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 Well. The strainer you have is not for putting leaves in. Basically it's for when you have leaves loose in a pot, you put it over the cup to catch them when some inevitably slip out of the pot as you pour the tea. I would... maybe not use that cast iron pot if it's shedding enamel. I'm guessing that it's fully enameled on the inside? I don't personally like cast iron pots since they tend to be very small volume and very expensive, at least the ones I've seen, and I don't think the claimed benefits really make up for those two strikes.
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Mar 24, 2017 13:04
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DurianGray posted:
Thanks for the info. Fortunately for me, the little cast iron pot was a cheap find at a thriftstore. I was thinking to use it on my tiny samovar. Maybe I'll run boiling water through it a bunch of times and see what breaks off. It's such a cool little pot, if a bit small for non-snooty teas.  The Selfish Samovar.
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Mar 24, 2017 19:58
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I'm not super familiar with samovars, but if that cast iron pot is enameled you want to be careful about putting it directly on a heat source. (Like absolutely don't put it directly on a stove or anything like that since it can make the enamel crack even worse.)
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Mar 24, 2017 21:54
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It's weird. Under the peeling area is another surface that also appears to be a lacquer.
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Mar 25, 2017 02:44
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TeaVivre is releasing Spring Teas and having a sale. There's a little quiz where you can win $10 off and you can enter their drawing for some free tea. http://www.teavivre.com/sale/spring...ourself_png#st1 The spring teas are starting to get released too. Only the She Qian and Ming Qian Longjing are available so far, but I'd expect more by the end of the week.
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Apr 11, 2017 00:12
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Jhet posted:TeaVivre is releasing Spring Teas and having a sale. There's a little quiz where you can win $10 off and you can enter their drawing for some free tea. Was just doing this little quiz, and looking at their tea storage recommendations and see they suggest storing tea in the fridge. Does anyone do this? I usually just keep things in airtight containers in my cupboard/a cabinet at work.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:54
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Sirotan posted:Was just doing this little quiz, and looking at their tea storage recommendations and see they suggest storing tea in the fridge. Does anyone do this? I usually just keep things in airtight containers in my cupboard/a cabinet at work. I keep them sealed in a cool and dry place in my cupboards. They do recommend refrigeration, but I've never seen anyone else say that. It's not probably the worst place to store it, but I don't have room enough for an refrigerator for my tea.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:57
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I've heard of keeping sealed, nitrogen-flushed Japanese greens in the fridge, especially on the dealer side, but in that case it's generally recommended not to put it back in there after opening due to moisture issues. I'd be concerned about the same here.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:45
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Sirotan posted:Was just doing this little quiz, and looking at their tea storage recommendations and see they suggest storing tea in the fridge. Does anyone do this? I usually just keep things in airtight containers in my cupboard/a cabinet at work. This guy who owns a tea shop did a short blind taste test comparing different storing methods for wet, just infused once tea. Drying the tea up to an entire day between infusions of had a small impact on the taste of the tea in subsequent infusions. So I think storing the tea in a dry, room temp place is the unquestionably best method for storing tea. A fridge is pretty humid really, which is bad for any sort of tea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfog_jJ9zis
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Apr 11, 2017 15:37
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some people who are crazy into aging puer tends to use modified fridges and winecoolers as humidors, but that's the exception
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Apr 15, 2017 12:37
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AmericanBarbarian posted:This guy who owns a tea shop did a short blind taste test comparing different storing methods for wet, just infused once tea. Drying the tea up to an entire day between infusions of had a small impact on the taste of the tea in subsequent infusions. So I think storing the tea in a dry, room temp place is the unquestionably best method for storing tea. A fridge is pretty humid really, which is bad for any sort of tea. A fridge would typically have lower relative humidity than your house, wouldn't it?
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Apr 19, 2017 21:28
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:A fridge would typically have lower relative humidity than your house, wouldn't it? For most of the continental US a house with A/C should have much less humidity than a fridge. I tried looking up some figures on what the average humidity of a fridge is but apparently every time you open the fridge the interaction with the warmer house air creates a lot of humidity.
