/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>17914122
Stinging nettle leaf also has an anti-histamine effect if you want to try it.

>>17914195
what is the most unique tea you've ever had? I'm looking to try some funky stuff.

>>17914210
Most unique ...
Well i doubt you can buy this anywhere else outside of china.
Tastes like it's been roasted right to the edge without going over. I usually brewed it 8g in a 100ml gaiwan with very short infusions
https://essenceoftea.com/collections/wuyi-yancha/products/2018-zhang-hui-chun-strong-roast-shui-xian

my 3kg genmaicha order is on the way!

>>17914325
Are you going to dump a bunch out on your bed and roll around in it?

welp it's that time again, smokey afternoon lapsang
Ary you drinking anything fun today?

>check my tracking for my surface freight tea from HK
>its not even on a boat yet
i don't think im going to make it
Pic unrelated

>>17914690
Dipped my toes (so to speak) into some lapsang for the first time, the other day.
It was mild as fuck and tasted like that cheapo tobacco my dad smokes.
Not bitter at all, though.

>>17914690
diy russian caravan
so smokey evening for me as well

>>17914732
It depends a lot on the batch, i had some other lapsang that wasnjust lightly charcoal roasted, no real smoke.
>>17914904
Nice Russian caravan is high tier

lately i've been really intrigued by hong kong milk tea. i've been to hong kong on a business trip a few weeks ago and had it for the first time after not drinking tea with milk for about 15 years and i've been craving it ever since. anyone have any recommendations on how to do it yourself?

>>17914195
rate my 2022 tea collection

Only stuff I need is jasmine tea which hasn't seemed to release for this season

>>17915148
Something like this is a good start i think, it can be hard to figure out exactly what tea they usually use.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/hong-kong-milk-tea-recipe-766128

>>17915245
Damn that's a lot of tea
Had any of that bulang tuo recently?
I got one a few years ago, i remember thinking it was nice

>>17915253
It's probably been 8 months since I shipped some off
It's the best raw of the bunch, but I don't really care for the flavor profiles of raw puerh. almost all that puerh is stuff I ordered 2 years ago and haven't used up because I kinda found I don't like it much. I prefer green over everything honestly.

>>17915264
since I chipped some off*
Can't even blame autocorrect, I'm on my desktop. I just suck at typing

>>17915264
Consider yourself lucky, raw puer is an expensive hobby.
I really need to try more Japanese greens, I'm criminally underexposed to them

>>17915271
eh green can get expensive too, it's also seasonal so around december I usually run out and have to wait until april or may to get more.
The true chads are black tea lovers, theirs is the cheapest, easiest to brew, easiest to serve to guests, and lasts for years

>>17915298
Yeah stuff like the authentic dragonswell is eye wateringly expensive. I wonder if there are any types of green tea that are known to keep better.

>>17914210
GABA oolong. Tasted like raisins and leather.

>>17915245
What have you got in those jumbo bags? The "Nil-" Vahdam and center rightmost Upton

>>17915313
Due to modern distribution practices you can drink fresh sencha any time of the year. Japan nitrogen flushes the tea inside aluminum bags before keeping it in cold storage to periodically restock stores. And apparently Korea too, but nobody drinks worst corea's tea.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229962289_Flavors_of_green_tea_change_little_during_storage

>>17915438
>>17914281
these both sound very cool

>>17915491
Nilgiri breakfast tea
the upper right silver bag is yunnan sourcing classic 58 black

Who sells good Korean tea in Burgerland? I just realized I've never had any.

>>17915846
I don't really see much of any get exported.
I think ive found some specialty sites floating around before but cant remember any offhand.

I have my lunch bag loaded for bear. Tea set, like 6 different types of tea, my co-workers aren't going to know what hit 'em.

>>17916076
Nice

Is mixing tea leaves a thing? I've never tried it and I'm wondering if it will taste like shit.

>>17916214
>Is mixing tea leaves a thing?
Yes
>will it taste like shit?
Depends entirely on which teas you mix. Typically teas of the same type blend well, especially black teas. More exotic combinations like black/green tea is more likely to not work out well

>>17916244
Thanks. I've had these two different oolongs that taste pretty good by themselves, but I'll try mixing them tomorrow and see how it goes.

Ladies, I've made a shocking discovery. Tore open a bag of Twinings (American version in stringed teabag) to weigh the contents and there was 2 grams inside. Did the same with Ringtons and there was 3.1 grams. We might be getting scammed with these Lipton style bags. I'm not 100% certain but from my memory I weighed Clipper at 2.5 grams and Punjana at 3 grams, including the paper which itself usually weighs around 0.2g. The pungency of aromas correlates pretty strongly with how much tea is in the bag, although the taste is similar.

>>17916298
Yeah that's why you buy pg tips and not lipton

Should I get a clay pot for when I find my most favorite tea? I don't want to get one and ruin it with random ones I slowly accumulate over the months.

>>17916349
Clay pots are a meme. Also only using them for one single tea is a meme. As long as you don't use them for ripe puer or other fermented stuff that's brown and stinky you get get away with brewing a reasonably wide variety of teas in a single clay pot.
I use mine for raw puers, roasted oolongs and some other random stuff and don't have any issues.
Really clay pots don't make a massive difference and i would really only suggest getting into them if you want to collect clay pots as a hobby, it's really its own can of worms separate from drinking tea.

>>17916310
Might pick some up soon. Maybe this is a retard epiphany but the NET WT divided by number of teabags gives a pretty good idea what to expect. PG Tips is probably 2.83g and they don't use the American teabag.

>>17916464
Yeah that sounds about right, i know pg tips is more than 2g.

>>17914195
not a huge tea guy, but I'm dropping coffee, got some ito en sencha & matcha green tea, it's the best green tea I can find locally in stores that doesn't look like or taste like piss.

any green tea recommendations, I tried to get some jasmine green, but it tasted like fish.

