The results are in: black tea is the best tea for resteeping. White tea comes in second, and green tea, third. I'm surprised that the green tea is as tasteless as it is in the second steeping, but the sencha that I have just tastes like nothing the second time around.
I haven't tested oolong yet, as I don't have any loose-leaf oolong. I have bagged oolong, but bagged tea never tastes good the second time, so it wouldn't be a true test. The black tea that I have is a nice, bold Assam. It has the best second-steep flavor out of all the teas I have tried. The white tea is Himalayan White. It tastes passable on the second go-round. Nothing spectacular, but at least you can taste it.
I have other teas as well which I could try. My chai blend is good on the second steep, but that is not the tea, it's the spices which are keeping up the flavor. I haven't tried to resteep my green passionfruit, but I imagine all the blended flavored teas will resteep well, and it won't be the tea itself that I will be tasting but the flavoring elements. My Moroccan mint green tea always resteeped well, but it was only the peppermint that I tasted. My genmaicha, a toasted rice green tea, also resteeped well, but it was the toasted rice that gave the flavor.
So here's to Assam, the winner of the second steeping test. I am open to giving other green teas a try in the future. Sencha for sure is not the one.
It's been a long time since I last wrote, and a few things have happened. Most importantly, I was approved for Social Security Disability. I received a significant amount of back pay, and was able to pay off my debt to my landlord. That was such a blessing.
I wanted to write today about the weather we're having. We have had nothing but bright, warm, sunny days since the month began. It is really disheartening, because it's November! But also, there is a wildfire burning northeast of us which is blanketing our whole area with smoke. It's disgusting outside, and the sun is red.
California needs rain. Plain and simple. I don't know if we're going to get rain any time soon, but we desperately need it. Even some cloud cover would be nice. Some fog. Anything but what we've been having. It's not July, for Pete's sake. This month has turned out to be warmer than the summer. In the summer we had plenty of cloudy days, and lots of cloudy mornings.
Yesterday we had a lot of wind, which was a nice change of pace; at least it was something, but then the smoke started to blow through and it ruined what would have been a beautiful blustery day. It's always like that these days. Cloudy days turn sunny. Blustery days turn smoky. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but that's the way it's been. The whole state of California is like this.
Other states have had too much rain, and have had flooding. Why can't there be an even amount of rain over the whole country? I don't understand it. Mother Nature isn't very accommodating. I guess we shall wait and see what else is in store for us.
At least we have a new governor. I voted for him. Perhaps he will announce a state of drought for the whole state and take us back to mandatory water saving. The current governor announced that the drought was over (what a joke!) and people are back to watering their lawns and fountains are back on. I liked the slogan, "brown is the new green." At least the regional parks still have their drought signs up in the bathrooms. Saving water should be paramount on our state's priority list. Those are just my three cents on the matter.
