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Just use a cheap electric water-boiler. I'd recommend buying it in person so you can open it up and make sure there aren't any plastic surfaces for the boiling water to touch. Where I live (asia), something like a simple boiler with a plug and using all-steel surfaces can be had for $5. Try thrift stores in different parts of your town maybe. Boil the water, switch it off, and set an egg timer. Assuming the ambient temperature in your home doesn't fluctuate wildly, you can probably just get used to waiting however-many seconds after full boil it hits ~180 at. When you brew tea a lot don't you get used to timing stuff, like steeping different teas for different amounts of time with water of different temperature? (I stole this technique from Alton Brown when he explained how to brew coffee at the right temp "easily" on Good Eats) I used to "burn" green tea when I was little - it does no justice to the tea's real flavor! Fortunately I almost always drink oolong, which can safely be blasted with freshly-boiling water (directly no less, whereas more fragile teas like green tea must have the water hit them incidentally, you pour onto the cup's wall instead.)
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Jan 3, 2012 05:37
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Springheel Jill posted:This Hiroshima-area company just opened a tiny shop here in Seattle (at University Village) Seattle is a pretty big hub for artisan Asian tea shops. I'd walk into all the tea leaf shops in town to drink samples. At that point choose your favorite style (Chinese/ Japanese/ Korean) and buy an appropriate starter pot so you can learn to make it loose leaf.
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Jan 3, 2012 07:58
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Devi posted:Speaking of Asian supermarkets--as someone with access to nice, affordable, totally great loose tea should I skip the tea aisle at Asian supermarkets or might there be something tasty and new? I'd think that as long as I can get what I want from a tea shop I should stick with that but maybe there's something in the market that my shop doesn't have. I strongly suspect that any supermarket will have poo poo tea leaves. That said, the supermarket is a sign that there is an asian community in your town. Maybe just walk up to the oldest person working in the store and ask if there are any tea stores in the area? If not, maybe you can find a vendor at a nearby flea-type market? One could go so far as to play around with google translate, searching the name of your town with the word "tea leaves" in various asian languages...
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Jan 4, 2012 02:11
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GrAviTy84 posted:TRIP REPORT Thanks for the nice pics/ report. What kind of pot do you plan to brew the Pu Er in? The reason I ask is that its strong smell will completely "take over" the pot. I'd recommend one pot for aged teas/ pu er/ black tea and a separate pot for oolong/ lighter teas (this includes your Tie Guan Yin). This way, your "lighter" type teas will begin to taste better and better as you season the pot through successive brews of only lighter teas. Of course, like all things tea prep, this is not the one and only opinion (but the majority of Taiwanese mostly drink light oolong and have a specially relegated pot for it). I also know a tea farmer who told me that that's all bullshit and I may as well just brew anything in anything. One view of pots that's a little more universally accepted is that Pu Er is best brewed in a thick walled vessel (I think most Zi Sha pots fit this description), whereas oolongs are better brewed from the thin walled variety. This has something to do with water temperature, but I don't really know more than "oolong should be brewed hot-as-poo poo and Pu Er shouldn't." Also, what is your opinion of sheng vs. shou Pu Er? And how many brews can you get out of the Pu Er you bought before the leaves are spent? The best thing about this kind of shop is sitting and bullshitting about tea all afternoon until the boss has gotten you tea-drunk. I recommend going back to the same guy again, cause he will know that you're a real customer and hopefully make even more tea next time.
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Jan 13, 2012 02:24
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GrAviTy84 posted:Pu Er chat I too have limited experience w/ Pu Er. I have been to two shops that specialize in Pu Er, and they both sell sheng. One of them sells young, and the other sells aged. From what I gather, young sheng has become trendy lately by necessity. Everyone wants the pu er from the "mao cha" kind of leaves(big, old, wild tea trees), and obviously there is only so much of the aged variety going around. The idea of drinking it before it's been aged is pretty new and controversial, but the people who jumped on that trend are really into it - and jesus can it be expensive. I've had a few different young shengs that were all cakes made by up and coming Taiwanese-teamaker-setting-up-shop-in-Yun Nan pu er companies, and I liked them all (though not enough to pay the exorbitant price for a cake of my own). The guys that run the aged pu er shop I go to do the funniest, snobbiest scoff