Tea classes! -01

Hello there and welcome back! 

As promised, today I shall blog about my tea classes. Although I have to admit, it has been a while since my first lesson.. I did write, but forgot to upload (Just like my first entry). Haha!

In November 2015 I started with my study to become a Tea sommelier. I have one class a month and have to do a lot of self-study. The first two lessons consisted of an introduction to tea. Because my graduation project was about tea as well, a lot of information was familiar. There were still a few things that were new to me. And of course, repeating information is always handy! 
Note: When I talk about degrees, I think in Celsius, because that's what we use in the Netherlands.
Note 2: Please do not mind the possible grammar or spelling mistakes I made.

-01
The first lesson started, with me being late. I have to take the bus from Lelystad to Zeewolde and that isn’t really a problem. Unless of course, the second bus from Harderwijk to Zeewolde, does not show up. And, you guessed it! It did not show up. So, I was soaked because it was raining, the wind was cold and I waited 40 minutes before I finally gave up. Luckily someone from the ITC Acedemy could pick me up. It only (ahem) took me half a day to get warm again. Thank god we were going to taste a lot of warm tea haha!

That day we mostly received general information about tea. Like steeping times and temperatures, general information about the production process, things like that. We also tasted teas, obviously. The teas we tasted were:

- Pai Mu Tan
- Darjeeling
- Tie Kwa Yin
- Assam, with golden tips

-01 homework!
The Pai Mu Tan was also the tea we took home to do our homework. We had to try out how we liked the tea best. I varied with temperature, grams, and steeping time. Since Pai Mu Tan is a white tea it’s advised to use 70-80 degrees and 90 seconds-2 minutes steeping time. At school we used 80 degrees and 2 minutes steeping time. For my homework I used a lot of differentiations.

First of all, I used osmose water and tap water. At home we have a saltwater aquarium, so we have a filter to produce osmose water. On the first few try I used 3 grams/250 milliliter, 70 degrees and a steeping time of 3 minutes. It had a pretty bitter taste. But it wasn’t bad. I tried to step up 5 degrees with every try. Beyond 80 degrees it became very bitter, and below 70 degrees it became quite mild. One of my favorites was with 65 degrees and 2 grams/250 milliliter. It was mild, and you could really taste the tea well. But it became a bit too cold for my taste.

The worst one was with 90 degrees, steeping time 3 minutes and 3 grams/250 milliliter. It was baaaaad, beyond bad even! It was really bitter. And I know I said in my previous blog that bitter green tea can be nice sometimes.. But this white tea was not nice at all. So, please don’t try this at home. Unless of course, you are very curious to know how bad it was. In that case, be my guest, but please share your experience with me!

The next lesson started with a test, so we needed to review this lesson. Luckily I knew a lot already, so this time it was quite easy.

My next blog, which will be uploaded soon (Really, I promise), shall be about my second class and homework! I decided to upload in pieces because it might become a long read..

Cheers! ~Liset