Archive for Bachelor’s guide to cooking without Shan

Roasting coffee with a popcorn popper [done]

// April 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

Ha, so there – one more thing off the list – (i dont know why i am most productive at such activities right before exams) – i tried this at home, and with some rather interesting results…

Hot Air Popcorn Popper. While there’s some debate on this, it’s preferable if you get a model that has side vents inside the machine, at the base of the interior funnel. Some models have a grate on the bottom, and are generally not recommended.

Mesh colander One big one should suit, but two are better. You need these to cool down your beans as quick as possible – tossing the sizzling hot beans from one to the other is how you do it. Alternatively, you can use an extra large cookie baking sheet – the large surface area will quickly “leech” away excess heat from the beans.

Large Bowl: really, any bowl will do; but it has to be big. You place the bowl in front of the popcorn popper’s air chute to collect all the chaff that will blow off your coffee as it is roasting.

Oven Mitts: to handle the hot popper as soon as you unplug it and want to remove the top and dump the beans out into your colander or cookie sheet.

via CoffeeGeek – Roasting coffee with a popcorn popper.

London tea/coffee haunts- Getting the best (value) tea/coffee in London – but not from where you always expect: A journey that continues

// January 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

Obvious suspects like whittards provide awful, undrinkable ‘tea’ (i mean, yogurt flavoured berry tea? honestly…). To find some of the good stuff, one needs to be a little more imaginative:

Last weekend whilst prowling around picadilly for no apprent reason i decided it was time to bow to my weaknesses and pop into the new japan center supermarket – which is, incidentally a vast improvement on the previous (2 iterations) of the same institution.

I always seem to need reminding that you can generally get some great (and good value) tea at places you dont normally think of as destination for tea. japan center is a case in point – they have a pretty decent collection of japanese teas. Sencha, matcha (they also grind fresh matcha on the premises) which is much more reasonably than jing tea – my usual tea supplier (in their defence they largely seem to concentrate on chinese teas). Not everybody likes the somewhat unaani japanese teas, but if its up your alley then the japan center is a great place to visit.

I got myself the sencha linked below and i;m pretty happy with it – its run out alarmingly fast. also got some fuji matcha, but was slightly less impressed, i like matcha to be vibrant and peppy, and this one just felt a bit ‘tired’ on the tongue.

Also interesting is japanese barley tea (supermarkets in japan have a dazzling array of strange variations on tea), which is, oddly somewhat similar to a traditional punjabi barely drink they make in villages outside lahore. in any case, its the perfect accompaniment to those distant hot summer days.

Update:

The other day i visited this place: http://www.coffee.uk.com/ aka Coffee Plant of Notting Hill, London. They appear to be some sort of wholesaler / coffee shop in notting hill. So far, i’ve only tried their bolivian arabica light(ish) roast, which was interesting because the bean (when you have it on its own) is actually pretty mild, but the stuff that comes out of your espresso machine is pretty nippy. unfortunately i managed to burn my maiden brew, ill the remaining coffee and report back.

The shop itself was interesting, ever so slightly grimy (ALWAYS a good thing, especially if you have the twinkle of bargain hunting in your eye) and, i though, pretty good value – considering my (organic, as it turned out to be – for what its worth) bolivian coffee freshly ground for me was £12 a kilo. Thats the sort of price you would get a packet of lavazza espresso (might even be some robusto, because unlike illy lavazza do actually use robusto in addition to arabica only blends -bah!) for at a supermarket.

next stop – i want to check out this place:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/apr/01/foodanddrink.restaurants

Uji no Tsuyu Green Tea Gold (Sencha Kin) 100g

via Japanese food | Japan Centre: Tea (loose).

