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There’s plenty of room to experiment with temps and different individual teas may do better a bit higher or lower than normal for their type. There’s also some variability with prewarming or not, heat retention of whatever you’re brewing in, and so on. The general rule is that you brew less processed tea at lower temps in the 160-180 (Freedom units) range, though I’ve seen as low as 120 recommended for high end hand processed gyokuro, and more heavily processed tea more towards boiling. As long as you remember that you won’t go far wrong. Basically don’t worry about it too much and just try stuff and see what you like. breaks fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 00:28
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MockingQuantum posted:How do you all know what temp things should be brewed at? Is there a good cheat sheet somewhere, or is it just from trial and error? I've found some sheets that will just say "green tea" and "black tea" but not one that breaks it down by varietals. I have some teas that tell me right on the package, but not all of them do. I always go for full boiling with everything except greens (70-80°C) and some whites (80-90°C) and if the brew ends up too bitter or astringent I dial it back to 90°C and try from there. my kettle has a setting for 70, 80, 90 and 100 and seems to hit the mark pretty well on those i hear ppl say boiling is too much for young sheng and lighter oolongs but i rarely finds that to be the case, at least for my tastes
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Dec 13, 2019 09:46
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ulvir posted:I always go for full boiling with everything except greens (70-80°C) and some whites (80-90°C) Yeah, same. I don’t bother changing temps if it doesn’t work really. You can usually get there by adjusting steep times/leaf ratio alone. A thing I’ve started doing recently: For unrolled oolongs like yancha and dancong I’ve started just filling the pot to the rim or 2/3s full with leaves and do 10-15 secs of steeping with boiling water. Often skipping the whole rinse step. Tends to make great strong brews with little to no bitterness in my chaozhou pot. Truck Stop Daddy fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 10:11
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What’s the best bang for your buck re: gyokuro and matcha? Who sells the best quality for a non ridiculous price?
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Dec 13, 2019 14:10
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first off: what you're looking for might actually be kabuse-cha, which is a kind of whole leaf tea that gets some shading (generally 7-10 days) so it picks up a good deal of the shaded taste but is still brewed like a sencha (i.e you use reasonable water-to-leaf ratios instead of crazytown five-grams-per-one-ounces-of-water gyokuro brewing) and is quite a bit cheaper of a habit than gyokuro or matcha. i've tried kabuses from o-cha ($0.16/gram) and koyamaen ($0.10/gram) and liked them both, though i actually preferred the cheaper of the two. thread veterans are probably rolling their eyes right now because those are the two vendors i plug to everyone. matcha and gyokuro are a good deal more pricey; i'd expect to pay $0.25/gram for an entry level uji matcha (the nishio or zhejiang stuff intended for smothies is a good deal less expensive, though also unpalatably bitter when whisked traditionally) and maybe $0.40/gram for a full 20-day-shaded gyokuro. shipping from japan is going to dominate the price you pay for any japanese vendor, so if price is a concern you'd probably want to find someone who ships from the united states, assuming you live here. unfortunately every domestic matcha vendor i know of is terrible, though if you do find someone honest i'd love to hear about it. a compromise option might be ordering from yunomi, which has a cheap "we'll drop it in an airmail envelope and forget about it" tier of shipping.
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Dec 13, 2019 20:08
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I am on the Ito-en mailing list and they just sent me this, what in the hell https://itoen.com/products/barrel-aged-hojicha quote:Limited Edition Barrel-Aged Hojicha 
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Dec 17, 2019 19:32
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Sounds wild. Give us a trip report!
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Dec 18, 2019 04:40
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My local tea shop carried a blend called American Roots that was composed of sarsparilla and such that I quite liked (had a vaguely root beer flavor to it, as the name implies.) They got a whiskey barrel from one of the local breweries and aged a bunch of that in it and that poo poo was good. I hope they make it again some day, it was small batch and went quick.
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Dec 18, 2019 05:24
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When I used to smoke pipe tobacco, there were all sorts of alcohol-flavored blends that were very tasty. I’ve also tried grenadine, Irish cream, and ice wine flavored teas, so whiskey barrel aged sounds interesting to me.
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Dec 18, 2019 06:06
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I will ask if they're planning to do another round of it. Getting the barrel is the hard part, evidently.
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Dec 18, 2019 06:42
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I had some whiskey barrel smoked regular tea of some sort a while back (can't recall the exact type right now) and I absolutely loved it. I'm a sucker for houjicha so I imagine that ito en stuff would be amazing.
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Dec 18, 2019 11:20
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Thoht posted:Sounds wild. Give us a trip report! Ah sorry, by "sent me this" I just meant an email about their new product. No free tea for me. Sounds like this isn't as weird as a concept as I was thinking it was, though. Might have to consider picking up some after I get some Christmas money...