imaginable as soon as the subject of young sheng is broached. Besides having tradition on their side - they point out that young sheng is really harsh on the stomach. Many tea drinkers turn to aged (or dark) teas to give their stomach a break - it's the belief of many that years of drinking light tea (high mountain oolong in Taiwan's case) will slowly kill your stomach. This is one of the appeals of aged tea, it is much milder on the stomach, so good pu er is traditionally the hobby of old tea heads who have made a switch from some other expensive, but stomach-killing variety. So anyway the old sheng proprietors, in their description of young sheng, openly pity the boss of the young sheng shop. Surely, they lament, he is rapidly killing his stomach drinking young sheng with customers all day, and surely he takes stomach medicine after closing shop every day. Can you take a picture of the chinese name of your pu er? I'm also curious what the guy told you about the pot you bought and how much it cost. Here's a picture of a small pear shaped yixing pot I've been using for my dark teas. I'm a little proud of my current setup. The steel plate is from my childhood camping set, and the little wooden stand ran me $2 at a flea market: 
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Jan 15, 2012 05:22
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GrAviTy84 posted:The pot was from a different shop, a random kitchen supply shop that carried other things like carbon steel woks and cleavers. It was GrAviTy84 posted:So I have now tasted aged raw pu erh Death Vomit Wizard fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jan 15, 2012 |
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Jan 15, 2012 12:30
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GrAviTy84 posted:It is wonderful. I'm always surprised how much oolongs unfurl in the cup. This tea has a fantastic floral and green aroma that jumps out of the cup. Subtly sweet, and lasted 3 infusions before starting to noticeably water down. I think I got about 6 infusions before I gave up on them, but then again I also didn't jam leaves into the gaiwan like some do.   Two leaves one heart; pluck pluck pluck. =D
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Jan 17, 2012 04:28
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dik-dik posted:In other news: a friend of mine bought me a green tea from Starbucks. How did they manage to make a green tea that tastes like fish? I have had green tea that tastes like fish too. It's probably not the leaves, but the water. If the water used to steep your green tea is TOO HOT, then out comes the fish taste. Here are some water temp suggestions: Green Tea Brewing Tips. aldantefax posted:In other news I am polishing off some Aged Oolong from Imperial Tea Court, which has a similar color of liquor to a puerh. As a bit of changing things up, I decided to use a fair cup to decant into a tasting cup roughly the size of a shot glass, going for fairly short but intense infusions. Pretty good so far! Here is a 32 year oolong (I don't know the further details) I just made.   This is actually the "shake" from the bottom of the "sack", but don't worry - it's all flavor country. For me, a really old tea is fun because it's mild enough to really steep the poo poo out of. You can make really strong tea that really has zero of those little bad tastes (or aftertastes) we know so well. In case anyone was wondering, pu erh and aged oolong do not taste similar. Playing with your taste buds is fun!
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Jan 18, 2012 04:18
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dik-dik posted:Good to know! Earlier today I managed to do the same thing to some green tea I was brewing and I was worried that I'd started going crazy or something. Thoht posted:this high mountain oolong. It's got to be one of my favorite teas I've tasted in quite some time. Fragrant aroma with sweet vegetal and floral notes typical of such teas. Rich, creamy taste with, again, striking sweet floral notes, very clean profile. Just really pleasant all-around and hits pretty much all the points I like in high-grown lighter oolongs. You can experiment with temperature all day, but some leaves are just gonna have some assy tastes goin on. As a rule of thumb, there is a dividing line between machine cut poo poo, and hand picked. The proof is in the pot after a steep or two. When I brew my oolong, I blast that poo poo with near boiling without any negative effects. We are not talking about green tea at all here (even if their website says to steep it at 180º) Consider ordering an even tinier amount of some other, much more expensive oolong. If that sounds agreeable, I'm sure someone can make suggestions. GrAviTy84 posted:Yixing selection. The small plain shui ping style ones are about 10bux. chomper posted:I got a Yixing (clay) tea pot as a gift... I haven't used it yet and was wondering what the best way to 'season' it is? Or do I not have to season it? Thot posted:dik-dik: I would actually suggest giving a little higher temperature a shot, like maybe 190F or so, if it's coming out tasting too much like the sea. I find that the lower temperature you go with greens, the more it tends to emphasize and bring out umami flavors, which while some find very desirable, I'm not a giant fan of.
