/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Tippy Assam

>>19588524
bitterness is when you have to swallow some meds
astringency is when you bite into a lemon

>>19588485
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YRzisSDM2g
consider reading the book also, its really interesting if you want to learn about the history of puerh tea

I'm not fond of gaba tea. It tastes and smells like nitrile gloves.

>>19588569
Weird. Try brewing it for a shorter period in time and or with less leaves and see if that helps

>>19588584
It smells like nitrile even before I've brewed it, fresh and unbrewed.

Filtered water is okay, right? It doesn't make the tea worse?

>>19588541
Second for the reading book. Worth every penny. There isn't a better treatise about puerh tea in English. I wish there was something more up to date, though.

>>19588593
Damn, might just be crappy tea. Happens sometimes

>>19588609
Filtered water is preferable, distilled water or reverse osmoses water isn't ideal. The most important thing is that you want to water you use to not be excessively hard as that will dull the taste of the tea. Most picture style of tap filters will soften the water enough that it makes the tea taste much better.
If you have hard tap water and want to compare you can buy a gallon of poland springs water and brew the same tea with your tap water and the spring water side by side

>>19588660
>Most picture style of tap filters
*Most pitcher style filters

When are summer tea released? And what about the Autumn ones usually?

>>19588788
I can't think of much summer tea that gets listed other then the occasional Darjeeling or other Indian tea from one of the indian tea sites. I wanna say fall teas show up around September/October but im not totally sure

>>19588788
not sure about summer teas but autumn puerhs usually get released around black friday

Who the fuck started the idea that squeezing teabags is a good idea?

>>19588494
Just bought some Twinings Lady Grey and English Breakfast. How did i do? Also is it true you only use 90 °C water for yor tea?

>>19589255
Forgot a Picture

>>19588979
I always do it. No ever told me to. What's the problem, allergic to flavornoids? More is always better right?

>>19589255
They are fine, i would do full boiling water, or maybe 95°c, brew for about 3 minutes, don't leave the teabag in, don't squeeze it

>>19589255
Different types of tea work well with different temperatures of water. 90°C might be okay for some oolongs. For black teas like those, I'd use 100°C water.

>dropped my gaiwan and smashed it
FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

>>19589342
>he doesn't use a titanium gaiwan

>>19589342
RIP

>>19589342
time to learn kintsugi

>>19589372
I found a guy selling a kintsugi kit with some medical grade heat resistant resin glue but its like $70 or something stupid like that. Im too lazy to do the research to find a glue thats safe to use

My Craftedleaf Tea order was delivered today. I guess it was stuck in customs since the tracking info said it wasn't in the system for a good month until it popped up. I'm missing a few items from the package, so I emailed them to see if they were shipped separately. At least we know that they're actually real.

>>19589591
Hopefully they shipped it in two boxes. Thanks for taking the plunge to try them out

>>19589342
>lose one, buy three

>>19589255
what do you mean by "is it true?" do your taste buds say its true?

Bangwai small trees is growing on me. I think it's gotten better after resting in storage for a short while.

>>19590630
I'm trying my sample for the first time right now, but not getting that much out of it. How would you describe the tea? Did you get better results pushing it or brewing it more light?

>>19588915
>>19588926
For summer i want to buy oriental beauty.

2009 fuhai 7576
had a fair amount of this now and i think it's a really solid cake. wet leaf has some of those cookie dough notes and just a touch of something toasty? almost reminiscent of a black tea.
flavour is like a dayi, skewed towards the woodsy/earthy notes and away from the fruity ones. i'm a big fan of this flavour profile. is it "light fermentation"? mouth feel is what you expect from a ripe.
these type of ripe make me feel like i'm enjoying a coffee and biscuit for breakfast or something like that (but that's not a taste note to be clear).
i'll be getting another cake of this when i next make an awazon order, for 3c/gram why the hell not.

>>19591314
oddly enough I brewed some up right now, before I saw your post
I agree it's a tasty ripe at a great price. I struggle to see precise differences between it and the Dayi 7572 I also got from Awazon, they're both very balanced and classic. I guess the Dayi is more creamy vanilla and 7576 more sour fruity from what I can tell but both share the dark chocolate, roasted wood, nice body and cookie dough (lighter brews have more cookie dough, stronger brews more dark chocolate). I think I give the edge to Dayi for that pronounced vanilla, but they're both nice
I don't think it's a lighter fermentation profile, just a classic Menghai area factory taste. Fuhai and Haiwan productions seem to have a lot in common with Dayi, factories from other regions can stray further away from this profile

>>19591331
i also have an awazon 7572 holy shit. not drank much of it yet though, something keeps pulling me back to the fuhai. but i would agree the similar dayi ripes i've had do win over this cake a bit.
thanks for the info about menghai area, i should've realised they're in the same region. gotta get my hands on some more fuhai stuff to try.

>>19591363
the 2018 Haiwan 9978 I got from KTM is also similar but more sour fruity, you might enjoy that as well. almost reminds me of some sort of nice new wave coffee if I brew it strong, a nice pleasantly acidic espresso
the big Menghai factories seem to share some (former) employees and production techniques, in addition to probably using similar blends of material. that explains why they're fairly similar to eachother

>>19591363
have you tried more fuhai cakes? what do you think of them? im tempted to try some raws and possibly ripes from the smaller factories like liming, fuhai, xinghai and nanqiao. also KTM released a lot of decently priced puerhs from these factories from 2004-2007 i might buying some

>>19591381
I know Awazon has some supposedly more premium Fuhai ripes from 2005. those sound good and they're not too pricey

>>19591376
thanks for the rec, i'll check that out. i have a few things to try building up at KTM

>>19591381
this is the only fuhai i've had, but i'll be looking for more in the future. it's a super cheap cake and it definitely outdid my expectations for the price. just as i was typing this anon mentioned the 2005 one which i've had my eye on.

>>19590956
I use more material than most, but not crazy amounts. That said, once it opens up from compression, I take it pretty light. I'm glad you said something because I have also noticed it's a little finicky to get perfect. To me, that perfect means plenty of sweetness, and vegetal tones that remind me of a bell pepper. Overbrewing still has that essence, but it's clearly overpowered by bitterness. Bangwai big trees is slightly less burdened by this when brewing strong.

>>19591667
yeah my first session was missing something, I didn't really get much out of it beyond a generic fruity flavor, kind of bland. I'll try it with more material next time
it's too bad I missed that autumn Lao Man E from last year, that sounded interesting

>>19591667
I hope I get more sweetness next time

>>19591766
>>19592670
I'll brew more up this weekend and let's try to figure something out. It's not a low quality tea. I'm a little disappointed by proxy that you didn't find the tea you were hoping for.

>>19592892
no worries, it's just a sample. I think I might just have to push it more

drinking the FarmerLeaf Dong Guo again, second session
strong on the citrus and astringency. + maybe a slight funky herbal note I can't quite place (cassia leaf or something?). tart lemon flavor, drying mouthfeel. not getting heavy sweetness or huigan
it's enjoyable, but I wouldn't really buy it for 70$. a little one-note. might be a fun sample for astringency lovers who really want a mouth-puckering experience with a clear lemon flavor

is autumn tea usually good value? or is it risky?

>>19591376
>>19591331
>Haiwan productions seem to have a lot in common with Dayi
Haiwan is run by Zou Bingliang, who worked at Menghai Tea Factory for 20 years, including a stint as director and chief engineer. Just connecting some dots.

>>19595129
Some articles say he was at Menghai for 40 years, which is feasible.