>>17916475
Your jasmine green tasted like fish? I always thought it had a fruity flavor

>>17916475
Yeah
This has a slightly toasted nutty flavor + normal green tea taste, good stuff
https://yunnansourcing.us/collections/green-tea-spring-2022/products/fancy-grade-dragon-well-tea-from-hangzhou-long-jing-tea
Maybe some of this too
https://yunnansourcing.us/collections/green-tea-spring-2022/products/early-spring-cui-ming-premium-yunnan-green-tea

>>17916475
do you live in a big city? if your city has a chinatown that's the best place to try out types of tea before ordering online to get a wider range of varieties

Just fell for the bug bitten oolong meme, what am I in for

>>17916594
you will live in the pod
you will drink the bug-bitten tea

Tea has two ingredients. The leaf and the water. What sorts of water do you all use? Surely you don't just use what comes from the tap, right?

>>17916639
Some say tap water is fine due to the minerals in it. Others only use distilled. To each their own.

>>17916594
Hopefully some tasty oolong.
Its usually pretty good stuff
>>17916639
There are some links in the pastebin for info about making your own custom mineral profiles using distilled water.
Depending on you tap water the right filtration is usually enough

>>17916658
But to be clear the people using plain distilled water are objectively wrong

>>17916639

Aight.
Tomorrow.
Blind taste test.
Final showdown.
England or Ireland.
The victor will be crowned.
Results will be rainforest alliance certified.

>>17915245
Makes me think, who has the highest powerlevel in this thread? Post your largest and leafiest collections

>>17916639

as i'm living in the northern rhine area of germany for sure i use tap water.
it's really interesting though to taste the difference of the same tea brewed the same way with water from western or eastern cologne, different cities of the ruhr area, siebengebirge, münsterland or bergian. even though less than 100km of each other, the difference in taste is immense.
i for my part prefer tap water from groundwater recharge in the bergian area over german standard groundwater mix over rhenian bank filtrate.
as our standards for tap water mostly define minima for minerals (even though quite low ones) but no maxima, there is a lot of cities with water hard as rock. the stuff close to the minima like in the areas around munich is close to distilled, wouldnt use this either.

> tl;dr: m cheap everyday assam, ceylon or turkish whatever tea doesnt give a flying fuck, for enjoyment of higher qualities the softer tap waters in civilized countries do their job fairly well

>>17916639
cleansui filtered water that I then add a 1/2 tsp of my baking soda/epsom salt concentrate I use for my coffee

>>17917276
https://coffeeadastra.com/2019/08/23/a-tool-and-videos-for-crafting-custom-brew-water/ use the google excel sheet from here to do it based off of my tap water (which is pretty soft)

>>17917180
Might it even be called the...Battle of the Bags?

>>17917180
I like that PG tips feels the need to tell you that tea has no calories

>>17917218
I probably have more (empty) puer wrappers than anyone else but i don't have that much tea on hand, only 2 kilos or so. I might post a picture later today

>>17916377
Care to elaborate about pots?
Pastebin doesn't mention anything about tea ruining pots/making them unusable for other teas, is there something i should avoid?
I use a pretty standard glass pot with a metal mesh for my tea and recently ordered both ripe and raw puerh, don't wanna make some rookie mistake

>>17917938
Glass won't pick up smells. It's used for lab equipment after all.

>>17917938
It's just bare unglazed clay pots ones that you need to worry about. Everything else has some sort of nonporous surface and won't pick up tastes or smelles from whatever you brew in it.

>>17914195
Does heating water over charcoal change the flavor or is it just for the aesthetics?

For me, it's the shuiping

THE BATTLE OF THE BAGS COMMENCES

PG Tips to my eye looks higher quality but Barry's has 0.225 more grams. What's more important?

Not even going to bother uploading the photo of the brewed tea. They look identical, even sitting on the windowsill on a piece of printer paper. They're in two identical stemless wine glasses with a label on the bottom, same temperature according to a thermometer, steeped 4 minutes.

Preliminary results so far: PG Tips is 2 for 2 so far. Barry's is bitter. PG Tips has more distinct malty and peachy flavors whereas Barry's simply tastes like 'black teaness'

I'm going to add milk now and see if anything changes.

>>17920052
whoops, pic didn't upload

>>17920052
With milk it becomes possible to tell them apart visually. The taste, however, is almost indistinguishable. With eyes closed, I picked the second cup as the best both times, which ended up being Barry's 1 PG Tips 1. Even though it's always drank with milk this round felt meaningless.
Overall: PG Tips 3 Barry's 1, micks BTFO.

>>17919016
It's just for aesthetics
Half thr time the fill the tetsubin from a water boiler or electric kettle before they put it over the heat so the water inside is already boiling

>>17920206
Funny that the milk eliminated most of the difference. Thanks fir posting your results anon

>>17920232
Pretty usual response for milk, there's nothing wrong with milk in tea, flavor wise. I'm not disgusted by tea with milk in it, if someone served it to me I'd happily drink it. But, you can add milk to mediocre black tea and ultra top quality black tea and end up with an essentially indistinguishable end product. For tea "enthusiasts", that's a pretty big deal, adding milk wipes out whatever reason you'd have to pay money for decent tea.

>>17920762
My feeling is the jump from bagged CTC to loose leaf orthodox is noticeable, milk or no. Maybe the next showdown should be PG Tips versus some good stuff. Bias and visual cues always plays such a big part in taste.

Is there a scientific explanation for why black tea requires boiled water but green tea uses less-than-boiled water? Or is it just the "right" way to do it?

>>17921107
Do you have an opinion on Red Rose black tea?

>>17921133
There is only going to be so much difference in teabag brands.
Next you should order some cheap looseleaf from these guys
https://www.vahdamteas.com/products/classic-english-breakfast-black-tea?variant=13092202774571
Grab a finum brew basket on ebay or amazon for $10 and then start brewing in a mug. You can start out using the same weight and time as teabags to get a good starting comparison.

