Monday, August 24, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
When is a blog not a blog?
So with R jetsetting to Europe this month to seek Fame and Outrageous Fortune (on DVD) I have been without a hot-beverage drinking buddy for some time now. Not that I need a companion to help me down a chai, it’s just that my musings and philosophies regarding tea usually spew forth from my mouth while I’m with R, much like a smooth, black Ceylon-leaf tea with curdled, month-old milk.
I have considered various posts since my last one, but they never seem to fit in with the main focus of my site: to blog about my personal rules and philosophies regarding tea and force them down the unwilling throats of anyone who Googles ‘loose leaf lea’ by mistake (did you mean ‘loose lea tea’), much like a lovingly-brewed Sencha tea with curdled, month-old milk.
My recent ideas for posts have included:
(1) Why does T2 peppermint tea taste like dirt? And would ‘dirt tea’ be such a bad thing? Blog abandoned. Yes, dirt tea would be such a bad thing, SUCH a bad thing! If you answered ‘no’, then go Google ‘dirty tea’ (did you mean ‘dirty lea’?).
(2) How did half a kilo for 500g of peppermint tea at Jasper Coffee in Fitzroy in 2003 turn into 100g of peppermint tea (albeit in a fancy canister) for $16 in 2009? But this blog isn’t about negative ranting (though it is based on a lot of ranting, I know...), so I just went up the road to T2 and bought loose leaf peppermint+dirt tea instead.
(3) If you find the perfect tea, but hate the attitude (pronounced ‘att-i-TUDE’) of the people serving it, does it become a bad tea? I don’t mean, does it soak in the negative energy of the tea-baristas, nor am I questioning whether the tea should be sent to its room for misbehaviour. I just mean: does it wreck the tea experience and hence become a tea to be avoided? But then I answered this through personal practice. Tre Bicchieri in Rathdowne Village do great teas, but the att-i-TUDE can sometimes be overwhelming. But I go back. The next best chai in the area (to my knowledge) is served next door at the Rathdowne Street Food Store – in what resembles a soup bowl.
(4) Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I watched this DVD last week but couldn’t get past the Meryl Streep character. This character initially intrigued me as she is obsessed with grammar, as am me. Later in the film (SPOILER ALERT – kiddies close your eyes; I’ll tell you when to open them), she leaves a fake suicide note riddled with alleged grammatical errors which form a code so that her reader can discover she's alive and hiding from Jim Carrey (OK, Simon says open your eyes now kiddies). What concerns me is that these weren’t grammatical errors but spelling errors. If you’re going have a character that’s pedantic about something, then I have the right to be pedantic about what they’re being pedantic about! However: (a) it was a good display of unintentional irony and I always enjoy a bit of that, and (b) this has nothing whatsoever to do with tea, so why would I add this to a tea blog?
So, no, I don’t have anything to write Well, not till R gets back from Europe, no doubt having devoured a cheap Portuguese tart or two along the way.
However, if you write in and wish to claim the leftover T2 peppermint tea, it’s yours! Free with a T2 orange scoop, three empty teabags and, um, a red Sanyo vacuum cleaner that may not work very well but is hardly rubbish (did you mean ‘hard rubbish’?).
I have considered various posts since my last one, but they never seem to fit in with the main focus of my site: to blog about my personal rules and philosophies regarding tea and force them down the unwilling throats of anyone who Googles ‘loose leaf lea’ by mistake (did you mean ‘loose lea tea’), much like a lovingly-brewed Sencha tea with curdled, month-old milk.
My recent ideas for posts have included:
(1) Why does T2 peppermint tea taste like dirt? And would ‘dirt tea’ be such a bad thing? Blog abandoned. Yes, dirt tea would be such a bad thing, SUCH a bad thing! If you answered ‘no’, then go Google ‘dirty tea’ (did you mean ‘dirty lea’?).
(2) How did half a kilo for 500g of peppermint tea at Jasper Coffee in Fitzroy in 2003 turn into 100g of peppermint tea (albeit in a fancy canister) for $16 in 2009? But this blog isn’t about negative ranting (though it is based on a lot of ranting, I know...), so I just went up the road to T2 and bought loose leaf peppermint+dirt tea instead.
(3) If you find the perfect tea, but hate the attitude (pronounced ‘att-i-TUDE’) of the people serving it, does it become a bad tea? I don’t mean, does it soak in the negative energy of the tea-baristas, nor am I questioning whether the tea should be sent to its room for misbehaviour. I just mean: does it wreck the tea experience and hence become a tea to be avoided? But then I answered this through personal practice. Tre Bicchieri in Rathdowne Village do great teas, but the att-i-TUDE can sometimes be overwhelming. But I go back. The next best chai in the area (to my knowledge) is served next door at the Rathdowne Street Food Store – in what resembles a soup bowl.
