Cocoa Cake and Marco Polo.

 I confess that I baked a cocoa cake in the middle of yesterday night and ate quarter of it before I go to sleep. I was very guilty, but satisfying at the same time. 

Every year, around this season, I think I become a bit nostalgic. Yesterday, for some reason, I was remembering the time when I used to live in Paris. I lived there for a bit when I was kid and before I came to US. I guess both times were one of the happiest moments of my life, not only because of the city, but also because I was innocent.
Ok. I think the post is getting too emotional. haha.

Anyway, my mom used to bake this cocoa cake on my birthday when I was kid. For some reason, that cake had unique aroma, and I have been missing it so much. (But my mom doesn't bake cakes anymore. Instead she asks for me to bake them.) That's why I baked the cake in the middle of the night. Of course, it wasn't same, but I was okay to have a happy time.

I don't have my mom's recipe, so I picked the one that seems similar. I normally adjust the recipe for my blog, but for this, I did what is written. So here's the link

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Velvet Cocoa Cake with Instant Buttercream

I didn't make butter cream, because I hate it. I had a caramel sauce that I made before.
If you do not want any cream or sauce, I think this recipe will be better with chocolate chips or some chocolate pieces in it. Even better with orange zests.

And I had afternoon tea time with "Marco Polo" by "Mariage Frères". "Mariage Frères" is also an element that reminds me Paris, and "Marco Polo" is one of its best selling items. Now I prefer Asian teas, but I used to love to drink this tea when I was in Paris.

Mariage Frères’ overwhelming success is a mysterious blend that will take you to distant lands and unforeseen territories. Fragrances of Chinese and Tibetan flowers lend it a uniquely velvety taste. Its extraordinary bouquet makes Marco Polo the most legendary of flavoured teas. - "Mariage Frères"

 This is what they describes about "Marco Polo". I think it is very fragrant, flowery, and sensual. 

I think you can get it at Dean & Deluca.

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"Marco Polo" by "Mariage Frères"

 And also, I am planning to serve the tea at Handol tearoom for fun. It's gonna be only non-Asian tea, other than Tahitian tea.

 By the way, after I finished them, I realized that aroma of the cake was probably from vanilla sugar and cocoa powder that my mom used to bought from French grocery store. So I need to wait until I can visit Paris again to taste my mom's cocos cake.   

Green Tea Latte.

 Each countries care different aspects of their teas. Japanese cares colors of teas more than other countries, so they have beautiful "green" green teas. Chinese or Taiwanese teas are more about their aromas. They even use two different cups for each person just to enjoy fragrances of teas. Korean teas think about their tastes. 

 I used Korean green tea powder for green tea latte that I made today. It might not be as pretty as Japanese Matcha or weirdly green Starbucks green tea frappuccino. But definitely tastier than Starbucks. :P Korean green tea is smooth, yet has a nice bitterness of green tea with toasted-grains like nuttiness. 

 

You will need

1 tablespoon green tea powder

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup ice cubes

2 tablespoons agave syrup

Directions

 Blend all together with blender.

or 

Stir them all well :)

or

Use french press without ice, and put ice later

 

Yum

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More about Steamed Bun Bulgogi Burger

Mogwa(Quince) Ade.

 Because of many historical issues, Korean tea culture became different from other Northeast Asia countries. While other countries are using the word "Cha"; tea only for products from tea plants, Korean tea culture includes herbal teas also as "Cha". Especially Yuja(Yuzu)cha and Mogwa(Quince)cha are the most famous Korean teas. Those teas remind me my mom. She made home-made yuja and quince teas for us when those fruits are in season.



Last fall, our family visited "Andong hahoe village"; The Hahoe Folk Village (Korean: 안동하회마을) is a traditional village from the Joseon Dynasty. The village is a valuable part of Korean culture because it preserves Joseon period-style architecture, folk traditions, valuable books, and old tradition of clan-based villages(Wikipedia).

A beautiful village surrounded by river and mountains

While we were looking around the village, we found so many quinces just dropped on the ground and nobody cares about them. Even villagers!! So we decided to take them and make a tea. All we need to do was just gather them. They were all organic too!!

 My mom and dad are carrying a bag full of quinces. haha

I didn't take pictures while my mom made the tea. Making tea out of quince is so easy. It's just a lot of work. :P All you need to do just cut them thinly like strips and mix with same amount of sugar or honey. And wait for 2 weeks. 

