|
There's also the possibility that we just can't really hit the right temperatures using home brewing equipment and therefore can't get the right kind of steep. As in, you can froth the milk with some cheapo gadgets but not really steam it without a much more expensive machine, and the steaming might be necessary.
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 04:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 18:50 |
|
|
London Fog So, I tried it a couple ways, but I'm also a bit of a coffee person and have an espresso machine with steam wand. This method for final drink was the best. Here's the options I tried and the best tasting ones that I found. Milk: -plain -steeped with earl grey -*steeped with earl grey and vanilla I used whole milk for everything, and the steeping was done at only a slightly elevated rate for 16oz of milk at 150F. The black tea flavors don't carry that well, but the bergamot carries great. The vanilla was a vanilla paste I had on hand, but 1tsp of liquid extract is equivalent. No lavender on hand for a couple months until my plants are growing, so I guess this is a Vancouver Fog. You could toss the lavender into the milk and it would do great. I also tried making steamed milk with other tricks (whipping over heat), but the steam wand was king to setting the texture. You could try to microwave shaken milk, but I've never found that shortcut for steamed milk to be all that great. Does work in a pinch, but the texture is still not right. I did end up cooling down the milk after steeping as I ran out of time to do it in one run. Tea: -earl grey 2", higher ratio -earl grey 3", normal ratio -*Chinese black blend 3", higher ratio I ended up just going with the black blend because it carried the best tea flavor into the party. Using the earl grey at the higher ratio worked, but the bergamot was too much for me and I couldn't taste much else. Cup itself is 5oz tea to 8oz steamed milk. I added a scant 1tsp white sugar for a hint of sweetness, but many people will want more and they probably make it with closer to 1.5-2tsp sugar.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 20:20
|
|
|
This is extremely relevant to my interests. Earl Grey is one of my favorite teas, but I've never tried making London Fog at home. I have several Earl Greys in my stash right now and plenty of dried lavender, but without the milk frother I guess it's just.. London? 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 23:56
|
|
|
i will admit to kind of hating earl gray (though baked goods made with the dry tea are fantastic) so i have no idea if this is a dumb idea but is it possible to just...buy bergamot oil and add a drop or whatever to the finished tea if you're doing it at scale
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2019 00:13
|
|
|
I just got done with my first experiment on a cold London Fog. I don't have fancy equipment or premium ingredients, so I feel kinda bad bringing up the topic and then sharing lackluster results. For the milk component, I'm currently burning through the cold steeped milk I made a couple days ago. The recipe for that is: per 1 cup of milk: 0.5 tbsp loose leaf earl grey 0.5 tsp lavender 1 cup milk(I used 2%) 0.5 tsp vanilla extract ~3 drops of liquid Stevia or to taste. Steeped the tea and lavender in the milk in the fridge for 24 hours, then strained and added the vanilla and the Stevia. If you were gonna do sugar or a powdered sweetener, I'd recommend gently heating a tiny amount of milk and dissolving the sweetener in that before returning it to the cold milk and steeping. This recipe also scales up decently. I bought a half gallon and did the remaining 7 cups of milk as follows: 0.25 cup loose leaf earl grey 3.5 tsp lavender 7 cups milk 3.5 tsp vanilla extract ~0.5 tsp liquid stevia The resulted in a really tasty, cold, london fog flavored milk. Only issue was it was kinda thick for me, since I'm used to skim milk. So, I figured I'd cut it with earl grey tea. So, when I got home today, I made a quick 1 cup of Twinnings earl grey with lavender, steeped normal time and strength, and tried some various ratios of it and the milk. I found anything with more tea than milk was too thin, and approaching a 1:1 ratio, the drink was still too weak. Currently, I've got 1 cup of water cold steeping with two tea bags in it for tomorrow. I'll report back then and we'll see how it turns out.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2019 00:33
|
|
|
So, day 2 of some general experimentation yielded mixed results. On the one hand, I can say that I prefer a ratio of 2:1 milk to tea for a cold london fog. Also, the double strength cold steeped tea was definitely needed over the regular strength. But on the other hand, I can also say that after a couple of days, the pre-steeped LF milk ended up with muddled flavors that were still ok, but not nearly as pronounced as the day I steeped it. This means I'm either gonna have to find a way to know a day ahead of time when I want a london fog, or I'll have to find a way to distill the flavors into something that I can just add to either the tea or the milk as needed. Progress in one direction, setbacks in another.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 02:50
|
|
|
neogeo0823 posted:So, day 2 of some general experimentation yielded mixed results. On the one hand, I can say that I prefer a ratio of 2:1 milk to tea for a cold london fog. Also, the double strength cold steeped tea was definitely needed over the regular strength. But on the other hand, I can also say that after a couple of days, the pre-steeped LF milk ended up with muddled flavors that were still ok, but not nearly as pronounced as the day I steeped it. This means I'm either gonna have to find a way to know a day ahead of time when I want a london fog, or I'll have to find a way to distill the flavors into something that I can just add to either the tea or the milk as needed. Earl grey is just black tea with bergamot, so bergamot oil would be the thing, but a London Fog also has vanilla syrup. You could make vanilla-bergamot syrup.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 03:24
|
|
|
neogeo0823 posted:I just got done with my first experiment on a cold London Fog. I don't have fancy equipment or premium ingredients, so I feel kinda bad bringing up the topic and then sharing lackluster results. Nah, don't feel bad, you're doing science! Even bad results are a good learning tool, and it might help someone else avoid the same mistake. Or maybe someone else will follow your directions to the letter and find they really like the results? Who knows!
