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Framboise
Sep 21, 2014

To make yourself feel better, you make it so you'll never give in to your forevers and live for always.


Lipstick Apathy
Thinking about expanding my horizons from the occasional teabag here and there. I'm mainly a coffee person, but sometimes it's nice to have something a bit more relaxed. I've been seeing the guy who runs https://jessesteahouse.com/ a lot on my YouTube recs and have been kind of interested in gongfu-style brewing, but before I start buying anything, is his site reasonably priced for what he's selling, or is it influencer priced and not worth my time? I was thinking about getting the sampler he sells to get an idea of what I prefer, but I dunno if that's a good price (or high quality tea) at all.

Sorry if it's a dumb question, my experience with loose leaf kinda began and ended with weird herbal/fruity blends from Teavana like 10 years ago. I wanna get into the good stuff.

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Trabant
Nov 26, 2011

All systems nominal.
I'd suggest finding a place where you can try that kind of preparation first. If you're lucky / live in a large enough town, there may be a tea house where you can try stuff out before dropping coin on something that maybe isn't your thing. And it would show you how it's supposed to be done, assuming the place is any good.

I say that because I've found over the years that I much prefer the combination of Indian teas and Western-style preparation. If I had tried gongfu first, I don't think I would've kept going. Very much not trying to dissuade you from trying it though -- you might find the exact opposite!

effika
Jun 19, 2005
Birds do not want you to know any more than you already do.
Jesse's tea is influencer prices; give them a search on r/tea for more.

Gongfu is fun and you can do it with your normal coffee mugs, a saucer to keep the heat in, and then a little 3" mesh strainer or single-mug brewing basket to pour through.

I like Upton Teas for samplers.

Gongfu is good if you're the sommelier-type who is trying to taste the layers in everything. It's fun to do and keeping a thermos of water to pour each serving with means the tea is always hot, which is nice on a chilly morning. Western style is good for enjoying the tea as a complex package, and often is the better choice for many teas.

effika fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Mar 6, 2024

vilkacis
Feb 16, 2011

For the same price i think you'd be better served with a Yunnan Sourcing sampler like this or maybe this.

Also don't feel like you have to start out doing gongfu brewing - if you're just trying to figure out if you want to get back into tea, a less involved method should at least be enough to tell you if you want to dive deeper. Good tea will taste good no matter the preparation method.

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

vilkacis posted:

For the same price i think you'd be better served with a Yunnan Sourcing sampler like this or maybe this.

Also don't feel like you have to start out doing gongfu brewing - if you're just trying to figure out if you want to get back into tea, a less involved method should at least be enough to tell you if you want to dive deeper. Good tea will taste good no matter the preparation method.

I'd probably start with the second sampler posted here. Probably a little more accessible and easy to brew if you're just getting into it. I routinely go with the grandpa method and just put the loose leaf in a glass and add water of about the right temperature and drink. However, I'd grab a decent basket filter and just start with Western style unless you're in love with the routine of gongfu brewing. I start at 3g per 8oz of water, but usually end up around 4g for that 8oz of water. There's a ton of options out there, and most of us even have our favorite bagged teas too.

hifi
Jul 25, 2012

I picked up a cheap gongfu set and my review is that it's only interesting to me for maybe a third of the tea I have and it's easier to screw up say the initial infusion and then the rest of the tea is over or under extracted. For example I wouldn't use it for sencha because it would turn into sawdust soup or something, and stuff like western black tea will at best just taste like a properly western-brewed mug or teapot.

Heath
Apr 30, 2008

🍂🎃🏞️💦
Yeah I would never gongfu any Japanese green. You need big leaves

tokin opposition
Apr 8, 2021

The dialectical struggle of history has always, essentially, been a question of how to apply justice to matter. Take away matter and what remains is justice.
Hello tea goons, I need your help. My favorite tea place discontinued my favorite tisane blend, titled Citrus Mint Licorice. I'm trying to reproduce it at home, but I'm an idiot who's bad at recognizing things or figuring out ratios:

This is the image:


And the description:

quote:

Zesty citrus and cool peppermint blended with sweet licorice root make for a distinctive and refreshing herbal tea. Lovely over ice on a warm day, or hot as a refresher in the evening. This tea is naturally caffeine free, so you can drink it any time. We love it in the shop after a long day of talking about tea. You can add a bit of honey to soothe a sore or tired throat.

