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glomkettle posted:Out of curiosity, what would you recommend if someone was looking for a more tobacco-ish blend? I can't really picture how that would work or taste in my head but it sounds interesting. A long time ago Upton had a Formosa/Taiwan tea that was just some generic oolong - it had an almost cinnamon-pepper-y herbal taste that reminded me of American Spirits. I do mean a long time ago, though, this would have been around 2009-2010 ish. But it might give you a region of tea to zone in on for that flavor.
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Sep 13, 2015 19:59
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This is a very long shot, but I'd like some tea identified. I have an uncle in the military that apparently knows a guy from China, who ships him some stuff regularly. He's been gifting it to my grandma, who just today gave some of it to me.    Could it be anything in particular? It's definitely a green tea, that's for sure. After steeping it for 3 minutes at around 170 degrees F, it tastes mild and somewhat sweet.
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Sep 20, 2015 22:38
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There is a lot of crappy tea in the world, and a lot of tea that doesn't fit a "style", it's just tea. That's probably what you've got there - there are markets that exist for people who just buy tea the way Americans buy soda - they just drink it without regard to "the flavor" or mouthfeel or aroma or any of that poo poo -- it exists to be thrown in a mug and have mildly hot water poured over it, and steeped for a bit. You could probably bump up your water temp too, some green teas can withstand it. There's a specific group of people who think green tea should be bitter and astringent, the same dudes who think coffee should be sour and put hair on your chest. I could sperg out and go into more detail on what you're looking at but it's nothing fancy. On another note, I wish steeping tea in a gaiwan wasn't such an obnoxious experience. I have some crappy old tie gan yin - brewed 5 g in a 120 ml gaiwan, with hot-ish water and jesus, it reminds me of why I loved tea in the first place. That spicy aroma, theres flavors of Darjeeling, muscat grape, and caramel, the tea itself has that sweet-spicy honey flavor. But it's SO obnoxious to make about a shot's worth of tea at a time, and I've gotten to the point where I get annoyed having to make sure the water temperature is correct. Devoyniche fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 14:35
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Rollofthedice posted:This is a very long shot, but I'd like some tea identified. I have an uncle in the military that apparently knows a guy from China, who ships him some stuff regularly. He's been gifting it to my grandma, who just today gave some of it to me. At a glance, it's not gunpowder, pi lo chun, dragon well, or gua pian, but beyond that its difficult to say based on sight alone. Honestly it looks a lot like the house green from Floating Leaves. http://www.floatingleavestea.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=20&zenid=1a1aca81787f384e766d0c086f8cf5cc What Devoyniche said is true. There's a lot of generic green tea out there whose sole purpose is to be thrown in a mug (or glass) and sipped without much consideration of quality, the way you can order "coffee" at a lot of places in the states and get a mug full of something that fits that most basic definition, but isn't really defined further. 
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Sep 30, 2015 19:22
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That tea looks like it could be a Chun Mee, but I'm no expert. I've tried a number of Teavivre's 2015 teas, and I think my favorite may be this one: http://www.teavivre.com/lapsang-souchong-wild-black-tea/ Unusually, it's a Lapsang that has not been smoked. The flavor is rich, sweet and complex, and kind of reminds me of molasses. One of the nicest black teas I've ever had.
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Oct 2, 2015 22:37
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That's cool, never seen an unsmoked one before.
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Oct 2, 2015 23:45
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I picked up some Finum medium steeping baskets and they are, hands down, the best way to make just one cup of tea, especially if you use a lot of really large leaf teas like Jasmine Pearls. Normally when I'm in a hurry I would have waited to bust out my tea pot and things to make that, but now it's something I can do with my toast in the morning. On a similar subject, what are people's favourite white teas? Silver Needle is of course the classic, but I'm wondering what else is out there worth trying.
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Oct 9, 2015 17:04
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A good shou mei can be a nice change of pace, a lot stronger flavor than most silver needle types.
