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DurianGray posted:I guess the only thing you might want to avoid is pu ehr? I like it personally, but it's pretty polarizing even among people who love different types of tea. It's basically a black tea that's left to... sort of rot or ferment for a while and then pressed into cakes (usually). It's got a really strong barnyard taste. Puerh starts out as maocha, so it's much closer to a green tea if you want to classify it that way. What you're describing sounds like cooked puerh (shu) which is piled like compost to simulate aged raw puerh (sheng). Bad cooked puerh is pretty disgusting, and even the good ones are an acquired taste. Puerh is a pretty insanely complicated subject when you get into the aged stuff, different types of storage, the limited (and skewed) selection available to Westerners, the bizarre quirks of the market in China, and other factors. I would avoid buying it from most Western stores that don't specialize in it, because you'll probably be buying crap, and paying a lot for the privilege.
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Sep 19, 2011 08:37
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Growing tea at home is certainly possible, but you're not going to get a usable amount from a little plant in a pot. Also, like coffee, the growing region (altitude, soil and weather conditions) has a massive impact on the quality and taste of the end product, so it won't be very good tea either. That's even assuming you're growing the correct varietal and you're familiar with the processing steps required to get drinkable tea (very different depending on the country of origin and style). Basically, grow a tea plant at home for novelty, not to make tea.
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Sep 19, 2011 20:02
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Spuckuk posted:Are bog-standard electric kettles not an everyday household item in the US/Canada then? Literally every house and office here has one, it's as essential as a toaster. It's bizarre, practically nobody over here uses an electric kettle. They all have kettles that heat on the range and usually permanently take up space there. I guess it's to do with the voltage, since 1000-1500W kettles are kind of anemic, but they're still really convenient. My grandfather and dad both always used to put a UK transformer adapter in new kitchens so we could run 3000W electric kettles.
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Sep 26, 2011 17:50
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It's been my experience that most Western stores calling Taiwan oolongs "Formosa" are not selling anything at all representative of the amazing variety of dong ding, baozhong, high mountain, etc. available. Something like this would probably be a good starting point for the more boutique high mountain oolongs. This store specializes in high quality Taiwan teas.jerman999 posted:My family is Chinese and whenever we would drink tea, we'd just throw leaves into a cup and pour water over it and keep refilling the same cup with water because...we didn't care so much. All this talk of steeping makes me feel like we've been doing it wrong...? http://www.marshaln.com/whats-grandpa-style/
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Sep 26, 2011 23:02
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Hummingbirds posted:Puh Er Dante I'm sorry your first experience with puerh had to be a lousy loose cooked tea. Adagio and other similar Western vendors are not the right source for puerh of any kind.
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Nov 8, 2011 09:43
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Devoyniche posted:Is there a good cheap gaiwan set that anyone knows of? What do you mean by "gaiwan set"?
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Dec 13, 2011 08:15
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DontAskKant posted:Has anyone played with the Korean traditional teas? From what I have seen they are ridiculously expensive even in Seoul. $25 for 15g? Are you talking about Korean traditional teas as in the numerous tisanes they drink, or actual tea? If the latter, Dao Tea is a good source.
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Dec 17, 2011 15:36
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ZombieParts posted:Cute little tea cups? Have you discovered Jindezhen porcelain yet? There aren't a whole lot of reliable sources for nice hand painted Jingdezhen available to Westerners. I can think of a few (mostly Chinese) stores that have some pieces, but the selection is pretty sparse, much like high quality yixing pots.
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Jan 3, 2012 18:06
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GrAviTy84 posted:If you really think about it, bingchas of young shengs aren't really that pricey. For instance, you can get a 357 g bingcha of 2007 Menghai 7532 for 31bux, which is a pretty tippy mix, from a well known factory, using an average of grade 3 leaves. 31 bux for tea may sound like a lot, but when you're only using 5g or so for a 100ml gaiwan, and you can do, like, 10 infusions for each 5 g, 357 g makes a lot of tea. Young sheng prices have been going up so fast you can often end up spending more on a 2011 cake than you would on an older version of the same cake. The puerh market is rife with speculation and other weird factors affecting prices. There is also more of a demand for the really fancy productions from companies like Hai Lang Hao, where a 2011 cake could be upwards of $300-400.