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 09:43
|
|
|
What's a good price-to-quality ratio for tea? How far is too far when it comes to price? I'm talking Assam, Ceylon, or Yunnan. Mostly. I've spent $100 on tea easily at David's Tea, I just spent $170 at Camellia Sinensis. I just wanna find a happy medium so my fiance doesn't murder me in my sleep for killing our budget on tea.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 11:56
|
|
|
Good tea doesn't need to cost a small fortune, and I don't think that a higher price means a higher quality cup of tea. I've spent $25 on 100 g of Darjeeling that wasn't worth drinking. Upton lists an estimated price per cup on their web site. Their "Organic English Breakfast Blend" I had yesterday is $0.15 per cup. The single estate Assam I had this morning is $0.56 per cup. Both are excellent teas. So if cost is an issue then I'd suggest finding a less expensive tea you enjoy for every day, and a few more expensive teas to enjoy every once in a while. The difference between a tea that is 0.20 per cup verses a tea that is 2.00 per cup will be subtle, but both can be excellent.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 16:43
|
|
|
virinvictus posted:What's a good price-to-quality ratio for tea? How far is too far when it comes to price? I'm talking Assam, Ceylon, or Yunnan. Mostly. David’s Tea is usually overpriced for what you’re getting. I only buy their stuff on sale, and use my free 50g when I get enough points to get their most expensive teas, since they took the price cap off their frequent steeper bonus. I pay about $30 CDN for a pound of Irish Breakfast from Murchies as my staple breakfast tea, and that lasts me almost half a year since I drink my fancier teas the rest of the day. I try to wait for their sales as well. I found the best way to drink fine tea on a budget is to choose higher priced teas that you know will steep multiple times. Oolongs and pu erh, as well as greens and whites and yellow teas, will steep at least 4 times with full flavor, unfurling teas like tie guan yin or milk oolong 6 times or more, and pu erh ten or more. Quality darjeeling and assam, usually the kind with long rolled leaves, I’ve steeped 3 times with full flavor as well, and the new darjeeling oolongs coming out can steep about 4-5 times. The trick is to steep the tea on the lower end (both temperature and time) of what’s recommended. On first steeping, assam 3 minutes, darjeeling 1.5 minutes, oolongs I give 2-3, then increase subsequent steepings by 30 seconds. I also figure out how many cups of tea I’m going to manage during the day, depending on if I’m doing a lot of running around or have time to chug cup after cup, and choose my tea accordingly so I don’t waste a 6-steeping tea on a 3 cup day. I get samples from my local tea shop (Tea Trader—way better prices than David’s) whenever they bring in new stock, and lately they’ve been bringing in a lot of unusual, high quality teas. They give me three free samples and I pay for the rest, 15 g for expensive teas and 25 g for the less expensive ones. 15 g is enough to get three tries at steeping a new tea for best flavor, and the next time I buy my favorite out of the lot. I get to try a lot of fancy teas that way, even though I’m a filthy poor. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 23, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 18:30
|
|
|
Eccles posted:
Adagio does the same. I don't drink as much tea as some of you folks, but I do try to get a decent bang for my buck. The one I like the most right now is an herbal tea that's $0.32 per cup, but since I steep it at least twice it's more like $0.16.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2019 19:06
|
|
|
Little Red Cup is pretty hard to beat on value, at least for online vendors that have a reasonable free shipping option. Their stuff isn't blow-you-away good, but it's very solid for the price. also a note of caution: upton/adagio's per-cup estimations are always for western-style brewing with one tiny teabag per pot left to steep for like five minutes, which is perfectly reasonable for robust CTC-type teas intended for milk and sugar, but probably not for nicer greens/oolongs
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2019 22:13
|
|
|
1 Kg of Yunnan "Black Gold Bi Luo Chun" for 54 USD with promo code BT10. That's my sweet-spot price/quality wise. https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/black-tea-spring-2019/products/yunnan-black-gold-bi-luo-chun-black-tea?variant=3279220178965
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2019 13:29
|
|
|
thotsky posted:China is by far the easiest country to shop from, as they routinely lie on their customs declaration and for some reason it's the only type of package that the post is willing to cram into my mailbox. I've had $200+ parcels of tea from China labeled as a free sample gift worth less than $5 more than once.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2019 17:31
|
|
|
just bumping to say that this thread is probably the last tea-related sanctuary that is not completely infected with marketing at this point. even the loving pu-erh tea club-group on facebook has succumbed to letting websites post as humans now
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2019 14:54