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Oct 9, 2015 19:16
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Just read a lot of this thread. I think it'd be useful if we kept each other notified of deals. Tattle tea had all 2 ounce teas for 2.50 (last time I checked, which was yesterday) doesn't include fancier stuff like silver needle or gyokuro since they don't come in 2 ounce bags. You can get away with a pound of teas for 25 including a faster shipping speed. There is some cheap tea floating around on Amazon if you filter down to prime only, loose leaf and sort by cheapest. Got like 4 pounds of tea for 30 bucks. Like a pound of lemon jade sencha for 5, a pound of ginger green tea for 5 bucks, 8 ounces of Bai mu Dan tangerine for 4.50. I'm almost confident it's a price mistake and they might realize that but hey, worth a try. Teavana seems to be worth it when they have a sale, last sale I saw was around end of summer and had quite a few things for 75% off. Does anyone have a good source for Japanese green teas? Looking for a good blend of quality and affordability.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:09
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Ineffiable posted:Teavana seems to be worth it when they have a sale, last sale I saw was around end of summer and had quite a few things for 75% off. I'm sorry, but hold your horses on teavana. The end of the year sales are for discontinued stuff, and it's discontinued for a reason. I got a basic green tea that was literally nothing but sticks and torn up leaves. I had to use almost two tablespoons just to get a hint of flavor. Gross garbage poo poo. The rest is usually herbals, or teas with tons of fruit and not so much leaves. Last year was majorly gimmicky pumpkin spice/gingerbread delight poo poo which I still see in the 'Sales!' area. I would seriously avoid teavana. Maybe the non sale stuff is good? But the prices are just a bit rich for me. Then again, maybe it depends on the teavana's in your area? On that note, does anyone like David's Tea's? I just found out there's a store fairly close to me and I'm not too familiar with them. A lot quicker than waiting for shipping, and I am running out of a good oolong. Otherwise tattle tea sounds right up my alley.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:26
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The fall sale wasn't that bad. I got the strawberry cream for 2.50 for 2 ounces and sangria punch and strawberry Paradiso I got the to-life from that sale and it was pretty bad but I wonder if they were messing around with that blend. It's silver needle and jasmine dragon pearls and roobios. Plus some random fruit. It was probably going to be bad, but I was partly a newbie at the time I bought it. I would probably only buy stuff from teavana on sale, and they never discount the straight teas which you can get better quality for cheaper elsewhere. Maybe buying in store helps since you can take a look at it before making the purchase? At least where I was, the sale prices where online and in store. Oh, I'm in Georgia and teavana started there so maybe that's why? Still, I'm curious to see if anyone sees more sales going on, because tea is cheap but it's pretty nice to make it even cheaper.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:33
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Rollofthedice posted:This is a very long shot, but I'd like some tea identified. I have an uncle in the military that apparently knows a guy from China, who ships him some stuff regularly. He's been gifting it to my grandma, who just today gave some of it to me. Looks like jasmine to me, lighting might make a difference, but at the end of the day I'm only an amateur when it comes to tea. 
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Nov 7, 2015 23:00
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Just got back from the tea vendor £25 poorer but with a bunch of Gunpowder, Russian Caravan, White Ring and Silver Needle. gently caress yes.
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Nov 7, 2015 23:05
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Ineffiable posted:Does anyone have a good source for Japanese green teas? Looking for a good blend of quality and affordability. I like Hibiki-an and O-cha. They both stock teas at a variety of pricepoints, but nothing so cheap that it's of poor quality. Since there was mention of deals, taiwanoolongs.com is doing 12% off green tea at the moment. But I mostly wanted to give them a mention because I was really pleased with some oolongs I ordered from them a while back. It's a newish Taiwan-focused shop from the Yunnan Sourcing guy. Teamasters is still my favorite but I'll be ordering from taiwanoolongs again for sure. I thought the wu she jade oolong was particularly good price/performance value.
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Nov 7, 2015 23:22
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Second O-cha, they were my go-to vendor when I was hooked on sencha for a summer. Yunnan Sourcing's my main supplier now for puerhs and misc chinese teas, I haven't tried their Taiwanese off-shoot yet though. A little bit bored of high mountain stuff nowadays. If anyone here uses reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/TeaSales is pretty great for keeping track of a variety of sources. Wedemeyer posted:On that note, does anyone like David's Tea's? I just found out there's a store fairly close to me and I'm not too familiar with them. A lot quicker than waiting for shipping, and I am running out of a good oolong. I used to hear good things about Davidstea from people who enjoy blends but lately there's been a lot of complains about their stuff tasting... chemically. If you're just looking for a straight oolong, I'd throw out what-cha out there, cheap shipping, mind-boggling array of regional oolongs. hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 00:19
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Alright, I've been drinking a spicy chai recently and I would like more of that kind of thing. Recommend me a spicy tea, please.