 I was going to introduce this tea today, but seems like the weather is too nice for this tea. Mogwa-cha helps prevent the cold, especially good for Respiratory diseases. It is a very fragrant, and we drink it hot during cold winter. So I made a nice sparkling Mogwa ade instead.

 

Eating with Goroke(Croquette)

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More about Goroke(Croquette)

Dissolve one or two tablespoons of Mogwa-cha extract with a little bit of warm water.

Put lots of ice cubes

Pour sparkling water and mix well.

I know this is not even a recipe.    Originally we pour hot water.

Anyway this tea is sweet and so aromatic. I really want to recommend to everybody. You can either make it or you can also buy a jar of Mogwa-cha at Korean grocery store. 

Or you can come to Handol tearoom. 

Taiwan Honey Aroma Oolong Tea

Our best supporters, Mr and Mrs Tsai (my parents-in-law:D) just visited us, and brought beautiful tea sets and teas from Taiwan.

One of them that I want to introduce is Taiwan Honey Aroma Oolong Tea.

This tea is from a Taiwan tea master company, Qi Cai Song, which won many prizes with its craftsmanship in tea.

This is before you brew them. Each tea leaves are nicely rolled.

Steeping for 50 seconds at first. 

Very fragrant and smooth.

Starting from 50 seconds, it is better to extend brewing time around 10 to 20 seconds each time, rather than steeping its tea leaves in hot water for 2-3 minutes like many teas.  It can be brewed 8 times maximum.

I like the second and third time the most.

It is still smooth, and deep floral aroma spreads entire through throat to nose.

I could also taste little bit of honey like aftertaste.  

More you steep, it get lighter and it get slightly tarter, but still very enjoyable.

 

 

 After 8 times, the tea leaves should be look like this. 

You can see individual leaves that still have nice leaf shape.

It is still fragrant. Maybe I should steep one more, next time. 

 

This is after I dried the leaves.

There is a lot of way to re-use these tea leaves.

 I will post it next time about re-using.

We also upload one of the Honey Aroma Oolong Tea.

You can check it here.

http://handolcha.blogspot.com/p/store.html#!/~/product/category=8834972&id=34662441

HANDOL Winter Holiday Tea - Dongji / 동지

HANDOL Winter Holiday Tea - Dongji / 동지

A warming blend of Oolong teas from Taiwan flavored with date, goji berry, ginger, schisandra berry, persimmon, cinnamon and orange - perfect for winter tea-times.

Brewing time : 4-5 minutes 

Handol Tea Room’s teas don’t contain any artificial flavor or fragrance.

Merry Christmas Everybody!!

Healty Enzyme Tea!!

Hello!

While I am preparing the tearoom, I decide to make some special drinks for extra healthiness at our tea menu.

Recently many Koreans became so into enzymes, because many mass medias started reintroducing their benefits and easy way to make it. Although many Korean dishes are based on vegetables and Kimchi, Dwenjang(fermented bean paste), Kochujang(fermented pepper paste), Maesilchung(fermented plum)and soy sauce are already full of enzymes, the benefits of enzymes make people want them even more!!

Here's the benefits of them.

1. Digest food
2. Break down toxins
3. Cleanse the blood
4. Strengthen the immune system
5. Build protein into muscle
6. Contract muscles
6. Eliminate carbon dioxide from the lungs
7. Reduce stress on the pancreas and other vital organs.

8. dissolve fats

9. resist disease 

10. slow aging

They sound amazing.

Of course, you can take enzyme pills or have them by eating raw foods. 

But, won't be better if we can have them in delicious way?

Before I introduce this method, I should say this could be a new good ingredient in your food pantry  but not a super magical medicinal thing. I prefer to call this a healthy syrup than enzymes. 

This method is using the fact that fermented foods have been already proved that they have digestive enzymes helping human health, but it doesn't mean this syrup only has enzymes in it.

It contains lots of sugar. Even though I read that sugar in this syrup became a healthier version like honey, I am not a scientist and I have no idea if that is true or not. 

But because of Osmotic pressure, good things, such as minerals, vitamins and nice taste will come out and become a lovely healthy syrup with enzymes.

The benefits and taste are all different depending on main ingredients.

For example, the most famous ingredient of this methods is a plum.

Koreans are using the plum syrup pretty much for everything when you need a sweet flavor. 

It gives depth in taste, because it is not just simply sweet but has more complicated sweetness.

Also it helps digesting food and gives energy.

So anyway, shall we start?

All I need is fruits or whatever ingredient I want to ferment, same amount of organic sugar, and a clean jar that is big enough for the two ingredients and a bit more space for fermenting reaction.