(4) Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I watched this DVD last week but couldn’t get past the Meryl Streep character. This character initially intrigued me as she is obsessed with grammar, as am me. Later in the film (SPOILER ALERT – kiddies close your eyes; I’ll tell you when to open them), she leaves a fake suicide note riddled with alleged grammatical errors which form a code so that her reader can discover she's alive and hiding from Jim Carrey (OK, Simon says open your eyes now kiddies). What concerns me is that these weren’t grammatical errors but spelling errors. If you’re going have a character that’s pedantic about something, then I have the right to be pedantic about what they’re being pedantic about! However: (a) it was a good display of unintentional irony and I always enjoy a bit of that, and (b) this has nothing whatsoever to do with tea, so why would I add this to a tea blog?
So, no, I don’t have anything to write Well, not till R gets back from Europe, no doubt having devoured a cheap Portuguese tart or two along the way.
However, if you write in and wish to claim the leftover T2 peppermint tea, it’s yours! Free with a T2 orange scoop, three empty teabags and, um, a red Sanyo vacuum cleaner that may not work very well but is hardly rubbish (did you mean ‘hard rubbish’?).
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Bonsoy
Why is Bonsoy so good?
A colleague described it as 'the Lindt of soy milk' and this helped, but I still don't actually know the difference between Bonsoy and other soy varieties.
It doesn't need to be refrigerated till it's opened, so shouldn't this set off alarm bells? Is it the UHT-equivalent of regular milk? Or the weird block-of-plastic-Kraft-cheddar-in-that-blue-box-that-strangely-doesn't-
need-a-fridge-equivalent of Coon cheese?
It also costs $3.99 a litre (or $5.91 at the 42-hour gas station on Nicholson Street). Ridiculous, yes? Then why do I have 4 litres of it sitting in wait in my cupboard (waiting to be added to muesli, not to scare me when I least suspect it or jump out at me on my birthday and yell "surprise!". It's neither evil soy nor does it take notice of important calendar dates. Let's just make that clear right now.).
Shed some light, please?
A colleague described it as 'the Lindt of soy milk' and this helped, but I still don't actually know the difference between Bonsoy and other soy varieties.
It doesn't need to be refrigerated till it's opened, so shouldn't this set off alarm bells? Is it the UHT-equivalent of regular milk? Or the weird block-of-plastic-Kraft-cheddar-in-that-blue-box-that-strangely-doesn't-
need-a-fridge-equivalent of Coon cheese?
It also costs $3.99 a litre (or $5.91 at the 42-hour gas station on Nicholson Street). Ridiculous, yes? Then why do I have 4 litres of it sitting in wait in my cupboard (waiting to be added to muesli, not to scare me when I least suspect it or jump out at me on my birthday and yell "surprise!". It's neither evil soy nor does it take notice of important calendar dates. Let's just make that clear right now.).Shed some light, please?
Friday, May 29, 2009
Peppermint, Brunetti, Carlton
I was going to write:
'As a tea drinker, you often find that Italian coffee hotspots in Melbourne may produce a fine short black (as my parents did 28 years ago...!) but don't really care about serving tea. Marios, Tiamo and Pellegrinnis come to mind (the latter don't even know what tea they have. I'm pretty sure my last black tea there was actually some lint wrapped in a serviette immersed in hot water). The one exception to this is Brunetti in Carlton. They offer a limited range of loose leaf tea (about 5 varieties) but the care they put into making a take away tea rivals the care my grandmother put into making Christmas cake (I won't go into details, but there's lot of overnight soaking involved)."
However:
Brunetti have since done away with the loose leaf teas and started buying T2 teabags! I'm not sure how I feel about this and may well take a few months and some counselling to figure this one out. While they still 'make their teas with love' (the terms 'tea', 'love' and 'making' will be the focus of an upcoming blog, I promise!) and use large take away cups, I was a big fan of the loose leaf.
I was even going to start the 'Loose Leaf Challenge' where Brunetti patrons are challenged to time how long it takes their tea-barista to brew their teas (the longer the better).
'As a tea drinker, you often find that Italian coffee hotspots in Melbourne may produce a fine short black (as my parents did 28 years ago...!) but don't really care about serving tea. Marios, Tiamo and Pellegrinnis come to mind (the latter don't even know what tea they have. I'm pretty sure my last black tea there was actually some lint wrapped in a serviette immersed in hot water). The one exception to this is Brunetti in Carlton. They offer a limited range of loose leaf tea (about 5 varieties) but the care they put into making a take away tea rivals the care my grandmother put into making Christmas cake (I won't go into details, but there's lot of overnight soaking involved)."
However:
Brunetti have since done away with the loose leaf teas and started buying T2 teabags! I'm not sure how I feel about this and may well take a few months and some counselling to figure this one out. While they still 'make their teas with love' (the terms 'tea', 'love' and 'making' will be the focus of an upcoming blog, I promise!) and use large take away cups, I was a big fan of the loose leaf.
I was even going to start the 'Loose Leaf Challenge' where Brunetti patrons are challenged to time how long it takes their tea-barista to brew their teas (the longer the better).
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Life’s like a cup of tea, you never know what you’re going to get…
The one big issue tea-drinkers face regularly is value for money. Upon meeting your boyfriend’s family for the the first time, a regular person would probably think “wow what a nice/shoddy family, I hope they like me/leave soon/have lots of money that will shortly pass to their son.” Or something of that ilk. For me, a dedicated tea-drinker, I thought none of this when I first met R’s mother and sister late one night in the lounge of the old Regency hotel in Melbourne. My first thought was: “Are they aware that they just paid $9 for two teabags and some hot water?”