Real world review (RWR): Byron bay cookies – stuff you should never buy

// January 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // All, Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

I’d been thinking about writing up a few posts every now and then of my experiances buying random, unusual stuff – and how the suppliers turned out. this started because sometimes, when im mail ordering something particularly obscure, say: climbing gear, an out of print book, food items, aromatherapy kit, pen, and hopefully one day an authentic japanese style futon bed with tatami mats to go with it – i often hesitate before punching in my credit card number and pressing ‘buy!’. not all of these companies have a lot of reviews on the internet and im not always certain what the postman will get me.
Happily, there have only ever been very few nasty surprises (perhaps because of my overly suspicious nature) and lots of happy transactions.
But alas, this series doesnt start on a happy note: so im wizzing around in the local supermarket, having been existing on yogurt for the past 4 days (no, im not joking – but ill expain later) i was particularly exhuberant in the supermarket.
I chanced upon these byron bay cookies, and on a whim i bought them. bad call. not only are they unlike cookies in appearance (im not stickler for tradition, but sometimes there is a reason why – and the cookie shape is the perfect marriage of form and function, i cant understand why ANYBODY would have any cause to change it). But even worse was the terrible terrible cloying sugar rush.
These nasty squidgy ‘cookies’ overflow with the invert sugar syrup you deserve when you buy sweet things without reading the label carefully. and terrible milk chocolate.
particularly appauling because i could swear i’d heard byron bay cookies were nice and edible.
i wonder if its fair on the birds.

Japanese style dessert: Not-so-sweet Tsubu-an: Japanese Azuki Bean Paste

// December 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

I love Japanese food, and here is where I generally have to make an exception to my no recipe rule. azuki bean dessert is on the menu tomorrow!

2 cups washed azuki beans

3/4 to 1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp sea salt

Soak the beans in cold water to cover for 24 hours.

Drain the beans and put them in a pot with water to cover. Bring the water to a boil, boil for a minute then drain the beans. Put the beans back in the pot with fresh cold water, bring to a boil and drain again. This twice-boiling gives the beans a better flavor, according to my mother.

Put the beans, sugar, salt in a pot, and add enough water so that it comes up to about 2cm/1 inch above the beans. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a low simmer. Add water if it boils away. Cook until the beans are completely cooked and falling apart. Taste, and add a bit more salt if needed.

Roughly mash the beans with a potato masher, fork or a pestle and let cool.

This will keep in the refrigerator, well covered, for up to three days or so. It doesn't freeze well – the texture turns rather grainy.

Notes:

See my article about Japanese red rice and beans for more about azuki beans.

I hate the word “adzuki”. It sounds like some made-up word, probably coined by an non-Japanese speaker, and is phonetically incorrect. Let's stick with “azuki”!

I recently found some small red beans at my local Indian grocery store that look a lot like azuki, though they are just marked as “red beans”. I'll have to try them out to see if they are the same. I hope so because they are about 1/5th the price of the azuki beans at our local Japanese grocery!

For people who emailed me wondering about more Japanese recipes…don't worry, they will be here. My belly dictates it.

via Not-so-sweet Tsubu-an: Japanese Azuki Bean Paste | Just Hungry.

My dealings with the De’Longhi Bar 14 Café Treviso espresso maker: I set the record clean

// December 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

I do not believe that the rich have more fun. necessarily. then again, this blog may or may not reflect the views of the owner.

case in point is my ‘De’Longhi Bar 14 Café Treviso espresso maker’, you can turn up your noses, the coffee cognoscenti but the truth is – having held my self back from the precipice of buying a gaggia hasnt been something i have regretted. sure, the coffee (even with the best bean, burr ground) not quite the same, but whats important is that its good enough (it is, in fact, pretty damn good) and that is just good enough. i was now certain, until last week that my marginal utility would have been strictly negative had i gone an spent the extra £££ (or is that ££££) on the gaggia and related components. instead, this little ugly de’longhi became mine for a cool £45, delivered. and until last week (which, you should be able to guess was a bit of a watershed), things were going more or less swimmingly – even if we’d both lost the first flush of romance for each other.

come last week however, and the water has trickled to a slow drip and crema was now well and truely gone. even my best / freshst beans would produce a brown slop that only a coffee vending machine SMist could appreciate. things were bleak. i thought the de’longhi had kicked the bucket, and i was considering eco-friendly disposal options. and then, i decided on a hunch to pour some vinegar (apple cider) into the little thing and fire her up.

et voila! a couple of cycles of the vinegar later (no nasties, see) and the she was purring like the good old days. a few rinses with fresh clean water, a few tablespoons of a newly opened pack of illy (arabica only, mind) and we were ready for the halycon days of  perfectly turned out coffee..

ah, i love happy ending. sigh.

