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I was gifted some very expensive ($25/oz) Taiwanese Songboling Baozhong oolong that I've had sitting for a couple weeks waiting for the chance to brew it, and I finally got to have it the other day. I'm mostly pretty married to my green teas, but this stuff was shockingly good. I ended up getting four pots of it brewed up during the day and it never tasted quite the same twice. The first brew had kind of a woody forest floor note to it that faded into the aftertaste of honey and coated the mouth and throat. Every subsequent brew just got sweeter and sweeter as the woodiness gave way to a lavender-like floral bouquet and accentuated the honey flavors, and the tea got more and more golden as I steeped. I have enough left for another session, but I've just ordered a proper gaiwan for some gongfu style brewing, which I haven't been able to do at home before. I will get some photos then, but it needs to be on a day when I've got time to sit and drink it all day long.
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May 14, 2020 01:13
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Yeah, Taiwanese Oolongs are pretty magical.
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May 14, 2020 04:24
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I half heartedly checked a vendor in the OP and they didn't have anything that wasn't literally tea. Is there a go to spot for herbal "tea"? I'm mostly just addicted to valerian root/spearmint/chamomile/passion flower teas before bed and I don't much care how they taste. I mostly just want to drink warm stuff before bed without caffeine that may or may not make you sleepy/relaxed as inexpensively as possible. Real big fan of muna mint tea as well.
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May 20, 2020 04:13
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Heath posted:I was gifted some very expensive ($25/oz) Taiwanese Songboling Baozhong oolong that I've had sitting for a couple weeks waiting for the chance to brew it, and I finally got to have it the other day. I'm mostly pretty married to my green teas, but this stuff was shockingly good. I ended up getting four pots of it brewed up during the day and it never tasted quite the same twice. The first brew had kind of a woody forest floor note to it that faded into the aftertaste of honey and coated the mouth and throat. Every subsequent brew just got sweeter and sweeter as the woodiness gave way to a lavender-like floral bouquet and accentuated the honey flavors, and the tea got more and more golden as I steeped. I have enough left for another session, but I've just ordered a proper gaiwan for some gongfu style brewing, which I haven't been able to do at home before. I will get some photos then, but it needs to be on a day when I've got time to sit and drink it all day long. Heck yes! If any of y'all want some free oolong, puer, white, or red tea just say so. I'm also working on what started as a small blog post on gongfu tea for beginners and is now starting to look like a small novel. Hopefully it will be ready to share in a day or two.
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May 20, 2020 06:11
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Marzzle posted:I half heartedly checked a vendor in the OP and they didn't have anything that wasn't literally tea. Is there a go to spot for herbal "tea"? I'm mostly just addicted to valerian root/spearmint/chamomile/passion flower teas before bed and I don't much care how they taste. I mostly just want to drink warm stuff before bed without caffeine that may or may not make you sleepy/relaxed as inexpensively as possible. Real big fan of muna mint tea as well. The reason you’ll be disappointed with those vendors is that they primarily sell tea, which is the name of the plant and the drink that the plant makes. There was a push by herbal ‘tea’ marketing ages ago to call their sleepy time drink tea, but it’s not particularly accurate. You want something like https://www.starwest-botanicals.com/category/bulk-herbs/ where they sell bulk dried herbs that you can steep and drink the infusion. There might be cheaper options out there, but I’ve used a few things from that supplier and I’ve liked what I ordered. Search for bulk dried herbs and you’ll probably find a good number of options.
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May 20, 2020 06:26
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Jhet posted:The reason you’ll be disappointed with those vendors is that they primarily sell tea, which is the name of the plant and the drink that the plant makes. There was a push by herbal ‘tea’ marketing ages ago to call their sleepy time drink tea, but it’s not particularly accurate. My "tea" needs, met in one webstore at last!