Order ‘a tea’ in the city of Melbourne and what you receive will range from a teabag in a small cup of water (Marios, circa 2002. I can’t comment on their current tea practice; I never ordered another cup) to a Rococo-style platter furnished with teapot, loose leaf leaves, a side jug of milk (optional) and cup and saucer and spoon purchased from the estate of Louis XIV (Madame Sousous. And yes, I do venture beyond Brunswick Street for tea… sometimes).
As a rule, it will take a lot for me to pay good sort-of-hard-earned money for teabag-tea. It just seems more sensible to go home and make it myself, and have the added luxury of wearing ugboots while I drink it.
As mentioned in an earlier post, tea is about the experience, not just the taste. Yes, you must have good-quality tea (Rule #2 – try not to have tea from an city laneway joint that serves mysterious looking ‘chicken steak’ meals…), yes you must brew it properly, but you must also be able to take the time to savour the experience of doing bugger all for half an hour.
Also, I suspect that life is not like a box of chocolates; I saw a box of Cadbury Milk Tray chocolates at work last week and they give their consumers a very clear idea of what assortment is contained within.
Order ‘a tea’ in the city of Melbourne and what you receive will range from a teabag in a small cup of water (Marios, circa 2002. I can’t comment on their current tea practice; I never ordered another cup) to a Rococo-style platter furnished with teapot, loose leaf leaves, a side jug of milk (optional) and cup and saucer and spoon purchased from the estate of Louis XIV (Madame Sousous. And yes, I do venture beyond Brunswick Street for tea… sometimes).
As a rule, it will take a lot for me to pay good sort-of-hard-earned money for teabag-tea. It just seems more sensible to go home and make it myself, and have the added luxury of wearing ugboots while I drink it.
As mentioned in an earlier post, tea is about the experience, not just the taste. Yes, you must have good-quality tea (Rule #2 – try not to have tea from an city laneway joint that serves mysterious looking ‘chicken steak’ meals…), yes you must brew it properly, but you must also be able to take the time to savour the experience of doing bugger all for half an hour.
Also, I suspect that life is not like a box of chocolates; I saw a box of Cadbury Milk Tray chocolates at work last week and they give their consumers a very clear idea of what assortment is contained within.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Jasmine tea, Dumpling Plus, City
This started out as a blog about chai at Mr Tulk. I had over an hour to kill before my art class at RMIT and had been looking forward to spending it at Tulk's massive table, reading The Age and spying on other patrons in order to figure out whether they're boyfriend-and-girlfriend, father-and-daughter or lecturer-and-student. I arrived at 4.45 and was told that they were closing in 15. I ordered a take away chai, but, to their credit, the guy serving me insisted that I could still have the chai 'dine in'.
Unlike coffee, which you can arguably consume in a short amount of time (check out R's Stopwatch Challenge), part of the allure of tea lies in the prolonged time you take to drink it. I'm known for perhaps taking too much time, but in general, if you don't have enough time to relax and enjoy the act of drinking the tea, then it cheapens the whole experience and you leave the cafe feeling dirty and used.
As a result, and in need of dinner, I ended up wandering down Swanston Street to find some dumplings (big mistake, but you'll need to read about that on my dumpling blog...). With an hour to kill, I ordered $1.50 Jasmine tea.
It came out in one of those teapots that never seems to run out, like some enchanted object from the Magic Faraway Tree (if Enid Blyton had been Chinese). Try as I might (and did) to reach the bottom of the teapot, I just couldn't. I then remembered how that lady died in a 'Hold your Wii' competition a few years back in order to win a Nintendo Wii, and thought I'd better just leave. I already have a Wii.
Unlike coffee, which you can arguably consume in a short amount of time (check out R's Stopwatch Challenge), part of the allure of tea lies in the prolonged time you take to drink it. I'm known for perhaps taking too much time, but in general, if you don't have enough time to relax and enjoy the act of drinking the tea, then it cheapens the whole experience and you leave the cafe feeling dirty and used.
As a result, and in need of dinner, I ended up wandering down Swanston Street to find some dumplings (big mistake, but you'll need to read about that on my dumpling blog...). With an hour to kill, I ordered $1.50 Jasmine tea.
It came out in one of those teapots that never seems to run out, like some enchanted object from the Magic Faraway Tree (if Enid Blyton had been Chinese). Try as I might (and did) to reach the bottom of the teapot, I just couldn't. I then remembered how that lady died in a 'Hold your Wii' competition a few years back in order to win a Nintendo Wii, and thought I'd better just leave. I already have a Wii.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Soy chai latte platter, National Gallery of Victoria (Ian Potter Gallery)
Have you ever met someone that you really want to like but just couldn't? Perhaps it was a blind date, where the guy/girl has really tried their best -- you can tell they've bought new shoes, had their hair cut, really thought about how to present themselves. Or maybe it was a new kid at school who did their best to create a good impression on their first day. And you really do want to like them, but once you get to know them, you realise they have nothing to offer society and should probably make all attempts to not be part of it.