>>19595082
>is autumn tea usually good value? or is it risky?
Ive had some very nice flavorful autumn teas, and they are cheaper then spring teas. Ive never had an autumn tea that i thought was particularly weak / bland but most of the fall teas i drink are factory blend puer cakes/tuos and not single origin stuff.
At least part of China's preference for spring tea is TCM superstition/snobbery. But i wouldn't be surprised if fall teas tasted softer on average

I kinda wanna get a little glass gaiwan, good idea or nah?

>>19595195
Glass gaiwans look cool
Pros: see though, looks cool, works
Cons: more heavy then thin porcelain gaiwan, about the sane weight as ceramic or pottery gaiwans
Just make sure you don't get one that's too large, you want about 100-120ml usable capacity, so probably 150ish filled to the top.

>>19588494
How did I do?

>>19595430
>200$ per ounce
interesting

>>19595446
They have $400 even

>>19595430
Nice, you don't see many tea habitat orders posted here, pot looks great too, nice puffy lid

>>19595633
I didn't order this I went to their physical store in Alhambra.

>>19595430
Looking forward to your reviews.
>>19595633
>>19595739
Never heard of Tea Habitat. What's their deal?

>>19595793
They sell rare teas in the United States. They also have a tea tasting where you go to the store and Imen will prepare you five teas, you can have like a clay Chao Zhou teapot or like a gold or silver teapot. The tea tasting takes almost two hours and ends at 6:00 pm in Los Angeles time.

>>19595739
Nice, did they make some tea for you while you were there?

>>19595739
i live in long beach,
i've been looking for a place to find good tea i might try them out. do they sell real jixing pots in the store? gaiwans?

>>19594339
you might have to wait until 2024 for the huigan to show up.

Hey /tea/, looking at getting into tea in the future and just lurking for now, but I've seen some teas come up with what seems to be a random number at the end, like >>19591314 or >>19591331. Is there any meaning behind those numbers? Pastebin didn't mention it.

>>19595968
Yes but check their website if the one you like is in stock.

>>19595947
Yeah the puerh was great.

>>19596082
the number is the puerh recipe the factory uses for that tea, the first 2 numbers are the year the recipe was made, the 3rd number is the leaf size where 9 is the largest, and the last number is the factory digit where the most important are:
1 - cnnp
2 - menghai tea factory / dayi
3 - xiaguan
8 - haiwan

>>19596109
Thanks for the info!

>>19596082
They're product identifiers.

>>19595968
>>19596096
If you go to the store tell Imen that Ayrton said hi.
>>19596082
https://www.lunacha.com/blogs/news/code-of-pu-erh-tea#:~:text=The%20first%20two%20numbers%20represent,of%20code%207242%20tea%20cake.

>>19588539
persimmon is more astringent than a lemon, don't confuse it for acidic.

>my sister cooked eggs in my kettle
REEEEEEEEEEEE

Who cooks eggs in a kettle?

>>19596391
put that bitch's birthday money to getting a replacement

>>19596391
You could punish her severely and no jury would convict you.

>>19594339
how do you brew your tea?

>>19596837
gong fu style. small pot, a lot of leaves and many short infusions

time to sum up my Farmerleaf samples!
>Dong Guo raw
strongly astringent, tart, with a pronounced lemon note. not very bitter, not super sweet. pretty tasty, but can get tiresome because there isn't much more to it than "really tart lemon". maybe some florals and herbals on some brews.
>Fa Zhan He raw
similar tart lemon, but more balanced astringency. has added savory green bean notes and I think more sweetness. changes more between brews, so it doesn't get tiresome. tart mineral aftertaste. my favorite from this order.
>Jingmai Yellow Flakes
my first huang pian. nice honey and plum aroma, a bit of that in the taste, but mostly walnut-like roastiness and herbal notes. it's okayish. easy to brew, but a bit boring and flat
>2021 Yingpan Shan Black
decent black tea on the fruity side. doesn't punch far above the price for my taste, but the price is so low it could be a good daily drinker
>2022 Jingmai Moonlight White (free sample)
not really a fan of white tea, but it was pleasant enough. a bit herbal, some autumnal apples and a nice element of floral honey sweetness. seems like a standard shou mei. wouldn't buy it for 60$ per cake though
>2022 Jingmai Miyun (free sample)
generic young raw with some stone fruit flavors. balanced but boring
>Bangwai small trees raw
similar impressions to the Jingmai, but I'll have to retry it as I still have some left.

>>19595430
>>19595510
Presumed age of the tea trees on box and listing price i can't.

How do I improve my tasting notes?

>>19597660
Don't just enjoy your tea drinking, improve the drinking experience the best you can.

>>19597607
I pretty much agree with your assessments on all these except i enjoy the small trees cake, it's certainly not the most complex but i think it works.

>>19597765
I think I might be a bit biased against softer, milder raws. I'm planning to try it with more material next time. If it has more sweetness than the Miyun, I'll probably like it more.

>>19597660
Drink lots of tea and try to articulate the differences between them. Try teas others have reviewed and see if you can understand why they described them as such. Eat and drink a wide variety of fruits and veggies and take note of their flavors as well. Don't get too caught up on objectivity, simply describe your experience with the tea and do it often.
>>19597738
This is good advice, so long as you count the selection, storage, preparation, even the teaware choice as part of the drinking experience.

>>19597765
did you like the Bangwai more than the Miyun?

>>19597607
I enjoyed the yingpan shan black more after pushing the first 2 steeps (you do a rinse or not?) Getting more into classical black taste then 3+ having the fruity notes taking more space.

I also enjoyed fa zhan he a lot more than the other cakes i ordered i think the nannuo and meng noy need to time, i'll try to drink the fa zhan he quickly i enjoy it this way and don't know if i'll like how he will evolved. Tried the ba ka noy with a friend who ordered it i really like the strong deep mouth feel you get and it's more than drinkable right now if you compare it to some of the other cakes imo even if it's most likely be the best cake to keep for aging.

>>19598092
I've tried the yingpan shan both pushed and lightly brewed and it was okay both ways
I'm just oddly fussy with black tea and am comparing it to teas that cost 4x the price. I think it's good value
I'm starting to think I'm a bit fussy about young raws too. but my wallet is not ready for 1$ per gram gushu... at least with ripe I'm happy drinking 15$ factory cakes, thank God for that

>>19598380
As a black tea drinker i find it nice because it's different that's the main selling point for me. Puerh material turned into black or oolong varietals into blacks will almost always be better but i find it cozy to just have the casual classic dian hong smell and taste from time to time too. I can dirnk "cheap" black and enjoy it still even if i'm drinking "expensive" gushu more and more again the large difference between the too make it more enjoyable for me. I hope it will stay this way

>>19598025
>did you like the Bangwai more than the Miyun?
I had a sample of the 23 miyun and i have a cake of the small trees. I think i like the small trees more considering the price of the two cakes. But maybe if i had more of the miyun to drink i would feel differently.
Drinking some of the small trees right now and im getting a huge blast of that extra ripe banana flavor/aroma, pretty interesting.

Tea? More like... pee!
LMAO

I'm a noselet so the only flavors I can taste are really strong heicha and Japanese green tea

>>19598606
interesting, I didn't get banana from it. retried it today and got some slight vegetal notes, slight florals maybe, in adition to a vague fruitiness. still not really enjoying it that much
I think I dislike the teas described as "soft". next time I sample some raws it's gonna be all punchy bulang shit

>>19598606
Drinking small trees as well. I don't hate the ripe banana comparison. Overripe. Brown. Even in the huigan I can detect that note. It's a quirky tea. I also have some Bangwai big trees to compare as well.

