emphasizing whole foods, health and harmony and saw a recipe for Raspberry Lavender Lemonade which sounded delicious. I had a tin of culinary lavender from Maui, a bunch of lemons I needed to use and a couple of bags of frozen wild raspberries in my freezer--not fresh exactly but close! I marked the recipe and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of sitting on my lanai and sipping a tall, cool glass of this lemonade. In the morning, when I went to pull the berries out of the fridge to defrost, there were blueberries, a small bag of blackberries and lots of strawberries but guess what...NO RASPBERRIES! After some internal debating, I decided that Strawberry Lavender Lemonade sounded almost as good and decided to make it that way.

Raspberry Lavender Lemonade

The Balanced Palate by Renee Loux

Yields 4 servings (a bit more than a quart)

2 Tbsp dried lavender flowers

2 cups boiled, filtered water

2-3 Tbsp maple syrup

2-3 Tbsp agave nectar or raw honey

1/2 tsp non-alcoholic vanilla extract

1 pint raspberries (2 cups)--fresh or frozen organic

2 cups filtered water

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Pinch of Sea Salt

Springs of fresh mint for garnish

Steep the lavender flowers in the hot water for 3-5 minutes. Do not steep longer or it will turn bitter. Strain. Mix in the maple syrup and agave or honey, and vanilla. Set in the freezer to chill for 15 minutes or in the fridge for 20 minutes or until cool to the touch.

-----

Meanwhile, in a blender, blend the raspberries, filtered water, lemon juice and salt until smooth. Pour through a fine mesh strainer or sieve. Press down on the pulp with the back of a large spoon to extract as much liquid as possible.

------

Mix the cooled, sweetened tea and the raspberry-lemon mixture together. Add a bit more maple syrup, agave or honey if desired. Serve in tall glasses or wine glasses over ice with springs of fresh mint.

The strawberry-lavender-lemon combo was elegant and refreshing--although I still want to try it with raspberries. Using strawberries did mean less effort to strain the mixture which was nice. I went with the smallest amounts of maple syrup and honey and did 2 Tbsp of each and I really didn't think it needed any additional sweetener once it was mixed. Perfect on a warm summer night!

Summer Roasted Salmon, A Quick, Healthy Dinner & Some Jasmine Tea

Listening to the cry of my body to put something clean and healthy in it, I defrosted some Wild Alaskan Salmon I had in the freezer for dinner tonight (yes, I know that's a lot of food miles for that fish to reach me but sometimes I just crave salmon and you have to love the health benefits, especially when you get it from a good source) I had purchased The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook by Tosca Reno, several months ago. It has some really great, healthy recipes and ideas in it and I had marked this recipe for Summer Roasted Salmon. that I wanted to try. I decided to make a quick (under 30 minute), healthy meal with the salmon, some brown Furikake rice and stir-fried local green beans from my CSA box.

Summer Roasted Salmon
The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook, Tosca Reno
Serves 4

-----
4 (5-6 oz) salmon fillets (fresh from a reliable source if possible)
2 tsp / 30 ml best-quality olive oil
Sea salt and fresh black pepper
Juice of one lemon
1 bunch fresh green onions, trimmed
1/4 cup / 60 ml combined fresh chopped parsley, rosemary, thyme, chives
-----

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. / 232 degrees C. Prepare a baking dish with a light coating of cooking spray or olive oil. Place salmon fillets in the baking dish, skin side down. Brush a coating of olive oil onto the salmon. Sprinkle each fillet with some sea salt and black pepper. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the salmon. Lay the green onions over the salmon.


Roast the fillets in the oven for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Remove the wilted green onions. Dust each fillet with a generous helping of the chopped herbs. Serve hot.
-----

I made 2 fillets (about 6 oz or so each) and so I just halved the recipe. Since my fillets were a bit larger, 11 minutes cooked them beautifully. The herbs I happened to have were basil, flat leaf parsley, mint and cilantro which made a good, clean tasting combo--although the rosemary and thyme called for in the recipe would have been lovely as well.


