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federalagentsoandso · 3 years ago

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haru’s eyes grew wider as the agent spoke as if he were suddenly taking in everything he could about this agent. he maintained eye contact as they said everything, even if haru was ready to push back on all that he heard. a push of laughter came through his lips. Dead, void, and as cold as the room.

*that was his dream. it was all haru had left*

he shook his head, and felt his lips quiver the sentiments of his mind. “you don’t understand.” fingers rapped against the table in his discomfort. “It was a Thursday,” his voice felt distant and its echo hollowed back into his stomach. “It was a Thursday. I don’t know where we ended up.” The words delivered like a track Haru had dug up in his head. He leaned forward as if to get comfortable, as if he were in an apron and behind a counter. His broken espresso machine roared behind him. The agent was his clientele and their coffee was black. Compliance was always rewarded. “Oasis is what I��ll call it this time. Haven was too easy. Serenity was too loud.” Haru began to smile, nodding at the agent. “Oasis is perfect.”

The agent wanted to tell Haru not to get too carried away with the details, with the fantasy of what might not come to be. Warningly remind Haru that something so grandiose as owning a coffee shop *again* was most likely out of the plan and not to get his hopes up nor set himself up for ANOTHER relocation interview in the too near future with his dreaming. But...there seemed to be the slightest droop of relaxation in his posture, something the agent hoped to keep there in order to get Haru's walls down a bit. Before long the agent would be needing a few gallons of coffeehouse espresso just to remember their name if this became too much of a battle so every little bit of comfort helped.

"All great names, some were just right name wrong time." Just like Haru and the victim had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. "You must get a lot of regulars, people love their coffee. I'm sure it can't be easy, putting yourself so visibly on display in strange community after another. Did you ever worry that you'd look up and someone —"

That had been a terrible way to word it, of course the worry and fear would be there. "Forgive me, let me try that again. You must see a lot of faces, have you ever seen someone come in and they look closely similar to someone from your past and wondered if maybe it was someone that was there that night? Do you recall everyone present both at the location you ended up as well as wherever the night began and progressed onwards to?" Conceding that there was no proper way to try and connect the line of questioning to Haru's apparent train of thought, the agent just hoped to get any semibalance of information from Haru on the details of those present. Names that were just boxes to check off at this point against all previous statements but again, it was routine and the off chance always remained additional things could come to light.

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filiplig · 7 years ago

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Heiss, Mary Lou - The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook: A Guide to the World's Best Teas

page 16 | location 243-245 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:03:58

It is not possible to love every tea one tastes, but there is as much to learn from tasting tea that you don’t like as there is from tea that you do like.

page 25 | location 380-381 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:10:45

Chinese tea masters refer to water as a friend to tea: water heated to the right temperature for a tea will yield a cup that reveals the subtle flavors and character of that tea.

page 25 | location 382-385 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:11:05

the three most common mistakes of tea steeping: • Using too much or not enough tea • Improper water temperature • Oversteeping

page 28 | location 417-420 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:14:00

The most common sizes for English teapots are six cups (thirty-six ounces) or eight cups (forty-eight ounces); in Asia, teapots are often designed to steep six ounces of tea or less. The need to drink a quantity of tea from a large cup or mug is strictly a Western habit. Large cups require more tea to fill them, and that means bigger teapots.

page 34 | location 512-514 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:22:06

The easiest way to measure leaf tea is to weigh it on a small inexpensive kitchen scale that is calibrated in grams. The ideal ratio of leaf to water for most tea is two to three grams of tea leaf for six ounces of water.

page 38 | location 579-583 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:26:52

When tasting a tea that is new to you, start with a two-minute steep, taste it, and taste it again every thirty seconds. Jot down the results. Green, yellow, and white teas are rarely left in the water for longer than two minutes (and often less). Oolong teas can steep from one to five minutes, depending on whether the leaf is a semiball-rolled style or a long, strip-style leaf, and whether the tea is being steeped Asian or Western style. Green, yellow, white, and oolong teas can always be steeped again, at least once but sometimes three times or more, depending on the tea.