>>19598914
interesting, I'll try to see if I can find the ripe banana note next time I drink it
I think I'll just get a full cake of the Fa Zhan He. young raws are much more hit or miss for me than old raws, and this sample order was more miss, but I found one inexpensive cake I really like, so it's all good

>leave my matcha whisk unused for a few days
>a spider builds a web in it

Sifting through the archives lol

>>19599331
Do we call this one "black and white" or "cream tea"?

>>19599331
Is it possible to search specifically within /tea/ threads? Closest I've gotten is getting a list of all the tea threads.

>>19599444
I archive threads for myself and grep through them if I'm looking for something specific. I suppose you could do the same if you downloaded the archives. I don't really know what they're capable of.
I'd be happy to do a quick search if there's something you're looking for. I only have 2023 year to date archived.

>>19599484
Thanks but nothing comes to mind right now. Do you use any software, or do you just have a cron job?
Actually one thing does come to mind I was trying to find the first instance of the lesbian meme, but that would be before 2023.

It's also quite hard to search in general since there's so many variations
puer
pu'er
puerh
pu erh
pu-erh

when ur gaiwan broke, ya gotta improvise

this is taiwanteacrsft's organic fragrant jade pre-qingmijg gaba, they have quite the writeup on their website

it's not one I am enjoying, it's a slightly unpleasant sweet flavour that is holding well through multiple steeps. The taste is that of squashed strawberry, quite jammy. The leaves are roughly cut and they leave in plenty of twig.

Not quite worth the price, I've been fairly disappointed with my Taiwan teas so far but I've got three others to try.

>>19599740
Nice guerrilla gaiwan. The flavor of that tea sounds odd.

>>19599676
I do it manually since it requires some Chromium extensions to be configured the way I like. Once a week or so isn't too much of a burden.

I've had a lot of tea in my life. Cheap teas, expensive teas, teas from all around the world... and today, I think I had the best tea I've ever tasted.

It was completely unexpected. It was just something on sale in the supermarket, so I grabbed it on a whim, with such low expectations that I didn't even try it for several days. Today, I saw it in my tea shelf, thought "eh, why not give it a go," and made a cup.

And... it was amazing.

I can't describe the taste to you. I can describe the feeling though. Have you ever been in a bad rut in your life? Either you've had a particularly terrible day, or a really stressful week, and you've just been bottling up all your emotions without even thinking about it? Just soldiering on, pretending everything is fine and that you're handling things like an adult, and then the slightest act of kindness just rips you open? You just start crying, overwhelmed with relief that you didn't even know you needed? You even feel a little sheepish and stupid about just how happy you are, but it's all right because you're allowed to feel so happy about even something so small, because all you really needed was a reminder that there's some good in this world?

It was that. I wasn't even having a bad day or anything, I just was hit with that sudden blast of "Everything is going to be all right."

If tea could drink tea, what tea would it drink

>>19600171
first-flush darjeeling

>>19600171
raspberry Arizona from a 7/11

Does anyone here know a good source for Kuding tea? It's a type of holly like yerba mate and I've wanted to try it for a while, but my usual sites don't carry it.

>>19600305
Yunnan sourcing has it
https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/flower-and-herbal-teas/products/kuding-cha-spindled-herbal-detox-tea-holly-ilex
Fullchea has it
https://www.fullchea-tea.com/products/grade-big-leaf-kuding-tea-llex-latifolia-thunb-herbal-tea-for-anti-fatting-aging-and-asthma-astma-herbs-kuding-organic-herbal-tea
Teasenz has it
https://www.teasenz.com/kuding-tea
I also see some random brands listing it on amazon
I don't really know much about it other than its very bitter so i can't tell you if its worth seeking out some premium supplier or if it's all pretty much the same from different shops. Fullchea is probably the easiest/cheapest to order from if you are just getting the one thing

Been neglecting the booch for a few weeks. Just bottled 100oz with some raspberry cheung. Refilling in the morning with (very broken up) overnight cold brew 2017 Tibet flame.

>>19599740
is that the one with the flowers on the packaging? if so, I've had it. I get strong vanilla from it and sour fruit

getting quite a bit of candy sweetness from that Fa Zhan He raw today. lemon candy / lemonade associations. really nice.

Two questions for you /tea/
First is that I was at some very nice Persian restaurant and they served some good tea and all I could get from the server is that it was an Assyrian chai (I know, very generic). Any ideas on what that might be?
Second is any suggestions for teas to get through some rocky times.

>>19600793
>Second is any suggestions for teas to get through some rocky times
I find ripe pu-erh and GABA oolong comforting when I feel anxious
meanwhile, a nice strong young raw pu-erh or green tea can really improve my mood when I feel tired and shitty
maybe you'll enjoy this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w08OAnfTB3s

>>19600793
Will second a nice ripe puerh as a good one for relaxing.

>>19600816
Have you got any recs for a GABA oolong? I read a few comments that they can taste a little odd.

Anyone try this before? How is it?

>>19599875
Is this satire or genuine?

>>19600945
>Have you got any recs for a GABA oolong
I haven't tried that many of them. But I've enjoyed the unroasted ones more. The GABA green tea someone posted last thread was also good, if a little pricey.
>>19600973
I haven't, but Dayi doesn't really make bad ripe. at worst it will be boring

>>19600709
fuck it, I got a cake. It's the cheapest cake I sampled from FarmerLeaf, yet I like it the most. a no-brainer.

>>19601066
It's pretty tasty.

what are you drinking in the high heat? it's pretty fucking hot today
today I've had:
>young raw pu-erh
>chilled tie guan yin I made yesterday
>now sipping some bancha

>>19600377
Thanks for the list, anon

>>19601351
It's rainy and miserable here, so today is a day for ripe. But if it were hot I'd have some cold brewed longjing over ice.

>>19588494
thinking from buying some stuff from farmer leaf

ive been told to buy more tian jian (ive had one i really enjoy), wuyi black teas, and fu brick

are there any cakes that might be better for me?
raw puerh (ive never had any before) hojicha, and sencha also sound interesting. looking for something thats quite earthy or smoky or is super sweet

i think i might get that fa zhan he cake because of that. maybe tie guan yin?

>>19601717
farmerleaf mostly specializes in raw pu-erh. I'd go for samples if you haven't tried it before, it's often considered an inaccessible type of tea because it can be quite bitter and astringent
I think the Fa Zhan He is delicious and quite sweet, but a whole cake if you're not sure you like sheng is a bit much

if you're looking for sweet, earthy and smoky, you'd probably be better off buying a mix of factory ripe and raw pu-erh from some other site, like KingTeaMall, Fullchea or Awazon. some Xiaguan tuos for example could be fun to try, many of them are really smoky and can be sweet too if they're nicely aged

>>19601351
God i love the colors that Japanese teas make

>>19601740
yeah I always drink green teas in glass because of this

>>19601123
i got a cake last month and been daily drinking it, is really good tea just the place that is from is not known for tea. i think Spring 2023 Tang Fang Liang Zi is superior

>>19601812

>>19601812
interesting, how would you describe the Tang Fang Liang Zi?
I was checking it out for my sample order, but the description made it sound a bit boring. "a consistent brew" and "understated and soft"...

>>19591314
>these type of ripe make me feel like i'm enjoying a coffee and
a bu lang mountain ripe is pretty close to coffee

>>19601941
Can confirm, even more if you find one that was semi-fermented.

>>19601941
>>19601944
very interesting, thanks. is this the type of thing you mean?
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2019-hai-lang-hao-ji-nuo-bu-lang-mountain-ripe-pu-erh-tea?variant=20464901750887

tfw the only enjoyable ways to drink matcha make me feel like a thotty girlboss on tiktok/youtube shorts.