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Jan 20, 2012 05:18
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GrAviTy84 posted:What? I'm not some super REAL Yixing TM DOP sperg or anything, but like, I was just trip reporting, not making any claims on the authenticity of the yixing. Anyway, is the tea made in a REAL Yixing TM DOP any different than tea brewed in a lolcounterfeit "yixing?" A good brew vessel should be neutral tasting (when new), so either the clay pot is neutral tasting, mildly absorbent, and used in the Yixing fashion to which I don't see the harm in calling it a "Yixing pot", or it's an awful pot that shouldn't be used. I am not saying that any pots suck or don't suck - honestly I don't think special clay would make any appreciable difference to someone at our level anyway. More important factors to consider are using a pot that has a good shape/thickness for the kind of tea you want to brew - considerations which don't preclude buying and enjoying a cheap pot. For light oolongs, I have had good experience with the standard fat, spherical shape (and thin wall). The pot you bought at the Chinatown shop is a perfect example of this style. Though I believe you mentioned that you might want to dedicate it to young shengs - a use it would be equally well suited to. I believe it's only with aged tea that a thicker-walled vessel is desirable. GrAviTy84 posted:What? Gunpowder is a green tea. This doesn't change the fact that I have become emotionally invested in dik-dik's struggle to enjoy his tea. Keep experimenting dik-dik! What kind of tea will you try next if it turns out you hate your current batch? ZombieParts posted:The reason there are 'well preserved pots' for next to nothing is because during the 1980s through 1990's Yixing was pumping out Yixing pots commercially left and right. The potters were by no means masters, they were just people doing a job and feeding a growing market in Japan and Taiwan. These pots mostly sit in warehouses and there are so many of the things it will blow your mind. "it's the old clay" is one of the most retarded sales pitches I've ever heard because it's all old clay. The stuff has been stockpiled in warehouses and artists go and select the grade they want for their various projects.  What do you look for in a pot? When people clink the pot and listen - what is signified by that high ringing sound? That the clay is high fired, or that it is high fired and also well crafted/ uniform? Is there some sort of book that lists the more popular chops that are stamped on the bottom of yixing pots? edit: Here's part 1 and part 2 of a really extensive guide to yixing pots and brewing kung fu tea I just found. Dik-dik, I am surprised to hear about the Formosan Jade oolong. According to your link, it is a Dong Ding oolong - which should have a very straight-up oolong taste. It may or may not have been given that charcoal roasted taste, but I can't imagine it having any kind of fishiness??? Ah, the mysteries of the tongue. I would suggest trying the oolong again after not having drunken any green tea for a couple days. Death Vomit Wizard fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jan 21, 2012 |
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Jan 20, 2012 19:22
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GrAviTy84 posted:I cracked a new bingcha last night. Pear shaped 180ml Brown-red One big hole for mouth, fast pour.     The stamp, that simply says "Yixing China", was supposedly used by Factory #1 in Yixing starting some time in the 80s(?) Shui ping 220ml Red One big hole for mouth, fast pour.     Unfortunately I can't read this stamp because the character forms are arcane. This one is less dense. It is actually a couple grams lighter than the much smaller 180ml. Both pots have lids that fit slightly imperfectly. Both pots fail the "water flow stops when top is plugged" test and the "lid stays on when pot is tilted to 90°" test. Neither lid is stamped. Anyone care to help me appraise these guys? And what pics post would be complete without some leaves?! These are spring(?) 2003(?) Da hong pao (from Wuyi) I just acquired.  This one is apparently of the more-roasted variety, which I imagine is more conducive to long term storage than the less-roasted kind (my vendor was also selling a less-roasted Da hong pao that is from 2011). On a separate note, it never ceases to amaze me how many vastly different teas can all be in the Oolong family.
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Jan 28, 2012 20:56
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GrAviTy84 posted:On the off chance someone here is interested and lives in New York, I'll post this. I'm going to be doing the private puer class at the Mandarin's Tea Room this Saturday, and there are 2 more slots available. It is $85pp. PM me if you are interested.  )ZombieParts posted:I can only assume that the tea had molded or partially rotted during the drying process. At any rate, it left a sour smell in one of my Yixing pots that didn't just rinse out with the half liter of hot water I had on hand.
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Feb 9, 2012 02:29
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Goddamn posted:Keep in mind that tea, in general, is cheap, and is, in general, consumed heavily by people in pretty poor economic situations. While I'm not saying "don't ever be suspicious of anything", taking the "cheap = dubious" train of thought too far can get you ripped off by people who just up-sell a huge margin on the same leaves with a fancier name/package. On this note, I'd love to hear about "grocery store teas" that exceeded expectations. If anyone wants to share, posting photos of the package here would be really awesome! But consider this: one of the steps that all teas goes through is drying outside under the sun. During this stage, bad things can and do happen to tea leaves (according to some tea farmers I talked to). Think: dogs and chickens walking around over the leaves. This is why you should never forget to do the first brew rinse.
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Feb 14, 2012 02:44
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pork never goes bad posted:I also bought some Iron Goddess Oolong. The oolong is revelatory. I thought I didn't like oolong tea. I thought I only really liked black tea! I hate this loving thread, the oolong was like $40/lb and on the cheap end. I'm reading tea blogs now. Confusingly enough, not only are there many many different styles of oolong, Iron Goddess itself is a name that is applied to teas ranging from pale yellow (barely oxidized), to reddish in color. If you tell me which kind you have, I can give you a more specific recommendation for further oolong exploration. If yellow (less oxidized), try Taiwanese high mountain teas like "DaYuLing" or "LiShan" (not the similarly named ALiShan, which can be good too, but is much more likely to be shwag). Those two teas have the highest elevation for growing. The best leaves are certified grown above x meters. Sometimes 2800m+. If you like oolong that is on the bleeding edge of green tea in terms of processing, the most popular mountains are the tallest. If red (more oxidized), DaHongPao and other WuYi rock teas are popular. Also try Oriental Beauty, and other Honey oolongs. They don't use honey to make it. There's a little bug that starts eating the leaf (whose body transfers some pollen onto the leaf). Also, the tea plant releases a chemical to repel the bug. The good-tasting chemical ends up in the tea. Also consider aged oolongs...