>>17921109
This isn't an explanation but the abstract does support black tea infuses differently than other tea types.
https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.13149
But it's kind of difficult to compare the temperature as a single variable when green tea is steeped for different lengths of time. If you were going to do a single steep for green tea, apparently the advice is 82 C for 5:42 long,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30100430/

>>17921133
Saw it on the store shelves yesterday but never tried it. It was in those stringed teabags that have low doses of tea leaf, like it's for iced tea. There's a picture of a glass pitcher on the side of the box.

Does anyone have or know of a tea or coffee area in a bedroom? Pics or examples please

They say one teaspoon per person, and one for the pot, but how many ml is a person?

>>17921816

Only reason to bother with gongfu is if you have a sexy tea pet

Is ginseng tea worth it? Does it taste good? Where does one get the good stuff?

>>17920052
I don't think the amount in the bags is that important. I could always get several cups out of a bag no matter the amount. I'd go for whatever tastes the best.

>>17923005
>Where does one get the good stuff?
Just buy ginseng
If you are in the us most of the american ginseng farms sell directly online. Just get a tub of the bits and pieces and brew them.
American Ginseng tea is one of the more potent herbal teas i have tried. I find it very warming and stimulating.
Never tried the asian ginseng teas that are some kind of oolong coated with ginseng dust.

>>17922840
>not swearing full loyality to his fish tea pet

>>17923005
i will never not shill blue people oolong from vital t leaf seattle. perfect combination of roasty, sweet, tangy, honey and hint of vegetable ish flavor, etc. and it has a very well balanced energizing feeling way better than most tea or coffee

I have a box of loose leaf tea I got when I was in Taipei China about six years ago. I only opened it once long ago to smell it. Think it still has value as a tea or is it spoiled somehow?

Why isn't my green tea green?
Is it because I used a single teabag for several cups of water?

Is incense normally supposed to give me bad headaches?

>>17924026
Yes. Your body is not supposed to like smoke and/or obnoxiously strong scents.

>>17923983
depends on the type of container, how well it's been sealed, and the type of tea

Tea bros...
where do I get that good shit?

>>17924092
what's your price range and types of tea you like or are interested in

>>17924092
You mean drugs or preteen/young teen prostitutes?

>>17924007
Thr older and more oxidized the green tea is, the less green it is when it brews up. The pictures you see of bright green tea are usually from Japanese tea that has been carefully stored and harvested within the last 6 months

>>17924092
Find someone that sells dried poppy pods online (they are out there if you look)

>>17924109
Budget of around 20 ~ 30 bucks. I've been using a lot of the bagged stuff I find at whole foods. Been digging black tea generally.

>>17924447
This is good shit there. Expensive, though. You can get it loose in a bulk bag online for 2.5x the value + "Cart10" coupon code, but it's convenient to try out once in bags.

>>17924447
If you are adamant on teabags get something from vahdamteas.com if you are down to try looseleaf they have that as well. Assam, English breakfast, second flush Darjeeling. Those are what i would suggest.
If you get looseleaf get a brew basket from finum, you can find em on all kinds of shops online, it's great for brewing looseleaf in a mug and will last you ages.

>>17924447
If you want to try Chinese black tea than get some of this
https://yunnansourcing.us/collections/black-tea-spring-2022/products/high-mountain-red-ai-lao-mountain-black-tea
And this
https://yunnansourcing.us/collections/black-tea-spring-2022/products/yunnan-black-gold-bi-luo-chun-black-tea

Claim your potfu.

>>17924732
In terms of aesthetics
Ru yi > Shui ping > Shi piao > Gong deng > Fang gu > everything else > those weird ones that look like pumpkins and stuff
In terms of practicaliy
Xu bian > Ban yu > Bian fu > Shi piao > everything else >>>>>> power gap > Han fang >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Seng mao

>>17924732
For me, it's the assassin's teapot. The best Chinese teapot. I even ask for extra poison and the Chinese people are so friendly and more than willing to oblige.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJL0XoNBaac

Found a nice free and open source tea timer app. It supports custom brew settings and lets you keep track of ratios and multiple infusions, seems like it actually has the features needed for properly tracking gongfu brewing.
When setting multiple infusions you have to scroll down to to get it to pop up a box to add the subsequent values which is kind of jank but overall the the most useful teatimer app ive seen.
It available from f-droid or you can grab the apk from github
https://github.com/Sesu8642/InfusionTimer

>>17923005
I enjoy it, I have a "Ginseng Oolong" from a local shop and it has this incredible licorice aroma and flavor with the classic aged green oolong taste.
It's generally rather expensive but it's definitely good shit.

>>17924732
Xu Bian
Flat and wide gets the best extraction which is critical to decent gong fu

>>17924889
Also the default settings seem kind of weird, i would stick with ones from other guides

>>17924889
I just use regular phone timer good tea maker have times in head know how much leaf he need to use, no need stupid gweilo phone app

>>17914325
Came a day early! Bought it off Yunomi and had no problems throughout the process. As for the tea itself I really like it though I am noticing I prefer it steeped a lot longer than the pastebin suggests. Granted my comparison is with bagged tea but I do think the taste is superior and I haven't done the math but it's probably cheaper as well. Came nitrogen sealed and I'm just going to leave everything but maybe a 100g in the fridge. Really happy with the purchase so thanks for whoever did that pastebin.

Also while it was nice to finally get a use out of an old teapot I found stashed away (my grandmother's) I have to say my basic metal french press makes the whole process a lot simpler in clean up.

>>17925028
Don't worry about the pastebin too much, they are just to give you a sort of starting point and then you can dial in in form there.
Looks like they are in a few separate vac sealed bags, you can probably put the ones that arent open in the fridge to keep em fresh longer. But i wouldn't put the open bag of tea in there

>>17925136
They're freezer bags so humidity isn't a problem as long as you push the air out best you can. Just obviously limit how often you open and close them and how often you bring from cold to room temp. Or at least that's how I've been handling my spices/coffee(that I freeze).