>>19602175
It's not enjoyable to drink it from a bowl like a normal person?

>>19602175
Are you sure you are getting good matcha? Most of the stuff on the market is junk for making smoothies. You realluly have to buy it from specialist Japanese tea retailers to get the proper stuff

>>19602175
It's okay to like matcha flat white with oaty milk

>>19602319
>It's okay to like matcha flat white with oaty milk
of course it is, soy boy.

they're talking shit right

>>19602497
That's a really ridiculous and over the top marketing blurb. Puer was never a luxury good in any sense of the word untill its popularity boomed in the late 90s. Before then it was almost entirety exported to south asain countries and nobody on the mainland wanted it. The people that were most likely to be drinking white tea made from assimica back then were poor rural farmers drinking the tea that wasn't sellable from summer harvests.

>>19602612
None of that is to say that white tea made from trees they usually make puer with isn't good, it's nice and lots of vendors sell it. But that's a really silly way to market it and i wouldn't be surprised if that seller was charging lots for a relatively low grade tea.

>>19602617
ah so they meant it's from puerh trees not puerh processing. i was thinking killgreen step in puerh makes white puerh an oxymoron.
i'm sure it's just mediocre old white, the site is loaded with crappy flavoured blends and stuff i was just having fun looking at it all.

>>19602229
i know it isnt premium but at least it doesnt contain anything other than ground leaves.
got it on sale at the store. usually 10-12 dollars for 4 oz

>>19602637
>ah so they meant it's from puerh trees not puerh processing. i was thinking killgreen step in puerh makes white puerh an oxymoron.
Yeah exactly, i agree it is fun to read marketing bs like that

Is there a market need for high quality puer tea bags? Those without microplastics and which aren't just dust in a bag?

>>19603266
You can grandpa style some puerh but high leaf:water ratio and short steeps makes a big taste difference in a lot of cases, I don't think it makes sense to use a bag. With a tea bag here you're asking for a market of people who want to go to the effort to drink puerh but don't care about taste, I guess maybe it exists with hippies like matcha?

>>19602142
That or
https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/ripe-pu-erh/products/2014-gu-ming-xiang-bu-lang-tribute-cake-ripe-pu-erh-tea

Some ugly fu brick tonight, i usually never gongfu these heichas so i figured i would switch it up today.

>>19603447
Potent stuff, maybe not the best thing for me to drink so late.
Smooth flavor, kind of reminds me of an unsmoked tian jian or i guess it just has that hei cha flavor. Also shades of aged raw puer, very smooth. The finish is very sweet and lasts on the tongue

>>19603078
so yeah, low grade matcha meant for lattes and as food dye
don't worry, this stuff isn't meant to be enjoyable on its own. it's like buying super cheap heavily roasted coffee and expecting it to taste good black

is there a type of tea that is just not for you?
for me, it's white tea. I have yet to try one I truly enjoy

>>19603842
>for me, it's white tea.
same, they make my stomach hurt for some reason while no other teas do, not a huge fan of most blacks too but taiwanese ones and darjeeling are alright

>>19599740
nice royal albert, ive always wanted that design, its much more neutral than some of the other floral patterns i have.

>>19603842
Black teas, they make me nauseous. When it comes to white tea, i only enjoy it if it's aged

>>19603892
for me white tea agrees with my stomach well enough, but it's just never wowed me. it's too mild-mannered and I find it boring
I'm also picky when it comes to black tea and young sheng. I only really enjoy very premium black teas

but give me any not completely trash japanese green or ripe pu-erh and I will drink it happily, 12$ cakes, cheap bancha and all. weird how that works

>>19603900
Had anyone tried DAVIDsTEA slavoured teas? Are they interesting?

>>19604207
Didn't mean to reply...

>>19604207
avoid. overpriced newbie bait. there are many stores like this selling low quality, artificially flavored tea at a markup. it usually smells good, but rarely tastes good

So Paul, the guy that runs White2Tea, was stateside a little while back and did a tea tasting at a local shop by me. He seems like a cool dude, really chill. We tried a few different things, but what stuck out to me the most was when he started pulling out some decently aged sheng (like 16 years) that he was really excited about. The owner of the tea shop whispered to me as Paul was brewing it "that stuff is like 400 bucks a cake," so I was pretty intrigued. I tasted it and it was nice, but I was feeling a sort of disconnect between imagining paying 400 dollars for 200g of this and it not being the most mindblowingly delicious tea I've ever had. Unprompted at that point Paul basically said, "the thing about puerh is that it isn't all about flavor. If you're looking for the best tasting teas in the world you have so many other great rabbit holes to go down like dancong oolongs, white teas, even some standout black teas. Puerh more than any other tea though is able to provide a really unique body feeling."

That's definitely been my experience of puerh so far but I had never really verbalized it like that before. I have some really interesting tasting shengs, for instance, but really complex black teas still blow them out of the water in terms of pure flavor profile. Those shengs though really do provide a super unique pleasant full body feeling that I don't think I've gotten from anything else.

>>19604448
that's why I haven't really bothered with super premium sheng much. the prices are crazy and some of the things you're paying for, like longevity and cha qi don't really matter that much to me personally
I have two samples of fairly expensive semi-aged supposed gushu material right now and I'm sure I will enjoy them quite a bit. but will I enjoy them 10x more than a classic factory cake of the same age and storage? probably not

had a little tea innawoods the other day

>>19604606
nice. what tea was it?

>>19604611
some 2008 raw jiang cheng from yeeon tea.
wanted to have something with bit of storage on it

>>19604621
nice, I've been thinking about grabbing that one. how would you describe it?

>>19604448
Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a great experience. I imagine you're in a large city with some interesting tea spots. Unfortunately I'm not. I've never had tea with somebody who knew more than me. While I'm studious,I still consider myself a beginner.
Anyway, I don't necessarily have any gripes with teas being sold mostly on their prestige or something other than flavor. However I do have some issue with the marketing of such a tea not being very honest about it. Moreso than any other products I can think of, tea branding is opaque. I have a lot of respect for white2tea for not being dishonest about it. That might not be a popular opinion here, but I stand by it.
>>19604514
I enjoy finding a good value sheng and hunting them down with anons. It's an interesting and rewarding challenge.

>>19604782
>I enjoy finding a good value sheng and hunting them down with anons
Yeah I feel like you basically need some trustworthy opinions to find the good stuff. Very strange market.

>>19604782
What are your last good value finds? I enjoy the Fa Zhan He from Farmerleaf for fresh sheng, and the Spring of Menghai from Awazon I thought was good value for a semi-aged one.

>>19604782
>>19604514
Yeah I've never gone off the deep end with ultra premium puerh either. I think the most expensive sheng I've gotten was 90 bucks for a 200g cake and that was splurging like crazy for me. I tend to stick to the 10-20 cent/gram tea in general.
Also interestingly I'm outside of only ba mid sized at best city. Just happens to have proximity to where Paul grew up and a singular cool tea shop.

Ultimately though I haven't had much tea recently apart from grandpa style at work so I'm going to sit down with this no longer very fresh kabusecha. Should still taste just fine though.

>>19604854
Ah, classic past its prime piss green. Still no off flavors, though. Sweet and buttery with some nice umami to round it out without crossing over into astringency.

>>19604448
>So Paul, the guy that runs White2Tea, was stateside a little while back and did a tea tasting at a local shop by me.
Lucky, I would have love to go to something like that. Meeting the elusive owner of W2T would be interesting too.