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Feb 24, 2012 05:37
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Dick Smegma posted:For making tea Gongfu style, is there any common household dishware that can replicate a Gaiwan? You can't replicate a gaiwan, but you'd do well to enjoy your tea Grandpa Style.
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Feb 28, 2012 03:33
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pork never goes bad, you are keeping this thread awesome! I have only ever learned about tea from the Chinese perspective, so cheers for the very informative (and in my case refreshing) Indian tea explanation. aldantefax, that was a great report. I watched a traditional Japanese ceremony at a tea festival in Taiwan last year, and I nearly fell asleep from boredom (I was in an audience watching the ceremony take place on stage). Did Mr. Tanaka's ceremony also have that slow-motion-movements quality? I know the Chinese gong fu ceremony can be really slow and deliberate too, but the way my acquaintances make tea is more natural, not really slow. Similarly, I have attended two Korean ceremonies: one was in a home and casual, one was at the expo and very slow/ deliberate, like the host was doing zen meditation. What do y'all call the the little pitcher that many people use in gong fu tea, when you pour the tea from the teapot? Most people in Taiwan drink light oolongs and use a cheap glass pitcher. Recently, when I started exploring puerh, I learned that some people use an actual teapot for the pitcher (a bigger one than the "brewing" teapot). Do any of y'all do that? Or, what is your pitcher thing made of?
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Mar 7, 2012 05:12
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aldantefax posted:Presumably this is similar using a cha hai in order to blend steeps which would otherwise taste somewhat rough or over bitter. It depends on what the brewing teapot would be, but decanting to another pot for serving will prevent oversteeping and the like as well. Ya, it's definitely for the same function. The way the puerh guys explained it to me was that when making aged teas, it's better to let the different steeps mix together. So their "second" teapot was actually bigger than a typical cha hai. Whereas a small cha hai is suitable for an oolong because with oolong you're supposed to enjoy all the tea from each steep before pouring the next.
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Mar 7, 2012 16:02
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If you want to buy oolong, you may want to wait about 1 month. That's because the year's spring tea always gets to market just after Tomb Sweeping Day (a holiday in early April). If you want lighter, non-roasty oolongs, fresher is better, so I'd hold out for the spring 2012 batch. If you want a roasty kind, then it doesn't matter so much. Either way, spring oolongs are (generally) the most highly regarded, followed by winter. Be wary of vendors that can't tell you what season (or mountain for that matter) the oolong is from. I can't help with online recommendations, as I don't have any experience ordering online, but here are some key words you can look for if you want to try the best Taiwanese tea: High Mountain Varieties(lightly oxidized): Da Yu Ling* (a mountain) Li Shan* (a mountain) Shan Lin Shi (an area) Baozhong (a style, tied to an area) Jinxuan (a style) A Li Shan (a wider area - only buy A Li Shan from a vendor whom you know sells quality) If you want the high mountain, lighter variety, avoid teas whose origin simply says Nantou. The elevation there is just too low for this style. *Da Yu Ling and Li Shan are THE BEST. Good Roasty Varieties: Dong Ding Honey Aroma Oriental Beauty For roasty varieties, high elevation is not a factor, so the origin is no indication of quality (or lack thereof). Nantou has a lot of great Dong Dings, for example. It seems that you can buy a lot of these at Hou De or Tea Masters. Also, try looking up the vendors from the list aldantefax included in his SF Tea Fest write up. Warning: slight spelling variations abound in the world of transliterated Chinese words. So, for example, a web site may refer to a tea as Dong Ding OR Tung Ting. I'll be happy to help if you have specific questions.
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Mar 8, 2012 02:21
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GrAviTy84 posted:TRIP REPORT! And how do you like your Alishan Jinxuan? As I said before, I personally avoid Alishan teas unless I am specifically recommended one, just because the name Alishan includes such a wide range of qualities. I have a 2011 spring Jinxuan from Hehuanshan (He Huan mountain) that I love though. The two best high mountain oolong varieties -as reflected by those price tags- are in your other photo. The right-most jar (Da Yu Ling), and the jar next to it (Li Shan). Did you get to try either of those? You should go back in a few weeks after the spring teas have arrived. Tomb Sweeping (Qingming) Day is this Wednesday, so here in Taiwan that means 2012 spring oolongs will start hitting the market next week. I'm not sure about the U.S. arrival times.
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Apr 2, 2012 04:23
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Thanks for the great pics. Come to think of it, I haven't tried any "tea leaves + flowers" teas. Does the oolong taste not completely mask the rose taste? Also, have you gotten the oolong leaves to unfurl all the way yet? They still look half-balled in your last pic.
