It was at Dobra Teas in Asheville, North Carolina that I first experienced pu’er tea. I don’t think I actually tried the tea at Dobra, but bought some and tried it later when I was back in Fayetteville. In fact, I can almost visualize the setting in which I first drank some pu’er. I was sitting on my couch and had brewed some hot tea. It is a rude awakening when you first taste pu’er, especially if you have been used to drinking black tea (Luzianne, Lipton, Nestea or Tetley) most of your life. One thought is that the flavor is similar to that of drinking water that has been flavored with a dirty gym sock. It tastes nothing like black tea. But, I do like it sweet and with a little cream which may not be how most of the World enjoys their pu’er.
*That sort of reminds me of the Sassafrass tea I liked to drink as a child. Mom & I might find a Sassafrass bush or plant on the old family farm. You would cut off a woody root and take it back, brush off the dirt, and steep the root in hot water. You would end up with a rich pinkish colored drink that tasted good with cream & sugar.
But fairly quickly, I came to recognize the unique flavor of pu’er, and I could like it as I had black or orange pekoe teas.
And, I do love tea. I have drank Bigelow’s “Constant Comment” and “Earl Grey” tea since about 1985 when a friend & his wife introduced these to me, when I went over to their house after Church. This was Rick & Linda Bell. Rick had been a Marine Corps Air pilot and after retiring, a few years later, became a Baptist pastor.
I’ve written elsewhere about “falling in love with” “Raspberry Royale” tea, also by Bigelow. I came across this while on a brief vacation, and I had stayed at a Quality Inn in Lynchburg, Virginia and the next morning took a tea bag packet of “Raspberry Royale” and made my first cup in my motel room before checking out. Loved it hot. Loved it cold. Bought a box of it when back home, and even bought a 6 box case of it from Amazon and gave them out as Christmas presents one year. *Recently I’ve found that Wegman’s in Raleigh carries the Bigelow “Raspberry Royale” tea.
This was the Quality Inn in Lynchbugh, Virginia that I have stayed at, at least twice. I brought a Raspberry Royale tea bag with me on one visit to celebrate where I had first tried this tea. I didn’t drink the first in the breakfast area, but took the tea bag back to my room and brewed it there.
I’ve tried various flavored teas through the years. I think I first bought Rooibos (red bush) tea from Whole Foods in Raleigh. At the time, they sold this tea from a large copper colored container. You scooped out the tea you wanted and put it in a plastic zip bag. Sometime later, they stopped selling Rooibos, but I found what I currently drink, as a box of Rooibos tea bags at Harris Teeter in Fayetteville.
Sometime in the last couple of years, I tried Taylor’s Scottish Breakfast tea. I hated it when I tried the first cup at home. I would call it a “heavy” flavored tea. But, I gave it a second, and even a third try, and surprisingly by the third try, I actually liked the flavor and then started drinking it fairly regularly.
Early this morning, and when I say “early” I mean about 3 am, I thought about having some hot tea, and this time I wanted to try something that I hadn’t had in a long while. I saw a packet of “Assam” tea, which I had bought at a organic food store in Greensboro, North Carolina last year.
I first tried “Assam Brahmaputra” at Dobra Teas in Asheville several years ago. They brought a cup and small tea pot to my table. They didn’t bring any sugar or sweetener, or cream or creamer, so I tried the hot tea. It was good. I managed to drink the whole pot without either creamer or sweetener. At home, I googled about this tea and found that Assam was a region in northern India which butted up against the “tea region” of China, and Bramaputra was the River going through that region. Not sure, but you probably have to be a local in that region to know when you are in India or China. If you’re on the border, they might point to two mountains that both have tea growing on them, and one mountain is in China and one is in India. “Assam” was the type of tea.
I think I recall that pu’er tea is a fermented tea and that it actually changes with age, but doesn’t get stale or go bad. And because of this, this type of tea has been used as money. The disk of pu’er tea that you see at the top of this posting, might be collectable to use when money runs short. The tea is tightly compacted into the disk shape, but there is also a version of pu’er that is loose and is sort of rolled into little curly cue balls.
*The ritual of drinking this tea is to first pour hot water over the tea, and then drain that first pour off. Then you pour more hot water on the tea and this you let steep, and then drink. The ritual may partly be because the tea is so compacted, that the first water loosens the tea so that it can steep fully. But, at that I’m just guessing.
Even though I started talking about tea, I also like a few brands of coffee. Actually, I currently like the “Breakfast Blend” (ground) by Starbucks which is sold at Walmart.
But, during the Covid Epidemic, I could no longer buy my favorite coffee from Harris Teeter. It was a flavored coffee (whole bean), but I don’t recall what flavor. *I just came across an image of the Harris Teeter coffee that I liked, “Hazelnut Creme.” They stopped serving coffees from the pull down handled containers. It took me a while to find another coffee that I liked.
So during Covid, I ran out of my favorite, and I looked in my cubboard and found a bag of Cracker Barrel Coffee (ground). I tried some and it was pretty good coffee. The next day I tried some more of the Cracker Barrel Coffee and it was good again. It took me until the third day and when the Cracker Barrel Coffee was good again that I realized that, “I hate the coffee at the Cracker Barrel Restaurants.” I hated the restaurant coffee so badly that I came to always order their hot tea. But this was good coffee. I think it was a Christmas present from a friend. I finished this coffee just before Covid restrictions let up.
At the end of Covid restrictions, I went out for a hair cut, and to buy another bag of Cracker Barrel Coffee. The bag color had changed, and unfortunately, so had the flavor. The new coffee wasn’t anything to write home about. So, I had to go on a search for a new favorite coffee.
It was about $9 a bag, and I tried about four different brands before finding what I liked.
I’ve never had a really expensive coffee maker, usually just the low end makers with a glass pot but I would “foot the bill” for a reusable gold plated metal filter. But, the last cheap coffee maker I bought was a Black & Decker, and it didn’t last but a few months before it stopped heating. I ended up buying a larger glass pot after the smaller one also went “kaput.” And, I decided I didn’t need to buy another coffee maker. I would heat my water in a regular pot on the stove and then pour it through the filter by hand. Worked fine and I have done this process for a couple of years.
I just remembered, “I hate the unsweet tea at Smithfields Chicken -n- BBQ Restaurants. It reminds me of the taste that a drink might have, with cigarette ashes mixed with water. But, their sweet tea tastes great. It has lots of sugar. I have repeatedly told workers at different Smithfields that their unsweet tea “sucks.” This is something that has to be intentional by the owner(s). You can’t suck this badly without hearing about it, and then doing nothing about correcting the problem.
So, last night I ordered some more “Indian Long Pepper” from Amazon. The odd thing about this order is how long it is going to take for it to be delivered. Today is Thursday, February 13th, but the pepper isn’t supposed to be delivered before April 7th. Damn, that’s almost two months. *I don’t think I have enough of the Long Pepper to last two months, but I do have regular mixed (white, black & red) pepper which will suffice.
Bill Gibson, II 