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Heath posted:I'm at work so all I've got to dispense hot water is a Keurig and a plastic cup from a pizza place do you know which model Keurig it is? Typically, Keurigs will pour in even numbers ounce measurements that can vary by model number. For example, my home Keurig has options for 6,oz 8oz, and 10oz popurs, while the ones at work have options for 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12oz. I did get around to measuring my Keurig's brew temp earlier, and it's solidly 172F right out of the gate. A bit low for some of the teas I've got, but it works well enough. Still not sure about the ones at work though, but I'd wager it's pretty similar. EDIT: Ah poo poo, this is a crappy page snipe. For more content, I've bought a bunch of sample sizes of various loose leaf teas from the local Wegmans, and so far have tried their Dragon Well green, Holiday Spirit herbal, lavender sencha, masala chai, and Genmaimatcha. Of those, I really love the lavender sencha. Bright, sweet, floral, and just good. But then again, I love lavender in tea. The Holiday Spirit is made of peppermint, cranberry, safflower, and corn flower, with "natural flavors", whatever those are. Overall, it's also pretty good. Minty sweet, as you'd expect, with a hint of floral and fruity notes. The nice thing about it is that it's dirt cheap and not very dense, so I got a ton of it in one ounce. I'll probably make iced tea out of it, honestly. The masala chai is weird. I've already said I don't tend to like chais, and this is no exception. I bought it for the wife, because she said she likes chai tea, but she won't try it because she's "gotta be in the mood for chai".  I dunno. Anyway, I tolerate this one more than others because it's not incredibly cinnamon forward like past chais. The full ingredient list is black tea, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, clove, and black pepper. The Dragon Well tea, I don't think it's actually Dragon Well tea. It's almost definitely tea that's been processed like Dragon Well tea, but I don't think it's the same thing. It's... very light. I followed the instructions for steep time, but admittedly, I didn't heat the water up to boiling as it said to, instead just using the water from the Keurig. Again, I dunno. It certainly wasn't life changing or anything. It was mostly an ok cup of lightly green tea. The Genmaimatcha as well was not incredibly impressive to me. It wasn't bad, it was more that it was a bit too... I dunno the right word, dark tasting? Heavily roasted-tasting? I guess I'm more used to green teas being light and bright, and this was almost like drinking a dark, robust, black tea. Kinda jarring, given what I was initially expecting. neogeo0823 fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Feb 4, 2020 |
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Feb 4, 2020 01:39
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It just has 3 buttons marked with a teacup, a coffee cup and a bigger mug.
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Feb 4, 2020 01:42
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Heath posted:It just has 3 buttons marked with a teacup, a coffee cup and a bigger mug. Then it's probably 6, 8, and 10 ounces. My advice would be to bring in a cup of known size and see how much you can fill it with the Keurig. Like, my workplace provided travel mugs that I know are 12 ounces, for example, so I could use that to estimate the pour of the different options.
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Feb 4, 2020 02:00
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If you had one of those couldn't you just pour a gaiwanfull of water into that instead and skip the intermediary measuring-keurig?
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Feb 4, 2020 03:17
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I can get about 2.5 fills out of the biggest setting so I'm gonna say it's roughly 4 oz. It's quite a bit shorter than other regular style ones I've seen.
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Feb 4, 2020 03:42
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4 oz seems to be the optimum size according to Teavivre’s brewing suggestions. I’ve found some of the teas I’ve sampled in my 4 oz don’t have a chance to fully expand though, so I often find myself dumping the leaves in a 16 oz mug and brewing it grandpa style after a proper gaiwan session, and usually end up getting one or more last strong cups out of it. Speaking of lavender, though I’m not a fan of extremely floral teas, I’m upset David’s Tea got rid of their Lavender Swirl because that one was nicely balanced, and yet they kept the Lavender Buttercream which is excessively sweet. Why do they keep blending teas pre-sweetened with stevia and poo poo? Let us sweeten our own tea (or not) to taste, dammit Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Feb 4, 2020 |
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Feb 4, 2020 07:39
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People show me tea they've bought and all the blends are like potpourri. I think people in the US at least are so used to their tea being very strong and cloyingly sweet like you'd get from Starbucks or whatever that the presweetened and heavily herbal stuff sells better.