Well, I haven't met someone like this, and, franky, if you have, then that discluding them from society stuff is a little harsh. But it's an analogy, so just work with me. This was my experience today at the NGV's Ian Potter cafe down at Federation Square. I walked in and the service from the girls behind the counter was great -- genuinely friendly and happy to be at work (1 point for service, especially at the end of the day). I ordered a chai and they clarified "chai tea or chai latte; we do both" (1 point for knowing the difference -- this is the chai equivalent of meeting a cute, single guy that saves puppies for a living. Pro bono.). I sat down, and the chai arrived promptly (1 point) and well-presented, with honey and an additional pot for a refill (1 point):
I've never seen that before -- you usually get chai tea in a teapot, which might make several cups, or one chai latte in a latte glass, but never both. The girl then said "let us know if you'd like more milk; I can refill the pot for you" (50 points)! Refill a teapot with hot water, yes, but soy milk? Unheard of! Chai heaven!
And here we returneth to the analogy: despite the service, the 'latte+teapot' format, the refill option and the location (where more decadent a place to have a cuppa than in a gallery?), this was a pretty miserable excuse for a chai. I wanted so much to like it, but it was pretty crap. It had not been brewed for long enough and I didn't have the option of brewing it further; it tasted like hot soy milk. The soy had also been overheated, so I burnt my tongue tasting it. I've given up having honey in my chais, but resorted to adding a teaspoon to at least make it a hot, sweet soy milk drink -- drinkable after ten minutes, but a definite let-down after the glorious build up.
And the exhibition? John Brack. Most excellent. Do yourself a favour. Check it out. Ran into my cousin, Diarne, there too, which was a highlight but admittedly is unlikely to happen if you go there in the future.
Well, I haven't met someone like this, and, franky, if you have, then that discluding them from society stuff is a little harsh. But it's an analogy, so just work with me. This was my experience today at the NGV's Ian Potter cafe down at Federation Square. I walked in and the service from the girls behind the counter was great -- genuinely friendly and happy to be at work (1 point for service, especially at the end of the day). I ordered a chai and they clarified "chai tea or chai latte; we do both" (1 point for knowing the difference -- this is the chai equivalent of meeting a cute, single guy that saves puppies for a living. Pro bono.). I sat down, and the chai arrived promptly (1 point) and well-presented, with honey and an additional pot for a refill (1 point):
I've never seen that before -- you usually get chai tea in a teapot, which might make several cups, or one chai latte in a latte glass, but never both. The girl then said "let us know if you'd like more milk; I can refill the pot for you" (50 points)! Refill a teapot with hot water, yes, but soy milk? Unheard of! Chai heaven!
And here we returneth to the analogy: despite the service, the 'latte+teapot' format, the refill option and the location (where more decadent a place to have a cuppa than in a gallery?), this was a pretty miserable excuse for a chai. I wanted so much to like it, but it was pretty crap. It had not been brewed for long enough and I didn't have the option of brewing it further; it tasted like hot soy milk. The soy had also been overheated, so I burnt my tongue tasting it. I've given up having honey in my chais, but resorted to adding a teaspoon to at least make it a hot, sweet soy milk drink -- drinkable after ten minutes, but a definite let-down after the glorious build up.
And the exhibition? John Brack. Most excellent. Do yourself a favour. Check it out. Ran into my cousin, Diarne, there too, which was a highlight but admittedly is unlikely to happen if you go there in the future.
Chai latte, Mr Tulk, Melbourne
I'm currently re-watching old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and have just finished Season One. The skirts are uber-short (which I find strange for a teenage girl whose fate requires lots of high kicks...), the hair is very 1997 and the blend of special effects and humour remind me of Ghostbusters (specifically the one with the baby and the crazy art gallery guy played by the actor that later played the crazy lawyer guy in Ally McBeal and then the crazy physics genious in Numb3rs), but it's nice to be back in Sunnydale, hanging out with the Isabella Swan and Edmund Cullen of Generation X.
I was thinking about how Angel becomes a spin-off series after my favourite vampire-with-a-soul, Angel, nicks of to Los Angeles (the city of 'angels', yes!) yet the lives of Buffy and Angel continue to interwine from time to time. Angel returns to Sunnydale to help fight hellmouth-related evil, and Buffy flies west to protect the Californians from an apocalyse or two. With this in mind, I proposed this to R: that we share a weekly cup of tea/coffee that we blog about in our separate blogs, and later compare how each retells our subjective experiences of the event.
Which brings me (literally, though in a past-tense kind of way...) to Mr Tulk.
This was my first Class A chai since the detox, and well worth the wait. You get about 2.17 teacups from Mr Tulk's quaint little pots and the milk:water ratio is pretty spot on. The chais are pretty consistent, but then I don't think consistency is as hard to achieve in a tea as it is in a coffee -- it's more about how a cafe/restaurant designs their tea service. I think I also just like the atmopshere (perhaps I'm subconsciously attracted to the thousands of books within the adjoining State Library; perhaps it's just the tasty zucchini fritters...). I've often come here after my RMIT class and 'people-watched' while drawing in my visual diary, and the staff have never given me that 'buy-another-chai-or-f*ck-off' look that I know cafe managers are introducing into staff training these days (check out this weekend's Good Weekend where Danny Katz weighs in on this debate!).