>>19604782
>Imperial Examination Grade SSSSSSS Primeval Trees of Wulishan 50 year old Raw Puerh
vs.
>Lumberslut
Choose wisely

>>19605064
I would argue that Lumberslut is somewhat a decent name, at least it tells you that the tea is going to be woody. But indeed, most names seem random, and the descriptions are basically "Blend of high quality shit, trust me bro".
I guess a more detailed description would convince people to look at other vendors. For example if someone thinks "Damn this bulang ripe from w2t is good" he might be tempted to also see what other vendors offer from that area, but if that person thinks "Damn, this Hyperborean Orgasm is good", then that person has to buy only from w2t.

>>19588494
I've personally gone too deep into the coffee rabbit hole, but I want to go down the tea rabbit hole.

I got some really nice matcha recently, I'm trying to find the right ratio and temperature for brewing it; any suggestions?

>>19605096
Yeah, I wouldn't mind the names if they were all like "lumberslut". "orange juice, with pulp". "pure tobacco" or whatever. but most of them are completely useless and just made to sound outlandish. "astro kittens?" "lich tears"? "tHe NaMeLeSs OnE"? really?

I do wonder how much we can really say about a tea from the terroir and type of plantation. but I think it's better to provide more information so that the savvy consumer can educate himself on those subjects and decide for himself if they're worth considering or not
I have no idea if, say, Farmerleaf has better tea on average than w2t. but I'm sure it's much more useful for learning about pu-erh than the opaque approach of the latter

>>19605126
This circles right back to the initial problem with the market: verifying authenticity is essentially impossible. Something like 90% of puerh is disingenuously advertised. You might think you're drinking Bulang gu shu, but are you certain? Certain enough to pay for it, but are you absolutely certain that's what is in your cup? The enlightened w2t take simply accepts this uncertainty and gives you something very abstract.
Farmer Leaf is a notable exception. Trust is the most valuable commodity on the puerh market. It's much easier to trust an operation like Farmer Leaf because William has an extreme degree of transparency and is a skilled English speaker. I trust his teas are exactly what he says they are.
Feels like I'm rambling, sorry. My point is you can either have names and descriptions accurate to what they are, but not trustworthy. Or names that are abstract and irreverent and just accept it for what it is. Learning about terrior as a Westerner is very difficult for that reason. I want to learn a ton too, but it's very arcane.

>>19605126
>>19605200
My sense of Paul's approach with white2tea after talking with him is essentially, "most of what you know as a consumer about the terroir and origin of the tea you're drinking is based on lies. I'm going to go out and find raw materials that I think are good, process them in a way that I think is good, charge a price in line with the costs of the raw materials and processing, and ambiguate my naming conventions for most things so that you're not basing your ideas of the teas on incorrect notions of terroir and origin."

I think all of that is basically in line with how you have to approach tea drinking as a western consumer, especially. Get an idea of what categories of tea you like, maybe through trial and error form some opinions about very general terroir (like Menghai vs Yiwu) and then just taste enough stuff within those parameters that you can give specific recommendations of individual tea.

>>19605225
I understand his approach and I agree that believing everything a vendor says is naive, but to tell someone that almost everything is a lie is a bit harsh. Puer is already quite difficult, with so many producers, areas, storage conditions and so on, and we can only learn by trying as many samples as possible from as many vendors, until we find some similarities and build a foundational knowledge, that can help in future purchase decisions. A vague name and description can't help with this constantly improving knowledge.
I don't want to discredit Paul, he is an expert while i'm just a newbie puer drinker, it's just that his approach is not compatible with me.

Recently this

>>19605261
I wish some of the teas at least had more detailed descriptions for what the drinker can expect flavor-wise, to compensate for the lack of transparency
I thought about making an order, but I just feel overwhelmed seeing 20 different shengs just named "pickle rick's epic szechuan surprise", "fuck nuggets", "lorem ipsum" etc.
what even are the go-to picks from w2t?

what is the best tea to take on psychedelic mushrooms? i'm thinking of picking up some traditional aged puerh

>>19605301
Fortunately you can get little dragon balls for most teas w2t has... What ever happened to anon who bought one of each? Haven't heard a report back in a while.
As for recommendations, Waffles, Lumberslut, and maybe Hokum for shou, sheng is a bit more over the place in terms of recommendations. Let me recommend Boat Captain for a nice smokey sheng puerh that's surprisingly mellow for what it smells like. Camphornought is also interesting.

>>19605301
>What ever happened to anon who bought one of each?
He did one or two I think and stopped, hope he gets through them some time.

>>19604606
Nice!

I asked a while back about malty black teas, and my Yunnan Sourcing order finally came in. I got the Biluochun, the Jin Jun Mei, and the Mao Feng. The first two are pretty good, with the Biluochun having an appropriate dark chocolate note and the Jin Jun Mei leaning more towards fruit. However I don’t think I’m unlocking the potential of the Mao Feng properly. If anyone has this tea, how are you brewing it? I got half a kilo so I’m willing to really experiment here.

>>19605290
How have you been brewing the green tea fannings? What do you think of them? Im not sure how i would approach that tea

>>19605301
>>19605367
I'll toss in snoozefest and green hype. Hokum is good, lesser evils and peak vulture are better. Failcorp is great but a poor value. Moonwaffles is pretty tasty. Sunskate is too light/boring and not a black tea. The chapos are interesting.

I want to dislike w2t but i have to begrudgingly admit the tea ive tried from him (i think it was 2018 or 19 pussy was pretry good). Im still not in a hurry to place a big order with him

>>19604807
Fa Zhan He is one I hear everyone talking about, and I did pick up a cake in my order, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Sounds like a good value all the same. A quick list of cakes I thought were good for the price recently
>Camphornought from white2tea
I'm not familiar really with these notes in tea. I found it strikingly similar to an aged Mengku Rongshi shou I also have.
>Lao Bai Cha - Shou Mei from KTM
It's a generic shou mei white tea that swings way above it's weight class, imo. It's like $16.00 USD for a full cake. I'll take a chomp from mine if anon doesn't like it. Significant honey notes.
As for sheng puerh teas, I've been searching the more expensive side this year. So while I'm sure there are great value ones to be found, that's not where I'm looking this season. Maybe in my post I should have just said I enjoy finding good value tea rather than sheng specifically. Sorry about that.

>>19605483
Yeah! Good to hear it all came in. Try cold brewing the Black Gold Bi Luo Chun. Or just brewing it strong and refrigerating it. That's more or less the only way I drink it.

Has any one here tried tea from Jun Chiyaberi?

Hello tea anons /r/ me a kettle, hopefully with temperature control, I saw this one and looks good but it has farenheit and in my country it uses celsius.
https://www.amazon.com/KOIOS-Gooseneck-Temperature-Stainless-Thermometer/dp/B0922M1825?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1

>>19605971
yes, I've had their Imperial Black. I like it quite a bit. it's an intensely chocolaty, dark bready tea with a strong body. very unlike most other nepalese blacks.

>>19605483
For mao feng i do 90c flash steeps and use about 8g. Try pushing the bi luo chun steepings and had more tea than usual it's nice when brewed strong too.

whats a good gaiwan to get coming from only western style brewing? im mostly just indecisive about what size to get, i usually drink about 2 or 3 liters of tea a day.

>>19605787
thanks for the reccs
I've tried a sample of that shou mei. I'm not a big shou mei guy, but it was enjoyable and desu not really much worse than the 60$ farmerleaf shou mei. I remember some anon said the 10$ Awazon shou mei is nice too. maybe it's just one of those types of teas where you can get pretty good stuff for dirt cheap, like with ripe

tell us what you think about that Fa Zhan He when you get around to trying it. seems like a cake that's good for drinking fresh, strong upfront sweetness and not that much bitterness

>>19606738
120ml+ that you can easily hold in one hand for serving. 15€ or less for your first one is a good price.