The rest of dinner: While the salmon was cooking, I put the green beans in a microwave steamer for about 5 minutes (they were pretty thick beans!), then I tossed them into a wok with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, some chopped garlic and grated ginger, about 1/4 cup of tamari sauce and about 1 Tbsp of Oyster sauce, popped the lid on the pan and let them cook another 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. (They ended up on the crisp side still--but I like my beans on the crisper side rather than mushy). As the beans and salmon cooked away, I popped a steam-in bag of brown rice I get at my local health food store into the microwave for three minutes. Once the rice finished cooking, I poured it in a bowl and topped it with a couple of Tbsps of Nori Komi Furikake Rice Seasoning (a sesame sesame seed, salt. sugar and seaweed mixture--if you aren't familiar with this condiment it is excellent to liven up rice and vegetable dishes--I think it may be a rule that you have to have it in your pantry if you live in Hawaii!) Finally, I took the cover off the green beans, added a sprinkle of salt and a sprinkle of sesame seeds and gave them a quick stir.



That was it! 25 minutes later (with pre-heating oven time included), dinner was ready; (Rachel Ray has nothing on me!) Quick, easy, delicious, satisfying and pretty healthy with leftovers to take to work for lunch tomorrow.

I ended dinner with one of my "take home" teas from the tea workshop (post is here), the Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls. I have had this tea before but I am trying it again with more knowledge and appreciation. Jasmine as a fragrance tends to give me a bit of a headache so it is not a tea I would drink often but this tasted pretty good. And who can resist the elegance of the little "pearls" of the tea leaves?

You definitely get the Jasmine aroma from the dry leaves and it intensifies in the wet leaves and the tea itself. The liquor and flavor have fairly intense floral notes and the tea was light, with a little astringency to it. A small cup was a pleasant way to end dinner and start the evening.

Spiced Pear Black Tea & Honey Granita

I really wanted ice cream! I blame this mainly on Kat, from Our Adventures in Japan, whose post on a visit to Arashiyama had many wonderful pictures including one featuring an oh so delectable "soft cream" cone. After going through an intense pre-blogging ice cream making phase a few months ago (Chai, White Chocolate-Cranberry-Pistachio, Coconut, Mango Sorbet, etc), I had not had the ice cream maker out in awhile so I was determined to make some this weekend. Of course we always know what happens to the best laid plans... This was not my best or most memorable 4th of July weekend as I have been battling yet another round of bronchitis and although I stayed home with windows closed and air con on, the firecracker smoke in the cul-de-sac near my house managed to aggravate it even more. With a fun and attractive wheeze of a 90 year old emphysema patient, I finally decided I better go to the doctor on Saturday. (This is a big step for me because I hate doctors and I especially hate needles and generally the first thing they want to do is stick a steroid shot in my butt--yikes! ) So I went and got my "big girl shot". Why do I call it a "big girl shot"? Basically it started when a good friend was lecturing me on my fears and needing to go to the doctor and said "Deb, you just have to be a big girl, suck it up and get your big girl shot!" I couldn't help but laugh and the term stuck. OK, so a "big girl shot", a breathing treatment and three prescriptions later, I was waiting for my prescriptions to be filled and was hanging out at the grocery store, ready to buy my milk and heavy cream. While wandering the aisles, sans the all important grocery list, I managed to pick up most of the things I needed; including a CPK Garlic Chicken Pizza (hey--I got a big girl shot today, I can have frozen pizza for dinner if I want!), juice, Gatorade (turns out they thought I was a bit dehydrated) and the stuff to make the next Barefoot Blogger post due this week. And then I drug my steroid-full and sore-bottomed body (Sorry-is that TMI?) back home, where I suddenly realized I FORGOT THE MILK AND CREAM!

Flash forward to today. I am feeling much better and I really considered going to the store to buy my ice cream ingredients--after all I had the ice cream recipe from David Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop all picked out and everything. Then I decided that it wouldn't be very environmentally responsible to waste the gas to go to the store just for that. Normally I could easily walk the 2 mile round trip but the lungs were not having it today. That left me with making a sorbet, frozen yogurt or something with coconut milk--not the soft creamy treat I was salivating over but hey--gotta make due. In looking through my ice cream cook books I ended up with this recipe for Tea Granita from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein. It seemed fitting since I have been so tea obsessed lately and bonus--I had all the ingredients! After debating a bit about which tea to use, I ended up with a Republic of Tea: Spiced Pear Black Tea and chose to use honey as the sweetener--a variation mentioned in the book.