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May 20, 2020 15:43
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All the non-tea “teas” are usually called tisanes. If you see a tisane category in a tea shop, that’s the stuff you’re after  I really like mint tea. Very nice with some honeyBought a bunch of dancong recently, but I guess i won’t receive it for another two months or so if the shipping delays continue... hopefully I’ll have some new tea to drink soon. Almost out of the good alishan oolong I had, and after that the only nice teas I have left are puerhs. Not a good summer tea imho (even though summer is still far off here...)
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May 20, 2020 16:08
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I have officially entered the world of home gongfu brewing and am loving it
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May 20, 2020 20:14
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Heath posted:I have officially entered the world of home gongfu brewing and am loving it hell yeah. what'd you brew?
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May 20, 2020 23:28
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Marzzle posted:I half heartedly checked a vendor in the OP and they didn't have anything that wasn't literally tea. Is there a go to spot for herbal "tea"? I'm mostly just addicted to valerian root/spearmint/chamomile/passion flower teas before bed and I don't much care how they taste. I mostly just want to drink warm stuff before bed without caffeine that may or may not make you sleepy/relaxed as inexpensively as possible. Real big fan of muna mint tea as well. I bought a dehydrator and murdered a lot of nettles earlier this year. It's very comforting to just chuck some in a cup and drink.
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May 20, 2020 23:58
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Karenina posted:hell yeah. what'd you brew? Some nice dark shou puerh that I forgot the actual name of. Had some very rich dark chocolate notes and a bit of roastiness. It was given to me as a sample and I was just waiting for my gaiwan to arrive to try it. Gonna have to get some more.
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May 21, 2020 00:37
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Nettle Soup posted:I bought a dehydrator and murdered a lot of nettles earlier this year. It's very comforting to just chuck some in a cup and drink. Username post combo here. I can never get anyone to actually let me make them nettle soup though. They’re always scared because it stings them when it hasn’t been put in hot water.
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May 21, 2020 05:00
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It feels weird, the fact I haven’t bought tea once this year. I’m out of some of my favorites, but every time I think about making an order I look my tea shelves and realize I still have enough tea to last the apocalypse. I bought so much tea last year. I’m running out of golden snail though, and the Canadian dollar is so poo poo it’s twice the price it was last year 
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May 21, 2020 05:16
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Sounds like you should drink more tea.
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May 21, 2020 05:26
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OK I have finished the wall of text version of my Beginner's Guide to Chinese Tea. You can read it here. Give me a week or two and I'll have it in wiki form with illustrations and videos. Your feedback is most welcome.
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May 22, 2020 20:19
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weird question, what do you guys think is the tea that most regular chinese restaurants serve you in the metal tea kettles? i had read somewhere that it was most likely to be tiguanyin which i tried, but that tasted noticeably different compared to chinese restaurant tea.
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May 22, 2020 20:36
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Futaba Anzu posted:weird question, what do you guys think is the tea that most regular chinese restaurants serve you in the metal tea kettles? i had read somewhere that it was most likely to be tiguanyin which i tried, but that tasted noticeably different compared to chinese restaurant tea. The vast majority of places serve you green jasmine tea. Some places will serve you oolongs, especially if they're authentic, but rarely something like TGY unless they're upscale. A budget medium roast maybe? thotsky fucked around with this message at 21:37 on May 22, 2020 |
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May 22, 2020 21:32
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thotsky posted:The vast majority of places serve you green jasmine tea. Some places will serve you oolongs, especially if they're authentic, but rarely something like TGY unless they're upscale. A budget medium roast maybe? ah yeah, i'm reading a lot more jasmine now that i'm checking more than one site. what would you guys recommend for that stuff, i've never bought it before
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May 22, 2020 22:06
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I wonder if that’s a regional thing. I’ve never had anything but oolongs at a Chinese restaurant in Massachusetts.
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May 22, 2020 22:10
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Futaba Anzu posted:ah yeah, i'm reading a lot more jasmine now that i'm checking more than one site. what would you guys recommend for that stuff, i've never bought it before Teavivre has some great Jasmine Dragon Pearls.