>>19606754
sounds good. thank you.

>>19605483
Did you get any other black teas? I find the mao feng easier to brew consistently than the bi luo chun.

okay I'm enjoying the bangwai small trees more today. I think increasing the leaf amount and decreasing brew time did the job. I think I am getting a bit of banana actually, or some creamy floral. it's alright. still doesn't wow me with complexity or intense, pronounced flavors, but it's pleasant enough for the price

I'm starting to feel that I should look more towards semi-aged factory stuff though in the future. I want something a bit more rough and complex

has anyone here ever ordered from Yangqing Hao? is it worth the hassle? how are the shipping fees?

>>19605832
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try coldbrewing and report back
>>19606729
Thank you as well. I think I’m brewing it too hot.
>>19606798
Not from this order, but my last black tea included the Imperial Qimen, which I found alright; the Golden Pekoe Dianhong, which had a nice initial chocolate note that sadly quickly disappeared and was followed by unexceptional successive infusions; the Tuocha, more of a smoky tea and missing the roasted flavour I really like; the Sunrise Symphony blend which I quite liked, appropriately nice blend chocolate and fruit flavours; and the Yi Mei Ren which I really wanted to like but can’t quite. It has a very pronounced taste, which many other YS teas have to a lesser degree, which I can’t adequately describe but is only present at higher temperatures. This forced me to brew it quite low, and the flavour at that temperature was not to me enjoyable. Nevertheless it is pretty unique for a black tea, and the problem could be something to do with my extremely hard water.

>>19607057
I should specify that I am talking about YS black teas.

>>19607057
What kind of water are you using? 85-90c is usually the good temp for black no need to go to 100c unless rolled or looking for a specific taste from the tea you are drinking.

>>19607144
The water is extremely hard tap water, passed through a filter but still. I share a kettle with a couple of coffee drinkers who cry when the kettle is set below 95 so I try to get away with that.

>>19607227
Should try bottled water if you can't get anything at home. Good filtration is better than bad bottle. Just make some test. Fuck the coffee drinkers set the good temp they can change it back if they are not retarded.

>>19606034
Sorry its hard to recommend kettles because they are different in other countries then the ones sold in the US / north america.
Just look for decent reviews, temperature control and avoid ones that have a lot of plastic inside.
The one you linked looks good as long as reviews are okay.

>>19606825
>I'm starting to feel that I should look more towards semi-aged factory stuff though in the future. I want something a bit more rough and complex
Yeah it's a totally different experience then these young boutiqe teas for sure. Ive been drinking mostly young stuff this year and im about ready to go back to some semi aged stuff myself. I haven't decided what to go for yet.

>>19606864
Ordering from YQH was rrally popular amoung tea blogger types several years ago. I haven't had a chance to sample their teas so i can't tell you much about the order process or anything. I don't think ive seen them mentioned much here. Teadb probably has a post or video about yangqinghao.com
There might also be posts about them on steepster.

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but should I be worried about buying a water recipient from aliexpress? Main use will be to cold brew green tea. If anyone has experience buying those then I'd be happy to receive recommendations.

>>19608137
If you want to cold brew tea, you can just do it in a standard glass beaker. No need for a special contraption

>>19608145
I already do that but I my recipients are either impossible to fit my hands in to clean or too large to be placed on the fridge door and take too much space.

>>19608137
most things you could buy probably got made by these guys anyway, it's basically just dropshipped. personally i have no worries about glass and porcelain but i do tend to avoid plastics just out of paranoia.

>>19608181 (me)
sorry used the wrong word, not dropshipped. western outlets just order this stuff into stock and jack the price up and sell it to you.

>>19608169
you can use anything, really. glasses, beakers, it's all the same. I'm sure you can find some sort of glass vessel that fits on your fridge door
I think something with a filter like what you posted is pretty useless for cold brewing and will just be more of a hassle to clean

>>19608145
i grind my tea in a 100 dollar hand held grinder.

>>19608137
You can get 1/2 gallon glass canning jars at the hardware store and stainless steel brewing inserts for them if you don't want to use plastic.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256805538728859.html?
Or they even sell big glass pitchers with a mesh basket inside.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256805087993594.html?

>>19608248
Here is a bigger glass pitcher
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256805079163627.html?
If you are just vold brewing plastic should be okay i guess. I try to avoid it when possible

Anyone have experience ordering from liquid proust?
I was thinking about doing his lottery the "LP hookup"
I've only really bought from white label vendors before, so I think it would be a good way to get samples from different regions. The other option would be to get the 10 sample pack from CL.

>>19609481
Liquid prost does the yearly puer beginers club thing in the winter. Ive done that a few times before. The lp hookup seems kinda similar. Assuming they are i can give you the pros and cons real quick.
Pros: you should get a decent variety of teas, would probably just be fun if you want to try some stuff. I usually get 5-6 different teas from the beginners sample thing.
Cons: he probably isint selling some of the teas he will send you. They might be hard or impossible to find being sold somewhere else. The stuff he sends you can be really random, if you are just interested in puer you might want to email him amd ask if he can do an all puer hookup, otherwise you might get oolong and green tea or some fermented korean tea instead of puer.
I like lp for offering really good deals on some teas he gets in, they usually sell pretty quick but he gets some interesting semi aged raws in a few times a year and offers them at a nice price. He usually has some interesting stuff on offer.
Ive considered getting the lp hookup before but haven't gotten around to it.

>>19609612
Thanks, maybe I'll just wait until he does the beginners thing. Do you know when he lists new teas? I also heard he does group buys; I'm a little annoyed I missed wistaria one since the shipping is so expensive.

I left some sencha in a cup and forgot about it for a day or two and it's gone from green to brown
First time I observe this. Interesting.

>>19610109
what does it taste like

>>19610358
not horrible, but much less "green" than initially

>>19610427
actually it leaves a bit of a "gone-off butter" aftertaste

You guys ever have the gyokujo hojicha from Ippodo? Its so damn good in my opinion. Ive honestly never found a hojicha Ive liked more than this one

>>19609951
>Do you know when he lists new teas?
Seems pretty random, i guess he probably sends out email updates if you wanted to sign up for those

Kettl's hukuju matcha tastes like black walnuts but has an aftertaste like raspberries. Not bad

I'm kind of regretting not getting any white tea with my last Awazon order. they have some very cheap white tea. has anyone here tried it?

>>19610109
does tend to happen, you can get weird murky grey colours too. i assume it's oxidising

>>19611388
somebody tried the really cheap white cake they have and said it was pretty good iirc. was planning to pick one up myself on my next awazon order
think it was this one
http://www.pu-erhtea.com/TeaDetails.aspx?TeaID=1072

>>19611484
nice! I see they have a 2020 one in 100 gram cake form too, could be a nice sample

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calea_ternifolia
will try

>>19612103
What are you hoping to get out of it? Purely satisfy curiosity?

>>19612107
yea

>>19612103
Man why do south Americans think that puking is such an important part of any ritual experience?

>>19612197
idk bring it on. doing aztec divination ritual in my apartment

>>19612204
Nice, don't forget to post tasting notes

Bought another 7572 again...

It's just so good.

>>19612764
It just works

So what tea category does raw puer fall into? Is it still a hei cha or does that only apply to postfermented teas? Is it technically an oolong?

puer lesbians lol

>>19612875
I guess green tea? They are processed the way i think: Withering --> Pan-fry --> Rolling --> Drying

>>19612875
it doesn't really fall neatly into any category

>>19612936
I dont think it would be considered a green tea since its not fully cooked like green tea is during the killgreen process, its only partially cooked.