Ingredients: Licorice root, apple pieces, peppermint, lemongrass, natural or nature identical flavor

Having bit into some of the yellow stuff, I think it's dried lemon, but I'm not sure. The ratio I'm thinking of is:

3 parts lemongrass, 3 parts peppermint, 2 parts licorice, 1 parts apple and 1 parts lemon peel

Does this seem at all reasonable to you, my fellow "tea" drinkers?

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

tokin opposition posted:

Citrus Mint Licorice

lol this sounds like the tisane from hell for my tastes—I wish you luck though!

DurianGray
Dec 23, 2010

King of Fruits

tokin opposition posted:

Having bit into some of the yellow stuff, I think it's dried lemon, but I'm not sure. The ratio I'm thinking of is:

3 parts lemongrass, 3 parts peppermint, 2 parts licorice, 1 parts apple and 1 parts lemon peel

Does this seem at all reasonable to you, my fellow "tea" drinkers?

Looking at the photo and ingredient list, I think the yellow stuff is mostly the licorice root and maybe some apple pieces. It doesn't list citrus peel at all so unless it's breaking food labelling regulations there's no lemon peel at all.


If the ingredients list is compliant with US regulations, it's also actually listed in order by weight already. So you might want to use that as a guideline for your ratios and have mostly licorice root, then dried apple pieces, then a tiny bit of peppermint and lemongrass (by weight at least). And since there's no lemon peel listed in the ingredients but you did taste something similar, that makes me wonder if they added some lemon-type flavoring to the whole thing (which would fall under the mysterious "natural or nature identical flavor" listing).

(I also loathe licorice root personally lol, but I hope that's helpful for you.)

e: spitballing here but I would probably start with something like 40% licorice root, 30% apple pieces, 15% peppermint, 15% lemongrass and see where that gets you. (If it's missing some citrus flavor after that you might need to add some citrus flavoring). I'd also recommend using a kitchen scale, or use this as an excuse to get one if you don't already have one.

DurianGray fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Mar 17, 2024

Alucard
Mar 11, 2002
Pillbug

tokin opposition posted:

Hello tea goons, I need your help. My favorite tea place discontinued my favorite tisane blend, titled Citrus Mint Licorice. I'm trying to reproduce it at home, but I'm an idiot who's bad at recognizing things or figuring out ratios:

This is the image:


And the description:

Having bit into some of the yellow stuff, I think it's dried lemon, but I'm not sure. The ratio I'm thinking of is:

3 parts lemongrass, 3 parts peppermint, 2 parts licorice, 1 parts apple and 1 parts lemon peel

Does this seem at all reasonable to you, my fellow "tea" drinkers?

If they've discontinued it, you could also try asking them for a recipe. Some places are fine sharing that if they're not making it anymore

Framboise
Sep 21, 2014

To make yourself feel better, you make it so you'll never give in to your forevers and live for always.


Lipstick Apathy
Hey thanks for the responses from a couple weeks ago. Sorry for late response, been goin' through it lately and haven't really had the energy to be around much.

Before making some online purchases, I've spent some time doing a bit of exploring what local stores have to offer as far as loose-leaf teas go. Most local supermarket-type stores have very little to choose from. I found a lavender earl grey at a Kroger that sounded lovely but in reality it's as if a bergamot was given arms, legs, and roids so it could punch me in the nose. Way too intense. We don't have any teahouses where I live (a wonderful coffee roaster, but nothing for tea), so I decided to start exploring various Asian markets around town where I had a bit more luck. I've found some white tea sachets and some pearl green tea (I think I like jasmine tea a bit more though) and some tieguanyin oolong which is probably my favorite so far. I've got a little 12oz teapot that I forgot I had until a couple weeks ago, so I've been using it to experiment before buying different brewing vessels. I think where I've landed is about 2 tsp of tea per pot, so roughly 1 tsp per 6 oz. Don't really have a scale that can reliably measure such tiny amounts of weight, should probably look into getting one.