------

Tea Granita

The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, Bruce Weinstein

Makes about 1 Quart

------

3 cups water

6 tea bags

2/3 cup sugar

Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)

------

Bring the water to a boil, remove from the heat and add the tea bags. Allow the tea to steep for 5 minutes. Remove the tea bags and add the sugar (or you can substitute honey for the sugar as I did), stirring until it completely dissolves. Refrigerate until cold. Add the lemon juice.

------

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions. (Mine took about 25 minutes) When finished, the granita will be soft and have the consistency of a sorbet. Transfer to a freezer-safe container and freeze to harden. To serve, scrape the top of the granita with a heavy ice cream spade or scoop, to create shaved ice crystals. Serve in small, chilled dishes or hollowed out lemon rinds.

A few minutes into the ice cream maker

About 1/2 way done

Done and ready to put in the freezer

In its soft, pre-granita state-still very tasty!

The flavors of the tea; pear with cinnamon, cloves and ginger came out nicely. I ended up leaving out the lemon and don't think with the tea I chose that it needed it. I used a wonderful local honey from Big Island Bees, that I picked up at the KCC Farmers Market. For this varietal, the bees consume Wilelaiki Blossoms (a.k.a. Christmasberry Blossoms), giving it subtle spicy notes that would complement the flavors in the tea. The book pointed out that you can use any any tea, including herbal blends and that the sugar can be increased or decreased by up to 1/3 cup depending on the tea and your taste. I would definitely make this again and try different teas as it is good, refreshing and super easy. It would look beautiful in the carved lemon rinds as suggested but that seemed like way too much effort today!

And oh yes, good as this was, I will still be making that ice cream!

Tea Seminar Part 3

Wednesday was the third week of my 5-week, Tea Anyone?, tea tasting seminar and workshop and this was probably my favorite class so far as we tasted 7 different teas. (you can find the other postings here and here) Before class started, as an "experiment", Dave, our instructor, gave our tables a "flowering tea bud" to place in a glass carafe and watch blossom. It was hard to get a good shot of this and our flower was a bit "special" and was not quite as even or perfectly beautiful as some on the neighboring tables. Dave thought maybe the water we were given should have been hotter--this also might have accounted for the lack of flavor in our tea--it just didn't taste like much.

A dry tea blossom and our "special" tea blossom in bloom

We started our session learning about White Teas, (uncured and unfermented buds or young leaves and buds) and the three grades: Silver Needle (Bai Hoa Yinzhen), White Peony (Bai Mu Dan), and finally Shou Mei (which apparently means "Noble, Long Life Eyebrow"). Silver Needle is the highest grade of white tea, usually coming from the Chonging and Fujian Provinces of China. Silver Needle usually contains only the tea buds and is harvested only once per year in the spring. I didn't get a strong aroma from the dry tea leaves but the aroma was a bit stronger with the wet leaf, smelling sweet and fresh. The flavor and liquor were very light and delicate, slightly sweet and some slight floral notes.

Silver Needle buds with few leaves

Silver Needle in the cup

The second grade, White Peony, is considered a grade down from Silver Needle using both the bud and the top two leaves of the tea plant. It may have more than one "flush" or plucking each year and has a fine white "down" covering the leaves. The aroma of this tea, at least the wet leaves, was a bit stronger and I picked up some very light lemony or citrus notes in the flavor.

White Peony Leaves and Buds

In the cup--notice the bud with the first two leaves

We also learned about, but didn't drink Shou Mei, the lowest grade of white tea which usually includes a mix of buds and more young tea leaves. It usually has a stronger taste and is produced in other countries besides China such as Sri Lanka (Ceylon White), India (Darjeeling White), and Kenya (African White). We learned that it actually wasn't until 1922 that the definition of white tea was broadened to not only the bud of the tea leaf but the first couple of leaves as well.

