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Trip report: Jasmine 1st Grade tea is pretty good. It's different. The flower flavor is definitely there but not nearly as "in your face" as the eternal life blend I have with jasmine blossoms just straight up in there. Definitely enjoyable. I might have to spring for a temperature kettle here at some point. I generally just go by the rules of thumb based on the type of boil, but that's a bit inconsistent. To try still, I have a pinhead gunpowder that is supposedly pretty good. We'll see how it stands against temple of heaven gunpowder.
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Nov 12, 2012 17:42
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There is a super easy way to remove stain and residue from tea things and that is white vinegar. Vinegar dissolves the residue leaving the thing like new. Just pour the vinegar into the pot, put the filter in there, and wait for a few minutes, then you can gently rub with a rag and external buildup will come right off. Pour it out and rinse it and the stains are gone too. I feel like I'm pitching an as seen on TV product, so if you call today, you can also use this to remove coffee stains from cups and pots.
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Nov 14, 2012 23:20
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nwin posted:For example, the Chinese crewed ships I've been on normally serve me a type of green tea 99% of the time. Is this best to drink plain? It seems that's the way it's usually offered. However, I think on ships with an Indian crew, I get some kind of black tea? Chinese and Japanese typically drink green tea. They are slightly different, but you drink both these teas straight, no sugar/milk. Honey is acceptable in small amounts. I've seen it commercially mixed with ginseng, honey, and lemon but I think this is a pretty strictly American thing aiming to get a more American palate. India is the origin of most black teas, so that makes sense. India's tea culture started from the English though, and the English take it with milk and sugar usually, so you can certainly do that. Black teas are very heavy on tannins and can upset stomachs. A little dash of tea is enough to fix this though. If you drink Scotch whisky, I would recommend applying your developed palate towards green teas because they generally have very subtle and delicate flavors that can only be tasted at certain temperatures and such. It's really fascinating. Edit: On the note of making it in milk and such, there probably aren't many Tibetan sailors, but in Tibet and parts of Nepal, and now in Northern India, black tea is commonly made directly in yak butter. That poo poo is super sweet but god it's like drinking straight up melted butter. I really wish it was more tea and less butter. It was like drinking, well, melted butter. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Nov 24, 2012 |
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Nov 24, 2012 04:14
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I don't like very hot drinks so I let mine cool too long usually. I don't like it cold either though. So I kinda wait then sip furiously. I drink green tea straight up in all circumstances because I get off on complexity of flavor as much as anything else, and adding honey to green tea overpowers it usually. Black tea I usually take with milk because otherwise it upsets my stomach. I also usually add a teaspoon or so of honey. If I'm in the UK I just take a few lumps of brown sugar.
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Nov 25, 2012 05:34
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You could always drink iced coffee?
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Nov 25, 2012 14:24
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Is it an option to just let them go on to the next cup without you? Unless you're sampling I shouldn't see that as a problem, but then I'm unfamiliar with a lot of tea etiquette. What culture are you in, anyhow? I fear your method for cooling it resembles "playing with your food" and that cooling your tea in this way is somewhat juvenile. If you really must cool it in a hurry, asking for an ice cube would be less offensive I think. Edit: Bring a copper spoon and use it as a heat sink? Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Nov 26, 2012 |
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Nov 26, 2012 04:22
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Ulgress posted:That feels like it might both dilute the tea below its brewing flavor and cool it far too much. (Not criticizing your solution, sorry, just feels like there's still something even better I'm missing.) The more I think about this, if you have a normal cup and saucer type arrangement, you don't actually have to put the ice in the tea. Put it on the saucer touching the tea cup and it will cool it without diluting it unless it's a Turvis tumbler.
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Nov 28, 2012 03:14
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I'm quite confused sometimes about the times people are steeping things. I usually go between 2 to 3 minutes, with gunpowders and Darjeeling green getting 2:45 and sencha and lighter greens getting only about 2:15. I do that at 175, which I can now accurately get thanks to a new teakettle that does temperature. Am I ruining tea left and right? I've always gone by a sort of 1-2 minute white, 2-3 minute green, 2-4 minute oolong, and 5 minute black loose algorithm, with consideration for manufacturer instructions, but I tend to use pretty small amounts (1.5 tsp for a 22oz pot). It's always come out in what I consider well, but I'd hate to imagine I'm Doing It Wrong and missing a whole world of awesome taste sensations. What's the story here?