WAH2ZJSE6TBH
code for $10 off yunnan sourcing tea orders of $100+ expires 8/1/22

Dragon Well > gyokuro

>>17925706
Dragon well is probably my preference as well, i love the nutty aspect

After two months my tea has finally made it on to a boat in HK. Only two or three more months to go!

Is it normal for shincha to become flavorless after the third infusion?

>>17926093
How long are you steeping? I'd give it at least 2 minutes by then.

>>17926093
brew method? I find after 3 steeps in the gaiwan that most japanese greens lose their more delicate flavors and start turning mildly bitter/vegetal. Greens don't go for too long

I did it bros, I'm working at the tea store. drinking expensive Chinese tea all day while I sell it. Feels good

Do people use unglazed tokoname chawans for matcha? I can't find any details.

>>17926258
I don't believe so, because they make multiple different matcha in the same bowl so they don't want the flavors to mix together

>>17926557
The hotter your water is, the more bitter your tea will be.

>>17926246
nice anon, i've been considering it for a summer job but i think working for people would be hard for me

Hello /tea/, I feel like I've entered a stage where I've naturally replaced all of my morning coffee and other unhealthy shit like alcohol and sweet drinks with tea without even thinking about it. I now feel a great sense of calm when I drink tea. What is this sensation called?

>>17927153
L-theanin fix

>>17927153
It really is amazing how different tea feels than coffee. Occasionally i will buy a cup of coffee, especially when I'm out doing things for most of the day. It's amazing how much more jittery coffee feels.

>>17914195
luv me benner
luv me aldi
simple as.

>>17928604
People buy aldi brand tea?

>>17927153
>>17928027
Tea feels better than coffee but if I try to get all my caffeine from tea I get fucked up.

>>17928727
NTA and I have their black tea. It's ok.

Had a dream where my kettle melted and spewed molten metal all over the kitchen.

>>17929035
Do you have an induction burner? I've left a pot on the power boil setting until it went dry and holy shit it got fucked up. My kettle I noticed before the metal started to sag but it's permanently discolored to a copper shade now.

>>17929097
I left a pot on a gas stove once, luckily not long enough for it to melt down

Still waiting for my tea shipment

Another showdown: PG Tips versus Smith Tea

Cutting to the chase, boutique loose leaf dominated 6 out of 6 tests, all with milk added. I put the loose leaf in a paper Finum filter to eliminate the teapot variable. 2.9 grams to match PG Tips. This was the match-up since PG Tips' blend includes Ceylon and Smith British Brunch is predominately Ceylon.

The first three were mixing them up then tasting. The last three were sniffing them. The difference was so obvious in both tests I could tell which was which before checking the other cup. PG Tips has this musty smell like dried brown twigs and needles in summer. Smith smells like a Terry's chocolate orange.

The issue is probably that there's a lot of dust inside the teabag. The previous teabag I tore open to photograph went into a Finum filter. It tasted fresher. My favorite teabag, Ringtons Gold, has much less dust.

>>17929436
Yeah when tea is such a fine dust it looses a lot of flavor pretry quickly. I also think pg tips packaging kind of sucks because the bags aren't individually sealed.

>>17929471
The box had no plastic wrap, and the cardboard is perforated, so it's exposed to oxygen the whole time. Worst packaging I've ever seen. Even Lipton is in foil sleeves. Luckily, the expiration date is March 2024 so it's not super old.

>>17929514
I guess they can sell it using the environmental minimal packaging meme but their boxes have been like that for years before that was ever popular. I don't get it.

>>17929603
Oh I assumed it had something to do with the bio-degradable marketing. Well it's pretty decent tea for the money but it wouldn't cost much more to put it in a foil pouch. Next time I buy it it'll have to be the loose box. I really hope there's a sealed bag inside there.

>>17929641
I bet the loose leaf is better quality tea

Ordered. Lets fucking go I love this shit

>>17916214
Whenever I have only a few grams left in a bag, I dump it into a jar. I don't care what type of tea it is, it goes in the jar. Once the jar is full, I will shake it up, brew it and experience the taste of every tea.

>>17916214
Russian caravan is a tea blend

>>17930271
If you ever need Negative SEO to de-rank any site, you can hire us here
info@apo-get.site

>>17930294
Wtf

>>17928027
Tea definitely feels more clean in the mornings to me. Its enough caffeine to get up and go, but not enough to make me jittery even if I have two cups before leaving.

>>17929097
It's also a bad idea to do this with the cast iron kettles like in the OP pic. There are a few spots that have urushi coating to prevent leaks. It will melt if you try to dry it by heating it while empty.

>>17930271
These sound interesting. Have you tried them before?

is my hibiscus tea too dark...?

>>17931226
What's the flavor like?

>>17931295
I like it but it's a bit tannic.

How does genmaicha (with matcha) supposed to taste? It was one of my first attempts at jap green tea but it turned out just really weird, with the taste of burnt rice/nuts clashing badly with the other flavor which I can't quite describe other than murky?
I tried doing it as per instructions as possible, but I couldn't truly measure how much grams I put in and the instructions hadn't specified how much water to put in at all, so I just went with my presumptions and put in roughly 150 ml.

>>17930693
Yes, I've tried the "Feng Qing Ye Sheng Hong Cha Wild Tree Purple Black Tea". It was indeed very interesting, so I hope the others can match up to it. It tasted of black tea but had a strong fruity aspect as well. I really like it.

Have any of you tried the high end teas made by Africans? Most cheap tea is grown there, but there are some smaller tea plantations that are doing experiments. Malawi in particular is investing a lot into it.

>>17931456
Brew it again, but this time lower the amount of tea you use and, assuming you’re just using a mesh strainer, let it steep for only 2 minutes. If it doesn’t seem to be any better then you may just not like genmaicha; I’m not a big fan of it

Has anyone had an ji white? I was surprised by its flavor, it was quite good

>>17931667
I have some Kenyan silver needle. No memory of the experience except that I'm not big on silver needle in general. I'll brew some up this evening and if I can be bothered to I'll report back.

