General Discussion

man i just like licorice root tea

black tea or anything with burgamont by extension
earl grey is beautiful, and peppermint got me through my terrifyingly anxious era
all my teas have nothing but sugar or honey in them, the latter if im sick~
I am looking to expand my tea collections though, I wanna explore more teas and this thread is def helping~

After posting here yesterday I started looking at tea websites and I think my wallet will be suffering as a result. Tea is so interesting~

@bbgummi
I have to ask you about steeping more than once, I've heard of it but I've never tried it. With Western-style, where do you store the leaves between steepings? How do you keep track of how many times you've made tea from them? If I'm going to be buying expensive tea I'd love to make the most of it, but I'm totally new to this.

And what do you do with a tea cake? I'm daunted by how big they are, do you take them apart somehow?

If you want a variety of light black teas that have a lot of variation you can start looking into single estate darjeelings. Quite pricey sometimes but you can order little samplers from Upton Tea. They have a good variety. Try all the estates in their first and second flushes and then do it the next year and note the changes by year. It's a beautiful thing and darjeelings are my favorite.

@Birdarang

When Isay western style I mean like a pot that has a removable mesh strainer. You can usually just take that off and put it on a plate. Alternatively if you have a built in strainer on your pot (no removable mesh but there are several small holes near the spout entrance) you can pour the rest of the tea into another empty vessel and resteep the leaves. This really only works with blacks, shou puh ers (I haven't tried steeping sheng puh ers western style) or really strong greens like genmaicha. Youll want to steep it for longer (additional minutes) each time to get the flavor out and youll only really be able to do this like. 1-3 times. Since there's only so many steeps you get from western style brewing it's not too hard to keep track of how mny steeps you got from the tea. Gong fu you get way more steeps, so it does get hard to keep track of, especially since the steeps are so short. You can try writing a line somewhere to keep track. You'll know when a tea is done by the lack of flavor you get no matter how long you steep it for.

Tea cakes ARE really scary, I havent gotten to them yet just because I have no place to store them, but I know you use a special pick or knife to chip some off! Usually we get smaller orb looking things (which are around 5-7 g or lose leaf teas

i dont like tea but im starting to think thats because i grew up with cheap teas or way too sweet sun teas. i went to a bridal shower where they make the blends and it was quite nice.

im going to choose to stay ignorant of tea and keep telling myself i dont like it because 1) im poor and apperently only like the rich stuff and 2) dont need another be addicted to.

@bbgummi
Thanks!
I know what you mean about the orb-looking things, the tea sellers you mentioned have some in their shops. Those and the little flat "tea coins" seem both fun and convenient. The right amount of leaves in a single-serve lump.

I enjoy white, green and oolong teas usually. I've yet to try any kind of pu'erh so far but will definitely try some eventually. I've been drinking supermarket teas for over a decade now but only recently became interested in maybe actually learning something about tea and trying out the "fancier" stuff. Well not necessarily fancier but something more specific than generic "green tea with citrus" or whatever happens to be available at the nearest store.

I was introduced to smoked tea on a camping trip when a dude very kindly brewed some extra for my friend and I to try while we were sitting around a campfire. I don't remember what the tea he had was exactly, but it was really good. I got some smoked green tea for myself after that trip and I quite like it, although it's probably not the same stuff he shared with us (the packaging reads "Wei Shan Yan Xun Cha", so something-something tea from Wei mountain I guess? Idk if it's in any way related to Lapsang Souchong or if that refers to just smoked black tea). I will probably take it on any hiking/camping trips with me as soon as the weather gets warmer, imo the smoky aroma is perfect for enjoying outdoors!

Also got some wakocha from Wazuka to try on a whim. I was surprised by how mild it is, very unlike any other black tea I've tried before. It doesn't seem to get bitter at all even when steeping for very long...

Oh, also also. Herbal teas/infusions are awesome too! I mainly make mine using raspberry leaves and rosehips, or yarrow and fennel seeds, or just mint because it's so easy to grow. This year I'm attempting to grow chamomile, lemon balm and anise hyssop to expand my options! I wanted to try growing peppermint too but couldn't find any seeds sadly.

I was having a conversation (or rather, thinking upon one I had seen) and I feel like I should address this! I hope that the takeaway from my discussion on teaware didn't lead to anyone thinking gongfu style is the "traditional" method of making tea in China. I made a post a while ago in another forum thread I made talking about this. [quote name="bbgummi" date="2024-02-27 23:21:19" ] Something lighthearted since I've been reading nonstop about Japanese Imperialism!! Tea culture in China is not a monolith (you might be saying, "Yeah, duh" but hear me out this is fun), ever since tea has been consumed in the country, it's undergone many different methods of being enjoyed. First and foremost, its history is noted in written records dating as far back as the Tang dynasty (which started in 618 AD) by Lu Yu, also known as Tea Saint. During the Han Dynasties (206 BC-220 AD) it was enjoyed like a thick soup. Tea would be dried into cakes, crushed with a unique looking contraption, and then made with boiled water and other additives such as millet until mushy and edible. At some other point in time, it actually became popular custom to whisk tea (similar to how matcha is whisked) which would produce a foam. Here is the real kicker of this part and what made me want to write a post on it: nowadays, teaware is made with a glazed white inside because we want to see the color of the liquor (liquid), but at this point in time (which I cannot remember at the moment, sadly) the inside of teaware was black because they wanted to see the whiteness of the foam produced from whisking in order to properly appreciate and assess the tea's quality. Infusing (just. steeping the leaves as is like how we do it today) didn't become a thing until (relatively) recently, during the Tang dynasty but it truly picked up in the Ming and Qing dynasties! And now gong fu is a more modern version of steeping tea, wherein one uses a gaiwan (a type of tea holding vessel) and a high tea leaf to water ratio and alarmingly short steeping times (15-45 seconds depending on the tea) in order to taste the tea's flavor as it evolved over the many, many steeps (a good sheng puh er can withstand up to 30 steeps this way!) [/quote] The "western" style I refer to is absolutely not started by the English or any other western power, I mean Ming era tea pots, it's just that the image has become so ubiquitous in English tea culture that it's become easy to call it "western" style as a short hand when it's really not. Just wanted to clear some things up in case someone was curious or confused.