Usage Statistics and Inadvertent Destruct-Testing

I have been making an average of 11 double espressos per week. Always when I have been tired and clumsy.

I have forgotten to top up the reservoir at least once every six weeks. and so have been rushing to give load back to a pump that was screaming as it raced with nothing but thin air.

3 days out of seven I have forgotten to turn it off and it has remained on for up to 8 hours.

It has worked perfectly until today when the pump just quietly hummed and only a few drops dribbled out.

(more…)

The ultimate investment banking tonic: what should have fueled the credit boom – mate or tea?

// October 17th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // All, Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

The credit boom was of course (and dont listen to what they say in the news) fueled by one key ingredient: (no no, not booze) caffeine.

Coffee and Coke is what made investment banking analysts click away at computer screens despite the (in)famous 110 hour working weeks. And apparently, in London (no only place i’ve personally worked) things were better than in the US. in any case – coffee played a very important role in keeping us awake/alive notwithstanding the vicious cycle of caffeine tolerance that soon set in. and look what all those overdosed, twitching bankers managed to do to the world.

at some point, me and then eventually the cubicle monkey who sat beside me (a very cool frenchman who had spent the last 2 years of his life travellindg the world, including a stint as a bollywood dancer) discovered tea. At first, this was whatever was around at the local supermarket, but after many trials we settled on the house blend, the Clipper Lemon green tea made in the tepid water from the coffee machine. Clipper lemon flavour green teaOf all the ones we tried these were the best (though the twinings jasmine were nice too), plus the lemon helped and more importantly these are made of unbleached paper, an important consideration which isnt given enough thought. why would you pour bleach in your tea?

what was even cooler were the silk full leaf tea bags our bank used to import from the US (i forget the name). this stuff was awesome, and even thought i dont generally like dried mint tea (prefer fresh mint sprigs) i remember their’s was awesome. must have cost a fortune. as i said, this was still in the good old days of the credit boom.

once i cut down my coffee consumption (and just to give you an idea of its importance, of all of the banks i have worked for, none have had less that 5 separate coffee shops + free coffee/brown sludge vending machines – some even had starbucks AND/OR an inhouse neros.) i soon discovered green tea kept me awake just about as well, once id calibrated to the lower caffeine content. it might sound pathetic, but really at the time the only thing i judged a beverage by was how long it could keep me awake without sleep. and then, somehow (it was a discreete inflexion point) i discovered the wonders of loose leaf tea – and thats been an exciting discovery for me, perhaps a future post on it someday.

an honorable mention also must go to a largely undiscovered gem: yerba mate. of which i became curious after reading Che Guevara’s motorcycle diaries – which mentions them getting offered mate constantly. so i found some in bourough market strangely enough and after an initial mishap or two with the brewing, i’ve found it an interesting (if acquired) tase. apparently because of a different chemical composition, its able to sidestep caffeine tolerance, amongst caffeine nuts like me. the irrepressable, if sometimes tangential wikipedia has this to sat on the subject: (more…)

What will expired sencha japanese tea do to you?

// October 7th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

fate stared me in the face. will a strange, poisonous fungus that has a taste only for sencha lead to horrific internal injury?

back in 2007, (and this, is so far back that back then doing LBO analysis was still in vogue..sheesh) i bought this here packet of unspecified japanese loose leaf sencha (its obviously not sencha, im not sure what i was thinking) tea from those kind folk over at Harrods of London. Now most wouldthe sencha tea i bought from harrods - in original packagingsencha in the petri dish - experiment about to commence say

foggy photo of the steeping

that it was safe to conclude that by now it had expired. Most but not all. Today i set out on a journey of scienfic enquiery – to determine, if indeed 3 year sencha is

a) lethal

b) good

c) both of the above

attached are photographs from the epic brewing.