Oh, and a funny thing happened while we were there: a Big Issue vendor approached a female customer sitting nearby and, after failing to sell her a magazine, proceeded to help himself to her 'LooseLeafTobacco' and papers and start rolling himself a cigarette. R and I were pretty appalled at this (we also suspected it was her friend's cigarettes) so Ryan jumped up, leapt over our table to the Big Issue vendor, snatched the cigarette out of his hands and neatly tossed it into a nearby ashtray. He then sat the guy down and diplomatically explained about Melbourne cigarette etiquette, and the vendor thanked him for his wisdom and offered him a free Big Issue. Ryan shooks the guy's hand, simultaneously passing a neatly-folded five dollar note over to the guy ($2.50 of this goes straight to the vendor!), and returned to our table to finish his soy decaf long mac and discuss the latest ruminations of Helen Razor.
At least that's how I remember it...
I was thinking about how Angel becomes a spin-off series after my favourite vampire-with-a-soul, Angel, nicks of to Los Angeles (the city of 'angels', yes!) yet the lives of Buffy and Angel continue to interwine from time to time. Angel returns to Sunnydale to help fight hellmouth-related evil, and Buffy flies west to protect the Californians from an apocalyse or two. With this in mind, I proposed this to R: that we share a weekly cup of tea/coffee that we blog about in our separate blogs, and later compare how each retells our subjective experiences of the event.
Which brings me (literally, though in a past-tense kind of way...) to Mr Tulk.
This was my first Class A chai since the detox, and well worth the wait. You get about 2.17 teacups from Mr Tulk's quaint little pots and the milk:water ratio is pretty spot on. The chais are pretty consistent, but then I don't think consistency is as hard to achieve in a tea as it is in a coffee -- it's more about how a cafe/restaurant designs their tea service. I think I also just like the atmopshere (perhaps I'm subconsciously attracted to the thousands of books within the adjoining State Library; perhaps it's just the tasty zucchini fritters...). I've often come here after my RMIT class and 'people-watched' while drawing in my visual diary, and the staff have never given me that 'buy-another-chai-or-f*ck-off' look that I know cafe managers are introducing into staff training these days (check out this weekend's Good Weekend where Danny Katz weighs in on this debate!).
Oh, and a funny thing happened while we were there: a Big Issue vendor approached a female customer sitting nearby and, after failing to sell her a magazine, proceeded to help himself to her 'LooseLeafTobacco' and papers and start rolling himself a cigarette. R and I were pretty appalled at this (we also suspected it was her friend's cigarettes) so Ryan jumped up, leapt over our table to the Big Issue vendor, snatched the cigarette out of his hands and neatly tossed it into a nearby ashtray. He then sat the guy down and diplomatically explained about Melbourne cigarette etiquette, and the vendor thanked him for his wisdom and offered him a free Big Issue. Ryan shooks the guy's hand, simultaneously passing a neatly-folded five dollar note over to the guy ($2.50 of this goes straight to the vendor!), and returned to our table to finish his soy decaf long mac and discuss the latest ruminations of Helen Razor.
At least that's how I remember it...
Friday, May 1, 2009
Turkish apple, Prahran market
I like walking to Prahran. I often walk to my sister’s apartment in Winsdor; it takes about 104 minutes. My only problem is when I can’t think of 100 minutes of decent music I want to take with me on my iriver.
Today I walked to my Dad’s work on Chapel Street, just north of High Street. I usually cut through the MCG (well, I closely circumvent it), but today I went down Bridge road to Church Street, and then headed due south. I also like the Prahran markets, or more specifically one type of sultana that they stock there. Today I found a new tea store and tried to find a new and somewhat ridiculous tea to blog about. I found it: Turkish Apple.
The ingredients of Turskish Apple Tea? Apples. Just apples. Which is odd mainly because this particular tea was found in the “Blends” section. I’m definitely an apple a day kind of girl and it's another alternative to caffeinated tea, but I'm not sure I'll 'warm' to it (so it might make a good iced tea come December?). T2 also do a Turkish Apple tea, though their's is a granulated or powdered variety and contains heaps of sugar. Good for an iced tea, but probably no better for you than a can of Solo.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Soy chai, kere kere, University of Melbourne
Yes, detox over, back on the chai. Chais are one of the few things I've missed over the past few weeks, and I'm happily adding it back to my beverage world, albeit sans honey for the moment.
This morning's chai was from kere kere, a unique little coffee stand on the University of Melbourne's Parkville campus (near John Medley West for those passing through the Dream Large 'hood). The brainchild of Unimelb alumnus James (well he looks like a James...), the kere kere menu is limited to hot drinks, water bottles and a changing array or baked goods, but the quality is consistent, the service genuine and it's fast become the mid-morning haunt of most break-seeking staff and caffeine-deprived students on campus.