>>19611484
i got 100g of this one a while back. while less complex than the more expensive white teas i tried so far, nothings "wrong" with it. great if you just want some basic white tea imo

>>19613330
What were some better whites you've had? I kind of liked the moonlight white from Farmerleaf, but not sure if it's worth several times the price of the Awazon cake

>>19613335
haven't tried a lot desu. some silver needle that i thought was not worth it at all. i also got this one: 2018 Fuding "Shou Mei" White Tea from yunnan sourcing which tastes quite similar to the awazon one but more complex. also kinda cheap but still 3x the price

>>19612875
>Is it still a hei cha
I would say it is still heicha. That is the category that it best fits and what puerh is traditionally defined as. I suppose you could argue it is heicha maocha if you are really hung up on the post-fermented bit. It is also not inaccurate to say that fresh young puerh is most similar to green teas in terms of processing.

>tiktokers discovered honeybush

>>19588494
this is my king tea mall order
any idea what im in for? the souchong is unsmoked btw

>>19614546
Let me know how that qian liang and lao cha tou are.

>>19614546
Looks fun

>>19614534
there is nothing worse than tiktokers discovering something you like

>>19614534
But most people are way to lazy to brew loose leaf teas, shouldn't be a problem

>>19612764
I'm about to buy a tong

>order tea online from sources in the pastebin
>follow gongfu guide to the letter
>tastes like nothing
>try with a different tea
>tastes like nothing again
I don't get it. What am I doing wrong?

>>19616488
What tea have you tried to brew? The guide is just some general advice to get people started, but taste is subjective. For me it worked for some teas, while others i had to experiment until i found some brewing parameters that i liked.

>>19616488
are you sure your tastebuds work?

>>19616488
how hard is your water? if your water is really hard or too soft then the tea wont brew that well

>get home and don't have time to go to the store
>make tea with tap water
>it's disgusting

>>19616488
Have you fried your sense of taste and smell by eating and drinking high fructose corn syrup your whole life?

>>19614556
>how that qian liang
Not same anon but I do own that qian liang cake. Its a nice tea if you like this sort of heicha. That cake seems to include a lot of large late autumn leaves. In that sense it reminds laochapo and the tea shares some character with it. I am not sure how to best describe the taste off the top of my head but it has a nice mellow heicha flavor to it and is low bitterness. You may want to push your steeps a touch longer than you typically do to get the full flavor out. I would not call it a weak tea however nor is it low caffeine. Considering its qualities I expect it would taste good brewed grandpa style. it also has some vaguely ye sheng like qualities to it.

If you are a picky puerh drinker or someone who considers teas boring if they are not strongly bitter then you may want to grab a sample first. However if you are familiar with and generally like lower grade heicha I think you would not be disappointed with it.

I bought some prepackaged tea that says to steep for 4 minutes but it just says "steep longer for cold". How much should I steep it for cold exactly?

>>19617617
for cold brew in the fridge? overnight is fine

>>19616630
No idea. I think it’s fairly hard. Maybe I’ll try again with the bottled stuff.

>>19617575
I appreciate that. I'm really not familiar with hei cha excluding puerh. I'm mostly interested in qian liang based purely on how it's processed before storage.

>>19617656
Cold as in just pouring it over ice.

I wanna broaden my tea selection, i got into it not long ago but I got "stuck" in a rut of just japanese green or something like jasmine and rather plain black tea.
I already have a puer sample pack and I recently got a gaiwan so I'll be working my way through that soon, but I'd love for some recommendations on the other "colors" of tea.
I'm not looking for anything in particular, I'd just like to hear some standout teas you guys tried and get some myself, I get selection paralysis whenever I browse the shops otherwise

>>19617680
oh right. it's a matter of your preferences and the tea at hand, try adding a minute or two.
you can also brew in about half as much water as usual and throw it over the ice so it doesn't dilute as much.

>>19617685
did you get any shou?

>>19617692
>did you get any shou?
Ripe puer? I got samples for both raw and ripe types (from yunnan sourcing). I tried one ripe the other day, forgot which one though and it tasted generally a lot like black tea if a bit fainter than usual. I followed the pastebin instructions and all that so I don't know if the tea itself isn't in ideal shape or if I got the brewing wrong for that specific tea. I'll be trying some other samples later to compare properly

>>19617713
the pastebin is a bit conservative imo, try 7-8g for ripe and shoot for a colour like black coffee (i often drink raws like that too with fast steeps)
some ripes was gonna be my suggestion, lots of good stuff there

>>19617678
I may post some better tasting notes at some point but it may be a while. However if you are planing to put in a hecha order at KTM I would not hesitate grabbing a sample of that tea.

>>19614546
I actually have the "1992 CNNP - AnHua "Hei Zhuan Cha"" as well. Also a good tea. Made of somewhat fragmented material with some big stems thrown in. Definitely an aged tea though the wrapper looks kind of nice for being from 1992. Even if may or may not really be that old it is still a good tea and the price is fair. Again the sort of tea that you may want to push the brew parameters a bit to fully release the flavor. Taste reminds me of old straw bales with a sort of caramelized sugar or melon sweetness to it. Has a drying sweet finish to it.

>>19617786
>drinking tea thats old enough to your mom
disgusting

Some white tea I tried making
Still taste like hot water. Although, at this point, the tea is probably stale.

>>19616488
My best guess is that your water is super hard, this tends to make any tea you brew taste bland. However if you tell us what tea you are trying to brew and how you are brewing it we might be able to give you some advice on how to tweak things. Generally you should try using more tea and or brewing longer.
To diagnos if its a water problem just try some bottled water. If that tastes much stronger then get some cheap brita pitcher or similar and filter the water you use to make tea.

YS have some ripes from 1990, anyone tried them? i'm curious enough i might get a 10g sample.

>>19617786
Yeah actually I am planning on a KTM order soon. I've added a cake (slice?) to the order. Thanks, partner.

>>19618713
Hope you enjoy it is a nice tea.

my ecig device failed dramatically so i bought some nice English rolling tobacco to tide me over till the new one comes in the mail. I guess i will be drinking a lot of smokey cheap xiaguan this week. Feels like a total waste to drink nice tea while smoking.

>>19620490
Doesn't drinking hot drinks while smoking increase your carcinogen intake or something?

>>19620614
If god didn't want me to smoke a cigarette with my morning coffee he shouldn't't have made them go together so well.

i like jasmine tea for its crisp clean flavor, but i want something with more caffeine. is there any good alternatives?

I want to transition from coffee to tea, but I'm thinking if this is something you mostly sip on? The portions seem a lot smaller seeing how you can drown espresso shots with milk.

>>19621823
There's nothing stopping you from chugging liters of tea or brewing a lot of it at once

>>19621804
You could just make it stronger
Raw pu-erh can be kind of crisp and floral and also high in caffeine. But you could probably get similar effects from jasmine tea of you brew it strong enough

>>19621823
with a gaiwan you do have many small portions over an extended period of time, but you can brew western style in a teapot or cold brew in a jug in the fridge to get larger portions.

I'm sipping Bangwai big trees. It's like small trees with rough edges smoothed out. MmmMM!

Lapsang souchang is pretty good grandpa style, but dark charcoal roasted oolongs are not. What's up with that?

>>19621975
I noticed the big trees has some more mouthfeel and i got a few more brews out of it. It might have had some cha qi as well but im not as confident about that.