I did all my own stunts. The only precaution i did take was that i used boiling water today unlike my usual tea brews at c. 80c.

oh, and it turned out, well just about OK. i feelt let down by the sheer normalcy of the tea (though perhaps a trifle weak)

Today’s unknown Chinese tea – puerh perhaps?

// October 4th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // All, Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

so here is another tea i received the other day – again, straight out of china. no further information as such, although it was bought in Guangzhou (which help, im sure :). getting brewing tonight – lets see how it turns out!

todays-green-tea-puerh

There is Champagne, France; Tequila, Mexico; and Parma, Italy — all places turned trade names known for their unique, high-quality foods. Now, if China has its way, there could be another: Puer. This lush corner of Yunnan province in China’s south is home to one of the world’s hottest teas. Puer tea may not look like much — it is typically sold in heaps resembling cow patties — but one mug of these aged leaves can fetch up to $1,000. The drink is touted for its health benefits and is loved for its light, earthy taste. It is already a hit in Hong Kong, where rare teas are a status symbol among the city’s élite, and it is generating hype outside China, too. Three high-profile Silicon Valley techies recently tweeted and blogged their way through a Puer tea tour of Yunnan. Dieters, meanwhile, are buzzing about rumors that Victoria Beckham, the svelte former Spice Girl, drinks Puer to lose weight.

Making Puer tea as internationally renown as Roquefort cheese could expand China’s tea exports while adding a bit of luster to a food industry infamous for its health scandals. But building a Puer brand will depend on getting control of a market riddled with imposters, financial speculation and controversies.

The need for stricter control of the Puer industry became clear two years ago, when the Puer market went on a destabilizing roller-coaster ride. Some Chinese buy tea as an investment, much like Europeans buy wines. In the early part of the decade, thousands of cash-rich urbanites poured their savings into the Puer, causing prices to double, then triple. “People were buying anything,” says David Lee Hoffman, a California collector. By 2007, the finest aged Puer was — quite literally — worth its weight in gold. As demand soared, however, quality suffered, fakes flooded the market and prices fell.

That’s when Beijing stepped in. In an effort to restore confidence, piracy-prone China tightened controls to define exactly what should be considered real Puer. As of December 2008, only teas produced in Yunnan province’s 639 towns and 11 prefectures and cities can be labeled “Puer.” Branded tea must also be made with a certain type of leaf, using specified technology. Yunnan leaves aged outside the province are no longer considered authentic. The goal, officials say, is to protect Yunnan’s heritage and build an internationally viable, niche brand.

Not everyone welcomes the rules. It is unclear if other Chinese provinces will adhere to the regulations and grow different teas under new names. The new standards, for example, shut out tea producers in neighboring Guangdong province, who claim that the tea they process is as authentic — perhaps even more so — than Yunnan’s. Guangdong tea makers contend that it was Pearl River traders, not Yunnan farmers, that originally perfected Puer. Zheng Mukun, a tea master from Guangdong, says the province’s claim dates to the Qing dynasty, when tightly packed leaves were fermented over the course of the three-month journey, by horse, from Kunming to Guangzhou. The blackened leaves became popular in Hong Kong and industrious southerners began to experiment with fermentation. At the 1957 Canton Fair, Zheng says, local tea masters shared their recipes with colleagues from Yunnan. Ever since, the provinces competed to produce the best teas. Earlier this month, at a trade fair in Hong Kong, a table of Guangdong tea vendors called the regulations “unfair” and “ridiculous.”

more here (time.com)

Oh, and this is interesting too:

George Orwell called it a mainstay of civilization; William Gladstone praised its revitalizing powers. But to Henrietta Lovell, founder of London’s Rare Tea Company, the traditional British cuppa is overrated. “People in the U.K. are used to drinking really cheap, industrially produced tea,” she says.