Today, I made pine needles and Omija(Schizandra berries) enzyme syrups.

 Both are from trustworthy farms in Korea. 

  

Dried Omija(Schizandra berries) 

  

Chopped and dried Pine needles

I started cleaning the pine needles two days ago. I soaked and drained them around 7 times during one and half day, and started dry them dry since yesterday afternoon(don't need to be completely dry). I cleaned them up this way to get rid off pine raisin, because pine raisin could be harmful for some people. 

I used around 200g of pine needles, so I also need same amount of sugar.

In this case, since I bought dry pine needle, I made a sugar syrup for some liquid. (If the ingredient is not dried and contains lots of water, you don't need to make sugar syrup)  For the syrup, I dissolved half of the sugar into quarter amount of water; 100g sugar + 50g water. 

 

So, mix half of the sugar with pine needles and pour the sugar syrup on top.

Close the lid, and that's it!!

So simple! 

All I need is waiting for at least 4 to 6 months. 

Same way for Omija syrup(My favorite!!)

 

However, instead of soaking the berries in water to clean, I used a bit of vinegar in water and cleaned them quickly. (Omija immediately throw its juice out when it soaks in water!!)

 

It looks like it has more sugar than the pine needles, because I didn't use sugar syrup for this. I didn't want to lose the juice while I am draining it completely, so I just mixed same amount of sugar right after cleaning it.

Now just store them somewhere safe and wait for summer!

This healthy refreshing summer tea will wait for you at Handol in this summer!!

Coin tea making - Bohyang Dawon.

So, at the Bohyang Dawon, Boseong, I tried coin tea making. Coin tea is called Tteok-cha or Don-cha in Korea, because of the way of making and looking.

Anyway, to make Tteok-cha, I picked the tea leaves, which were only on top of tea branches.

 

The cute kitty, "Yomy" was waiting for me to be petted. :)

After tea picking, we steamed the tea leaves until they become soft, and started pounding in a traditional stone mortar.

Pounding, and pounding.

And more pounding until they become like a rice cake. It was funny that because of pectin in tea leaves, more I pounded them, they became gummy, or rice cakish. :)

  

Here, super green tea ball!!!

And then, we divided them into small pieces and kneaded them a bit more.

 Compress them into this pretty tea cake mold. Press it as hard as you can!!

Voila!!!

 

Yummy looking little stuffs!!! 

If it was a spring or summer day, I could dry them outside. However, if the sun is not enough, it's better dry with food dryer. Otherwise they will become moldy.  

Once they dry, tie and hang them somewhere dry.

They will be fermented naturally.

The older, the better.

Wait as long as you can!!

Here's the information about Tteok-cha from "Tsiosophy".

http://www.tsiosophy.com/2012/04/report-on-the-2012-korean-tea-exhibition-tteok-cha/

Tteok-cha 떡차 is an ancient form of tea, the leaves usually steamed, pounded, and compressed into a small cake.  Caked tea was first recorded in China as bingcha 餅茶 during the Three Kingdoms period, circa third century A.D.  Then as now, the making of caked tea was time consuming, labor intensive, and expensive.  Given its cost and rarity, tteok-cha was prepared and served with regard and ceremony as part of high etiquette, and the drinking of the brew was considered special.  In Korea, caked tea was once called byeong-cha 병차 and was likely introduced during the Samguk era before 500 A.D. as a precious import to the peninsula from the continent.

Tteok-cha strung on a cord

Long ago, tteok-cha was named after the food known as tteok 떡, the Korean rice cake made in the tenth lunar month from newly harvested grain.  Rice cake is made from very fine rice flour mixed with pure water.  The white dough is steamed and then pounded and rolled to make a thick rope of dense paste.  Allowed to dry slightly, the roll is cut into small rounds and used in cooking.  Put in broth, stir-fries, sauces, seasonings, and other traditional dishes, cooked tteok is a soft, chewy pasta especially celebrated as a customary food during holidays and festivals.

The many parallels between caked tea and rice cake are striking.  Caked tea is not only similar to the making of rice cake but it is also alike in shape, the pieces resembling flat, thick disks the size of a large coin.  Indeed, during the Joseon dynasty, tteok-cha was also known as jeon-cha 전차 or jeon-da 전다, “coin” tea.  And like the various forms of rice cake made for special occasions, caked tea comes in many different shapes, including rounds, squares, rectangles, pentagonals, hexagonals, octagonals, flowers, and even buns and cones.

HS