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May 22, 2020 23:53
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thotsky posted:Teavivre has some great Jasmine Dragon Pearls. Yeah, I got 500g of it by accident, and it’s good. And I’m saying that as someone who hates most jasmine tea. It’s nicely balanced
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May 23, 2020 00:30
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thotsky posted:Teavivre has some great Jasmine Dragon Pearls. nice, i searched jasmine and found this top 5 thing that has a good assortment of promising stuff so i picked it up https://www.teavivre.com/green-tea-sample-packs-top-sellers.html
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May 23, 2020 00:50
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Anonymous Robot posted:I wonder if that’s a regional thing. I’ve never had anything but oolongs at a Chinese restaurant in Massachusetts. Yeah, my experience in Washington is that if there's only one option, it's oolong.
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May 23, 2020 02:23
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California here, and most places it seems to be some sort of oolong, or something with a similar flavor profile. I've seen one or two places do chrysanthemum, though.
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May 23, 2020 05:39
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Death Vomit Wizard posted:OK I have finished the wall of text version of my Beginner's Guide to Chinese Tea. You can read it here. Give me a week or two and I'll have it in wiki form with illustrations and videos. Your feedback is most welcome. I read through a bit of it and it looks good aside from a couple typos and editing things. Good info. Where's your store located? I found the website but I didn't see a location listed. I've been watching a lot of this channel lately and I want to boost him a bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo8uqFIfTDQ He gives some extremely informative and technical explanations about the tea making process, the market in China, and info about the kinds of tea his farm makes. I really enjoyed seeing how a puerh is made and the kill-green process in motion as done by an "artisinal" small batch tea production outfit.
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May 23, 2020 06:01
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Awesome, I really appreciate it. I'll do a proofread. I'm in Taiwan! Moved here 12 years ago. Shipping via Taiwan Post is about 10 days to the west coast US, 20 days to the east coast. Well that was in the before times... My latest packages took double or triple that. Oh yeah, Farmer Leaf is great. Stories like his are one of the things telling me that Good Tea is going to blow up in the west sooner or later. Death Vomit Wizard fucked around with this message at 08:10 on May 23, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 07:58
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There's a preponderance of "tea shops" around that sell a ton of super spiced up herbal blends without a lot of actual tea in them. One of my co-workers brought in a ton that she had bought and was quite proud of them and every one of them was super overpriced "spiced" things - one was like 7 bucks for an ounce of hazelnut black that had some of the saddest little black tea leaves. I've been trying to educate my coworkers because I have been spoiled and am that guy now
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May 23, 2020 09:24
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Sunday morning tea flex LFG!
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May 24, 2020 03:37
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My partner looooves Tejava, but it's hard to get with the whole quarantine. Does anyone have any recommendations on what type of tea blend would be replicate that taste when iced?
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May 25, 2020 22:57
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I thought I'd share how I've been structuring my tea drinking on work days. I have a medium sized gaiwan at the office, 150 mL I think. I also have a small bowl to pour into/ sip from and an electic kettle. I throw in 6 grams of young sheng, and drink the first two steeps back to back. Then I just leave it on my desk to rest while I'm teaching. I have two breaks throughout the day when I come back to it and prepare/ drink a couple steeps each time. At quitting time, I throw the leaves into my thermos and fill it up with about 600mL of hot water to steep on my drive home. Once home I strain the tea into a jar and refrigerate over night. It's wonderful to wake up to in the morning. That's round the clock tea all on just 6 grams a day. I never thought I'd say this but I haven't drunk coffee in years.
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May 28, 2020 05:07
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I've never been a big coffee fan but I'm always surprised when people who really geek out over their coffee are completely unenthused by tea.
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May 28, 2020 05:31
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They’re really different flavor profiles and textures, but there is lots of overlap. I can see both points of view on it. I really enjoy both coffee and tea, and I’m really enjoying all the light roasts that have a lot of tea flavors that pop up. It’s just really amazing the amount of variation that both plants can produce. And tea, well, no need to preach about the breadth of product here.