Determined to get Brits to try new brews, Lovell’s Rare Tea Company (www.rareteacompany.com) sources and sells exclusive, uncommonly tasty teas from Asia and Africa. It was on a business trip to Asia in 2000 that Lovell, a former project manager, discovered her passion for a superior sip. “In China, businesspeople would show off by buying a $120 pot of tea at lunch,” she says. “I’d never tasted anything like it.” Made from leaves grown and processed on small mountain gardens, those exquisite infusions were far removed from the bland British teabag — which can contain leaves from up to 60 factory farms. “I realized that Britain was drinking the equivalent of blended whiskey,” recalls Lovell. “We’d never tried the single malt of the tea world.”

Lovell now imports 14 hand-harvested whole-leaf teas, ranging from a delicate, grassy white silver-tip tea ($10 for 25 g) made from spring buds grown in China’s Fujian mountains, to the robust, olive tones of the Satemwa Estate black tea ($15 for 50 g), cultivated on the slopes of Malawi’s Mount Thyolo. Although Lovell’s leaves can be found in the mugs of Hollywood royalty (Anjelica Huston’s a fan), they have also captivated regular tea lovers. “I got the builders who worked on my flat addicted to jasmine and white silver tip,” she laughs. “And I’ve even persuaded London taxi drivers to take tea instead of money.”

A Brewer’s Art
Making the perfect tea requires good leaves and a light touch

1 Place a pinch of leaves in your teapot and boil some freshly filtered water. If you’re making white, green or black tea, stop the kettle just before it boils. Otherwise, the tea will taste more tannic and less sweet.

2 High-quality whole leaves can be re-infused numerous times, but lose their flavor if left soaking in hot water — so measure out the water in the required number of cups before pouring it into the teapot.

3 White silver-tip tea should be left to brew for 4-6 minutes. Green, black and oolong only need 3 minutes.

4 When serving, pour out all of the tea. The remaining leaves will be relatively dry and ready to use again. The water penetrates deeper into the leaves with each infusion, revealing new flavors.

5 Drink your cuppa neat. Don’t spoil it with milk or sugar.

via here (time.com, again)

Ten of the best UK coffee shops – this weeks todo

// September 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

I might not get to the ones outside London, but for the others – I think a weekend espresso crawl is in order:

The list as it stands today:

  • dose yet another antipodian coffee store (after flat white, sacred – there must be others etc)
  • tinawesaluteyou this made me laugh, b/c the tina-boys show up in the video on indi coffe shops too (see below), whats funny is that the guy is wearing a wife-beater(ish), which is typically the standard attire of chaiwalas in India/Pakistan. and to think these haughty high priests of gourmet coffee…

2. Tina we Salute You, 47 King Henry’s Walk, London

Owners Steve and Danny used to have a market stall on Brick Lane selling cup cakes, but decided to go for something a bit more permanent when they opened this cafe in Dalston earlier this year. A tempting range of baked goodies still lurks behind the glass counter, though. Take a seat around the Antipodean-style communal table, or customers can plonk on a sofa outside on clement days. Loyal drinkers sign the wall with a marker pen to notch up purchases rather than carry a card around. Don’t get too attached to the art on the walls, it changes every few months. And the name? It’s a long story, so best ask when you drop by – it’s a friendly place, they won’t mind telling you.

• tinawesaluteyou.com.

5. Dose Espresso, 69 Long Lane, London

A small space with queues out the door at busy times, but office workers bypass the chains at the end of the street for one of New Zealander James Phillips’ coffees, crafted with love on his La Marzocco machine. There are a few seats inside, otherwise take away and explore the streets around Smithfield Market and the Barbican. Phillips maintains a strong ethical bias, promising to treat everyone well in the coffee process, be they growers at the start of the process to city analysts receiving their cup at the end.

