08 January 2010

Korean Tea Jelly

One of my favorite blogs is Mattcha’s Blog. I love his photos of Korean pottery – cups, pots and other teaware. Also, his description of Korean teas makes me drool like a Frankensteins monster. Unfortunately, genuine Korean tea is very hard to get, with probably none online sites where one can get few grams of these delicate tea specialties.

So I was very happy, when I discovered, that not far from us there is a grocery store with genuine Korean cuisine – the shop opened for Korean management of automobile factory that opened in Slovakia few years ago. So I made a visit to sea, if they have some decent tea.

Unfortunately, I found only few teabags, one Japanese sencha and a bottle of jelly labeled Honey citron tea.

Korean Tea Jelly

Ok, I couldn’t resist a tea jelly, so I got a bottle and decided to try it on my colleagues. The preparation was easy – just dissolve a spoon or two of orange gelatinous mass in hot water and let your boss to drink it.

Korean Tea Jelly

Since the colleagues (both) survived the experiment, I had a cup for myself. Actually, the beverage itself isn’t as bad as it could be – a very sweet citron-like slightly orange “tea”. I can finish the whole bottle in my work, though I will probably not get another one (I will certainly not get another one).

Korean Tea Jelly

Yet, the hunt for Korean tea still continues.

5 comments:

Matt said...

Thomas,

Hahaha...

Yeah, that citron honey herb tea...

It is a traditional remedy for colds in Korea and is Korea,s version of Neocitron.

Thanks for the kind words.

Don,t worry, you will be on the next list of people who will get some Korean tea samples when one recieves the 2010 teas.


Peace

Bret said...

Very funny. I like your sense of humour. I never heard back from you about the wares that you bought from my sale. Did everything arrive unharmed?

Anonymous said...

There a few 'local' shops that you can get genuine, even masterly made korean green teas but in first place you have to overcome your prejudices about these tea sellers.

Petr Novák said...

Hi Tomas,

I am not sure what is anonymuos before me tolking about but I am from Czech r. and I can recomended to you Korean teas from Martin
Špimr from Teamountain.cz. But you may be know it.

By the way- really nice blog, and one with Jam is funy.
Can I ask, way is your blog in English ?

Matt said...

Petr,

How could one forget!!!

You can purchase high grade Korean Jiri Mountain tea from Martin Spimr (http://www.teamountain.cz/) in the Czech Rep. One helped him source some Korean teas back a few years ago when living in Korea.

One personally picked and produced the Jirisan green tea that Martin sells on his site (http://www.teamountain.cz/caj/66/154/woojeon_jagsulcha_vrabci_jazycek). See this blog posting on that tea: http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/2008-nok-ya-won-ujeon-handong-green-tea.html

He also offers Jirisan Ddok Cha produced by a teamasters one studied under in Korea.

( http://www.teamountain.cz/caj/66/153/dok_cha ) See this blog posting on that tea: http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/2008-nok-ya-won-wild-hadong-ddok-cha.html

Thomas, think one sent you samples of these a year or so ago?

Peace