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Apr 6, 2012 02:58
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Ravendas posted:TianRen tea (天仁) has a ton of stores here, and is the most easily recognizable. I think you can buy their bagged tea in America? I don't remember. Maybe I'll go in later and take a pic or two to post on here. Email me what city you live in, maybe we can meet up at a real tea shop some time - lonhig..at..gmail
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Apr 21, 2012 04:37
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I got some spring Lishan last week that is quite tasty. They said I was 1 week early to get any of the Dayuling yet, but I'll remedy that soon enough. The teashop guy reports that this year was too rainy for optimum tea growing conditions (again). I can't tell, but I guess superfresh spring tea just tastes good no matter what.
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May 10, 2012 03:47
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Does anyone here cold brew? My preferred method is throwing in a few grams of oolong per liter into a lidded glass jar, and letting it sit overnight. The next morning I filter it, then just leave it in the fridge. It's damned good, but then I have only done it with tea snob leaves. All this talk of cheap tea has me wondering if that wouldn't be the best way to make some regular old iced black tea. Anyone have a method?
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Jun 26, 2012 05:00
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I am looking for something like this: I have some special DongDing oolong that has already been sitting in its vacuum bags for 3 years. Being pretty roasty, I'm hoping it will age well. Anyone have any advice about clay jars? Any suggestions for ordering one online (preferably able to hold 300+ grams)?
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Jan 19, 2013 13:02
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Hawkgirl posted:What kind of water are you using? You might consider using distilled water. Also, their tasting notes could be bullshit. Although it does sound more like the taste of your water is overpowering the taste of the tea. I'm all for changing variables and experimenting, but as a general rule, distilled water is not recommended for brewing tea. The natural mineral content in water is necessary so that the tea compounds have something to attach themselves to. Maybe try using spring water, or putting bamboo charcoal in your water to leech out any weird tastes. Here are some more thoughts about the importance of water from the Tea Masters blog.
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Aug 7, 2013 01:47
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Greetings tea friends. I am jumping back in the thread after a 10 year hiatus lol. I now have my own online tea shop and mostly interact with the tea community via Instagram. I'm an expat living in Taiwan. I dabble in puer, white, red, Taiwanese oolong and rock tea. That is to say, all Chinese styles besides green. Not bc I dislike green tea, but that's just the nature of my connections right now. My main interest is anything gushu, meaning Yunnan's ancient trees. I have regularly lurked the forums for the last 15 years, sadly I'm not much of a poster. I'm not here to pimp my own tea, just giving some context. If anyone has any questions I'm here to share what I've learned. As a conversation starter, what's your stance on water? I used to use filtered tap water for tea, but our water is WAY too hard for that, so I started making my own mineral water. I got the idea from the /tea subreddit, but it's apparently much more common in the competition barista scene. It's just RO water from a vending machine + a concentrate I made from precisely weighed baking soda, epsom salt, and RO water. All the yummy benefits of using mineral water, without all the plastic bottles. And it's tweakable.
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Mar 18, 2020 06:49
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I totally would do that if my tap water didn't obviously have crazy high mineral levels. We have extreme calcium (or whatever) scaling in our kettles and it's even showing a little in my yixing pots, which was a big motivator to find another source. Here's the guy that did some tea testing with different levels of epsom in the water: https://www.reddit.com/r/puer/comments/cifo68/my_water_recipe_for_tea_a_solid_starting_point/ If you have "normal" tap water it may not be worth pursuing. You could always do a blind RO vs Whatever Brand Spring Water vs filtered tap. And if you DO notice a difference then consider making your own. It's easy if you have a sensitive scale.
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Mar 18, 2020 18:05
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Yeah that's gross. My annoyance is all the plastic bottles, since recommendations in the tea community always seem to be spring water. I'm glad for the Earth's sake that there are people like yourself championing filtered water.
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Mar 19, 2020 03:27
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Agrinja posted:I have an RO system that puts a splitter on the cold line and a line into the drain and the result is that I have a separate cold tap that dispenses only perfect water that I love for tea and it makes my hydro setup love me too. Here are a couple articles that attempt a scientific/ mythbusting approach https://kuura.co/blogs/dispatch/tagged/water Another question. Anyone here boil tea? It's a popular technique in China for getting the most medicinal value out of aged puer/ shou puer/ dark tea. It's also a good way to get the max flavor out of white tea. I even do it (for a shorter time) with young sheng puer sometimes, just for a uniformly strong batch. You can simmer it in a pan if you don't have one of those electric glass "tea cookers". Or similarly, do a long steep in a thermos. Or on the opposite end of the brewing spectrum, are there any teas you like to cold brew? I think about these things a lot because I don't have time every day to do my meditative "tea art" sessions.
