Tea classes, tea friend, tea experiences, and teapots... and tea sandwiches!

Edited post on the 22nd of August 2014 for the new tea blog

I have neglected this blog for a while. Gathering info and avoiding my little office (down the stairs in our basement, tiny tiny...) mainly because I was too beat when my son finally went for a nap.

So what is this title all about?

Well, I decided to give online classes another try. This time with the Tea Association of Canada. I believe they are not out there to scam me, so I feel confident I can trust them to teach me what I need to know in a reliable way. Besides, there are still no classes advertised for the college downtown (the show up in person kinda classes). Apparently, they cancelled class until further notice. As I was told, they are undergoing restructuring as the tea classes weren't as popular as they would have liked them to be. I told them to lower their outrageous prices. Unless someone wants to get into the tea business, no one will want to pay between $200-$350 per category (there are 8) that consist of 2 classes each (that means you show up twice in class). Unless that person is rich and has time on his/her hands. And the thing is, even if tea interest is on the rise, not many people consider this as being THE kind of field they want to study. They rather buy their tea and work on "real" projects. ...

There will be meetings through Skype a few times so I am quite anxious. Stressed and nervous and excited... I hope my computer will be fast enough so it doesn't lag, that I will be able to understand people and that people will understand me and my Eastern French accent. It's not very thick, but I have a problem with emphasis and where to put my "h"s. I'm also wondering what this will be about...

This will be tea 101, a prerequisite for all the other category of classes that will follow. I intend to take the one for brewing the perfect cup of tea, and any other that requires more than reading about tea, in person. It's always better if questions arise or if like me, you can't brew a perfect Gyokuro.

Now a little bit more about tea...

I purchased Gyokuro from the Kurihara farm in Japan. I just tea cupped the standard one (that's how they call it) and have yet to try the three other ones which are of even better grades. I shall post a review of them soon (soon being within the next few months... sigh... I hope not that far in the future.).

The other day, I was brewing Pu-er and I got this idea of trying it with milk and sugar. If you wanna do that, just so you know, be my guest, but frankly, I'm not doing that ever again. It just doesn't match. You could think that cows are the creatures of the earth and thus their product would go well with an earthy tea. Such reasoning is the type I would go for, but in this case, avoid it if you can. Don't even think about it. Forgotten? Goood.

I've been making tea sandwiches and tried quite a few. Some were horrible, some were okay, but some had great potential! Fig jam is a definite favourite when it comes in the making of sandwiches with cheese or even some meat. It's even good without the sandwich part. We brought it with us for a picnic and became a quick favourite with everything we put on our baguette slices.  If you have the chance to try it, it goes very well with any soft cheese such as brie or Camembert. I haven't tried yet with blue cheese and somehow have doubts, but since I refuse not to experience new flavours, it's definitely on my list. Speaking of which, I bought preserved duck eggs (the Chinese style), this ought to be interesting, especially when on the box, the inside of the egg (including the yolk) looked totally grey. But hey, it was preserved with things like tea (among other ingredients), so it's an added plus to my trying new things! (I'm updating this bit here... I tried one and the lady was right, you have to boil them. It wasn't so bad but it was so pungent as to make my egg hard to eat. I could only eat half. The inside, since the egg wasn't boiled, but rather warmed up in warm water, was gooey and really didn't look appealing. I have 5 more to eat... I'll try once more but boiled. I should have known when that lady gave me a grimace when I asked about them.)

Here are some sandwiches I made:

From the top left to the right then bottom left to right we have a:

• Cream cheese-fresh strawberries sandwich (some I put pepper on which enhanced the taste), I gave it a 2.5/5. I was rather dull. I got the idea from the movie Kate & Leopold where Hugh Jackman makes it for Meg Ryan and she seems to be on cloud nine eating it.
• Swiss cheese (I didn't have Taleggio)-pear sandwich with fig jam, butter and salt & pepper. I gave it a 3.5/5, and my husband 4/5.
• Roast beef-horse radish spread sandwich with slices of cucumber, salt & pepper. It was horrible! First, there was too much horseradish (my fault) and then the roast beef slices tasted sour a bit (not like they weren't good, but of a rather poor quality compared to real sliced roast beef). 2/5
• Ham-brie-pear sandwich with butter and Dijon mustard I gave it a 4/5, but hubby said 2/5 :( I love it!
• Prosciutto-fig (jam) sandwich with butter, salt & pepper (No one at the store seemed to know what bib lettuce is, I don't know either, so I didn't put it in). This one has potential. I gave it a 3.5/5 and hubby a 2.5/5, but we both agreed it would get a better grade if I were to put less jam next time.
• Brie-fig (jam, as I didn't have fresh ones)-walnut sandwich. The recipe wanted fancy candied walnuts. I don't even know if the grocery store holds that type of merchandise... So I put normal half walnuts. Maybe pecans would have also been good. My husband an I both agreed it deserved a 4/5.

I also made smoked salmon sandwiches with lemon zest mayo, but I thought it lacked something... It had other ingredients like dill in it which I discovered is awesome with smoked salmon! I gave some to my neighbour and she said she liked the ones topped with dill best. Still, I thought cream cheese would be better than butter. So I made another one a week later:

 This one was way better, but I used a different salmon which in my opinion was not as good as the previous one I used for my mayo-lemon-dill sandwich. I still offered some to my neighbour and have yet to hear about them. On top is cream cheese (mixed with other ingredients) and cut chives.

If you guys have any fool-proof recipes I ought to try, contact me, I'll all for finding that perfect little tea sandwich!