>>17931789
>ji white?
What does JI stand for?

>>17932349
The tea is from an ji

>>17932513
Is that Japan?

>>17932549
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anji_County
愚蠢的该死的鬼佬

>>17932700
Wow they grow tea that far north?
Interesting, i know tea can grow that far north but most of the Chinese tea production in in the sothern half of china

Does anyone have some pointers for brewing jasmine dragon pearl tea? I used 6g with about 110ml of water at 75°C, as it started tasting rather bitter above 80°C. Also my first steep was quite weak, probably because I only gave it 30s so the balls couldn't unfold themselves. Should I prerinse and just discard the liquid?

>>17932900
>prerinse and just discard the liquid
Try that

>>17932900
10s prerinse and discard, and underdone is better than over. Alternatively, get a better Jasmine tea

>>17932900
pearls are going to taste weak compared to loose with flowers bro

>>17932989
>loose with flowers
The flowers don’t actually flavor the tea, the jasmine buds are used to perfume the base tea and then usually get discarded afterwards. If the flowers stay in the tea it is mostly for looks. It’s just that Pearl tea usually uses lower quality base tea leaves and a less delicate perfuming (some of the best Jasmine teas get perfumed with fresh buds over the course of several days)

>>17933002
The ones with flowers still tend to have fuller flavor, not because the flowers.

>>17933130
Right; in particular I think bi tan piao xue is the best jasmine tea I’ve had

I picked out five teas from Yunnan Sourcing for 60 bucks and the shipping was 20. They're good at making me want to spend 100 just for the free shipping.

>>17933769
Yeah i feel that, shipping is way too fucking expensive everywhere now

Looking for a masala chai. How is Vahdam's double spice?

>>17933946
It's probably good, i cant think of any other site i would recommend for getting chai.
The full autist mode thing would be buying some nice assam and fresh whole spices and grinding them yourself but its way too much effort unless you want to go all in on chai.

>>17933836
Mountain Stream Teas has free shipping for $32 orders. I can get tea shipped from Yurop/India for $6. Harney & Sons has free shipping on all orders which is tempting me to give them a shot. U niggas love Yunnan Sourcing but the shipping fees have always turned me off of them.

>cinnamon tea
y/n? thinking of making some tomorrow.

>>17933997
As long as it isn't their salted caramel.

>>17934006
i meant using cinnamon i had in the cabinet, not actually buying it

>>17933946
their chai is very chai

t. anon who compared upton and vadham a month ago

PSA: anyone telling you larger leaves are 'bolder' than tippy buds is a scoundrel and a liar.

>>17934130
The basic one?
Did the flavor of any particular spice stand out?

>>17934142
So if you're not getting bud+1st leaf you might as well not even be drinking it?

>>17934183
I'm not a big chai guy but found pretty much all their chais tasted the same
Very cardamom forward

>>17934142
It’s true for oolong

>>17934411
If you're desperate for caffeine it's acceptable but still not optimal.

>>17934455
Thanks for the info. Bit disappointing to hear that they're all pretty much the same.
Personally, I usually prefer more clove heavy mixes when it comes to spices.

>>17925386
Thank you for that. Had an order go from 135 to 125. Apparently they either don't do the shipping over 100 when you have multiple items or I misread something somewhere.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jf801795m
>Furthermore, the raw (natural fermented) Pu-erh tea contained more theanine than ripe (wet fermented) Pu-erh tea
Rawchads rise up
Ripecucks cope and seethe

>>17934815
Sweet table, thanks for posting it

>>17934985
here's a bonus

>>17924889
all i want is a simple timer with a +5/+10 seconds button and a counter for how many infusions. i never got into the habit of counting infusions but now i want to but i always forget

>>17935798
i use stopwatch.net and a google doc spreadsheet. i keep the stopwatch in a separate window and the time shows up on the taskbar

Any decent teashops on aliexpress?

>>17936071
fullchea

>>17936087
or healthteahouse https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1269947 its mostly for puer though but they have some other good stuff too

I have these two different senchas, neither of which I know anything about. The one on the left is really tasty, whereas I don't like the one on the right at all. How can I figure out what they are so I can get more like the left one? I'm terrible at describing flavour.

>>17936220
Did they just suddenly appear in your cupboard or something? Surely you have some kind of lead, be it the package or where you got it from in the first place?

>>17936235
I bought them from local tea stores, from clerks who didn't know anything beyond "it's japanese", and they came in plain brown bags.

>>17936240
The most you could probably do is ask the clerk for their sourcing providers.
If they came in generic bags, this might be some excess stock the providers just wanted to get rid of. Frankly, your chances are really slim here.
Hell, even if you did get some tea from the same source, it might taste notably different for whatever myriad of reasons (be it the way/length of time it was stored, or how you brewed it)
Are the flavors wildly different? Maybe one of these aren't sencha at all? Did you have anything else to compare these to?

>>17936261
>If they came in generic bags
I should have clarified that the clerks poured the tea into the bags for me, from tins that were simply labeled "japanese sencha".
>how you brewed it
I've brewed both in a variety of ways.
>Are the flavors wildly different?
Very. If I had to attempt to describe them, I'd say that the one that I like (the thicker of the two in the image I forgot to flip) has a deep flavour a bit like rich soil or cream, and reminds me a bit of green oolong, whereas the other has a brighter or "shallower" flavour and tastes a bit like grass, more like matcha than anything else.

>>17936299
Well, I haven't had much sencha myself yet but you've piqued my interest.
If you're willing to risk looking like a weirdo, you might be able to take a picture of the tin. Best case scenario you'll get some more details from the tin itself, or some anon could recognize it himself.
All this presuming the tea comes from the provider as is, rather than the clerk just putting the tea into his own generic tin.
Some other anon might figure it out based on the flavor description though, give the thread some time I suppose.

>>17936365
I'd really like to just go interrogate the tea sellers some more, but the stores won't open for another few days.
>the clerk just putting the tea into his own generic tin
This is what they do.