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May 28, 2020 05:46
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I've been meaning to get back into tea drinking, so I went and placed an order with Adagio for one of their bottom-draining equipment pieces 'cause the one I'd bought from Teavana years ago was ruined. I had gotten some stuff as a gift from some coworkers but one had a lot of turmeric, which ended up staining my PerfecTea maker and leaving a lingering scent, so I didn't want to use that for anything else anymore. In the meantime I also started overnight cold-brewing some houjicha I'd bought from Hibiki-an last year. The Adagio stuff came in yesterday, and I think I'm already won over. When I was placing my order, they went ahead and included a couple of pouchong samplers upon meeting a spending threshold, which was pretty cool. Looking forward to sharing those with my mom, there's a papaya one and a coconut one. For myself, I ordered a couple of Wuyi oolongs, plus a maple creme oolong, which sounded rich as hell. The shipment ended up also coming with a little sampler packet of a peach white (which I ended up brewing as the first thing in the new tea maker) and a little box of stuff for that Communi-Tea program of theirs. I'm looking forward to having those next week.
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May 28, 2020 10:33
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My fiancée and I have been drinking a lot more tea lately all from generic teabags (shes a huge fan of peppermint ‘tea’ and our grocery store has it super cheap). I want to try some more real teas but don’t want to go all in on getting a gaiwan or even a teapot since our storage space is limited. Are tea sachets a good step up in quality? Or should I get a tea ball & loose leaf tea to make in my mug?
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Jun 2, 2020 09:26
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Get a tea ball that's big enough to let the leaves expand and brew it in a larger vessel of some kind that you can pour out of. You can brew tea in a drat measuring cup if you want, just be aware that anything that open will cool quickly. I'm not a fan of brewing in the same mug I'm drinking from.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:49
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I bought a pack of 100 tea bags from Daiso for something like $1.50 and I just use those when I'm lazy for looseleaf. 
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Jun 2, 2020 13:34
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Heath posted:Get a tea ball that's big enough to let the leaves expand and brew it in a larger vessel of some kind that you can pour out of. You can brew tea in a drat measuring cup if you want, just be aware that anything that open will cool quickly. I'm not a fan of brewing in the same mug I'm drinking from. May I ask why? I usually brew in a 16oz mug with a solid, finely perforated strainer that sits inside it, and I’ve never really understood the utility if a teapot outside of a group serving.
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Jun 2, 2020 13:42
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I'd argue against a ball because I've yet to use one which doesn't let bits of tea escape and make the whole experience a hassle. Especially the case with smaller stuff like rooibos. Plus, you can get an excellent mug-style infuser by Finum for about  My suggestion for testing purposes would be, in ascending order of quantity you'd have to commit to: sachets (I like Harney & Sons in particular), loose leaf sample packs, and then loose leaf in large quantities (tins, bags). That's also the decreasing order of cost per cup, but what are you gonna do...
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Jun 2, 2020 13:57
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Trabant posted:Plus, you can get an excellent mug-style infuser by Finum for about Quoted for emphasis because this is probably the perfect solution for someone wanting to try a bunch of tea. The infuser basket can be used for other herbal options if you end up not liking tea. Just give it to your other person with a big bag of dried peppermint leaves that you bought in bulk too. They’ll probably taste better than the bags there too.
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Jun 2, 2020 18:48
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Anonymous Robot posted:May I ask why? I usually brew in a 16oz mug with a solid, finely perforated strainer that sits inside it, and I’ve never really understood the utility if a teapot outside of a group serving. It allows you to control the ratio of tea leaf to water better - I tend to use a lot of leaf and I want to get proportional brews and the amount of water from a mug makes the tea too strong for my liking. A larger vessel allows for more water proportionally to more leaf, making for better flavor but not brewing too densely in the water. Again though, it does make more tea but if you're using something open in the absence of a pot it will cool faster, with the caveat that my go-to tea is greens brewed at lower temps so ynmv Heath fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 19:03
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