Like Astroboy, kere kere is small but only in size. The beauty of this business is that you get to choose where the profits of your tea (or caffe latte, short mac, raspberry friand, etc) go. You can allocated these funds back to the owners, or to an environmental, social or cultural cause. When you place your order, you're given a on oversized playing card. This serves as the order number they'll call out when your tea's ready, but doubles as your vote for where the profits will go. Each month James (he could also pass for a David...) adds up the profits and distributes them according to how people have 'voted' throughout the month. It's a pretty neat idea and seems to have captured the support of many regulars -- they've recently had to add a second machine to help keep up with the steady flow of orders.
On campus? Check them out when you can -- you can even take in your own mug and go that extra step on the environmental staircase.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Peppermint tea, Carlton (Lit review)
Technically, I'm having hot water. Not a tea, not even a tisane, just hot water. It seems that I forgot to put the peppermint tea into my mug and I've just been drinking hot water. I've had so much peppermint tea lately that my taste buds have numbed to its flavour and I can't tell the difference between tea and hot water. This is definitely the most interesting discovery yielded so far from this tea reseach project.
[Not that this is a 'tea research project', just that I need a legitimate segue into my next, pre-written paragraph]
Now all good research projects (woohoo!) start with a literature review of the existing discourse surrounding a chosen subject matter. As many who know me will agree, I suck at reseach (and don't have the Masters to prove it...) so didn't bother doing a lit review before I started this blog. However, I've since spent time researching other people's tea blogs in an effort to (a) make sure that my own blog is somewhat original in its content and (b) plagiarise some of the better but harder-to-find ideas into my own work.
I made some interesting discoveries:
Tea Blog
This blog was created by a London artist who documented her single predominant thought while drinking every tea she had over a three-year period. Crazy artists. Technically not so much a tea blog as a 'set of hot beverage sticky notes', the site is colour-coded to show her thoughts while drinking 'normal tea', Earl Grey tea, coffee, hot chocolate and other hot treats. Thoughts include "I bet I get carried away and start bidding for things I really don't want (cup-o-soup*)", "I hope those roast potatoes don't make me feel too drowsy (coffee [my predominant thought here was whether she drank the coffee to combat the awesome power of the roast potatoes])" and "Now you come to mention it, it's pretty easy to believe that scientifically tea has no taste, just smell (normal tea)." Given this cup of hot water I'm currently drinking, she just might be onto something.
*Points off for including Aldi-brand cup-o-soups and miso in her tea blog ("It's a meal!"), and for "How can I justify this as a hot beverage?" not being her predominant thought while consuming Lemsip.
Points awarded, however, for setting an end date to the project. I feel better knowing that while she spent countless hours blogging such mundane thoughts, she eventually intended to return to a normal social life. Her final blog reads "31 December 2008: just think of all the free time I'll have when I finally don't have to bother updating the blog anymore." Amen.
After this, I got bored with the lit review and gave up. Much like the one I started in 2005...
[Not that this is a 'tea research project', just that I need a legitimate segue into my next, pre-written paragraph]
Now all good research projects (woohoo!) start with a literature review of the existing discourse surrounding a chosen subject matter. As many who know me will agree, I suck at reseach (and don't have the Masters to prove it...) so didn't bother doing a lit review before I started this blog. However, I've since spent time researching other people's tea blogs in an effort to (a) make sure that my own blog is somewhat original in its content and (b) plagiarise some of the better but harder-to-find ideas into my own work.
I made some interesting discoveries:
Tea Blog
This blog was created by a London artist who documented her single predominant thought while drinking every tea she had over a three-year period. Crazy artists. Technically not so much a tea blog as a 'set of hot beverage sticky notes', the site is colour-coded to show her thoughts while drinking 'normal tea', Earl Grey tea, coffee, hot chocolate and other hot treats. Thoughts include "I bet I get carried away and start bidding for things I really don't want (cup-o-soup*)", "I hope those roast potatoes don't make me feel too drowsy (coffee [my predominant thought here was whether she drank the coffee to combat the awesome power of the roast potatoes])" and "Now you come to mention it, it's pretty easy to believe that scientifically tea has no taste, just smell (normal tea)." Given this cup of hot water I'm currently drinking, she just might be onto something.
*Points off for including Aldi-brand cup-o-soups and miso in her tea blog ("It's a meal!"), and for "How can I justify this as a hot beverage?" not being her predominant thought while consuming Lemsip.
Points awarded, however, for setting an end date to the project. I feel better knowing that while she spent countless hours blogging such mundane thoughts, she eventually intended to return to a normal social life. Her final blog reads "31 December 2008: just think of all the free time I'll have when I finally don't have to bother updating the blog anymore." Amen.
After this, I got bored with the lit review and gave up. Much like the one I started in 2005...
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Chai 101
The one thing I think I'll reintroduce into my life once this detox is over is probably soy chai. I've gone long periods without it, but it's one of the few self-indulgences I have (another is Dr Katz marathons and perhaps, one day, actual marathons) and I think I'll probably return to it in a few weeks.