>>17936299
If you want a deeper, richer Sencha, start by looking for a Fukamushi.

>>17936299
Look up gyokuro, Kabuse, kukicha, hojicha, and bancha. Depending on flavor and price point it is most likely one of these. In terms of that thick, umami flavor the scale goes high to low gyokuro-kabuse-general midgrade sencha-bancha.
Hojicha will taste roasted and kukicha will be very mild

>>17936299
What color is the brewed tea? Are they the same shade of green? Grass smell makes me expect it looks yellow-green, which would be light steamed.

>>17936427
>>17936551
Based on some reading I just did, you guys might be on to something with regards to steaming. The thicker tea does appear to be more green than the other. If no other information comes to light, I'll get my hands on some other fukamushi and see how it is.

>>17936757
Addendum:
I bought both teas for about the same price, so I doubt that one is shade-grown while the other isn't, but just to be sure, is there any way to estimate that?

>>17936770
If it’s shade grown the leaves themselves will be quite a bit darker in appearance

>>17936770
If it's shade grown it would be gyokuro. AFAIK the only partially shaded sencha is yutaka midori e.g.
https://www.o-cha.com/loose-leaf-green-tea/sencha/deep-steamed-fukamushi-green-tea/yutaka-midori.html

>>17936903
Kabuse

>>17936770
The one you like is probably just better quality, anyway deep steamed sencha, medium steames sencha, get it from good vendors, you should be happy

which teas lend themselves well to ice brewing. I know it works well with sencha but I don't have any at the moment

>>17937576
None

I've been trying to make my own sweet tea, but its just not coming out right. Part of it is probably the tea I'm using as a base since I don't know what works best. Any suggestions?
no bully...

>>17937734
You haven't described the 'problem' or what results you're trying to achieve. Can't give much direct advice if you don't.
>Part of it is probably the tea I'm using as a base
Unlikely. Most "sweet tea" is just low grade tea bag material and copious amounts of sugar to compensate. More likely to be issues with quantities of material used.
>Any suggestions?
Infuse everything in a jar filled with water in the refrigerator (no heat). Allow it to work in for up at least overnight or up to a few days, add sweetener to taste. You won't need as much sweetener because it will be smoother and less bitter overall.

>>17937808
Part of it is I'm not entirely certain of what I'm doing; just a yankee trying to recreate that good southern "give you diabetes but taste like heaven"
So far what I've seen is "boil tea and add sugar"
>smoother and less bitter overall
this sounds very helpful though. Does the sugar break down without the heat?

>>17937914
>So far what I've seen is "boil tea and add sugar"
The reason I advise doing a cold infusion is because the extraction, while slower, yields a much less bitter, smoother result. You can largely dilute most sugar or sugar substitutes even in chilled liquids by lightly shaking it within a capped vessel (like the jar), or if absolutely necessary, diluting the sugar separately and incorporating it either before or after chilling. It's way easier than the whole "boil your tea shreds to death" method either way.

>>17938225
Got it, thanks. I'll give that a try next time

>>17937576
Black tea, tieguyanyin oolong

>>17935798
I commissioned an Iranian guy to build something similar
I'll post it when it arrives

>>17938625
Haha

>>17938694
I mean I'm serious, told a persian guy I know about the concept and he said he'd program one for me

>>17938730
Oh thats really interesting, im imagining something like a chess timer, post about it if it happens anon, it would be really cool to see

Daily reminder to stop buying from chinamen/japs and have a proper brew instead

I broke another gaiwan lid today. It's always the lid.

>>17940034
yes sirs you should buy Indian tea very fine quality proper brew yes

>>17940034
Please at least shill loose leaf tea and not powder in bags

>>17937734
>>17937808
>You won't need as much sweetener because it will be smoother and less bitter overall.
This is probably a better drink but if anon is trying to replicate sweet tea it will taste very different.

does anyone know of any good books for china based tea or puer other than the puer tea ancient caravans and urban chic book?

>>17940129
>dumb weeab struggles to use a fucking teapot
Not surprised really.

>>17941739
unfortunately most books about tea suck
You can try all about tea vol1 and vol2 and the tale of tea

>>17941739
The classic of tea by Lu yu

>Mom found the puer humidor

Tfw i only have 2.5 kilos of tea left

Have you guys used a rechaud with glass tea pots? I have a Hario teapot (the one with the olive wood).

>>17943186
It will work fine, those hario pots are made out of glass that can handle temperature changes/cooking

>>17941305
He can just let his leaf infuse longer and/or use more leaf material if he wants to increase concentration of flavor or base essence in the resulting liquid. His complaint was that it "didn't come out right", which I presume suggests a bitter or bland flavor. That's why I mentioned potentially going for up to a few days, ideally with more leaf material. The reason southerners typically end up using so much sugar is because they so often foolishly boil the leaf material (bagged 'dust') to exhaustion, which inevitably leads to a bitter, harsh result. So, they need way more sugar to achieve a certain level of sweetness to compensate. It's basically the same shit British did and still do with milk and sugar, just chilled and with more sugar, possibly citrus and honey. Maybe if they only did it with something like sturdy shou, it would be fine, but they are more likely to use Indian red dust or Chinese green dust from an abundance of bags, and all of those will infuse rapidly.

Cold infusion will lead to a less bitter solution which may still have equal or similar concentration of other flavors, so less sugar is needed to achieve a similar result because it's not as bitter to begin with. I often find it's sweet without adding anything too, depending on what leaf I use. However, I also use various whole leaves/buds together and not bags, so my leaf material is at the very minimim acceptable for gong fu. I basically never feel a need to add a sweetener to my cold infusions unless I'm intentionally making a latte of sorts using almond milk and stevia. Even with otherwise harsh sheng, it's much more balanced than chilling a previously hot infusion. I think the result is at least comparable, if not clearly superior.

