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Jhet posted:Depends on the tea snob, but itt people just leave you to drink whatever you like. I like pricey tea, but I still have a box of Yorkshire Gold in the cupboard because sometimes I’m lazy and that’s just fine. As for the breakfast blend: it is strong and malty, with kind of a dry/astringent finish that I really enjoy. Really full bodied, I think. I guess it makes sense, as I've been a coffee drinker my whole life, I really enjoy bolder flavors. Subtle tea/subtlety is somewhat lost on me.  Stuporstar posted:I used to buy Twinings blend
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Oct 19, 2020 20:02
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betterinsodapop posted:Oh yeah, everybody here has been super cool. I'd never be the sort to yuck somebody else's yum, either. I went down the tea rabbit hole when I got a job at a tea shop (teasource.com) for 3 weeks before my wife took a new job and moved us to a different state. They were really awesome on the education portion of the training, and still have classes and tea information sessions (although less this year, imagine that). I'd still suggest their breakfast blends, and still buy tea from them fairly regularly. They do a lot of other floral/fruit blends which I'm less keen on, but a big portion of their crowd is middle class white people from Minnesota, so they at least know their crowd. They still do a lot of single origin stuff and work with farmers in China too. I like the business plan, but not all their stuff is really that notable compared to some other places. Some of it is still really good though too, and the prices are decent. And while I wouldn't recommend buying puerh from them, it is what sent me down that rabbit hole too. They used to have a giant log of some puerh from the 90s in their St Paul store. I wonder if it was ever sold or used. If it comes back in stock, check the Irish Breakfast and Organic English Breakfast (fka Scottish Breakfast) teas from them. It's my slightly nicer than yorkshire gold daily drinkers for after the coffee in a lot of the colder months.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:17
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The Postman posted:Cool, thanks for the advice everyone! Is the time between steeps pretty flexible if I'm trying to stretch some leaves throughout the work day? Or should I try to keep it within x minutes/hours/whatever of the last steep? It's all to taste. If it feels like you're just drinking hot water just add more leaves and continue to steep. Don't overthink it too much. If you have a decent tea that doesn't get too bitter when you steep it for awhile (most if not all full leaf teas in the oolong category will do you well) then you should be fine to just keep adding water over the course of the day. If you're looking for an experiment to start with, get a sample packet of an oolong that works for your price point, maybe a tie guan yin, and then just go for it. I would say that even after a full 24 hours (like you forgot about the tea) you could still have something drinkable but you would obviously need to reheat or chill it instead of drinking it at room temp. Assuming you are just drinking through a full work day just add water when you're out and keep drinkin'.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:44
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Tried my first Oolong tonight. I tried Empress Oolong from Mei Leaf. It had a really unusual scent and quite a strong cream-like flavour in the first few infusions. Really nice. I think I'd like to try out a green or maybe white tea for my next purchase.
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Oct 21, 2020 00:01
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Are you outside the US?
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Oct 21, 2020 00:11
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Gunder posted:Tried my first Oolong tonight. I tried Empress Oolong from Mei Leaf. It had a really unusual scent and quite a strong cream-like flavour in the first few infusions. Really nice. I think I'd like to try out a green or maybe white tea for my next purchase. if you want something even more cream-like, but more floral, get yourself some jin xuan/milk oolong. i spent half the day infusing and sipping on this stuff. made work way more bearable. 
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Oct 21, 2020 00:18
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Heath posted:Are you outside the US? I'm in the UK.
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Oct 21, 2020 00:21
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Karenina posted:if you want something even more cream-like, but more floral, get yourself some jin xuan/milk oolong. i spent half the day infusing and sipping on this stuff. made work way more bearable. Very much seconding the milk oolong. Just make sure you use filtered water on it - I've found the taste of the water heavily influences this one
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Oct 21, 2020 01:45
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Heath posted:Very much seconding the milk oolong. Just make sure you use filtered water on it - I've found the taste of the water heavily influences this one Do you happen to know if there's a significant difference between the water chemistry you'd want for good tea extraction compared to good coffee extraction? My tap water is about as soft as it comes, among the softest in Europe. So soft, in fact, that filtering it further can actually reduce extraction. Gunder fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 21, 2020 |
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Oct 21, 2020 02:41
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I usually just get purified drinking water and that gives the best taste to me. I don't know enough of the chemistry to be able to give you a good answer on that one.