Feeling a bit more confident to start diving in to import stuff. I think I'll go with the sampler from Yunnan Sourcing (and there's a really pretty gaiwan that I'll be picking up too).


Jhet posted:

There's a ton of options out there, and most of us even have our favorite bagged teas too.

What are some good bagged teas to go for? My job has me on the road for most of the day, and the place I usually take my clients has hot water to use, but they charge 75 cents for teabags that you can get from the store at like, 20 for $3. Kinda dumb and not very tasty.

Trabant
Nov 26, 2011

All systems nominal.
I like Harney & Sons, although most of their popular stuff is India-sourced and western-prepared.

But if you find a loose leaf you really like, you can always make your own tea bags with it.

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

Framboise posted:

What are some good bagged teas to go for? My job has me on the road for most of the day, and the place I usually take my clients has hot water to use, but they charge 75 cents for teabags that you can get from the store at like, 20 for $3. Kinda dumb and not very tasty.

I just go for the big box of Yorkshire Tea Gold, because it’s strong and bold with the flavors. But try different ones. There was a mediocre bagged oolong I found once that was passable too.

Framboise
Sep 21, 2014

To make yourself feel better, you make it so you'll never give in to your forevers and live for always.


Lipstick Apathy
So I went and got the sampler mentioned earlier and a gaiwan, strainer, and 2 tea cup set and they arrived on Monday.

The cups aren't as pretty as the pictures made them out to be, but I kind of like that they have their own unique look to them.

So far I've tried:
"Imperial Grade Silver Needle White Tea of Jinggu" - My first attempt at gongfu. I don't think I was messing it up so much as maybe I just didn't use enough? The flavor was so faint that it didn't really start to show until the fourth steep or so, and even then it didn't get very far.
2024 "Cozy" Certified Organic Pu-erh - This was a little sample pouch that came with my order, much smaller than the others. I don't understand this one, but then again I've not had pu-erh before now so maybe I just don't "get" it, or I wasn't doing it right? I dunno. Tasted like black tea mixed with soil. I heard that these kinds of teas can be earthy but maybe it's quite a bit more so than I had expected, which makes me a bit nervous for the 250g bag of Menghai pu-erh I got as a BOGO extra. I dunno.
"King of Duck poo poo Aroma" Dan Cong Oolong - I had to try this one because of the ridiculous name, and it's all right. I don't think I did it right, once more? The description noted that it'd be floral, sweet, and toasty, but the only flavor I was really getting out of it after a bunch of steeps was "toasty". And that's not a bad thing really, but I don't think I'm getting out of it what I'm supposed to.

Maybe I really should pick up a better scale, my kitchen scale is not very good at very small weights.

Also,


Trabant posted:

I like Harney & Sons, although most of their popular stuff is India-sourced and western-prepared.

But if you find a loose leaf you really like, you can always make your own tea bags with it.

I saw a tin of their Paris tea sachets at the store the other day and picked it up. Not bad at all. Maybe a bit bubblegum-y for my tastes, but the smell is nice.

effika
Jun 19, 2005
Birds do not want you to know any more than you already do.
Harney & Sons Paris always seems to be a hit, glad you liked that one!

Try those same teas brewed western style. I wonder if some of the more subtle notes are getting separated out in the gongfu steeps such that they're harder to catch without coaching. The white tea is always going to be subtle, and that one especially may benefit. (Maybe Not the puer, that probably won't get better.)

Then you can figure out if you like those teas at all, and start dialing in gongfu steeps to get what you want out of them.

Heath
Apr 30, 2008

🍂🎃🏞️💦

Framboise posted:

So I went and got the sampler mentioned earlier and a gaiwan, strainer, and 2 tea cup set and they arrived on Monday.

The cups aren't as pretty as the pictures made them out to be, but I kind of like that they have their own unique look to them.