>>17943347
The convenience of brewing tea hot at twice the concentration and then diluting 50/50 with ice far outweighs the benefits of a cold infusion if someone is just trying to make sweet tea; the sugar will crush the taste differences between the two methods

Smells chocolatey
Tastes a bit floral and malty

>>17943523
yes that one's quite nice. I love the brighter chinese black teas. You should try jin jun mei

Are you steeping your tea correctly as per ISO 3103 for at least 6 minutes?

>>17943671
10 seconds of stirring the leaves with the lid of my gaiwan

>>17943671
The ISO sucks, fuck them
It's helpful if you are a professional tea taster at a tea auction but it's shit for making tea at home

>>17943671
I'm not brewing sencha for 7 minutes screw off brits

>>17943840
Imagine the taste
it would be awful

>>17943918
add sugar

>>17943965

What kinda tea pets do you guys have? I'd like to get one since I can pretend it's my good friend

>>17943965
For the perfect cuppa boil your sencha for 7-8 minutes (12 if you like it strong)
Add a few spoons of sugar, and a splash of milk. Make sure to not put the milk in first, or else the tea will be ruined.

>>17942759

select sum(amount) from teas;
6019.333
select sum(amount) from log;
3631.4513


Roughly the same here.

>>17944824
Damn we got posters out here using spreadsheets while i don't even have labels on all my teas

check out this big leaf and fat ass stem i found in my pooerh tea

>>17945186
bruh that's a bay leaf

>>17945093
custom shell script with sqlite backend, but essentially the same. i just like to have an overview over what teas i have and sometimes i try some tasting notes which i can embed directly in the drinking log. desu it's not very great use; although sometimes i can look at my log for a specific tea to see if i have some notes if i ever used too much/too little tea, etc.

My yunnan tea's been hopping between Guangzhou and Kumming for the past 10 days now, what gives? Is this normal?

>>17945876
Its kind of weird but sort of typical for post coof shipping bullshit, it should settle down eventually

>>17945186
Dam that's a fat leaf

whats a more permanent solution for a pumidor container? preferably not that expensive. ive tried two different plastic boxes but im unable to get the plastic smell out of them, so im just storing my puer with the rest of my regular tea but its probably not good long term

>>17946070
I was lucky to have an old plastic cooler to repurpose.
I think if you buy one of those bare Styrofoam coolers that should work and not have smell issues. Pic related
The people that get really into it tend to use an old mini fridge.

>>17946070
Cambro food storage containers. Cheap, widely available, durable, and scalable. If you don't want to get fucked on amazon pricing, check your local restaurant supply.
https://www.cambro.com/Products/food-storage/

>>17946218
nta, what's the European equivalent?

>>17946732
https://www.fletchereuropean.co.uk/en/products/food-handling-containers/food-storage-containers/
?

My tea just shipped.

>>17947054
They have strapped the package to a dane and released it into central china, will it make it to the ocean without being eaten?

>>17946862
Thanks

>>17947057
surely, he paid extra for the mongol patrol, right?

>>17947128
God i hope so, then they have one of these carry the tea.

>>17947119
>https://www.fletchereuropean.co.uk/en/17-2-litre-polyethylene-18sfsp
I use this with a blue lid, but the seal is kind of poor so I just lay a trash bag underneath it as a gasket. Holds rh great and if I do something stupid like place a big order with no space I'll just order another and scale up.

>>17947057
I ordered from Taiwan so hopefully they got a Norwegian to do it instead.

>>17947472
Oh nice, taiwan has some good tea

Fun fact: you can tell how long a black tea was oxidized by how yellow the soup looks. Longer fermentation = higher theaflavin (picrel) to thearubigin ratio.
rubiginous
[ roo-bij-uh-nuhs ]
adjective
rusty; rust-colored; brownish-red.

Ok, rate my setup so far. I have done no researched and based it off of the Little Jasmine Lychee Oolong Tea brand.

For brand, I use SOLSTICE TEA TRADERS, and I use their Formosa Oolong Tea. It is apparently made in Taiwan.
I DO use syrups to make this. I bought Tea Zone lychee syrup, only because I can buy it cheap in bulk.

Now, I fucking love this tea. I make 64 fl oz. of it a day and drink all of it.

Recipe:
4 cups Water
8 tsp. Oolong tea
5 1/3 tbsp lychee syrup
tons of ice

1. Heat water in pot to boil.
2. Chuck loose tea into water
3. Let tea steep / boil for 3 minutes
4. Strain leaves with strainer (I bought an oil spatter cover and use it explicitly for straining tea)
5. Put syrup in hot tea, mix
6. Put ice in tea to raise volume to 8 cups.

Now here's my question: Drinking all that tea in a day is about 360 calories, with the syrup. It's not that bad compared to soda, but I'd like to lower the calories. I'd also like to find cheaper options, or better tea to use (I've been using the oolong as it's the one I've found that closely matches it). Anyone got any tips for me?

You may now ridicule me for my shit taste.

>>17948657
try a jasmine scented oolong tea and a lychee flavored oolong and brew them together. Zero calories, although the lychee flavoring is not equal to lychee syrup

>>17948678
Thank you, I'll look into it, given that my lychee syrup is almost out. If you have any distributors or dealers online besides the ones in the pastebin that you recommend, I would be grateful.

>>17948657
Glycine is a cool zero cal sweetener

>>17948722
Alright. Looking at the store syrup options, I might be pressed to make my own concentrate using Glycine.

Anyone have any experience with tea from Tezen (germany)? They have a decent selection if you're not looking for 2022 teas, but hesitant to just order a random brand.