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Jan 6, 2013 20:55
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Kettle or pot? These are two separate things usually. The kettle is only for boiling water, and so it's okay if it's metal and beat up looking. It doesn't usually have tea in it and is mainly just for making water hot and then pouring it into the teapot. The tea pot is where the steeping happens. Glass tea kettles are very cool because they let you see the bubbles so you can roughly gauge temperature. Is she a very traditional person? If she prefers winging it and watching, a glass tea kettle would make a very cool gift. If you think she would prefer the convenience of modern technology, there are electric teakettles that can heat water to a desire temperature and maintain that temperature, with a variety of other features sometimes. These are also a very cool thing. As for Harry Potter themed teas, that sounds ace. Even if the teas are terrible, there is enjoyment to be had in just trying them out, so if they're themed that's pretty cool. This is a good idea.
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Jan 14, 2013 04:29
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I love lapsang souchong. As a former whisky drinker, it really does give me the smoke and fire I miss from peated Scotches. It lacks a bit of mouthfeel, but that's alright. Milk oolong on the other hand has awesome mouthfeel. I almost wonder if I couldn't blend milk oolong with lapsang souchong to make a steepable whisky.
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Feb 4, 2013 16:57
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I recently got to sample an Indie Teas blend called Dark Energy, consisting of lapsang souchong, pu'erh, and oolong. It was excellent and I drank through my sample pouch immediately. I have found that just blending my loose lapsang souchong and milk oolong does a pretty good job though. It's dark and smokey but the milk makes it much smoother and less in your face, and it also seems to have less of the tannins that upset my stomach from raw lapsang souchong, possibly because I'm steeping it at 185F for ~2:45. Edit: Oolongs are characteristically reinfusable. I would describe the second infusion as usually being a little more sweet, but yes, oolongs are a tea that absolutely can be resteeped 3-4 times versus some that don't like reinfusion so much (I resteep everything all day pretty much, but most of what I drink can stand up to 2-3 steepings). Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 16:23
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Shnooks posted:Just mentioning Steepster again as I just joined and I think it'd be pretty cool to look at what teas everyone else is trying. I'm no tea aficionado yet but I've left a few reviews and I'm going to load up my shopping list. I've been using Steepster for a while but haven't tried a lot of new stuff lately so it's a bit stagnant on my end. Still, I'm following you now.
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May 27, 2013 04:36
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One thing with tasting notes is that different things taste different to different people. I used to be heavy into whiskies, which offer a huge range of potential flavors per dram, but the tasting notes were always mainly loose guidelines of the blatantly obvious things (by Jove, this sherry cask whisky tastes like sherry!) and really bizarre obscure things (and there is a subtle hint of Corinthian leather and jelly babies). Things like "chocolate and malt" usually mean in that context a kind of heady dirtiness, like cocoa rather than like what we think of when we think of chocolate. When I detect a chocolatiness, and I'm not eating chocolate, it's usually the darker, bitterer qualities of chocolate that make me think chocolate - else it could be something else sweet, like sugar or honey or somesuch. But in general, it's not just the tasting notes that differ, but the expression the person uses. Humans have a weird way of honing in on flavors, smells, and sensations that is eerily accurate from person to person, (abdominal aortic aneurysm is invariably reported as a "tearing" sensation because there are only stretch receptors in the abdominal aorta, but still, it's funny that a person who has never been torn asunder would know what that feels like to recognize it), but they still differ in things like taste because people have different acuity to different specific flavors. Some people can "detect" bitter (or whatever) better than others, due to specific configurations of taste receptors. So basically, don't get caught up too much in looking for what other people taste, they're really only there for a guideline to help people who are looking for a specific set of flavors. Lapsang souchong is reported as "smoky, like campfire and cigars" and I honed in on it because that reminds me of my favorite Scotch from my drinking days, but I don't get the same smoke as that, maybe because I have too much exposure to different varieties of smoke flavor, or maybe because the guy who wrote that description doesn't have the same exposure, or whatever. Basically look at tasting notes as guides to help you decide what you want to try, but not as definitive metrics to meet. It's been shown in testing that wine tasters have panned one glass and praised another despite the wine being from the same exact bottle, just based on presentation. There's just not much objectivity to tasting notes. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Aug 4, 2013 |
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Aug 4, 2013 16:44
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 04:46 |
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Comic posted:I've mixed a bit of scotch into a hot cup of lapsang souchong for an extra smoky alcoholic drink, but I wouldn't recommend it if you don't want to drink a fireplace. Also don't use any nice scotch for it that's a waste. Funny you should mention because lapsang souchong when I discovered it brought me great joy. I am a big fan of single malt Scotch whisky but have stopped drinking. I was so pleased to discover that in tea I could still enjoy the smokey flavors. It's not quite a good Lagavulin, but it's an approximation.
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Dec 9, 2013 06:08
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