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Dec 18, 2019 15:05
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Lol went to a tea shop and noticed they had a supposed gushu dark tea. Looked interesting, huge leaves and nice smell, so figured I could try some. The shopkeep didn’t seem especially as he suggested a maocha when I asked for some shou/aged tea. Figured 100g couldn’t be that expensive as that was the smallest amount I could buy... turned out to be 75$. Ugh. Curious about it though, but I’m a bit skeptical. Gushu in western vendors is usually just a marketing ploy no? E: this is actually purple tea/ ya bao cha. Curious I have no idea how to prepare this Truck Stop Daddy fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Dec 20, 2019 |
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Dec 20, 2019 15:17
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in my experience the age of a tree is extremely irrelevant to how the tea brew and tastes, i’ve had mediocre gushu and good tea from supposedly young trees. I think terroir (area, like Yiwu, Hekai, Laobanzgang or whatever) has more to say with young teas, and terroir + storage for older teas.
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Dec 20, 2019 19:02
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ulvir posted:in my experience the age of a tree is extremely irrelevant to how the tea brew and tastes, i’ve had mediocre gushu and good tea from supposedly young trees. I think terroir (area, like Yiwu, Hekai, Laobanzgang or whatever) has more to say with young teas, and terroir + storage for older teas. It’s an odd tea. Was offered to me as a puer. It’s not dark at all, but quite ok. Like a spicy mao cha. Almost christmassy even... not worth the price at all though imho. I have better teas at home that cost me a fraction of what this set me back...
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Dec 20, 2019 19:10
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Does anyone have a good Chai Tea recipe?
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Dec 29, 2019 00:01
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Boba Pearl posted:Does anyone have a good Chai Tea recipe? I use the one from Priya's cookbook, Indian-ish: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/chai-formula 
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Dec 29, 2019 06:29
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Boba Pearl posted:Does anyone have a good Chai Tea recipe? If I’m making chai on the stove, I throw the spice mix into the water first thing and bring it up to a boil. Once it’s at a full boil, I take the pot off the burner and throw in the tea to steep and then the sweetener. I pour the milk in once the tea has steeped for five minutes, I put it back on the burner to heat the milk and steep it a little further. Then I strain the whole thing as I pour it into the cups. I usually use half water half milk. You could steep it all at once, but the extra care I take makes sure the milk never burns or boils over. I also use a strong assam, twice the amount you use for regular tea (or sometimes doubled again to use up some black that’s gone a little stale), but any cheap strong black tea will do. The spice mix can also be resteeped over and over. The tea leaves only once or twice. So I sometimes throw the spice mix in a separate tea ball to use over a few days. My spices are all whole, crushed into large chunks rather than ground to dust, in a mortar and pestle, so they retain their flavor a lot longer. My recipe is adaptable to various spices, but my base is green cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, all spice, black pepper, and ginger. To change things up I sometimes add fennel, pink peppercorns, cocoa nibs, nutmeg or star anise (usually only one of these on top of the base). Lately I’ve been lazy and drinking various David’s chais (got a chai sampler for Christmas) with a dollop of heavy cream instead of half milk, but making it on the stove from whole spices is so worth it when you have the time or are making it for company. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Dec 29, 2019 |
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Dec 29, 2019 07:01
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I always add some candied orange peel for the sweetener. Cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, a tiny amount of clove, and some fresh grated nutmeg. Boil all of this together, remove from heat, add a bunch of good black tea, and oversteep it. Mix with milk, usually about 80/20 tea to milk. It also stays good cold with this mixture and makes a good cocktail ingredient.
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Dec 29, 2019 09:04
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Sometimes I just throw some mulling spices from Trader Joe's in my black tea and it makes a pretty decent chai. 
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Jan 2, 2020 17:21
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do whatever you like as long as you use reasonably fresh, whole spices. all you really need is fresh whole cloves and cardamom and it'll already taste better than anything preblended.
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Jan 3, 2020 23:11
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It is well known that tea likes soft water. But are there actually more quantifiable suggestions for buffer/mineral hardness than just "soft"? Next weekend I'm gonna experiment with making custom hardness water for coffee like in https://baristahustle.com/blog/diy-water-recipes-redux/ and I would be interestes in whether there exist similar recipes for tea.
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Jan 10, 2020 22:38
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This is the one I use https://www.lilvienna.com/masala-chai-indian-spiced-milk-tea/ I've found I really like the depth that fennel/anise gives, so I consider that non-optional. As a vegan, I'll use soy milk, and in a pretense at health I use Splenda as a sweetener and it's great.
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Jan 18, 2020 19:56
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What’s the best everyday Sencha? I get confused by all the names since they still don’t mean anything to me. Currently buying from Camelia Sinensis in Montreal. If another tea vendor sells a better or more cost effective sencha, let me know.