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Nov 8, 2015 19:37
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Devoyniche posted:On another note, I wish steeping tea in a gaiwan wasn't such an obnoxious experience. I have some crappy old tie gan yin - brewed 5 g in a 120 ml gaiwan, with hot-ish water and jesus, it reminds me of why I loved tea in the first place. That spicy aroma, theres flavors of Darjeeling, muscat grape, and caramel, the tea itself has that sweet-spicy honey flavor. But it's SO obnoxious to make about a shot's worth of tea at a time, and I've gotten to the point where I get annoyed having to make sure the water temperature is correct. I have the opposite problem, I never drank as much tea as I did before I broke my gaiwan (RIP little buddy) and was too lazy to replace it. That said, my setup was an electric kettle that maintains temp right next to the desk, so that made things quite a bit easier.
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Nov 8, 2015 19:45
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Wedemeyer posted:On that note, does anyone like David's Tea's? I just found out there's a store fairly close to me and I'm not too familiar with them. A lot quicker than waiting for shipping, and I am running out of a good oolong. Otherwise tattle tea sounds right up my alley. David's stuff is overpriced, but they do have some decent oolongs. I remember enjoying both their Tieguanyin and Pouchong. I also really like David's Nepal black tea.
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Nov 9, 2015 07:11
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I like davids tea for really specific teas (glitter and gold, Santas secret) but otherwise I always have the impression that they're selling the smells of their blends, not the actually quality of the blends. But that might be an opinion that is only relevant to their black teas, since that's basically all I've ever bought. That said, they're pretty okay, especially if you can get to a store and try samples before buying. They even make some iced drinks and tea lattes in store, those are pretty alright even if they're kinda expensive. I recently spent a butt load on teas. Restocked my basics from Upton then got some glitter and gold from David's as well as some pumpkin chai for the office. Also bought some blends from Adagio. One of which was really interesting, it had a "Earl Grey Green" tea in it, which I enjoyed a lot, and it lead to me learning a lot more about what earl grey means. Yay tea!
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Nov 9, 2015 07:47
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While David's tea and teavana both make yummy blends, they really are just selling the smell or artificial flavor more than the tea itself. Both places sell plain tea leaves too but at a premium pride for middle of the road quality. You can get better or more tea at places like Upton for the same price. I know this has been mentioned before but just kind of bringing the thought together again.
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Nov 9, 2015 13:08
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David's can be a convenient place to pick up 50g of an actual Oolong or less-common green tea. Their prices even out if you join their "frequent steeper" club and get something that's ridiculously overpriced for their freebie every few months. They don't give a poo poo if you buy $100 of their cheapest plain leaves and then get a free $30 bag of some shade-grown Japanese stuff when the time comes
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Nov 9, 2015 15:47
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CommonShore posted:David's can be a convenient place to pick up 50g of an actual Oolong or less-common green tea. Their prices even out if you join their "frequent steeper" club and get something that's ridiculously overpriced for their freebie every few months. They don't give a poo poo if you buy $100 of their cheapest plain leaves and then get a free $30 bag of some shade-grown Japanese stuff when the time comes That's a terrible idea, because it seems like you're not going to actually save any money, or get a consistently great product. Especially when you can find so many good teas that come straight from where they're grown at websites like teavivre.com for China, teabox.com for India, and there's even one for Ceylon/Sri Lanka that I can't manage to find right now. Aside from that, there are plenty of purveyors listed in the OP that aren't going to overcharge for middle-grade stuff and have plenty of good options (like Adagio and TeaSource). Or better yet, order from just about everyone because they're carrying what you want to drink. So drink what you want, but don't get pulled in by gimmicks. There are too many other good options right now and they all regularly have sales.
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Nov 10, 2015 02:15
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hope and vaseline posted:Second O-cha, they were my go-to vendor when I was hooked on sencha for a summer. Yunnan Sourcing's my main supplier now for puerhs and misc chinese teas, I haven't tried their Taiwanese off-shoot yet though. A little bit bored of high mountain stuff nowadays. Thanks for the link! Picked up some Amber Oolong and Red Buffalo. Mooo. And thanks everyone re:david's. OP post didn't mention much beyond genmachai. 