• dose-espresso.com.

and not to be outdone, Monmouth is on the list:

10. Monmouth Coffee, 26 Monmouth St, London

In a tourist friendly-spot near Covent Garden, though you can also find them in their larger shop opposite Borough Market. If you’re not taking away, try and grab one of the tables at the back (not easy at busy times) or sit on the bench outside even if you’re not a smoker and watch the great and the good saunter by. A very tempting array of cakes, too.

• monmouthcoffee.co.uk.

Ten of the best UK coffee shops | Travel | guardian.co.uk .

Jiu Long High Mountain Green Tea: the case of the unknown tea

// September 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

Yesterday, I got a box of green tea that upon some brewing was absolutely fantastic. Since there were no intelligible instructions me, woeful language skills that I have – I tried a 80C, 3 minute soak to see what happens. Oddly, the first steeping was quite disappointing, but things soon got better from there. Push up the temperature slightly (I’m guessing closer to 90C with a 4minute steeping time) and you are on to a winner, especially by the second go.

The taste was always subtle, but the 2 and 3rd (the best, I thought, though I did go on and steep it another 3 times to see :) steeping really brought out a nuanced flavour that was somewhat sencha-like, but the unani-esque undertones (which i dont particularly enjoy) were far less pronounced.
Very fresh, and you can tell by the long green tip, almost irridesently green, that this was great tea.

The problem was the providence was completly unknown. So I put the wonder of the interweb to work and uploaded a picture of the box to IDthis. et voila! we had the name. Its Jiu Long High Mountain Green Tea (thanks, michi, the nameless Chinese-speaking tea identifier). It comes recommended, and so does ID.this.

check thems out!

How to deal with Coffee (addiction of)

// August 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

An extract from the upcoming Mitchell and Webb book, this one on the sadomasochistic joys of being a coffee drinker..

How to cope with coffee

By David Mitchell

I’ve always wanted to like coffee. I love its smell. But its taste is as disappointing by comparison as that of freshly cut grass. Also, it gives me a headache. For many years I tried to join in: I wanted to be a coffee drinker – it’s deemed cool without being modern, which is the only sort of cool I’ll ever be able to get away with. It’s lightly but glamorously bad for you, which is the only sort of “bad for you” I have the courage for. It keeps you awake, but not like a next-door neighbour with a more active social life than you (I don’t necessarily mean sex). But my palate isn’t having it.

And this leaves me excluded from a very enjoyable aspect of western society, for, to many, coffee is much more than a drink – it’s a hobby and a status game.

The hobby takes the form of a quest, to find “a decent cup of coffee”. Apparently, most of the coffee that is served – and it seems to me that coffee is everywhere – is indecent. Coffee fans are always moaning about the coffee that is available to them and looking for opportunities to seek out, or, in the media world I inhabit, “send someone out”, for better examples.

On the face of it, it seems illogical for people to have allowed themselves to become so attached and addicted to something that, in the only form they consider it palatable, is in such short supply. Other things that are so relied upon – cigarettes, chocolate, water, bread – are widely available in acceptable forms. Addicted smokers do not moan that they can only ever get hold of Silk Cut or Marlboro Gold when in fact the only thing they really relish developing cancer with is an obscure Turkish brand of cigarette only available in big Waitroses.

Similarly, other things that are as difficult to source as “a decent cup of coffee” – such as oysters, asparagus, truffles, musk and ambergris – are seldom what otherwise normal people aspire to guzzle six to eight cups of every day.

So, it’s only logical to infer that it’s the quest people are addicted to, not the caffeine. However, it is not only a quest but also a status game. The status comes from affecting a greater need for coffee, at the same time as a higher expectation from it, than anyone else. It is socially impossible to gainsay someone’s need for a coffee, or their disappointment at pretty much any version of it that is provided.

Starbucks, vast though its sales are, is apparently the last place where anyone with an ounce of self-respect would seek a coffee. I’ve heard people say that what they serve there “isn’t coffee at all” and that “you can’t call that coffee”. This baffles me. Did they ask for tea?