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Mar 20, 2020 06:06
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:Sometimes I fill up my travel mug with ice after putting in some jasmine pearls and let it sit overnight and it's really good Right on! I like really fragrant, delicate teas best for cold brew too. Green tea and high mountain oolong
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Mar 22, 2020 05:20
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virinvictus posted:What’s the best green for cold brewed tea? I can’t imagine my Sencha would transfer well in cold. The steamed spinach doesn’t sound as pleasant when cold, lol. A Chinese green? Oh boy, are you in for a treat. The flavors you can get from cold brewing any tea are often quite distinct from brewing hot. You just have to try and see which teas improve this way and which just taste OK. High mountain oolong is the most common tea I do it with, and it is oxidized so slightly that it might as well be classified as a green tea. Oolong leaves are also the easiest to strain out after brewing. If your sencha leaves are quality, and still fresh, you'll probably love experimenting with cold. 160/180/211 deg water all have their own character with quality green tea, too. Popular cold brew tips might be, start at 10g per liter ratio and 8-12 hrs if refrigerated, 2-3 hrs room temperature. Or put the tea in a cup of ice cubes and come back in an hour or four. Or brew hot and pour over ice into your chahai... Death Vomit Wizard fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Mar 24, 2020 |
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Mar 24, 2020 04:17
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breaks posted:Drinking the heritage roast oolong from Taiwan Tea Crafts today. I remember thinking it was pretty gnarly and way too freshly roasted when I first got it. Popped it in a jar and promptly forgot about it until some apocalypse inspired clearing out of the back of the pantry. Dude 5 years of rest for high-roast oolong is ideal. Nice find! Absolutely prefer TGY/DD/Yan Cha this way
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Mar 26, 2020 06:14
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Truck Stop Daddy posted:I opened a jar of 2017 medium/high charcoal roast dong ding again last weekend. I had saved the last 20g as it was still really nice a year ago, high quality leaf. Sadly it had turned bland and simple. Tried steeping with different techniques, but it seems to just not be as interesting anymore :/ Truck Stop Daddy posted:Same with a couple of my yan chas too, need to order a new batch as soon as the 2020 harvest hits the market (mai/june?). Any suggestions to where I can score some high quality dancongs? Particularly interested in picking up some guihua xiang/osmanthus fragrance dancong. Literally the world's most expensive non-alcoholic drink is Wuyi rock tea. Prices under $1/g exist for good stuff, but it's assuredly 半岩 Banyan or 外岩 Waiyan (grown outside Wuyi proper) with no guarantee the leaves haven't been mixed 3 times already above you in the tea chain. Which, still, is really nice stuff. Real real poo poo means a contract with a farmer on the real mt and then you're talking competition tea prices anyway. $3.50/g+ The one tea master here I know who get's "cheap" ($1/g stuff but confirmed legit well produced, just "next door to" the real mountain) Wuyi rock tea is also the only Dancong connection I have. Those two teas are her bread and butter so I can get a good variety from her. I haven't tried much other non-Taiwanese oolong on the market except some Camelia Sinensis and Yunnan Sourcing stuff I got in tea trades. YS I didn't like and don't trust for oolong now. CS is pretty tight. They're very expensive, though. I mean there are lots of good people selling good oolong online if you can stomach the prices. Here are the oolong sellers I look up to on Instagram: https://txs-tea.com/ This is guy from good Wuyi farmer ancestors. has amazing pottery, too. A good and universally adored dude http://www.lazycattea.com/ This is a Beijing-based American expat I think https://www.instagram.com/daxuejiadao/ This guy (American Chinese guy who splits his time between Beijing and San Francisco) and his Beijing girlfriend just started selling. He knows real-rear end Chinese oolongs and pots much more than most English-speaking entrepreneurs you'll find. Truck Stop Daddy posted:Also, I have 150g of sort of pricy 2019 ya bao buds. I'm a bit unsure how to steep them. I see ya bao classified as both a white tea and a sheng puerh, and wildly different steeping suggestions. So far I've steeped them as young maocha, but it doesn't produce a particularly interesting brew. Any suggestions? Perhaps I should just store them for a few years https://verdanttea.com/what-is-yabao-part-two-wild-type-qianjiazhai-form-vs-species/ On a side note that Ailao place talked about in the article is where my favorite puers come from. And I've had really good puer from the other place in the article, Qianjiazhai. I'm guessing your yabao is assam, but from where I wonder?