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Feb 4, 2020 08:39
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I like my tea very strong and somewhat sweet (usually) but I hate hate hate blends that have stevia, sweeteners, or goddamn candy in them. Let the drat tea just be tea, okay? We all know you're just adding this stuff because it's cheap and pretty, like how everything has cornflower in it now. < >There's a little tea shop near work that I really like. They have a really good selection, the owner is really knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her products, and she keeps little sample jars of everything she sells so you can open them and smell the tea before buying it. So far I haven't had anything there that I didn't like.. but I have also seen a tea blend there that has godforsaken bubblegum balls in it.
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Feb 4, 2020 09:54
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Today's tea is green Earl Grey, another green tea. This one uses a base of Mao Feng and adds bergamot oil, giving it a sweet citrusy scent and taste. It's a very interesting tea, and in spite of the name is quite different from a regular Earl Grey, which I'm admittedly not super familiar with. I don't sweeten my teas, but this one would probably be excellent with a bit of honey or agave added to it. The bergamot oil composes the dominant notes, and a quick sniff brings to mind (for me anyway) Fruit Loops, of all things. There's a very slight citrus burn to it that makes the tongue tingle. The green tea also seems to be on the sweeter and lighter side, with the tea itself coming out quite clear, hardly green or yellow at all. This would be a fantastic breakfast tea, with pancakes and syrup. I feel like this bergamot will be on my breath for the rest of the day. While it's not something I would personally drink every day, if you're a fan of lighter flavored citrus, check it out. Dey leaf:  Brewing:  Brewed. Again, as you can see, it's quite clear in comparison to my other greens:  Heath fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Feb 4, 2020 |
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Feb 4, 2020 18:09
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Bees on Wheat posted:I like my tea very strong and somewhat sweet (usually) but I hate hate hate blends that have stevia, sweeteners, or goddamn candy in them. Let the drat tea just be tea, okay? We all know you're just adding this stuff because it's cheap and pretty, like how everything has cornflower in it now. <
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Feb 4, 2020 18:44
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gamingCaffeinator posted:I feel the same way. I love fruity teas, but I hate when they have stevia or sugary stuff in them. My favorite thing right now is a blend of grapefruit oolong, blueberries, and lemongrass. I feel like if I bought it at David's it would have either stevia or like lemon candies mixed in, and it would be awful. I’ve had some really nice herbal blends from David’s (I bought over 500g of lemon smash last year because it’s the best lemon tea I’ve ever tasted and didn’t have anything terrible in it), but I check the ingredients on every one of them because I refuse to buy anything with stevia or candy in it Re Earl Grey, I have an order of this new blend from Murchies coming in today https://www.murchies.com/store/fine-tea/earls-gold-loose-tea.html and I’m looking forward to trying it Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Feb 4, 2020 |
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Feb 4, 2020 19:57
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gamingCaffeinator posted:I feel the same way. I love fruity teas, but I hate when they have stevia or sugary stuff in them. My favorite thing right now is a blend of grapefruit oolong, blueberries, and lemongrass. I feel like if I bought it at David's it would have either stevia or like lemon candies mixed in, and it would be awful. Yeah, I saw the David's Tea advent calendar and I was going to buy it until I realized that 90% of the teas were awful candy blends and/or full of Stevia. A friend of mine got one and posted her tasting notes on Facebook for everything and I think there was a single tea that sounded good to me, some sort of Earl Grey.. but I do love me some Earl Grey. I usually go for citrusy, spicy (like chai), or floral teas. Other fruits are okay but certainly not my first pick, and gently caress anything that has rooibos in it. I have an Earl Grey and a rose black from Tao of Tea that I get every couple of months with Amazon subscribe and save.. although I may have to hold off on the next shipment because I've been very lazy lately and have mostly been using bagged teas instead.. 