>>19622314
>but dark charcoal roasted oolongs are not
I have had pretty decent luck grampa brewing dark roast oolongs. I do tend to use less leaf then i would to grampa brew puer. Like 30% less or so.
What issues are you having with how it comes out?

>>19622557
It always tastes like charcoal soup from my experience. By the time its cool enough to drink, every other note is gone.

>>19622645
Yeah i can see that. You can try using just like 3g but it might just not work

Charing cross is wonderful btw. The fragrance is probably the highlight for me. It is quite expensive as a shoumei but comparing it to sheng its not a lot.

What's everyone sipping on?

I've been sipping on some 2022 Spring Ancient Tree Lapsang in some new teaware from Craftedleaf. Don't ask me about tasting notes because I have a cold and can barely taste anything.

>>19624409
I'm drinking this 2007 Youle raw I got from theTea.pl
taste profile is woody, forest floor, tobacco with a pretty strong sweetness. there is still a bit of astringency, but it's low. it's clean and mild. the aftertaste is nice indeed

it's good, but for me not really worth 4x the price of semi-aged factory cakes. especially when I don't mind a bit of roughness

>>19624441
>not really worth 4x the price of semi-aged factory cakes
>he doesn't have a collection of Chen Yuanhao cakes for daily drinking.
https://chenyuanhao.shop/
Can't believe i share this general with poorfags.

>>19624409
Finishing some classic laoshan to make space in storage for new teas summer/autumn

>>19624479
I got the Chen Sheng Hao tote bag drip anon, some respect please

>>19624600
Post a pic then. Let's see if you are worthy of those dubs.

>>19588494
I love tea made with coffee beans

>>19624712
Here you go. Half litre bottle of vodka included for size comparison.

>>19624409
got the shui xian oolong from yeeon, nice and comfy and toasty for the late afternoon
i also tried the Fen Shui Ling Oolong Black from FL but to me it taste like soap, maybe i overbrewed

>>19588979
is that bad? why? i do it every time.

>>19624746
ア、アノン様、許してください。

>>19624823
I've got a Fa Zhan He cake coming in from FarmerLeaf soon, I wonder what freebies I'll get. something from Lao Man E would be ideal, or this year's moonlight white

>>19624908
that's a nice cake. for my last order i was gifted a couple of the 2022 moonlight pressed into little squares. i bought the 23 as a sample. but maybe you will luck out.

>>19624939
did you like the 23? was it much different from the 22?

>>19624951
i didn't actually get around to trying either of them but why not, bear with me

>>19624409
>What's everyone sipping on?
This week its all xiguan tuo all the time. Specifically im in my big stash of cheapo 2009 te ji tuos.
Smoke, thick tea flavor, deep sweet finish. Brewing can be a little finicky but you just have to do pretty short steeps when you aren't brewing chunks.
Nice teaware btw, looks like the crackles will devlop a nice tea staining over time.

>>19625010
what Xiaguan tuos would you recommend the most?

>>19624860
>is that bad? why? i do it every time.
It just ends up adding a bunch of tannins to your cup. Try not squeezing and see how you feel about the difference

>>19625014
>what Xiaguan tuos would you recommend the most?
There is kind of a hierarchy of priorities, cheap, old enough to be drinkable (8-10 years for the genric tuos) and value.
If you just want to try one, something like this should be fairly representative of the cheap tuos, with the caveat that post 2010 tuos are a bit more mellow and less smokey then the older ones.
https://www.fullchea-tea.com/products/xia-guan-2016-yr-pur-tea-jia-ji-tuo-cha-raw-puerh-tuo-tea-cake-boxed-100g
The more premium tuos are typically made with the left over broken leaves from a batch of cakes, something like this, productions like these wont be smokey
https://www.fullchea-tea.com/products/xiaguan-2012-tuo-cha-jing-mai-ancient-tea-raw-puer-cha-100g-pcs
These guys are probably my favorite xiguan tuo, more premium then the cheap ones but still with some solid smoke.
https://kingteamall.com/collections/2012-xiaguan/products/2012-xiaguan-zi-yun-hao-purple-cloud-tuo-100g-puerh-sheng-cha-raw-tea

>>19625073
thanks! I've been looking at these as well
I kind of want to get a few different tuos to see what Xiaguan has to offer

>>19621823
It's mostly Puer and Japanese tea that need a high leaf to water ratio, black teas you can do with like 3 to 5 grams per liter if done standard grandpa style
that being said, good quality tea can be infused several times, I could go through like 5 cups of sencha before the flavor becomes too faded

>>19625193
Okay if you are looking at king tea mall.
The 2006 dali tuo was nice, very dense compaction, mellow and smooth, not much smoke but dense flavor.
Haven't tried the 2008 happy but its probably a decent pickup.
That's a decent price for the 2005 ja ji, i would go for that instead of a younger one. Even the 2009 ones could use some more age desu.
Its a littoe pricey but the 2009 silver pine and crane cake is one of the better xiaguan cakes ive had. A more premium smoother leaf quality then their typical tuos or number recipie cakes but still with the characteristic old scool flavor and smokeyness. A 50 or 100g sample would be a good idea imo if you want to get to know xiaguan.
https://kingteamall.com/collections/2009-xiaguan/products/2009-xiaguan-yin-song-he-silver-pine-crane-cake-357g-puerh-raw-tea-sheng-cha
I wouldn't go too crazy on ordering like 7 different tuos. I think 2-3 plus a sample of that cake will give you a pretty good understanding of old school xiaguan.

>>19625193
Also if you want to see what modern xiguan single mountain/village offerings are about a sample of one of these will give you an idea.
This one has intese honwy sweetness, very strong taste.
https://kingteamall.com/collections/2020-xiaguan/products/2020-xiaguan-bao-long-gong-she-lao-shu-yuan-cha-baolong-village-old-tree-round-cake-357g-puerh-raw-tea-sheng-cha
This one is a little more balanced with some astringency, very punchy without being super bitter.
https://kingteamall.com/collections/2020-xiaguan/products/2020-xiaguan-dong-guo-lao-shu-yuan-cha-dongguo-old-tree-round-cake-357g-puerh-raw-tea-sheng-cha

>>19624951
not a huge white tea drinker but i'll give this a shot

2022 jingmai moonlight white
the square is 9g and tightly compressed, bit of a pain to loosen it up
you can smell the age a little on the wet leaf
very mild, lightly sweet, some bitterness into the later steeps. nothing massively notable here though, the mouth feel is nice.
i will cold brew the other square i have, i think it'll be good for that.

and the 2023
the material is larger leaves than the 22, dunno if they use smaller leaf for the squares or that's just what the 22 is like.
more floral "white peony" notes on the wet leaf than the 22. less oxidation kind of smell
liquor brews up looking more amber like a black tea than the 22's golden piss colours.
fuller flavour, more robust, sweetness and some malt, but less floral? it almost makes me think it's half way from white to black, if you think about silver needles as reference.

23 is superior. both easy-drinking and pleasant, but it just has more going for it. worth the $60 admission? i think you could find something of similar quality on fullchea for half price.
very caffeinated now

>>19625504
Thanks for the write-up. I liked the 2022 square, but I also felt that it wasn't worth the price for a full cake. 60$ is pretty steep for a shou mei. And it feels like one of those genres where you can get pretty good stuff for dirt cheap, like ripe pu-erh.

>>19625504
Thanks anon. I got the impression from either his listings or his white tea making video that he pushes the oxidation a little further then some do, so im guessing it is gonna have some black tea aspects from that.
I had a sample of the 2022 and got some of that black tea taste from it. I thought it was good but i barely ever drink white tea so i don't have any reference to compare it to.

New thread:
>>19625866
>>19625866
>>19625866