|
|
|
I have most of the tea company emails go to a special place where I don’t have to delete them manually. There are a few that are much less invasive that send maybe one or two a month. I like those. My wife is in Shanghai for work right now and one of the people in the office called her friend who brings her tea down from the mountain. I believe it’s tea they grow themselves, so I’m looking forward to whatever it ends up being. My wife didn’t know what or where, but I will share the info when it arrives. They’re writing it down so it doesn’t get lost in the unreliable source that tends to be my wife’s memory about things she doesn’t care about.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 03:39
|
|
|
gamingCaffeinator posted:Adagio does the same. I don't drink as much tea as some of you folks, but I do try to get a decent bang for my buck. The one I like the most right now is an herbal tea that's $0.32 per cup, but since I steep it at least twice it's more like $0.16. I accidentally bought this assam CTC irish breakfast blend instead of some single estate assam one time and it's become my breakfast tea of choice. I keep trying to upgrade to fancier tea but I always end up going back to this. It's tasty, strong, never bitter, and holds up to milk and multiple steepings, at ~10 cents per cup
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 15:03
|
|
|
Yeah, the one I mentioned is not as good of a deal if you drink exclusively or mostly gong fu style. There is only about three good steeps in it, so if you do more I would go for something more refined like a golden needle.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 15:21
|
|
|
poverty goat posted:It's tasty, strong, never bitter, and holds up to milk and multiple steepings, at ~10 cents per cup Not like I can't just add a sample to my next Upton order of course 
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 18:49
|
|
|
I just made two decent orders. From Harney & Sons: - Supreme Breakfast - Paris - Chocolate - English Breakfast - Pumpkin Spice HT - Vanilla Comoro And from Upton: - Organic Wiry Green Tea - North Tukvar Estate First Flush - New Zealand Oolong - Premium China Yunnan TGFOP - Yunnan Golden Monkey Supreme - Japanese Sencha - Organic English Breakfast Blend - British Blend Sampler - China Yunnan Rare Grade Anything I should look at for my next batch? I’ve never experienced Oolongs or Pu Erhs. Nor have I had any white teas that weren’t pomegranate flavoured. Or matcha. Direct me, my friends. My wallet is yours.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 23:22
|
|
|
Is there anywhere comparable in price to Adagio that you guys would suggest? I’m in the mood to branch out a bit even though I really like their tea.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 23:38
|
|
|
^^start trying oolongs to start. Pu’erh if you like fermented things that run a wide earthy variety depending on age and a bunch of other factors. Aside from teavanna no longer existing, the list in the OP is still pretty good. As for recommendations, you’d need to say what you like for anyone to give you a better idea. Don’t shop in India if you only like Japanese green teas basically.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 00:44
|
|
|
I buy most of my tea from Uptontea.com. I second the endorsement of the Upton CTC Irish Breakfast Tea. It holds it's own compared to fancy single estate Assam teas. I was really impressed with my first purchase from yunnansourcing.com - definitely going to be buying from them again. Between Upton and Yunnan Sourcing you can certainly find some great teas for not much money. Eccles fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jun 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 02:17
|
|
|
I like Teabox a lot for Indian teas. Good prices, good quality, good online descriptions, tons of variety.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 17:35
|
|
|
Picked up some puerh and a Taiwanese oolong at Palais de thes last time I was in Oslo. Basically an experiment to check the quality, now that I’ve had a lot of different stuff and know the lay of tea land a bit better. The ripe pu was ok I guess, but surprisingly tasteless and pretty bland. Totally drinkable though, but got few steeps out of it. The oolong was straight up bad, basically 50% stems and sour taste... Just ordered some “pu”/fermented teas from Laos and Thailand, from the seller I mentioned earlier. Very pricy per gram, but haven’t seen this stuff in the vendors I usually use + ordered sample sizes. We’ll see how it turns out. Currently enjoying some young sheng. The yixing pot I picked up a while back takes the bitter edges off it’s taste: 
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 20:55
|
|
|
Very nice.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 21:13
|
|
|
I think it's about time to start making iced tea for the summertime. Do you guys have a preferred type of tea, or method for making it? Personally, I like herbal iced teas, but cold-brewing them in the fridge doesn't always work. Cold-brewed black tea is so smooth and clean-tasting though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 23:41
|
|
|