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Apr 20, 2017 14:54
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AmericanBarbarian posted:For most of the continental US a house with A/C should have much less humidity than a fridge. I tried looking up some figures on what the average humidity of a fridge is but apparently every time you open the fridge the interaction with the warmer house air creates a lot of humidity. But a fridge is constantly pulling the humidity out of the air (the same way an AC does). One that has stayed closed for a while should have very little.
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Apr 20, 2017 15:11
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I think the idea is the fridge is long term storage and you open it several times a year. Not several times a day like we use fridges every day.
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Apr 20, 2017 17:13
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I'm getting into loose leaf tea, mostly green, what are some well-loved Chinese/Japanese ones? I'm a boring person so my tastes are pretty basic.
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Apr 23, 2017 07:25
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Schneider Heim posted:I'm getting into loose leaf tea, mostly green, what are some well-loved Chinese/Japanese ones? I'm a boring person so my tastes are pretty basic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longjing_tea Aka Dragonwell, you can find it at a lot of shops in varying quality depending on your price range.
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Apr 26, 2017 05:14
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Does anyone work in tea education for a tea company? I just moved back to the US (Seattle) and I'm finding lots of coffee shops don't know how to make their expensive tea. I helped a Stumptown affiliate develop their program and am thinking this might be an opportunity to sneak in the business.
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Apr 26, 2017 07:51
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DontAskKant posted:Does anyone work in tea education for a tea company? I just moved back to the US (Seattle) and I'm finding lots of coffee shops don't know how to make their expensive tea. I helped a Stumptown affiliate develop their program and am thinking this might be an opportunity to sneak in the business. I know a guy who knows a guy. He got in by working at a local tea shop. He also does tastings and parties
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Apr 26, 2017 16:31
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DontAskKant posted:Does anyone work in tea education for a tea company? I just moved back to the US (Seattle) and I'm finding lots of coffee shops don't know how to make their expensive tea. I helped a Stumptown affiliate develop their program and am thinking this might be an opportunity to sneak in the business. This is something that's been driving me crazy recently. A lot of coffee shops in my area have great tea menus, but the baristas are trained to put ice in the teapots when they make anything other than black tea. I get all this gross old ice flavor in what should be a delicious cup of oolong.
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Apr 26, 2017 18:59
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Mine annoyingly don't time anything and always use boiling water straight from the coffee pot line. I either get herbal or try to subtly start a phone timer for black teas. At least they make great espresso.
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Apr 27, 2017 03:51
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Over the weekend, I stopped at a Bulk Barn while on a day trip to Ikea and picked up a couple small bags of loose leaf pomegranate lavender green and hibiscus rosehip black teas. I'm sure they're not great, but I ended up spending less than $5 on tea that would have cost me nearly $15 for the same quantity back home, so I'm not complaining. Can someone refresh my memory on the best practices for making iced herbal green tea? I know you either use twice the amount or steep twice as long, steep in... hot water, or cold? Hot then pour into an equal amount of ice water, right? And sweeten while it's still hot, right?
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May 2, 2017 02:29
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Hmm, I would experiment since there can be a lot of variation in greens in my experience. I think a cold steep overnight wouldn't be a bad idea to start with, and a somewhat generous portion of tea to water. If you don't add sugar while it's hot (or don't brew it hot to begin with) you could always whip up some simple syrup and add that in whenever. (I don't know why more places don't offer simple syrup for cold drinks in the first place but I'm always grateful when I find one that does.)
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May 2, 2017 03:05
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I bought a ceramic teapot from Daiso (a Japanese dollar store). It's really pretty for its $4 price, but it seems to be leaking on the underside. How do I fix this? My first idea is epoxy, but I'm not sure if that's safe.
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May 3, 2017 06:32
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I can't be very specific but my advice is find something that's rated 'food grade' it's safe to use around food basically.
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May 3, 2017 11:06
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Schneider Heim posted:I bought a ceramic teapot from Daiso (a Japanese dollar store). It's really pretty for its $4 price, but it seems to be leaking on the underside. How do I fix this? My first idea is epoxy, but I'm not sure if that's safe. I can't imagine anything that would be resistant to repeated encounters with boiling water that would both be safe and last for the long term. You might have bought a $4 decoration. Which there is nothing wrong with.