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Oct 21, 2020 02:51
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betterinsodapop posted:I dunno if people poo on tea blends the way whiskey snobs poo on blended whiskeys BUT... I’m really into blends. I like a fair amount of flavors in my teas, I like layers of flavors, I really like dessert teas. Chais are my overall favorite though. I def feel like I’m the only one around here that is really into the flavor blends but I’ve never felt ostracized because of it. I also think that flavor blends help with easing people into tea because it’s easy for everyone to find something they like, they’re generally quick and easy to make, and then people can just branch out from there getting more involved in tea. My coworker is switching from coffee to tea and she has just been using a box of Lipton. Today I brought her in a bunch of better stuff to try, nothing fancier than a bigelow Darjeeling or oolong, but I’m hoping she enjoys them and doesn’t think I’m just being a pedantic rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 21, 2020 04:37
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CeramicPig posted:I’m really into blends. I like a fair amount of flavors in my teas, I like layers of flavors, I really like dessert teas. Chais are my overall favorite though. Harney & Sons make some tasty blends (Paris  ) so I am with you on enjoying dessert teas and other blends!Bigelow has some gems in their lineup - it's a great place to start for your coworker. (Not sure if she'll get into greens, but avoid their unflavored non-organic green--near tasteless. Their Organic Green is a serviceable sencha blend and I keep a box at work.)
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Oct 21, 2020 04:57
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Karenina posted:if you want something even more cream-like, but more floral, get yourself some jin xuan/milk oolong. i spent half the day infusing and sipping on this stuff. made work way more bearable. This is one of the types of teas you'll want to be slightly more discerning on since like jasmine teas the cheaper ones only have kind of a perfuming thing going on without the more in depth and laborious processing to get the actual kind of flavor. Haven't had it from Stone Leaf tea but I've had some good ones (the flavor will last until the leaves have fully unfurled and maybe one steep afterwards) and some mediocre ones (good for about one steep but then just tastes like a cheap oolong afterwards).
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Oct 21, 2020 05:36
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Gunder posted:Do you happen to know if there's a significant difference between the water chemistry you'd want for good tea extraction compared to good coffee extraction? My tap water is about as soft as it comes, among the softest in Europe. So soft, in fact, that filtering it further can actually reduce extraction. Soft water should be good for it. Most people have water that’s too hard for it to taste right without filtering. You could run into a situation where it’s almost too soft, but you want that smooth texture here anyway. It’s a similar extraction problem when you’re talking about hop bitterness too. So the soft water reduces the bite of bitterness as it’s not extracting as many of those compounds from the vegetative matter. Think Czech Pilsner versus Burton IPA. Hop rates are about the same, but extraction is so very different that it presents with a massively different profile because of the water difference. If you already have the water chemistry stuff from coffee laying around you can play around with it. Your base soft water should be good enough to just add things too without needing purified or distilled. But it won’t be the same as the 3rd wave water profiles that some people really love with coffee.
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Oct 21, 2020 05:54
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effika posted:Harney & Sons make some tasty blends (Paris Harney & Son’s Tower of London blend is a real treat. Big dark fruit flavors, stands up to milk and sugar nicely. A nice breakfast indulgence or dessert tea.
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Oct 22, 2020 11:49
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CeramicPig posted:I def feel like I’m the only one around here that is really into the flavor blends but I’ve never felt ostracized because of it. I also think that flavor blends help with easing people into tea because it’s easy for everyone to find something they like, they’re generally quick and easy to make, and then people can just branch out from there getting more involved in tea. I think that's a nice gesture: bringing a co-workers some decent tea. 
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Oct 22, 2020 16:39
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I ordered a couple of big bags of black tea recently and I've been brewing it in my 1l pot. They're both pretty strong tasting, but one is quite finely ground and after I remove the strainer from the pot, little bits of tea leaves are left making it unpleasantly bitter before I get to the bottom. Any tips on how to deal with that?