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Jan 19, 2020 00:05
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I wrote this a couple of days ago, but I am really loving this tea lately: Today's tea is a matcha-infused genmaicha, or brown rice tea. Matcha, or fine-ground green tea powder, is added to the tea, enhancing the green coloration, flavor, and caffeine content. It is also available without. Here is the tea before brewing.  Note the brown bits: toasted rice. This adds a nutty flavor to the tea and a hearty body to the texture. The white bits off to the right are also rice - some grains will "pop" during the cooking process as popcorn does. Whether this affects the flavor of the tea or not I cannot say, but it is aesthetically pleasing.  This is the tea mid-brew. A gentle snap-crackle-pop greets you as the hot water pours over the cooked rice, much like a familiar breakfast cereal. The leaves in this tea are not as tightly rolled, and do not swell very much in comparison to the gyokuro I had yesterday. Originally the rice was added to increase the bulk of the tea and make it more affordable for low-income people to drink, but its hearty flavor and body make it a popular choice for all walks of life; being relatively inexpensive helps, too.  Don't be fooled by my green cup - this tea really is a quite beautiful emerald, owing to the matcha content. Plain genmaicha trends toward the yellow end. Much of the matcha tends to settle to the bottom of the pot, so that last little bit may be a tad strong. I personally look forward to that last drop, as it contains the highest concentration and makes for a nice cap to the drinking, a shot of caffeine and antioxidants, and a grainy sensation upon the tongue.
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Jan 19, 2020 08:05
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Heath posted:Today's tea is a matcha-infused genmaicha I could probably just make this myself but, can you share where you got this?
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Jan 19, 2020 14:21
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I bought it from a local shop, but I'll send you their webpage if you want to order some.
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Jan 19, 2020 16:43
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Heath posted:I bought it from a local shop, but I'll send you their webpage if you want to order some. I'd love to have the page link too. Genmaicha is my comfort tea, and the color from the matcha looks lovely. Speaking of sites, Adagio is launching a couple new blends and they're offering samples of the new stuff for $1 each.
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Jan 19, 2020 19:51
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Hey goons, I'm looking for something cheap to drink at work in the mornings. The problem I'm having is three-fold though. 1.) The only source of water I have at work is a Kuerig that I can't adjust the temperature on. It works great for making hot water for tea, but if I get something that's super temperature sensitive, then I'll likely just ruin it by making it at work. 2.) I'm on a keto diet for the next few months, so no sugars for me. I've got liquid stevia, but I'm really not a huge fan of it. It could very well be because I've been bringing lovely bagged black tea to work, and the flavors don't mesh well. That said though, if I could find teas that trend toward the sweeter side of things, then I could use less/none of the liquid stevia, which would be great. And 3.) I'm kinda really loving broke, all the time. So the cheaper the tea, the better. Taste-wise, I just discovered that I can apparently enjoy matcha teas over the summer. I also like sweeter oolongs and black teas. A while back in the thread, I posted about a tea that I found at a local Asian grocery store that purported to be Jin Jun Mei, but clearly it wasn't. My lovely bagged teas that I've been bringing are Twinnings English breakfast, Prince of Wales, Earl Grey with lavender, and the remains of a box of Mad Hatter Tea Party blend from a trip to Disney a while back, which is black tea flavored with apricot, peach, and ginger. Oh, and the place my wife works at has this herbal tea by Aveda that's apparently got sweet fennel in it that's really good. They add no sugar, but it tastes like it's loaded with it. Mostly though, I'm just looking for the caffeine kick to get me awake in the mornings, without it being too strong and bitter after brewing. If I can find something that doesn't force me to drown it in artificial sweeteners just to swallow it, then all the better. Yes, I'm trying to kick the sweet tooth. It's tough when it comes to drinks.
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Jan 19, 2020 23:48
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Of the bagged teas Yorkshire Gold is definitely better than most, but its price depends on how accessible it is since it’s imported from England. How hot does the kuerig make the water? Because if I’m using boiling water with a bagged tea, I only steep it for 30-90 seconds. 3-5 min is too much for anything other than piss-warm water (or one teabag in a huge pot), since teabags have been redesigned for barbarians XD Are you opposed to putting milk in your tea? Because I’ve been drinking cheap chai with whipping cream (or half-and-half if I have no other option), and the higher fat dairy has completely eliminated my need to add sugar to it. As for sweeter blacks, good Yunnan or Keemun are so delicious they don’t need anything added to them, but I keep the temperature down to 85C for a good Keemun, so it’s probably a better home tea unless you bring your own setup to work. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jan 20, 2020 |
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Jan 20, 2020 00:31
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gamingCaffeinator posted:I'd love to have the page link too. Genmaicha is my comfort tea, and the color from the matcha looks lovely. Link is sent! If anybody else wants it let me know.