So far I've tried:
"Imperial Grade Silver Needle White Tea of Jinggu" - My first attempt at gongfu. I don't think I was messing it up so much as maybe I just didn't use enough? The flavor was so faint that it didn't really start to show until the fourth steep or so, and even then it didn't get very far.
2024 "Cozy" Certified Organic Pu-erh - This was a little sample pouch that came with my order, much smaller than the others. I don't understand this one, but then again I've not had pu-erh before now so maybe I just don't "get" it, or I wasn't doing it right? I dunno. Tasted like black tea mixed with soil. I heard that these kinds of teas can be earthy but maybe it's quite a bit more so than I had expected, which makes me a bit nervous for the 250g bag of Menghai pu-erh I got as a BOGO extra. I dunno.
"King of Duck poo poo Aroma" Dan Cong Oolong - I had to try this one because of the ridiculous name, and it's all right. I don't think I did it right, once more? The description noted that it'd be floral, sweet, and toasty, but the only flavor I was really getting out of it after a bunch of steeps was "toasty". And that's not a bad thing really, but I don't think I'm getting out of it what I'm supposed to.

Maybe I really should pick up a better scale, my kitchen scale is not very good at very small weights.

Also,

I saw a tin of their Paris tea sachets at the store the other day and picked it up. Not bad at all. Maybe a bit bubblegum-y for my tastes, but the smell is nice.

Get one of those little gram scales people use for measuring weed. Seriously.

What kind of temperatures are you steeping at, and how long? White teas brew just slightly hotter than greens usually, and they may require a longer steep time to bring out their flavors.
Give it a good rinse for about 5 seconds and just pour off the first batch, then cover up the leaves with the lid and let it just settle for 10-20 seconds and give it maybe 20-30 seconds of steep time. With the Puerh, cut all those times drastically and brew it hotter. Rinse about 3 seconds and let it sit and open up for a whole minute, then do a proper brew for 5-10 seconds.

Framboise
Sep 21, 2014

To make yourself feel better, you make it so you'll never give in to your forevers and live for always.


Lipstick Apathy

effika posted:

Harney & Sons Paris always seems to be a hit, glad you liked that one!

Try those same teas brewed western style. I wonder if some of the more subtle notes are getting separated out in the gongfu steeps such that they're harder to catch without coaching. The white tea is always going to be subtle, and that one especially may benefit. (Maybe Not the puer, that probably won't get better.)

Then you can figure out if you like those teas at all, and start dialing in gongfu steeps to get what you want out of them.

Tried the oolong again, this time in my larger teapot (around 12-14 oz?) for around 2:30 per steep. It's all right. Maybe a bit weaker, should have added more. Definitely less toasty and more nuanced. Tasting a bit more of the sweetness.


Heath posted:

Get one of those little gram scales people use for measuring weed. Seriously.

What kind of temperatures are you steeping at, and how long? White teas brew just slightly hotter than greens usually, and they may require a longer steep time to bring out their flavors.
Give it a good rinse for about 5 seconds and just pour off the first batch, then cover up the leaves with the lid and let it just settle for 10-20 seconds and give it maybe 20-30 seconds of steep time. With the Puerh, cut all those times drastically and brew it hotter. Rinse about 3 seconds and let it sit and open up for a whole minute, then do a proper brew for 5-10 seconds.


Gotcha. Ordered a scale this morning (complete with calibration weight!) and it should be here tonight or tomorrow or so.

I was reading that white teas were supposed to be a bit lower than green, so I was brewing at around 175F, but I was a dumb and just kept using the kettle from my table when I should have put it in a thermos, so subsequent steeps were cooler than that.
As for the pu-erh, I was brewing that at boiling temp (but once again, should have used a thermos to keep the water at that temp rather than just bringing my kettle to the table with me.
For the oolong, I was doing 190F.

Once my scale comes gets here, I'll start measuring more accurately, use a thermos to keep a more consistent temp, and I'll let the leaves open up more.

hope and vaseline
Feb 13, 2001

fwiw I'm not a big white tea drinker but I had some silver needle and white peony recently and both of them felt more full-bodied at 190 vs 170 or 180. It just felt like it was missing *something* when brewed at a lower temp

190 just feels like a magical temp for most of my oolongs and chinese blacks

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Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?
I’ve been using a higher temperature for white, like 95C, as Teavivre recommended (though I am drinking lower grade white tea cakes because they’re so complex), and get much more robust and nuanced flavors that way.

Also more roasted oolongs take much higher temperatures, like 95C as well.

Pu-erhs I do full boil for shorter durations in a gaiwan, but I do a wash like Heath recommends.

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