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Oct 25, 2020 07:30
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After you put the dry leaves in the strainer, shake it gently over the sink or trash or wherever to sift out the tiny pieces. That should get rid of most of the ones that would otherwise slip out once you'd start steeping it. e: if it's so fine that all/most of them would come out, look into a finer strainer or even a cloth one. There are also disposable paper tea bags you can fill yourself that might work. DurianGray fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Oct 25, 2020 |
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Oct 25, 2020 13:39
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I wonder if you could do a really quick rinse? Like just splash with your hot water to get out most of the fine stuff and let it expand a little, pour out the rinse water, then steep. It may not work super well with finely cut teas, you may lose some of the flavor because they’re quick steeping.
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Oct 25, 2020 20:26
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These strainers are very fine and work well. I use them for my gongfu brewing.
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Oct 25, 2020 20:42
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This Finum strainer is my favorite. I like it because the basket is big, fits in a teapot or mug, and has a little hat to keep the heat in. Pour-through strainers work very well for gonfu or a teapot as well
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Oct 25, 2020 20:51
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Thanks everyone, I might try to get a strainer with a finer mesh, I used to have one similar to the Finum a few years ago. Might try washing the tea and see what happens in the meantime though.
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Oct 26, 2020 06:50
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What are you brewing it in?
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Oct 26, 2020 06:57
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Heath posted:What are you brewing it in? I have a porcelaine pot and a strainer that looks like this: 
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Oct 26, 2020 09:47
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Small amounts of leaves will pass through those course steel baskets, but I often just drink them and don't personally find them very bitter. By that point the tea that you are tasting has been steeped from the leaves already, you might just be imagining it. If you want to strain the tea completely then you can put the loose tea leaves in a filter to begin with: https://www.amazon.com/Biodegradable-Filter-Disposable-Drawstring-Teal（3-54/dp/B07Z8PLKZ3 I use these and while they are probably bad for the environment, they are great for consistent tea.
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Oct 26, 2020 09:56
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Those filter bags are also great for rooibos
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Oct 26, 2020 10:14
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Yeah, I use filter bags for rooibos too because those needle leaves gum up strainers like crazy.
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Oct 26, 2020 17:36
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Trying out one of my white teas this morning and its surprisingly... buttery? Very interesting.
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Oct 27, 2020 13:58
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Stuporstar posted:This Finum strainer is my favorite. I like it because the basket is big, fits in a teapot or mug, and has a little hat to keep the heat in. Is that what it's for? Because I've only been using it as a coaster once I take the strainer 
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Oct 27, 2020 14:15
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I have ripped through my "daily" Assam tea pretty quickly, and have just started on some first-flush Darjeeling. Definitely lighter in color than the Assam or English breakfast. Smells like the English breakfast, though. This tea has that astringency/dryness that I love. Heck yeah!
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Oct 28, 2020 17:55
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My adventures in spiced teas continue. After figuring out my masala chai mixture I stumbled upon Kashmiri teas and they have some lovely ones. The first is noon chai which is green tea steeped for like an hour with baking soda, salt, cardamom, anise, and cinnamon to form a concentrate. The baking soda reacts with the green tea to create a deep red colour. You can store the concentrate in the fridge and when you want some chai you just add a splash into some hot milk and garnish with some almonds and pistachios. It's supposed to come out a beautiful pink colour but I've only been mildly successful at that. I think the bright ones are mostly just filters and lighting. Still, the salty savoriness of the tea with the background spices have made it my go-to morning tea.  The other one is kahwa chai which is a luxurious green tea where you bring some sugar, cardamom, cinnamon and clove to a near boil in some water, take it off and steep the green tea for a few minutes. Pour it into small cups and garnish with pistachios, almonds, and a couple strands of saffron in each cup. The saffron has a nostalgic hit of rice pudding for me and it's just delightful. A little goes a very long way and I like this if I'm feeling a more refined, not creamy masala chai. https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/kahwa-tea/ I'll still have some plain black or green tea if I'm feeling the herbal bitterness but man the Indians know their tea. Special shout out to Moroccan mint tea which is lovely if you add like a quarter the recommended sugar. Holy hell.
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Nov 2, 2020 03:23
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Hey all, I'm thinking about buying a tea machine for my wife. I didn't see anything in the OP or a quick thread search about them. If that's because they're bad and no one uses them I can accept that. Otherwise I'm looking for a good tea machine with a long keep-warm feature. One that pulls the leaves out of the water when it's done brewing. Any recommendations?