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Feb 4, 2020 23:03
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Stuporstar posted:I’ve had some really nice herbal blends from David’s (I bought over 500g of lemon smash last year because it’s the best lemon tea I’ve ever tasted and didn’t have anything terrible in it), but I check the ingredients on every one of them because I refuse to buy anything with stevia or candy in it I'm going to have to try it. Their La La Lemon is honestly not great. I think it's the orange zest added that makes it bitter. I also have to check all of the ingredients in David's teas to avoid both stevia/candies, but licorice root. I know it's cheap and stretches the tea without adding too much flavor but it makes me break out in hives every time. Bees on Wheat posted:Yeah, I saw the David's Tea advent calendar and I was going to buy it until I realized that 90% of the teas were awful candy blends and/or full of Stevia. A friend of mine got one and posted her tasting notes on Facebook for everything and I think there was a single tea that sounded good to me, some sort of Earl Grey.. but I do love me some Earl Grey. I usually go for citrusy, spicy (like chai), or floral teas. Other fruits are okay but certainly not my first pick, and gently caress anything that has rooibos in it. I have an Earl Grey and a rose black from Tao of Tea that I get every couple of months with Amazon subscribe and save.. although I may have to hold off on the next shipment because I've been very lazy lately and have mostly been using bagged teas instead.. gently caress rooibos indeed. I feel like I got the short end of the stick on my first taste of rooibos years ago because it was from Tazo, and it tasted like socks and vanilla.
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Feb 4, 2020 23:27
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gamingCaffeinator posted:I'm going to have to try it. Their La La Lemon is honestly not great. I think it's the orange zest added that makes it bitter. My mom and sister both tried to like rooibos and failed, calling it "dirty twig water." I somehow loved it, for the exact same reason.
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Feb 5, 2020 02:37
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Does anyone have recs for a good electric kettle that's all metal/glass with variable temp control?
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Feb 5, 2020 03:26
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Rooibos has a very different texture from tea. It's smooth in a way I can't explain.
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Feb 5, 2020 03:32
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KentuckyFriedBonBon posted:Does anyone have recs for a good electric kettle that's all metal/glass with variable temp control? I’ve been eyeing this one to eventually replace the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/Bonavita-Temperature-Featuring-Gooseneck-BV382518V/dp/B00N2278VC/ I got a great deal on a Gourmia variable temperature kettle for $25 over a year ago, but it was partially plastic and the lovely hinge snapped on the lid, so now I can only open the lid extremely carefully to clean it and have to fill it by the spout. I found the Bonavita while researching a replacement. It’s highly rated and also seems to have no plastic parts inside the kettle at all. I noticed the lid comes straight off instead of having a failure-prone hinge inside it.
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Feb 5, 2020 03:48
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gamingCaffeinator posted:I also have to check all of the ingredients in David's teas to avoid both stevia/candies, but licorice root. I know it's cheap and stretches the tea without adding too much flavor but it makes me break out in hives every time. Oh yeah, gently caress licorice root too. Stop putting that poo poo in every herbal blend thanks, it just makes the entire cuppa taste nasty and sickly sweetish. And this is coming from someone who actually enjoys black jellybeans.  My first rooibos was some awful vanilla thing too, but I forget the brand. I've tried it several other times in different blends, but I just can't seem to appreciate it. A few years ago my husband got me a lovely chai gift set from Teavana without knowing just how picky I am.. well the mugs were nice (using one right now, even!), but there was only one chai I could actually drink.  One was some awful lemongrass rooibos thing, one was chocolate, and one was caramel.  That said, there was an amazing chai oolong in that set that I'm going to miss once my stash runs out. It's very heavily spiced and the oolong is near impossible to oversteep, so it doesn't get super astringent like a black tea would. You can make the strongest cup of tea in the goddamn world with it and I love it. 
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Feb 5, 2020 04:10
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My shop carries a strawberry and pomegranate rooibos that's just lovely. Next time I have it I'll get some photos.
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Feb 5, 2020 04:40
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Heath posted:My shop carries a strawberry and pomegranate rooibos that's just lovely. Next time I have it I'll get some photos. Oooh, that sounds delightful. My rooibos-hating family members first tried a vanilla rooibos too. Common denominator, perhaps? My first exposure was to a rooibos-citrus blend and I found that worked perfectly well. Drank honeybush straight for a while, too, before moving on to straight rooibos (though I do prefer it flavored).
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Feb 5, 2020 05:37
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Vanilla rooibos is just... Vanilla. Why drink it over anything else? I can see how it would turn people off.