There are three classifications of chai tea (to my knowledge), though it's likely that sub-classifications can be found. These are:
There are three classifications of chai tea (to my knowledge), though it's likely that sub-classifications can be found. These are:
(a) Class A chai: this means that when you order a chai tea, the person making your tea uses leaves. They may strain these out for you, or you may be presented with a pot and strainer yourself, but you have been given caffeinated black tea leaves with a selection of spices. You may also have varying milk:water ratios, but it's still the good shit. I personally will make this tea on the stove with a ratio of 1:0 (or, arguably, 3.72:0), and stir till the milk warms up, any added honey has dissolved, the milk has turned a light brown and I'm satisfied that if I were to turn the heat off and leave it there for ten minutes, the top of the milk would develop that solidified 'skin' that you can peel off and use to scare people with.
One of the best Class A chais can be found at Mr Tulk in Melbourne, or possibly some northern New South Wales hippy festival.
One of the best Class A chais can be found at Mr Tulk in Melbourne, or possibly some northern New South Wales hippy festival.
(b) Class B chai: many cafes use this now, particularly to make a 'chai latte'. It involves dissolving liquid chai concentrate into hot water to make a 'chai shot', then adding steamed milk as you would to a regular cafe latte. You can then add honey or sprinkle with nutmeg/cinnamon. This, to me, is not real chai, but if done well will suffice till you can get home, put the stove on and chase your boyfriend around the house with the above-mentioned 'milk-skin'. If a Class B chai is done badly, you'll leave wondering why you paid $4 for what is essentially hot soy milk, and possibly not even of the Bonsoy variety. But there are several Melbourne cafes that do these chais well. Watch this space for details!
Two recommended Class B chais: Kere Kere, University of Melbourne (it's a suburb, deal with it!) and Atomica in Fitzroy.
Two recommended Class B chais: Kere Kere, University of Melbourne (it's a suburb, deal with it!) and Atomica in Fitzroy.
(c) Class C chai: this isn't so much chai as "I-can't-believe-it's-not-hot-chocolate". I first discovered this type of chai at Brunetti in Carlton, and thought it was a delightful, creamy version of Class B chai. So delicious that you didn't even need a drop of honey (if honey has drops) and it came with a free biscuit! After a few return visits, I watched them make it -- it comes in the form of a powder, which methinks is largely sugar. They add this to steamed milk to make the tea (oh, who am I fooling, it's not a tea at all...). I'm pretty healthy-ish, so this chai falls into the pointy bit of what I call The Chai Pyramid -- let's call it a 'sometimes tea'. Saved for special times like when your job is frightfully frustrating, you're procrastinating from doing a load of whites or you're celebrating getting through all 13 discs of Dr Katz.
If you'd like to reward yourself with a Class C chai, try Brunetti on Faraday Street (not the Swanston Street one), The Potter on Swanston Street (part of the Ian Potter Museum of Art) or that little 90s sandwich store on Bouverie Street in Carlton.
Not that I believe in class systems.
If you'd like to reward yourself with a Class C chai, try Brunetti on Faraday Street (not the Swanston Street one), The Potter on Swanston Street (part of the Ian Potter Museum of Art) or that little 90s sandwich store on Bouverie Street in Carlton.
Not that I believe in class systems.
Peppermint tea, Brunetti, Carlton
I'm still on the detox. And I'm still drinking peppermint tea. Blurgh. Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid fan of peppermint tea and would miss it if Australia experienced The Great Peppermint Famine of 2009, but it seems to be all I'm having these days and you can get sick of it. It's like if you filled a large vat with Labrador puppies, jumped inside and lived there for 10 days -- you'd soon become sick of those cute Kleenex commercials.
(Speaking of Labradors, last night I dreamt that I was in a pet store with 'free range' puppies and kittens. One of the Labrador puppies had skin made from puff pastry and had been sitting under heating lamps for too long. He had started to literally cook and looked like a Brumby's sausage roll at 4.30pm. I don't think he had any egg wash on him either. R thinks I'm just craving meat, but I'm resisting the idea that my subconscious is translating 'meat' into 'Labrador puppy flesh' -- watch out Tosh!).
(Speaking of Labradors, last night I dreamt that I was in a pet store with 'free range' puppies and kittens. One of the Labrador puppies had skin made from puff pastry and had been sitting under heating lamps for too long. He had started to literally cook and looked like a Brumby's sausage roll at 4.30pm. I don't think he had any egg wash on him either. R thinks I'm just craving meat, but I'm resisting the idea that my subconscious is translating 'meat' into 'Labrador puppy flesh' -- watch out Tosh!).
People react to the news that you're doing a detox in the same way that they react to you telling them that you're into Scientology or eating toddlers (not that I've told anyone that I'm into eating toddlers...). Most people just think that feeling healthy is something you do because your doctor has told you to or you're a sadist who likes to deprive yourself of good things. I'm neither, I just adore the feeling of not being dependent on anything -- caffeine, post-meal sugar rushes, Labrador puppy eat, etc -- and I always feel great afterwards.