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Dec 6, 2020 05:02
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Vim Fuego posted:Hey all, I'm thinking about buying a tea machine for my wife. I didn't see anything in the OP or a quick thread search about them. If that's because they're bad and no one uses them I can accept that. Otherwise I'm looking for a good tea machine with a long keep-warm feature. One that pulls the leaves out of the water when it's done brewing. Any recommendations? How much are you willing to spend, I guess? What kind of tea is she currently drinking that would make this sort of thing a good idea? If it's just that she likes to drink warm tea all morning, there are other solutions that are less expensive and generally more practical. I would suggest instead an electric kettle, a thermos, and a tea pot (and maybe cozy). Or maybe one of those mug-warmer gizmos.
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Dec 6, 2020 05:27
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I'm not sure what a tea machine refers to. There are things the Ingenuitea that you can place over your mug that brew the tea and then you flip a switch to release the tea into the cup and the leaves stay in the upper part. But that doesn't sound like what you're asking for?
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Dec 6, 2020 09:38
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Heath posted:I'm not sure what a tea machine refers to. There are things the Ingenuitea that you can place over your mug that brew the tea and then you flip a switch to release the tea into the cup and the leaves stay in the upper part. But that doesn't sound like what you're asking for? Think of an automatic coffee maker, but it makes tea for you instead of coffee. That's basically it. Vim, one of the few (not ludicrously expensive) tea machines I know of is this one from Adagio (https://www.adagio.com/teaware/velociTEA.html). It doesn't steep the leaves directly in the water (it runs the water through them instead) and it does have a keep warm feature but only lasts 60 minutes in case you wanted longer than that. While I haven't used it myself, Adagio generally has pretty good customer service and it has fairly good reviews on their site, so I feel OK recommending on those grounds at least.
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Dec 6, 2020 14:05
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Maybe they mean a hot water dispenser? Not having to wait for your water to boil to a specific temperature would be pretty sweet. It also accounts for OP wanting to maintain water temperature. Zojirushi CV-DSC40 VE Hybrid Water Boiler is one I've heard mentioned a few times in this thread and other places. It won't brew your tea, but tea is more a manual drink than coffee can be.
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Dec 6, 2020 19:01
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https://youtu.be/KVmNboY14aU You can see a demo of how some automatic tea makers work in that video (that Breville model is like $250 or so on Amazon, which seems like a pretty typical price for that kind of tea maker from what I've seen. The Adagio one I linked above is $120~ and one of the less expensive ones I've seen but I haven't done a lot of research into them). Basically, yeah, automatic tea makers exist and I'm pretty sure something like the one in the above video is what Vim was asking about.
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Dec 6, 2020 19:49
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Yes, the complicated coffee machine style tea machine is what I was asking about. Thanks for linking the Adagio. It sounds like from what people are talking about a good electric kettle may be a better option, though. I mainly drink coffee, while my wife drinks coffee in the morning and then switches to tea. I thought it would be nice to have something that made the tea and then kept it warm for drinking throughout the morning, kinda like a samovar. I'm looking at these tea machines as a christmas gift and also admittedly browsing them out of boredom. I'm trying to get my wife something that will improve her tea making experience. Is the electric kettle that much more convenient than just boiling water on the stove? If the electric kettle is worth getting, what's a good one? We're in america, so 110v
Vim Fuego fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Dec 6, 2020 |
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Dec 6, 2020 20:50
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Electric kettles are a huge life improvement if you're currently just boiling water on the stove. Nice features to look for are variable temperature input (some teas need to be steeped at temperatures colder than boiling so it's great for green teas and the like) and a keep warm feature. This (https://www.amazon.com/Temperature-...ble+tem&sr=8-14) has both and I used one almost exactly like it for a few years until it started to rust on the inside (probably mostly my fault it rusted though). Also pretty much anything by Zojirushi will be good, including the model that was posted earlier. One nice thing is that almost all of them have an automatic turn off safety feature so you don't have to worry about it boiling off all the water and melting down if you forget about it (but make sure it does in fact have the safety turn off, just in case that's a worry for you).
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Dec 6, 2020 21:13
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Yeah I think an electric kettle + nice big teapot + teapot warmer will take care of everything you're looking for in a cheaper and more practical way, despite potentially sending you down the dark road of collecting aesthetically pleasing teapot warmers. Hypothetically. Not that I'd know anything about that.
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Dec 7, 2020 00:23
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