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Jan 15, 2012 07:48
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breaks posted:Mandarin's Tearoom, Tea Gallery, etc (in common: SF or NYC, high-end or at least trying to be); these are all really loving expensive places to buy tea for the most part. I don't think anyone who shops at MTR or Tea Gallery is looking for cheap oolong.
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Mar 20, 2012 05:41
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Admiral Goodenough posted:Want that mug. I can't find it on their site though? http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/mrh/mrh.html
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Mar 30, 2012 23:35
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aldantefax posted:As far as the ingenuiTEA pots and their like, I wouldn't recommend 'whacking' them on anything since they're somewhat fragile and can crack It's pretty easy to break off the plastic feet on this style of brewer. This makes it almost impossible to use because the valve mechanism depends on the brewer sitting on the feet, so it can be pushed partially open if one is missing.. Ask me how I know...
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May 20, 2012 21:34
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Lhet posted:You don't really need any equipment. I just put leaves and hot water in a cup, sometimes use a spoon to press leaves and make them sink, and drop the leaves in the trash when finished. Probably even lower effort than bags. But then he'd be "that guy who drinks loose leaf tea" and be shunned by his peers and become a penniless, alcoholic drug addict vagrant within six months. Eight months tops.
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May 30, 2012 01:56
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dragoat posted:Oolong is typically naturally decaffeinated correct? No, not at all. There is a wide variation in caffeine concentration from tea to tea, and it generally has nothing to do with the way it was processed.
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Aug 15, 2012 22:42
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Devoyniche posted:There are also people who say you can brew out the caffeine Brewing the caffeine out of tea also involves brewing the flavour out. Doing a five minute Western-style steep will remove a significant portion of the overall caffeine content, but it also necessarily removes the same amount of the tea flavour in general. A subsequent five minute steep will have a much lower caffeine concentration, but it's also going to be a hell of a lot weaker. I guess you can get a much lower amount of caffeine if you are happy with brewing your tea for five minutes and tossing the first infusion, but why even bother with tea at that point? The much-perpetuated myth of being able to rinse away all the caffeine in 30 seconds is nonsense, and I have to wonder about people who claim to be sensitive to caffeine and repeat this sort of thing. http://chadao.blogspot.ca/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and-reality.html This blog post takes some liberties with interpolating data from the paper, but I think you get the point.
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Aug 16, 2012 09:31
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:What would you recommend as one that can melt my face after sitting on a desk for 6 hours? Thermos Nissan JMW500P6 16-Ounce Stainless-Steel Backpack Bottle
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Aug 29, 2012 09:15
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Steve Yun posted:There's also this Bonavita for $90, although the one single review of it doesn't seem so hot So mostly "we received a broken kettle and didn't bother to exchange it, but we'll complain about it anyway like it isn't broken" and  TOXINS!!! The boiling point here is about 210F, and from what I recall the kettle had no problem figuring out it couldn't get to 212F, but I can certainly check again later. Could just be... broken.
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Dec 8, 2012 11:00
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This was always my go-to masala chai recipe: 6 cups water 1.5 cups milk generous pinch of saffron stick of cinnamon 18 cloves 24 cardamoms 28 peppercorns 1 star anise small knob of fresh ginger 3 tbsp assam tea 4 tbsp jaggery or raw sugar/whatever to taste Put the water on to boil. Roughly crush the cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, and microplane the ginger. Lightly crush the saffron and put it in the milk. Put the other crushed spices, ginger, and star anise in the boiling water, reduce heat, and boil/simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the milk, bring to a boil, and add the jaggery. Boil for a couple of minutes, then add the tea, stir, and remove from the heat. Cover for a few minutes. Strain through a tea strainer to drink.        
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Jan 13, 2013 02:53
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Bonus photo of this morning's Kaboku sencha from Ippodo.
Bob_McBob fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jan 13, 2013 |
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Jan 13, 2013 02:54
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Aoi and Yutaka Midori are reasonably good representations of the two major steaming/production styles.
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Jan 23, 2013 15:32
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Planning your tea drinking around supposed health benefits is retarded. Drink tea because you want to drink tea. If you are okay with the results with short brews of cold water, then drink it that way, but it may be very weak unless you really load it up. Cold water brewing is typically an overnight thing.
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Jan 24, 2013 23:18
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