After our foray into White Tea, we went back to the green teas from China that we didn't finish tasting from the last class: starting with the Bi Luo Chun, a hand-processed, artisan tea from the Jiangsu Province. It is usually wound tightly into "spirals" and has a variegated sliver color. This tea is known for picking up the fragrances of the plants that surround it, like citrus, trees, so I was looking forward to tasting it but unfortunately the flavor turned out to be pretty bitter. I am not sure if we ended up brewing it too long, but it was definitely bitter and not just the astringent edge you get from some green teas. It had a vegetable like smell and taste--a bit like (bitter) asparagus.

Bi Luo Chun leaves in small spirals

Bi Luo Chun in the cup

Our next green tea tasted much better to me; Huang Shan Mao Feng, which comes from tea gardens, high on a mountain range in the An Hui Province. This tea had a darker, straighter leaf and a light sweet vegetable smell and taste (kind of like dark leafy greens). It was smoother, not as bitter, nor as astringent as the Bi Luo Chun.

Huang Shan Mao Feng--longer straight leaves

Huang Shan Mao Feng after brewing

For the Chinese Green teas we ended with Mao Jian from the He Nan Province. This tea had a smaller leaf than the second tea and the leaf was not as curled as the leaf of the first tea we tried. The wet leaf had a slight vegetable smell and the flavor reminded me of cooked green beans. (I have to relate everything to the taste of food!). This tea was more astringent than the second tea, but not in a bad way and it was not bitter.

Mao Jian Leaves

Mao Jian in the cup

Finally we ended with two Pu'erh teas. Pu'erh is a type of tea made from a large leaf varietal of the tea plant. It can be pressed into disks, bricks, bird nests or other shapes or it can be loose leaf. It also can be brewed and drunk immediately after processing or aged for many years. It is thought that the pressing and compacting into cakes originated when the Chinese needed compacted tea to be able to carry it more easily when traveling to trade with Tibet and other distant regions.

Pu'erh cakes in Bird's Nest shapes

------

Pu'erh was not allowed into the US until 1996 due to the high moisture content on which mold could grow easily so it didn't meet US health standards. There are lots of fake Pu'erhs but the real ones, especially the aged ones, are prized by collectors and often classified like wine into region and production year.

5 year old Pu'erh Cake--the paper is its information and certification

The first Pu'erh we tried was an "Aged Cake" Pu'erh from 2002 and from the Yunnan Province. We wore gloves and passed the large cake around and broke off pieces to brew. I had a hard time breaking off a really small piece and was a bit worried mine would be way too strong when I compared it with my neighbors' pieces! The dry cake smelled (and looked) like a clod of soil from the yard, very earthy).

My piece of the cake

To brew it, we first covered the piece of cake with hot water for about 15 seconds in order to soften it.

Pu'erh softening

We then poured off the water and put in more water (about 200 degrees F.) and then brewed it about 1.5 minutes. The result was a dark, strong cup that tasted very smooth, earthy and robust. Very drinkable and very nice, reminding me of the way the ground of a forest smells.

My Pu'erh brewed--nice and dark

Our second Pu'erh was a loose leaf one, also from the Yunnan province. The smell of the leaves was not as strong as the smell of the brick and the flavor was not as strong either (but that might have been partly due to the size of the piece of brick I took). The taste was still still very earthy and smooth, reminding me of the way a mushroom tastes. Again very drinkable with little astringency.

The loose leaf Pu'erh

The loose leaf Pu'erh brewed

A great class and a good chance to try and learn about some less common teas. We were also given a couple of things to take home and try--some Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls and a small, individually wrapped, Pu'erh cake. (Like the small, unwrapped one in the lower right corner of the bird's nest Pu'erh picture) I will be trying them and posting about them soon.

American Macaroni from 1080 Recipes--Cook From Each Book Initiative

In an earlier post, I mentioned my gigantic cookbook collection and my personal "Cook From Each Book Initiative": my plan to once or twice a week select and cook one recipe from each book I own until I have cooked something from them all. Basically this is so that when anyone sees my cookbook collection and inevitably says "Do you really cook from ALL of these???", I will no longer have to hang my head in shame and mumble "I cook from SOME of them". Instead I will be able to say "Why yes I do!" with full confidence and bravado.