Now, mind you, this time I'm doing the piss-weakest detox of them all, the Blackmores Detox. This lasts for 10 days, involves taking lots of pills and tonics and just means you eat lots of fresh fruit and vegies (and some fish), and no caffeine, alcohol, sweets, dairy or wheat. And it's not that hard to keep up after the detox is over -- I discovered wheat-free muesli during Detox 2008 and have had it every morning since. You also realise just how great fresh food tastes without salt or sauces or oil -- during last year's detox I discovered that rocket tastes peppery! How could I not have known this?!
I can also somehow have sashimi and miso, so am meeting R today to binge on Japanese from Toki in Carlton. I could easily survive the 10 days on sashimi and miso, but it would set me back about $250.
Now, mind you, this time I'm doing the piss-weakest detox of them all, the Blackmores Detox. This lasts for 10 days, involves taking lots of pills and tonics and just means you eat lots of fresh fruit and vegies (and some fish), and no caffeine, alcohol, sweets, dairy or wheat. And it's not that hard to keep up after the detox is over -- I discovered wheat-free muesli during Detox 2008 and have had it every morning since. You also realise just how great fresh food tastes without salt or sauces or oil -- during last year's detox I discovered that rocket tastes peppery! How could I not have known this?!
I can also somehow have sashimi and miso, so am meeting R today to binge on Japanese from Toki in Carlton. I could easily survive the 10 days on sashimi and miso, but it would set me back about $250.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Who wants to discuss Grant Show?
Oddly, I'm writing this inaugural blog more than 14 months after I created the site and promised R that I'd create a blog-girlfriend to metaphorically date his tri-daily discussions about the coffee world.
Oddlier (yes that's a word...), I'm writing this post (finally) while on detox and forbidden from drinking most teas.
So, instead of writing a long post about how many cups of peppermint tea you can make from just one scoop of leaves in a 7.25 hour work day, I'll explain what this blog's about, what you can expect to find here, who 'you' are as I doubt anyone will ever read this (unless I blog about "Jennifer Aniston + John Mayer" and then someone might google it by accident), and how I'll employ a stunningly accurate use of punctuation to make it easier for you ('you') to read my uber-long sentence structures.
So who wants to discuss Grant Show?
If you're a reader of R's coffee blog, you might remember a post dated 14 February 2009 aptly titled "Latte, Brunetti, Carlton". It contained the words "spin-off coming soon" and a photo of not only a latte but a take-away soy chai (and part of a face with a particularly bad hair cut that I've since outgrown). Not that you can tell it's a soy chai, but still. The spin-off reference referred (as references often do) to my promise to (finally) start my tea blog about that very cup of chai. I referred to that cup as "the Grant Show of the blogging world." As you'll all hopefully recall, Grant Show appeared in Beverley Hills 90210 in 1992 as Jake Hansen and then 'span-off'/'spin-offed' to Melrose Place (and, later, Models Inc.) to play a major character and share his own adventures with viewers.
This is the spin-off. Like in Joss Whedon's Buffy and Angel, a tea may turn up in a post about coffee, and vice-versa, but ultimately this is where I'll blog about my many theories about tea, my observations about Melbourne cafe culture, and shameless attempts to get free Gunpowder Green leaves from T2.
In the Melbourne cafe system, the story of tea is represented by two separate yet equally important players: the drinker, who consumes the tea, and the tea itself without which there'd be none of itself to drink (or something).
These are their stories.
Oddlier (yes that's a word...), I'm writing this post (finally) while on detox and forbidden from drinking most teas.
So, instead of writing a long post about how many cups of peppermint tea you can make from just one scoop of leaves in a 7.25 hour work day, I'll explain what this blog's about, what you can expect to find here, who 'you' are as I doubt anyone will ever read this (unless I blog about "Jennifer Aniston + John Mayer" and then someone might google it by accident), and how I'll employ a stunningly accurate use of punctuation to make it easier for you ('you') to read my uber-long sentence structures.
So who wants to discuss Grant Show?
If you're a reader of R's coffee blog, you might remember a post dated 14 February 2009 aptly titled "Latte, Brunetti, Carlton". It contained the words "spin-off coming soon" and a photo of not only a latte but a take-away soy chai (and part of a face with a particularly bad hair cut that I've since outgrown). Not that you can tell it's a soy chai, but still. The spin-off reference referred (as references often do) to my promise to (finally) start my tea blog about that very cup of chai. I referred to that cup as "the Grant Show of the blogging world." As you'll all hopefully recall, Grant Show appeared in Beverley Hills 90210 in 1992 as Jake Hansen and then 'span-off'/'spin-offed' to Melrose Place (and, later, Models Inc.) to play a major character and share his own adventures with viewers.
This is the spin-off. Like in Joss Whedon's Buffy and Angel, a tea may turn up in a post about coffee, and vice-versa, but ultimately this is where I'll blog about my many theories about tea, my observations about Melbourne cafe culture, and shameless attempts to get free Gunpowder Green leaves from T2.
In the Melbourne cafe system, the story of tea is represented by two separate yet equally important players: the drinker, who consumes the tea, and the tea itself without which there'd be none of itself to drink (or something).
These are their stories.
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