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Mar 26, 2020 17:23
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Truck Stop Daddy posted:Sweet and floral, with a strong huigan (or at least the sensation I've come to believe is referred to as huigan). It's hard to read up on tastes... I live really, really far away from anywhere where I can "benchmark" or discuss tastes etc. Studying tea this way is easy in the sense that we are very good at finding and recognizing tastes/smells. The trouble lies in communicating with other humans which tastes we mean. Which is no trouble until you decide to teach someone else. You can worry about that later. The point is to continue doing a) and b) and you can learn the differences between teas fast. So just focus on capturing all the tastes you get from a tea, and recording them together with the brewing parameters thereof. Remember it's all about IDing the tastes and calling them whatever's easy to remember, rather than getting caught up in what food/ flower/ varnish taste it reminds you of. When I drink a good Dongding I know I'm going to encounter "Bread pudding, Jam, Roast Oolong Taste A, Roast Oolong Taste B, and Warm Hug", and I know that "Rain" will be one of the wet leaf smells. So when I recognize tastes from one tea to the next, they get the same name in my tasting journal. Bad tastes work the same way. In regular consumption of good tea there aren't too many unique bad tastes, mostly varying degrees of bitter. The 4 seasons' oolong harvests are supposed to correspond to sweet (spring), bitter (summer), astringent (fall), and fragrant (winter). Bitterness is one of the big reasons to try a tea steeped in many different ways. It can taste so good when the bitterness is at the appropriate level to enhance the other main tastes, but not overpower them. Finding the right water temp/time for green tea is a perfect example of the way every tea should be approached. There are many sweet and delicate tastes in a good green tea, green oolong, or sheng puer that we have to be careful to preserve. Too much bitterness and they can't be heard. Also use glazed teaware to brew, or if you use yixing, try a high-fired, thin walled red pot. Thicker walled pots are generally better for longer-brewing teas like aged tea, shou puer, or white tea. But obviously it's advantageous to start with only a glazed gaiwan so you don't have another variable in your study of different teas and what different ratios+times do to them. If your leaves are really good quality, they simply cannot be oversteeped. Mix tea with warm water to rescue a steep that is too bitter. It can taste good again. One test for very good tea: leave the last steep of a session (say, steep number eight), to steep overnight in the pot. Try drinking it 8 hours later. Good tea will still be good. Even quality green tea can be enjoyed flash brewed with boiling water, but 100C should be our standard for any non-green. My one exception is for some Taiwanese Red Tea, because they traditionally do the summer (bitter) harvest for their reds. It's very good after a couple years' rest, but I'll be damned if it isn't even better brewed at 90C. In fact the there is a lot more to detecting poor quality tea than IDing bad tastes. Funky flavors are a dead giveaway, of course, but many teas are pumped with chemical fertilizer and pesticides... that taste good. One reason organic oolong is so rare I think, is that we're hooked on the tastes and mouth feels that fertilizers can serve as a shortcut to for farmers. There are other ways, however, to ID these undesirable additives. Try meditating for 10 minutes after each steep of a session. Do you feel a tingly mouth? Constricted throat? Pressure on your chest? My teacher thinks the body can be trained to detect problems with tea (ie. pesticide or fert) this way. As to your Shuixian tins... Well I'll just say I worry about Chinese food safety a lot. Ditch 'em and chalk it up to Tuition imo. The thing about crazy expensive rock teas is that of course we don't need to drink the top shelf stuff frequently, but like you said forming a benchmark needs first hand experience. There is definitely a "The Dahongpao Taste" in my mind and I have no way of describing it. But when someone gives me a Dahongpao that doesn't contain it, it's a bad sign. So it's essential to your education to have one fancy example of every cultivar/ famous style/ puer mountain/ season/ elevation/ electric roasted/ charcoal roasted/ etc. for reference.
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Mar 29, 2020 08:26
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Truck Stop Daddy posted:Made some mystery dancong last night. Picked it up from a run down chinese tea shop/post office(!) in Sweden a while back on a job trip. Could barely communicate with the lady behind the counter, but she was overjoyed when I asked for dancongs and brought some unlabeled tea from below the counter. It was dirt cheap so I didn’t expect much from it or check out the leaves in more detail until recently. It definitely got dancong flavors though and seems quite alright. Can’t pick out which fragrance it is, don’t think I’ve had it before. Very positive surprise. Dancongs are so exotic to me because Chinese oolongs in general are just not a thing at all in Taiwan. I haven't had too many yet, but I detect a Rock Tea-like divide between cheap export stuff and the absurdly-priced real thing. The range of wacky flavors you can get in oolongs from all over is so interesting. It's the most labor-intensive production process of all tea styles by far, and every step is to better concentrate that leaf juice. In general I'm less a fan of the "less oxidized, less roasted" trend that is popular right now. But there is still plenty of "traditional" i.e. fuller roast dancong production going on on Phoenix Mountain, too. There are other victims of this industry-wide greening trend. Most Anxi Tieguanyins being produced are too green for me. And many Dongdings. *On a side note: Nepal, Sri Lanka, etc. have oolongs now, but they're not true oolongs because they don't follow all the steps that must be performed in Chinese/Taiwanese oolong production. Also when I talk about aging teas in your house, I forget not everyone lives on an island with a humidor-like climate. If the humidity levels in your house get too low, you'll face the same problem as puer collectors. Tea sitting in a typical American house would be "extreme dry storage" because of the heater running all winter for one thing. This doesn't do permanent damage to the tea, but tea aging will "pause" in dry surroundings, and the tea will simply not change like it should. If you already have a Pu-midor or Pu-cave, that's gonna be where to put any long term oolong/ red/ white teas you're aging. Leave the tea in the plastic bag+tin it came in, and don't seal the top, just roll the bag closed and close the box normally. No sealing is so the tea can "breathe". Breathing is also why unglazed clay jar is the most popular choice for seriously aging any kind of tea.