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Feb 5, 2020 05:42
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I’ve always preferred honeybush (it makes a fantastic iced tea), and never got why rooibos is so much more popular. I have a really nice chocolate mint rooibos though, and like it as a base for chai. But I haven’t been able to find a pre-blended rooibos chai I like, so I’m considering buying pure rooibos and mixing it with my own masala chai blend. Also I’ve found rooibos works nicely with cream, like coffee, rather than milk
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Feb 5, 2020 05:49
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Stuporstar posted:I’ve always preferred honeybush (it makes a fantastic iced tea), and never got why rooibos is so much more popular. Yes! Honeybush is just so much better and smells so good.
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Feb 5, 2020 13:47
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KentuckyFriedBonBon posted:Does anyone have recs for a good electric kettle that's all metal/glass with variable temp control? I've had this Cuisinart kettle for a year now and I love it. (The price fluctuates a lot, though -- it was $59.99 when I got it.)
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Feb 5, 2020 18:00
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I've been using the Cuisinart one too and it's great, but it's not exactly all metal/glass. Still pretty solid though!
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Feb 5, 2020 19:27
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Stuporstar posted:I’ve been eyeing this one to eventually replace the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/Bonavita-Temperature-Featuring-Gooseneck-BV382518V/dp/B00N2278VC/ I got this one for Christmas and it's entirely fine for me. I wanted the gooseneck specifically because I also dabble in coffee and wanted the precision. My only complaint is that it's a little slow to heat up, but that's about it so far.
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Feb 5, 2020 19:55
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I’m the odd one out that likes the dessert flavored teas. Vanilla chai is my poo poo. I won’t buy the ones from David’s with sprinkles in them cause what’s the loving point? I also don’t want the like waxy coating that comes with cheap sprinkles.
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Feb 6, 2020 06:01
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ShallNoiseUpon posted:I got this one for Christmas and it's entirely fine for me. I wanted the gooseneck specifically because I also dabble in coffee and wanted the precision. My only complaint is that it's a little slow to heat up, but that's about it so far. What sort of times are you seeing? Just heated up ~500ml straight out of the fridge to 205F and that took 4:30. Don't know enough about other kettles to compare but that barely gave me enough time to get the rest of my stuff together, but I'm usually pretty slow 
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Feb 7, 2020 16:58
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dedian posted:What sort of times are you seeing? Just heated up ~500ml straight out of the fridge to 205F and that took 4:30. Don't know enough about other kettles to compare but that barely gave me enough time to get the rest of my stuff together, but I'm usually pretty slow I'm not sure, I'm stuck comparing it to the electric kettle I replaced, which I think was an old Oster and it could boil a much larger volume of water much quicker. If I remember when I get home I'll run some water through it and make note of times. I think it's easily a good-enough kettle and pretty temperature accurate from when I've stuck a thermometer in it.
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Feb 7, 2020 17:10
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there’s an order from YS on the way, two semi-aged shengs and two younger ones, three of their own productions and one from a tea factory.  idk if this is the right thread, but has any of you guys any experience with the Yangqing Hao group-buys in recent times? the blogger Mattcha recently made a post about how the price has really skyrocketed lately, but the sneaky fuckers (Emmet and Yang, and seemingly the blogger himself) don’t mention what the actual cost is , so it’s hard to judge whether it’s above or below my threshold for $ per cake edit: by right thread I mean that there’s not too much puerh discussion here compared to elsewhere online. maybe place is a better term ulvir fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Feb 11, 2020 |
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Feb 11, 2020 12:48
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I might have also just made an order of two 2008 8582 801 dayi-cakes off of teaswelike.com 
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Feb 11, 2020 16:30
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 I bought this adorable little kyusu today. It's perfectly sized and I am in love with the little thumb dot.
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Feb 16, 2020 03:10
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ShallNoiseUpon posted:I'm not sure, I'm stuck comparing it to the electric kettle I replaced, which I think was an old Oster and it could boil a much larger volume of water much quicker. we might have had the same Oster, mine heated water to every temperature super fast compared to my new kettle. i was so sad that when the Oster broke, it had been discontinued
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Feb 16, 2020 17:30
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Booyah- posted:we might have had the same Oster, mine heated water to every temperature super fast compared to my new kettle. i was so sad that when the Oster broke, it had been discontinued I have a Hamilton Beach kettle that is very quick at boiling water. No temp control on it of course, but it's quick to bring 1.5L to a rolling boil. I swear the cheap ones are best when you just want to boil the water.