Tea, of course, is the answer to how to cope with coffee. It can be made to a high standard without a large and noisy machine and we British enslaved a subcontinent to ensure our supplies of it. It is no exaggeration to call coffee-drinking a slight to the efforts of the hundreds of millions who toiled under the yoke of the Raj. The only downside with tea is that decent tea is genuinely unobtainable in any other country, and indeed in Starbucks. One of the many things that makes me well up with hate is when someone gives you, instead of a tea, a cup of tepid water with distant memories of having been boiled – and a tea bag on the side. As if they have no idea what you might use the tea bag for or where to put it.
(more…)

Green tea – the jasmine scenting

// August 3rd, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

Jing tea, which is quickly becoming my fav tea purveyor have a facinating post on the art/practice of scenting green tea with jasmine flowers.

Jasmine green tea

July/August, is the jasmine flowering season (in Pakistan too, incidentally – i’m writing this post on a laptop sitting at my favourite spot – beside flowering indian jasmine shrubs) and jing have some very cool photographs of the long process of getting the green tea to absord the heady jasmine aroma.

Jasmine has to be among my very favourite green teas, rinsed and made with water at c.80 – its usually breakfast for me.

I havent yet had a chance to try Jing’s jasmine tea, but from the sounds of it they should be pretty good, def a must once the new season tea is in stock.

Update: Jing now also have a video of the jasmine pearl rolling process. They may have their detractors, but their website really is the best i’ve seen yet for tea aficionados http://jingtea.com/#node_id_3342

The video is now embedded below. I was looking at the stats for this page the other day, it seems it slowly becoming a mecca for people googlinge ‘jing tea overpriced’ and its (surprisingly many) derivatives. As of this moment, since I havent had their jasmine pearl tea yet, ill obstain from taking a real view because if there is one thing my early steps in loose-tea leaf land have taught me, great tea doesnt come cheap :)

Obama’s interview with Dawn Pakistan

// June 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan, Pakistan, Poetry

Experted below, bits of the discussion from Obama’s interview with Dawn, in which he (now famously on the interwebnets) revealed an interest in.. wait for for it.. keema, daal and urdu poetry. Good life! more of my rambles on dawn interview here

Mr Obama then explained how he plans to further expand the peace process he introduced in Cairo.

‘So what we want to do is just begin to open up a dialogue around which we can constructively work together to deal with significant issues,’ he said, acknowledging that ‘part one of those issues is the issue of the Middle East.’

Mr Obama explained that he has been ‘very aggressive’ in saying that Israelis and Palestinians have to resolve their differences and create two states that can live side by side in peace and security.

He said he also has put forward a special envoy, George Mitchell, a former majority leader of the US Senate, to work with the parties involved.

(more…)

survive this

// March 8th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

A little something from Surviving Extremes by Nick Middleton. Although you can whip this up without even lighting the stove, if you’re holding a dinner party you’ll have to prepare pretty far in advance…

‘A local delicacy,’ she said. ‘It’s a seal stuffed with seabirds’ (more…)

The unloved

// January 25th, 2005 // No Comments » // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan

bachelors cooking without shan -Welcome to this, the first posting to the new ‘Bachelor’s guide to cooking without Shan’.
As i can attest, the methods, requirements for successfull batchelor cuisuine is a deeply under-researched aspect of gastronomy. Indeed, if anything the cuisine of the ‘unloved’ remains a deep dark secret that few even deign to acknowledge.
The demands are great, the budgets low, it doesnt make for enough allocation in this socially contructed, capitalistic world of ours.
You see, the essential element, is calorific value per unit of currency. Much like dog food, the fur is by far more important than the flavour. Its sad, but we live in a superficial world.
And yet, there is life beoynd the nth shaan packet. There is light at the end of this mono-sodiumized tunnel, and that is the cooking yoursel.
So hold my hand, come with me as we take to these journeys, taking the path less tread and (hopefully) enjoying it.
Cheers my brothers in arms..

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