>>17948657
Thats not a terrible amount of calories.
Im not sure what the best place to send you to for cheap taiwan (formosa) oolong.
Maybe try these guys if you are in the us
https://marktwendell.com/formosa-oolong.html

Upton tea also has a formosa oolong,
I would suggest ordering a small amout to try it before buying a bunch from either of these vendors

My first chinese tea order just arrived. A couple of questions though:
- For the the puerh bricks/discs/however you want to call them, how important is proper storage? I had originally intended to put them into these glass food containers I have. Which works for the ripe puerh ball, but I underestimated the size of the white tea disc I ordered and it doesn't fit. Right now I just have it in the cupboard in a freezer bag, but I'm not sure if that's good/bad. I'm just assuming that the paper wrapper they come in by itself isn't enough, but I could be totally wrong of course.
- Does leaving the bags unopened extend the "best before" time of green/oolong tea? I've got a bag of dragonwell and a bag of tieguanyin oolong, the first seems like just a regular mylar-like bag, the oolong is vacuum packed. I seem to recall that green tea is best about a year, but if I kept these bags sealed, would that make it stay good longer? I may or may not have gone a bit overboard with buying different kinds of tea, so I'm still working through a couple of others right now.
- The guys at fullchea included some puerh samples, I think? They're these 3 little half balls that were in the package, about the size of my fingertip. Do I just throw one of those in the gaiwan in its entirety, or am I supposed to break it up first?

>>17944465
I think I have the teapot from this set. The paint is so vibrant

I'm in need of a tea thermos to take to work. I'm leaning towards zojirushi, figuring it's a safe bet. Is there something better?

>>17919501
Same

>>17950108
I have a Zoji and it works very very well.

>>17949849
>For the the puerh bricks/discs/however you want to call them, how important is proper storage?
It's important long term but at least till late fall its fine in a ziploc bag
>Does leaving the bags unopened extend the "best before" time of green/oolong tea?
It doesn't hurt, oolong tea keeps for quite a while, regardless of what they printed on the bag, several years at peast. with dragswell you really want to drink it within a year.
>The guys at fullchea included some puerh samples, I think?
Throw them in the trash, unless drinking weird tasting tea is something you will find funny

>>17950108
Zoji is probably the best on the market.

>>17949849
Do the balls smell like orange? They could be xinhui tangerine tea balls, or they might be one serving samples. In either case you brew the whole thing like normal

i ran out of black tea

If I only care about the health aspect of teas, and don't care about taste or anything like that, does it really matter what kind of tea I drink? I drink matcha and bigelo brand green tea clippings.

>>17950498
Supposedly, Sri Lankan loose leaf tea has the most antioxidants out of any green tea if you're trying to minmax.

>>17950511
that's valuable to me, thanks

>>17950498
you'd be better off with herb teas

>>17950323
>It's important long term but at least till late fall its fine in a ziploc bag
And after late fall? Might as well get started on getting proper storage sooner rather than later
>with dragswell you really want to drink it within a year.
Well, I suppose I'll put my rooibos/black teas on the backburner for now and start drinking a lot more green tea then.
>Throw them in the trash, unless drinking weird tasting tea is something you will find funny
Noted. I might try one of them just for the hell of it.
>>17950346
>Do the balls smell like orange? They could be xinhui tangerine tea balls, or they might be one serving samples. In either case you brew the whole thing like normal
None of them smell like orange, no. I'm pretty sure they're one serving samples like you mentioned. They smell somewhat similar to the ripe puerh cake I got.

>>17950546
why's that? I like the caffeine in the green tea...

>>17950498
>I don't care about tea, only the possibility of immortality.

>pop in an earl grey keurig cup in the keurig
>put some milk and brown sugar innit
>drink it
So good

>>17950659
>immortality
says who?

>>17950555
if you're drinking it for the caffeine or l-theanine thats fair i guess, but herbal teas have a lot more health effects but i dont drink them so i cant recommend any

just bought this
>https://nioteas.com/products/monthly-tea-club-with-free-red-kyusu
thoughts?

>>17950498
>If I only care about the health aspect of teas, and don't care about taste or anything like that, does it really matter what kind of tea I drink?
Yes you should be importing 50g and 100g bags of mid priced to premium Japanese green teas and storing the unopened bags in the frige, then once open you shuld drink all the tea in that package within a month. Especially with matcha you should only be buying it from professional Japanese tea dealers. The stuff you buy at the store has none of the good stuff you see touted in all these studies about how healthy matcha / green tea is, its all just cheap crap tea.
Plenty of Japanese vendors listed in the pastebin and at least some local Japanese specialists in each other region.

>>17950548
>And after late fall? Might as well get started on getting proper storage sooner rather than later
Those cambrio food storage bins are a pretty decent choice, you can buy a couple 55% boveda packs off Amazon or something and toss them in to keep the humidity up.
If you don't want to go that far you can buy "turkey bags" in the plastic bag section of the grocey store and keep you tea tied up in those. Again some humidity packs
help quite a bit.Plastic storage totes like the ones for storing clothes under you bed are frequently suggested but they smell strongly of plastic and the smell doesn't seem to go away.
If you put the tea in any kind of container with a strong odor or store it near strong odors the tea will pick up those smells.

>>17950909
Cool, tea clubs can be a nice way to try a variety of different teas you wouldn't normally order and can be pretty fun. I'm not familiar with that particular vendor but they look pretty normal.
Post some tastings when your tea comes in.

>>17950680
It's a pretty weird and ill-mentioned side effect, to be fair

Not a tea connoisseur
But I love having some mint tea
And some lemon tea
Alongside a strong black tea
Milk tea is pretty popular in Indian subcontinent

>>17951033
All those are nice.
Everywhere in Asia has their own slightly different take on milk tea and they are all good.

>>17951024
That guy is nearly 150 years old in that photo

Tea

>>17951024
man in that photo has already died. how deep is this man in tea vampirism?

>>17951241
Died? He is in charge of deciding when tea goes from the more humid to the dryer warehouse.

>>17951282
No the man at the counter has been evaporated by the tea sellers pure qi energy

>>17951300
Imaginr the huigen

Tea

drink more tea

>>17914195
new
>>17951349
>>17951349
>>17951349

>>17950498
In black teas the EGCG and other catechins are metabolized into things with equivalent antioxidant power. Assamica plants naturally contain more polyphenols, thus cheap shitty black teabags are close to sencha in unproven health claims.
No tea infusion can compete with matcha though.