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Feb 16, 2020 17:47
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What do y’all keep your self serve loose leaf tea in? I’ve used ziplock bags or paper coffee cups cause that’s what’s been provided, but I’d like something I can label and have in my work backpack that won’t break, and doesn’t look mildly sketch when I pull out a bag of dried leaves at work. 
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Feb 17, 2020 04:23
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CeramicPig posted:What do y’all keep your self serve loose leaf tea in? I’ve used ziplock bags or paper coffee cups cause that’s what’s been provided, but I’d like something I can label and have in my work backpack that won’t break, and doesn’t look mildly sketch when I pull out a bag of dried leaves at work. I have a bunch of the old tiny tins that Adagio used to send their samples in and those work well. I also like the 4oz tins from Harney and Sons and Upton if I need to bring a lot of tea to work. Amazon has a decent selection of tea tins that look pretty and range from a few ounces to megasized. If you prefer plain latch-lid jars look for them at bulk supplier websites. (Check the 1oz friction-fit tins while you're there too.)
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Feb 17, 2020 04:58
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Anyone have any experience cleaning oil from yixing clay? I have a dumb little  -looking tea pet that I kept out at a party because I think it's hilarious. One of my visitors was playing with it and I guess got a bunch of oil from his fingers on it, so the unglazed clay portion of the frog doesn't hold on to water as much as it used to.It's not a big deal, I just figured trying to deal with this would be good practice for cleaning my yixing teapot if it ever got oil or anything else gross on it. Edit: I had a tea session with the frog this afternoon and all the hot water seems to have washed away the oil, so I guess it's OK now fartzilla fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Feb 17, 2020 |
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Feb 17, 2020 14:53
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Today's tea is a Puerh blend called Chocolate Aire. It's a mix of Chinese Velour Puerh as a base with chocolate tea, vanilla honeybush, vanilla black and roasted chicory root added to give it a warming maltiness which, to my nose, evokes Cocoa Pebbles of all things. It's very rich and dark, owing to the cacao in the chocolate tea and the natural darkness of the Velour. This may be my favorite casual drinking tea. It's great for a resteeping, with the caveat that the cacao doesn't tend to survive more than one or two rebrews, and the tea lightens significantly after the second and only lightly resembles the original brew. This is the one I keep at work for use in my little gaiwan, since the complexity of the flavors offsets the rather poor water quality I have to live with there. Another good winter morning tea, and would be absolutely phenomenal with some honey or agave mixed in (I've not tried it, since I don't sweeten my teas, but I imagine it would taste like hot chocolate.) Dry leaf:  Since this one is a blended tea, it comes loose rather than in a cake like the Puerh by itself would. Brewing:  Brewed: 
Heath fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 17:52
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I switched to tea because it's cheaper and tastes better than homemade coffee, but I've been doing it wrong and know it could taste better. Content Warning: Bad Tea Preparation I microwave a cup of water and dunk two tea bags in there (Bigelow or Twinings, English Breakfast or Earl Grey), let it cool a bit, and drink it. It does the job caffeine-wise, but I've had loose tea and it tastes better. First thing I'm probably going to get is a cheap electric kettle with an Amazon gift card I have, but what's a good beginner tea setup? I'd like caffeine that's close if not a little under a cup of coffee, and a minimal amount of fuss because I'm not going to have much patience before I've had my caffeine.
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Feb 19, 2020 04:19
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Tea doesn't even compare to coffee with regard to caffeine. 8 ounces of ceremonial grade matcha is probably the highest you're going to get from tea at 70ish mg, compared to 90 in a cup of coffee. That's going to get expensive. Yerba mate is going to have more caffeine than tea will, closer to a cup of coffee. I've been drinking matcha for years and I find it wakes me up pretty well, but it doesn't jolt you like coffee does. It's more of a slow release, and I feel like it lasts longer. Coffee makes me crash hard, while matcha keeps me pretty even throughout the day.
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Feb 19, 2020 04:35
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