gamingCaffeinator posted:I think it's about time to start making iced tea for the summertime. Do you guys have a preferred type of tea, or method for making it? I brew them at least double strength (and usually triple strength). Dump one mug of tea into one 12oz glass filled with ice. Most of the ice melts, the tea chills, and it's perfect. I really love Harney & Son's Birthday Tea iced. Plus it's decaf so I can have it all day long. Just about any fruit-based herbals are good too. I especially like them if they have a lot of orange peels or rosehips. I'm moving away from Adagio teas generally but their Dewey Cherry and Blood Orange are fantastic when iced.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2019 02:21
|
|
|
gamingCaffeinator posted:I think it's about time to start making iced tea for the summertime. Do you guys have a preferred type of tea, or method for making it? Anything oolong is good, and most black teas. Earl grey for some reason, doesn't work for me. I don't know why. If you happen to be in or near Canada, they have a store called Bulk Barn that has a fantastic and cheap Tropical Coconut Mango Oolong that cold brews amazingly well. I've also had good luck with a Mon's Blend style of tea that some of the cheaper places sell. Near as I can tell, it's just black tea with a couple different yellow flowers in it, but I never remember the flower names. But it's smooth and mellow and slightly sweet and perfect on a hot day. In general, I tend to shy away from green or white teas when cold brewing, unless I'm blending them with black teas. Stay away from hibiscus, since it tends to brew very bitter, imo. Anything sweet, so fruit teas or most floral teas, should be pretty good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2019 02:42
|
|
|
neogeo0823 posted:
Absolutely. As cool as cold brewing is for black tea, I've yet to find a situation where it has better results with green or white tea than just brewing some a bit lighter than usual and chilling it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2019 22:47
|
|
|
Canadian customs has held my Upton Tea Order for almost a week now. I just want it already.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2019 21:09
|
|
|
I'm going to Montreal this weekend for my birthday and I'm very excited to revisit Ming Tao Xuan. Last time we were up there, my fiancee and I had some incredible teas, and a really good chat with the owners. I'm thinking about treating myself to some of their teaware this weekend, and definitely grabbing some of their red teas and pu-erhs for my stash.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2019 14:23
|
|
|
  So, this is what was brought back from China. Apparently, the person just wechat's her friend in the mountains when she runs out. It's delicious and amber in color. Slightly sweet, and the leaves unfurl beautifully. It steeps 3-4 times without much difference in extraction. I haven't gone past that yet, but it may go further. Not entirely sure what it is, but definitely some golden tips.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2019 15:23
|
|
|
Teavivre reshipped my order when it returned to them because of a wrong address. I got them a year after ordering (I had given up and assumed that Philippine customs ate it). The Premium Dragon Well one was really good...
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2019 03:31
|
|
|
Schneider Heim posted:Teavivre reshipped my order when it returned to them because of a wrong address. I got them a year after ordering (I had given up and assumed that Philippine customs ate it). The Premium Dragon Well one was really good... I order 4-8oz of that Premium Dragon Well every year. It's pretty awesome. They have a Pi Lo Chun that I also really liked.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2019 05:28
|
|
|
Schneider Heim posted:Teavivre reshipped my order when it returned to them because of a wrong address. I got them a year after ordering (I had given up and assumed that Philippine customs ate it). The Premium Dragon Well one was really good... Holy poo poo, they ship to the Philippines? Now I'm tempted to order.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2019 06:02
|
|
|
effika posted:
I made a huge glass of the Grunt fandom blend (apple, fruit melange, mango medley) and I'll be damned if it doesn't taste like Kool-Aid. I'm gonna have to try the Blood Orange at some point, because that sounds amazing. Adagio has a storefront decently close to where I live, and everyone there is really nice. It's just easy to get nice things from there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2019 20:13
|
|
|
I'm looking to buy a thermos or carafe to keep my water hot when I do gong-fu tea so that I don't have to keep putting the kettle on. Unfortunately, there are a bewildering variety of thermoses and most of them seem to not be very good. Does anyone have a carafe rec?
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 13:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 18:50 |
|
|
Strange Cares posted:I'm looking to buy a thermos or carafe to keep my water hot when I do gong-fu tea so that I don't have to keep putting the kettle on. Unfortunately, there are a bewildering variety of thermoses and most of them seem to not be very good. Seconding any thermos recs, especially for outdoor tea brewing
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 14:09
|
|