page 39 | location 588-590 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:27:51

Always cover your tea when steeping; the tea leaves will unfurl more uniformly and the finished tea will taste better if the teapot or gaiwan has been covered.

page 40 | location 613-615 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:30:11

Green tea offers many different leaf styles and singular flavor characteristics. In the cup, a sip of green tea can be reminiscent of honey, a lightly salty sea spray, a gentle breeze passing through a stand of pines, or pure water washed over stones in a stream. These transitory tastes are accompanied by sweet-smelling aromas that are refreshing, delicious, and uncomplicated.

page 56 | location 849-852 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:36:17

Without clear and consistent grades, it can be difficult for a tea enthusiast to know whether a certain tea is more expensive than another because it is overpriced or because it is a higher grade. There will be no resolution of this because the tea industry cannot possibly codify the thousands of green teas available, so it is necessary to cultivate a relationship with a tea vendor whom you trust.

page 63 | location 959-962 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:41:11

In 2007, China produced 1,165 metric tons of tea, surpassing the production of India for the first time in many years. Of this, approximately 70 percent of China’s yearly output of tea was green tea. And of this, only 10 to 12 percent was premium, artisan, spring-plucked green tea. It is believed that there are almost ten thousand distinctions of green tea produced in China’s eastern provinces of Anhui, Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang and the western provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan.

page 73 | location 1109-1112 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:49:42

When the fresh leaf reaches the tea factory, workers quickly shape and dry the leaf. The leaf is put into a cylindrical machine (de-enzymer) that lightly heats the leaf (or it is put into a tea-firing pan) to drive off some initial moisture. This heat is only enough to dry the surface of the leaf so that it becomes pliable, and it kills any bacteria on the leaf that might encourage the development of mold. Most important, this process destroys oxidative enzymes in the leaf that would allow oxidation to begin.

page 91 | location 1392-1394 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 18:04:27

The flavor of white tea is not as sweet or astringent as a green tea’s variously can be, nor does it have the vegetal flavors often associated with green tea. Rather, white tea is soft and rich, with subdued aromas and flavors that suggest honey, chestnuts, toast, apricots, and brown rice.

page 92 | location 1407-1408 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 18:05:37

Chinese and Taiwanese tea experts say that Pu-erh tea is the most complicated tea to study and learn (but relatively straightforward to manufacture), but that oolong tea is the most intricate and complex tea to manufacture.

page 92 | location 1408-1411 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 18:06:04

This is due to the fact that oolong teas are partially oxidized and can be made within a range of 12 to 80 percent oxidation that will vary with the type of oolong tea being manufactured. To put these percentages into perspective, green tea has zero oxidation, and black tea is 100 percent oxidized. This difference encompasses a big swing, and within it lies all of the complexity, nuance, and enticing flavor and aroma that has made oolong tea so enduringly popular.

page 93 | location 1413-1415 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 18:06:29

Production time for oolong tea can be as long as thirty-six to forty hours, making these teas both labor-intensive and challenging for tea makers. The reward for this work is strikingly flavorful tea with aromas that are redolent of melons, apricots, honey, leather, wood, spice, and orchids.

page 115 | location 1759-1760 | Added on Thursday, 19 March 2015 18:13:54

The most complicated tea manufacture is oolong. While green tea can be made in one day, oolongs, properly and carefully made, can take as many as four days to be completed.

page 177 | location 2704-2709 | Added on Saturday, 21 March 2015 18:07:43

Tea, like freshly roasted coffee and aromatic spices, possesses delicate aromatics that will deteriorate when exposed to the flavor-robbing influences of air, heat, and humidity. For the best protection, store tea in a clean glass or tin container to preserve its flavor and soundness. Depending on the type of tea, most properly stored tea will keep for a minimum of one year; the same tea stored carelessly may lose its goodness in just two or three months. Of course, some oolong, black, and Pu-erh teas store well for longer than one year, but for the majority of green, yellow, and white teas, it is best to replenish with fresh tea once the seasonal harvest brings new tea to market.

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