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Mar 29, 2020 18:04
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virinvictus posted:We haven’t been rinsing the leaves prior. I warm the gaiwan (and kyusu) and the cups, but never thought to do the leaves. That’ll make the difference? It's also true that rinsing primes the leaves for strong shorter steeps. But if you are a junky like me and wouldn't dream of throwing away the first drops of fresh high mountain oolong... all you have to do to compensate for not "opening up" the leaves with a rinse is to double the time of the first steep. So when I brew HM oolong I do boiling water 50s, 25s, 25s, 40s, 60s, ... And whether or not you rinse, steeps 2-3 are considered the best, truest representations of any tea. A good first steep is trickier and a proper one is almost a bonus. Edit: oh yeah and anything that's machine picked has a chance of touching machine oil Death Vomit Wizard fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Apr 8, 2020 |
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Apr 8, 2020 15:56
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virinvictus posted:Officially ordered my first pu-er tea and a gongfu cha (sp?). I’m excited. I’ve never tried a pu-er and I’m falling in love with wulongs and am now diving into an all Chinese tea journey. Cha = tea That's the style of tea brewing you want to practice. In gongfu tea the brewing device is a lidded bowl called a gaiwan or a small teapot. Welcome to the leafy side
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Apr 11, 2020 18:41
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virinvictus posted:https://camellia-sinensis.com/en/product/5579 Having the chance to try any 35 y.o. tea is a special thing. And these are aged properly and vetted by CS which is a good shop. They'll be very healthy for you, and very mild tasting but complex. Do a 5 second rinse and discard before making the first steep. The mouth feel should be very pleasing. The Xiaguan will maybe have a bit more going on flavorwise since those leaves were really bitter and strong tasting when they were young. And just in case you hate them, don't throw it away haha. That is some top shelf puer that should be gifted to a tea head. If you can stomach those prices, there is a whole world of insanely good tea waiting for you.
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Apr 12, 2020 02:10
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facepalmolive posted:Almost 3 months ago I posted about being a tea newb and wanting to get into teas. I giddily placed a Teavivre order, but then Coronavirus happened and my order got cancelled. The coolest thing about red tea imo is that it compliments any cultivar of tea, and it's made in so many different places. Production takes a couple more days than making other kinds of tea, so it's a little more expensive to produce. My gushu puer guy, for example, makes a bit of red tea from a 2300 y.o. tree in Ailaoshan. And it's his most expensive tea by far. The majority of the tea they make with those trees is puer or white. I know a Dayuling oolong farmer that makes personal batches of red tea from tippy harvests of his best field. Red oolong is a popular product in TW now, and a lot of farmers make it to sell, too. Taiwan's No. 18 Ruby red is good, it's a delicious new cultivar developed 40 years ago. But there's a lot of crap Ruby on the market you have to watch out for. Also, they make their red tea in summer in Taiwan, which is traditionally the bitterest tea harvest of the year. So Ruby red or TW assam needs to be at least 2 years old to start drinking imo. Speaking of Taiwanese summer harvests, Oriental Beauty is just amazing. It's technically an oolong, but the oxidation level is almost as high as red tea. I heard that the leaf hopper that bites their leaves to make the plant produce that honey tasting chemical, is the same species that bites the leaves of some Darjeeling tea. That stuff is very legit, too, of course. Spring harvest, first flush Darjeeling would be mind blowing I'm sure. I don't even know what the real thing costs, I just know about chinese tea. White tea is semi-oxidized, too. I steep my white tea lot stronger than most people I think, and it gets amber colored with a lot of oriental beauty taste. (Baimudan white not silver needle). My favorite red tea is gushu. I have cakes from Gaolingongshan, which is a high Yunnan mountain range along the Myanmar border. The puer guy who makes them is all about drinking it fresher. I can see that because it's 1st spring harvest, sweet tasting material. I love aged red tea, too. But for aging I would choose a summer tea like Ruby 18 or Oriental Beauty or TW assam that starts out more bitter.
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Apr 17, 2020 17:01
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That's mega delicious no doubt. I definitely think there are no tea sins and just drink and post whatever makes you happy. Chai owns -- India with all its sweet high-milk fat drinks sounds like a food paradise to me. Here in Taiwan I have a similar guilty pleasure at the iced tea shop: milk green tea with sweet squishy coconut pieces. Or matcha flavored ice cream or mochi. For spiced things, I make apple cider a lot with just pre ground spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice, clove, paprika and salt. Apple juice + optional orange juice or lemon juice and sugar + diced apple, tangerine, or lemon + lots of sliced fresh ginger. Pour through a strainer after low simmering 20 minutes and discard the fruit.
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Apr 18, 2020 05:21
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