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Jan 20, 2020 02:03
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Stuporstar posted:Of the bagged teas Yorkshire Gold is definitely better than most, but its price depends on how accessible it is since it’s imported from England. How hot does the kuerig make the water? Because if I’m using boiling water with a bagged tea, I only steep it for 30-90 seconds. 3-5 min is too much for anything other than piss-warm water (or one teabag in a huge pot), since teabags have been redesigned for barbarians XD I don't know what temperature the Kuerig gets the water to, but after a quick google, I'd say it's likely 192F. I typically find that for most of my lovely bagged teas, steeping for around 30 seconds less than the suggested time works "best", per se. Going on your suggestion, it seems if I let the water sit for a minute or two before I steep, I'll likely have about the best temperature for what you're recommending. As for milk in tea, I can only have heavy cream or half and half on keto, due to the fat/sugar ratio of other milks not being quite right. I'm opposed to keeping milk at work though, because while we do have refrigerators, they're overfull, and the chances of your stuff being unmolested are greater than zero, and I'd rather not have an open carton of milk laying around in there. So, given that, does anyone have any links to decent, cheap Yunnan or Keemun teas I could grab samples of?
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Jan 20, 2020 03:36
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neogeo0823 posted:So, given that, does anyone have any links to decent, cheap Yunnan or Keemun teas I could grab samples of? I get all my Chinese blacks from Teavivre these days: https://www.teavivre.com/tea.html?cat=10 The Dian Hong Golden Snail is one of the lower priced Yunnan teas and it’s delicious: https://www.teavivre.com/dian-hong-golden-snail-black-tea.html It tastes a bit like chocolate and caramel. Golden monkey is also always a great pick, but they currently only have the premium in stock. You’ll have to wait a few months for the next harvest to get the regular kind. But if you can find an inexpensive golden monkey elsewhere, you really can’t go wrong with that one. The Keemun’s are all extremely different (I’m preferential to their superfine mao feng because the later infusions taste almost like dark chocolate covered cherries, but it’s expensive so I’m waiting for a big sale to stock up). I suggest ordering a bunch of samples to figure out which ones you like.
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Jan 20, 2020 04:02
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Twinings English Breakfast is perfectly good breakfast tea, although it is best with milk (50%) and sugar. If you can get hold of that then you can probably also get Twinings Darjeeling which is cheap, very forgiving to brew, and tastes good without milk or sugar. You won't be winning any cred with tea people but it meets all your requirements!
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Jan 20, 2020 10:02
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I thought I was into tea but I have nothing on y’all. I’m not a big fan of green tea, I’ve only found a couple I like, but I do love dessert teas so I can help with that suggestion: I’m not sure how keto works but I can drink dessert teas straight and I use the hot/cold water fountain thing at work. I aim for black teas the most since I need the boost to get me through night shifts and I’m not really into coffee. If you’re allowed to have stuff with berries that may help sweeten up the tea without adding anything to it. David’s has plenty of good options to choose from and they have lots of random sales. The Republic of Tea has a vanilla almond that I really love. I know it’s not fancy but it does the job 
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Jan 20, 2020 12:35
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pointsofdata posted:Twinings English Breakfast is perfectly good breakfast tea, although it is best with milk (50%) and sugar. If you can get hold of that then you can probably also get Twinings Darjeeling which is cheap, very forgiving to brew, and tastes good without milk or sugar. You won't be winning any cred with tea people but it meets all your requirements! In a period of time when all I had was a pot and a stove to heat water, I picked up some random bagged orange pekoe which was surprisingly okay plain and slightly sweet. The only word on the box I really understood was Darjeeling (foreign language, not illiterate), but sometimes the best thing is to just go pick up a box that looks interesting if that's what you have room for in your life. It got me through the month without any of my teas or even a decent coffee maker.
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Jan 20, 2020 16:15
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CeramicPig posted:The Republic of Tea I'll second Republic of Tea for bagged teas, although it's a slightly upmarket product so may not be as cost-effective as some of the other suggestions. I'm partial to their Yerba Mate latte which, per thread title, is not technically tea.
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Jan 20, 2020 17:02
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Heath posted:Link is sent! If anybody else wants it let me know. Could I get that link as well? It's been a while since I've had a good genmaicha & I'm looking to expand my options. Thanks!
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Jan 20, 2020 17:35
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Dr. Gargunza posted:Could I get that link as well? It's been a while since I've had a good genmaicha & I'm looking to expand my options. Thanks! Check your PMs!
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Jan 20, 2020 17:43
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Heath posted:Check your PMs! Sweet, thanks!
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Jan 20, 2020 17:47
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