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Nov 10, 2015 02:43
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Jhet posted:there's even one for Ceylon/Sri Lanka that I can't manage to find right now. Anybody know who this is?
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Nov 10, 2015 21:06
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Wedemeyer posted:Thanks for the link! Picked up some Amber Oolong and Red Buffalo. Mooo. And thanks everyone re:david's. OP post didn't mention much beyond genmachai. Cheers, that red buffalo's one of my favorites, sweet and spicy and surprisingly not too roasty for such a dark oolong. Didn't realize it was back in stock actually.
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Nov 11, 2015 02:46
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So I have some questions about cold brewing tea if anyone here has experience. How long do you have to keep some teas to get their flavor? Most places seem to indicate 6 to 8 hours is fine, top quality gyokuro can be just 4 hours and really good black tea needs to brew for as long as 4 days? Do you recommend using the tea leaves again or no matter the quality of the leaves, it's a one and done deal? What are your favorites for cold brew? I did a green oolong and it wasn't good but I did a pomegranate sencha and it was pretty good. Not the best but it would do in a pinch for sure. Trying a white tea now.
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Nov 16, 2015 18:50
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Is it weird to mix 2 totally different teas together in your old blend? I love smoked/roasted flavors so I've been doing half Lapsang Souchong, half Hōjicha. The Hōjicha kinda mellows the former out a little bit.
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Nov 19, 2015 17:19
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No, it's probably not that weird considering that entire businesses have their most popular teas that are blends of leaves from various sources. You do you and if it tastes good maybe I'll try it out too!
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Nov 19, 2015 18:33
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Yeah straight teas all the time gets dull. Blends with fruits or other teas is always nice for variety and tea is subjective taste in my opinion. If what you like is half strong lapsang, then do it because that's what you like.
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Nov 19, 2015 22:30
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Blending teas is the only way I've been able to drink the cherry tea I bought from Adagio. The cherry alone is too overpoweringly Robitussin, but mixed with vanilla rooibos, it's pretty drat good.
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Nov 20, 2015 02:40
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It's that time of the yeeeear http://teavivre.com/sale/black-friday-sale.html
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Nov 24, 2015 15:39
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hope and vaseline posted:It's that time of the yeeeear Please no... My cupboard is full. Stop pushing the tea-crack. Seriously, great time to buy. A lot of stores are having sales in the next week, so buy and drink more tea. I may need to check my stock of dragonwell and restock.
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Nov 24, 2015 23:47
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Oh god no. I just spent $65 at Teabox earlier this week. I justified it to myself by saying my birthday is coming up.. but.. but.. 
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Nov 25, 2015 13:11
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Yeah there's some good prices at teavivre, and tea rarely goes on sale especially for the standard stuff. Prices aren't live yet but 40% off their standard dragon well... What I like is you can order the tea now and keep it sealed for up to a year. Then drink it all within a couple of months.
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Nov 25, 2015 15:13
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Ineffiable posted:Yeah there's some good prices at teavivre, and tea rarely goes on sale especially for the standard stuff. Prices aren't live yet but 40% off their standard dragon well... Yeap that's the same thing I do with dragonwell. I don't really drink it until the summer cause it's my favorite green to cold brew.
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Nov 25, 2015 17:05
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Can I ask how you cold brew dragon well? I'd like to get a recipe for it and write it down to consistently make good ones.
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Nov 25, 2015 17:21
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4-5 grams to 12 oz of water overnight in a sealed container, strain out in the morning is my method. You can keep the leaves for another cold brew but it won't be as potent the second time. It pretty much works for most teas I've tried, though if you experiment with puerh, break apart the large pieces because it'll stay fairly intact if you don't.
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Nov 25, 2015 17:30
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Sounds like you guys are hunting down some steep discounts!
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Nov 25, 2015 19:56
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Does anyone know what type of oolong Palais des Thés' "butterfly of Taiwan" is, other than highly oxidised? http://www.palaisdesthes.com/en/butterfly-of-taiwan-252.html
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Nov 25, 2015 22:12
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Looks like oriental beauty / bai hao to me.
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Nov 25, 2015 22:38
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