This Christmas, I received a copy of "1080 Recipes" by Simone and Ines Ortega, a beautifully illustrated, delightful Spanish cookbook that sits proudly on a bench in my living room and that I frequently pour over but from which I have not yet cooked. This book has been beloved in Spain for over 30 years and was translated to English and published here last year. There are many delicious recipes in the near thousand pages of this book but I kept going back to one funny little, kitschy recipe, #271, American Macaroni on page 223. There is no explanation on where this recipe came from or why it is called American Macaroni (my guess is the Cream of Mushroom Soup involved and the Mac & Cheese similarities), these are things that I ponder when I look at this book and this recipe, so it seemed high time to give it a try. It is a strange sounding combo of flavors--the soup, curry powder, Parmesan or Gruyere cheese and it is not particularly healthy but it has a vintage feel and I love vintage, kitschy recipes. Also I had the ingredients already in my cupboard (which I love) and it also got pretty gray, cloudy and rainy (but not cold--this is Hawaii remember!) on the way home tonight requiring me to have some comfort food of course, so it seemed like a good time to make it.

American Macaroni

from 1080 Recipes, Simone and Ines Ortega

Serves 4

12 ounces (about 3/4 box) macaroni

12 fl oz canned, condensed cream of mushroom soup

scant 2 cups milk

1 tsp curry powder

1/4 cup grated Gruyere or Parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp (1/4 stick) butter

salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cook the macaroni as described below, refresh under cold running water, drain and set aside. Pour the soup and milk into a pan and heat gently. Add the macaroni and sprinkle in the curry powder. Mix well and pour into a deep ovenproof baking dish. Sprinkle with the cheese and dot with the butter. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until golden and bubbling. Serve immediately.

------

How To Cook Macaroni: (page 221) Allow 2 to 2 & 1/2 ounces dried pasta per person. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, add the macaroni, and cook uncovered. When the water comes back to a boil, lower the heat slightly but make sure the water is still boiling and cook for 10-12 minutes. Drain the macaroni in a large colander and refresh under cold running water. The pasta is now ready to use.

For the macaroni, I used Strozzapreti pasta which according to Wikipedia means "priest choker" in Italian! Apparently there are several stories regarding the origin of the name which you can read here. The most colorful being that gluttonous priests loved the pasta so much and ate it so fast they sometimes choked themselves to death. It also mentions that Strozzapreti is an elongated form of cavatelli; a type of pasta about 3 cm long with a rolled edge. I used a 10 3/4 oz can of Campbell's Special Request--lower sodium and lower fat soup (rather than the 12 oz can requested) so I reduced the milk to 1 1/2 cups instead of 2 cups. I also added a little kosher salt. I used Parmesan for the cheese as I had some leftover from the Chicken Parmesan for my last Barefoot Blogger's post.

So, how did it taste?? Pretty good! It isn't an overpowering curry flavor, just lightly spiced. It has a nice creamy texture and the crunchy browned cheese topping was especially good. I ate it with some sliced turkey breast and salad. A smarter person than I would have reduced the recipe but I didn't so I think I will grill some chicken sausages to eat with it this weekend. Obviously there are many more recipes to try in this book, but this was a fun one to start with.

Tea Seminar Part 2

Our table set up for class

As mentioned in a previous post (find it here), I am taking a five week tea seminar (called "Tea Anyone?") through a community college on Wednesday nights. This week we focused on green teas from Japan and China and I found myself learning a lot. We discussed the 4 different kinds of Japanese tea: Matcha (powdered green tea), Gyokuro (shade grown, high quality; also includes Kabu Sencha--which is shade grown sencha), Sencha (everyday tea in Japan: includes Kukui Cha--which are sencha stems), and finally Bancha (coarser leaves, lower grade: includes Hoji Cha--roasted red bancha leaves and Genmai Cha--roasted rice and bancha leaves).