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May 3, 2017 16:35
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buy a kintsugi repair kit
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May 4, 2017 14:30
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I can't imagine anything that would be resistant to repeated encounters with boiling water that would both be safe and last for the long term. You might have bought a $4 decoration. Which there is nothing wrong with. It's fully-functional and has a mesh strainer inside, but the edge of the circular base is just somewhat porous and leaks. I'll probably look for a better one, though.
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May 4, 2017 17:49
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i never knew there was a tea thread. I liked the BOP grade from Sabaragamuwa District from a taster and stumped up for a bulk amount which is still going strong. No idea what the district is like recently. Its a dry tea to the mouth but has excellent flavour and aroma. Colour is a pleasant brown. It ticks my tea box. I hope it's the same when i have to buy another batch. I have a tiny bit of sugar but no milk.
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May 5, 2017 05:04
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Borrowed my officemate's coffee press (which he uses for tea, so flavor contamination isn't an issue) to test multiple steep times. The office hot water isn't hot enough, so I've done 6 minutes for the first steep, then 9 for the second. How many steepings do you make? My limit is 3 so far, but I'm not sure how far I could (or should) go.
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May 5, 2017 07:14
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Schneider Heim posted:The office hot water isn't hot enough Have you, uhh, considered getting a kettle?
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May 5, 2017 09:10
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Ras Het posted:Have you, uhh, considered getting a kettle? I would get into trouble if I used one in the office.
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May 5, 2017 10:21
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Only solution is buy a kettle at home and bring hot water in a big thermos.
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May 5, 2017 10:34
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Schneider Heim posted:Borrowed my officemate's coffee press (which he uses for tea, so flavor contamination isn't an issue) to test multiple steep times. The office hot water isn't hot enough, so I've done 6 minutes for the first steep, then 9 for the second. Yeah, generally I stop at 3 if I'm doing normal steep times. I actually combine the tea from the second and third steep because I think it comes out more balanced than either one alone. Obviously, if I'm doing gong-fu style I can get more than 3.
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May 5, 2017 17:24
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This is my office tea routine: Take 2 cardamom cloves and cut them with scissors into the metal tea basket, just enough to better expose the insides. Take 2 big pinches of jasmine green tea and drop it in the basket. Boil water in the kettle I keep in my office. Pour 1/3 room temperature water into my huge mug and immediately pour 2/3 boiling water in. I try to consciously limit the steep time on the first one to just a few minutes. Sometimes I forget. The second steep I do the same thing with the temperature adjustment. But I stir the leaves around a bit with a chopstick in the water, then fully top out the water. I sometimes let the second steep go super long. Decent? The tea is pretty cheap but tasty, not really worth steeping a 3rd time in my opinion. Also this allows me to finish the 2 steeps in one workday.
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May 5, 2017 18:54
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Comb Your Beard posted:Decent? if you think the tea tastes good, then that's good enough
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May 5, 2017 23:41
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so black tea gets no love here? Just weird alt teas?
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May 7, 2017 21:32
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Black tea is the weird alt tea that white people love for some reason
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May 7, 2017 21:47
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Schneider Heim posted:I bought a ceramic teapot from Daiso (a Japanese dollar store). It's really pretty for its $4 price, but it seems to be leaking on the underside. How do I fix this? My first idea is epoxy, but I'm not sure if that's safe. Daiso  You and I probably have the exact same teapot. Ras Het posted:Black tea is the weird alt tea that white people love for some reason It reminds us of the cholera we used to get from the River Thames. Love Stole the Day fucked around with this message at 02:05 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 02:00
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Love Stole the Day posted:Daiso Yours doesn't leak, does it? I want to get another one but I'm afraid it might have the same problem as my faulty one...
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May 8, 2017 06:18
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Ineffiable posted:Only solution is buy a kettle at home and bring hot water in a big thermos.
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May 8, 2017 23:40
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