------

We also had a guest speaker, Byron Goo, owner of The Tea Chest, a local tea importer and retailer who with his wife, started their company out of their garage. (I want to have a tea company in my garage! Oh wait... I don't have a garage!) Byron gave us a lesson in brewing and an amazing example of how much the temperature of the water effects the flavor of the tea. He brewed the same green tea (a kukui cha), same proportion, same brew time but with two different temperatures--one at just over 200 degrees (F) and the other at 140 degrees (F). When we tasted the tea there was a HUGE difference in flavor, the higher temperature made the tea very bitter, while the tea brewed at 140 was smooth and not bitter. Even though I know that green tea should be brewed at a lower temperature (usually 140 to 160 degrees F), I am guilty of letting a kettle of water boil away on the stove, not paying attention to the temp. I wonder how many times I have thought a tea was too bitter when it might be perfectly delicious if it was brewed correctly??!! Of course there are still bad, bitter teas out there but it was fascinating to see how much of a difference the right temperature water made.

-----

Byron also told us that even though you may spend a lot more on a high quality tea, you can and should get more value out of it by getting multiple infusions from it--up to 4 from the same tea leaves. The secret he said is to go Warm-Warm-Warm-Hot. You start with the fresh leaves, brew at 140 degrees for 2-3 minutes. Then you take the same leaves, poor in more water but this time do a quick brew of about 15-20 seconds for the second and third infusions. Finally for the last infusion you use hot water (about 180 degrees F.) and brew for 2-3 minutes again. The key is to make sure you pour off the excess water after each infusion before adding new water--so the tea doesn't sit and "brew" more and get bitter. A few of us got to taste the progressive infusions, and I was amazed at how good the tea was--even the third and fourth infusion was better than the first tea we tried that was brewed with the 200+ degree water. Very interesting!!!!

-----

After that we had to hurry to taste three more teas (we were supposed to taste 9 or 10 but ran out of time--I think we try to fit too much in an hour &1/2!).

The teas we tasted were:

-----

Kabu Sencha from the Okabe region of Japan, a partially shade grown tea at the end of it's growing cycle (usually the last 10 days). It has a fine, dark green leaf with a light grass smell. The wet leaf took on some more herbal notes, slightly vegetable like. It had a little bit of a grassy-herbal flavor with a little touch of bittersweet.

The Kabu Sencha dry leaves

And in the cup

The next tea was a Matcha Genmaicha, a tea with toasted brown rice (sometimes called popcorn tea because some of the rice grains pop and resemble popcorn). Teas like this came about when peasants could not afford the plain tea and used the rice as a filler. Very popular in WWII, the generation after the war felt it was undesirable to drink this "poor person's tea" so it fell out of favor for awhile but now it is widely accepted and drank by many. The aroma of this tea was "toasty"--not burnt, but more like a nice piece of buttered toast and it was mild and had a nice aftertaste, like puffed rice cereal.

The Matcha Genmaicha leaves, puffed and popped rice

And the Genmachia in the cup

Finally our last tea was a China Green Tea, a Longjing or commonly called Dragon Well from the Ziejiang Provence. This tea is very well known and often called the "National Drink of China". This tea is hand processed with a beautiful, almost shrub-looking leaf. The leaf has almost a chocolaty smell, the wet takes on a more nutty smell. When you drink it you get a light, slightly floral sweetness. A very nice tea.

The Longjing, Dragon Well Leaves

Longjing, Dragon Well in the cup

The cookies you see in the pictures were made by a woman in the class, Joyce and her friend, who have a business called Catalina's Tea Parties, where they bring an entire tea party: linens, china, silverware and all the tea and goodies to the location of your choice--home, office, outdoors, etc. and they host your tea party. Fun idea! (I thought for about 5 minutes that I would love to do something like this but then I remembered someone would have to wash the china and polish the silver and decided it would be more fun just to go to one!) They brought two cookies for us to try, a manju (a Japanese steamed cake with a filling--the most popular filling being a sweet azuki bean paste as this version was filled with) to pair with the Japanese teas and a Chinese Almond Cookie to pair with the Chinese tea. Both cookies were delicious--I am not a huge fan of either of these two sweets normally but these were excellent and complimented the teas well. If these cookies were any indication of the rest of their food, their tea party would be excellent!

The Manju paired with the Japanese Green Teas

The Chinese Almond Cookie with the Longjing, Dragon Well

Another fun and informative class--number three is tomorrow night!