/tea/ General

[Anonymous No.14128313]

/tea/ General, Eternal shipping edition.
This thread is for the discussion of teas, tisanes and herbal teas.
/tea/ FAQ:
https://pastebin.com/4ZEuMwBJ
https://4chan-ck.fandom.com/wiki/Tea

previous thread
>>14078593

[Anonymous No.14128430]

for me it's lipton gree tea

[Anonymous No.14128460]

>>14128313
Because of quarantine I recently tried some homemade dandelion tea(tisane?) it was okay, I didnt read any guide though so maybe I could do it better next time

[Anonymous No.14128469]

>>14128313
I enjoy herbal tea with a few teaspoons of my sister's fresh female teen urine.

[Anonymous No.14128595]

>>14128460
Dandelion roots? Did you roast them? I've been meaning to try that for a while.

[Anonymous No.14128608]

>>14116598
That's the thing, I get it will be a bit more expensive but it's usually far far more expensive. I don't necessarily want a sampler of 25-50g of 4 pre chosen teas at about the same price as just choosing on my own.
I guess this doesn't exist but I was hoping to be able to just pay somewhat more to buy individual teas in 5-10g packets.

[Anonymous No.14128614]

>>14128595
Nah I just boiled em in water for like 2 minutes then let em steep awhile, also included some leaves in with it. The annoying part is trying to wash off dirt from the roots.

[Anonymous No.14128689]

my Yunnan Sourcing order I placed on the 6th finally got stateside.
Glad I went with EMS

[Anonymous No.14128777]

>>14128614
i hear the flowers can also be steeped, vegan honey is made from the flowers so is Dandelion wine

[Anonymous No.14128791]

>>14128689
That's not bad at all compared to last month. Hopefully things will keep improving.
I failed to take my own advice and got e-packet shipping for my last order, it was 4 kilos or so of tea so EMS would have cost over $100. But I'm expecting it to take at least two months to show up.

[Anonymous No.14128866]

>>14128608
Yeah I agree it would be nice for samples to not be so expensive. I've lucked out a few times with puer samples and been able to buy 25g for about cake price, but it was either a fluke or some specific tea a vendor was trying to push.
Personally I just treat a cake or 100g of loose-leaf as the sample for buying bulk. I really feel like I need to drink a tea at least 5-10 times to really understand it. But that doesn't make blind buying $250 tea cakes any more palatable.

[Anonymous No.14128968]

>>14128777
The dandelion greens can also be eaten as a salad, it's like a slightly more bitter aragula. My grandpa got used to it during wartime.

[Anonymous No.14129443]

>>14128791
I was thinking it may take another 2 weeks, was pleasantly surprised

[Anonymous No.14130668]

Thoughts on tea and anxiety? I started having fucking anxiety issues (the "constantly feeling uneasy" kind, not the "stressed about your job / gf / etc" kind) and the first advice you get is to reduce caffeine. Which is probably reasonable, but tea has always been a source of comfort and relief to me, so I'm now not only feeling bad but have had one of my copes taken away at the same time. Am I actually going to get worse anxiety if I drink a bunch of sencha, or is this advice more geared at coffee heads who drink four cups of heavy roast every day? Herbal tea hasn't been doing it for me.

[Anonymous No.14131021]

>>14130668
Hard to say. The theanine in sencha does seem to make a difference for me. I'll get really energized right after drinking it but ultimately end up pretty relaxed. The caffeine in coffee hits me a lot harder and can make me irritable/restless even hours later.

If you find it comforting then it might actually help, even with the caffeine in it. Maybe just try having some in moderation and make sure you're also eating something. Drink water too.

[Anonymous No.14131043]

>>14131021
Drinking water with tea does wonders to calm you down.

[Anonymous No.14132242]

>>14130668
Tea seems to cause less anexity than coffee. That being said, try things like bancha or other lower caffeine options. The best things you can do are get a consistent 8 hours of sleep, improve your diet and eat less carbs/sugar and exercise, even taking daily walks and getting some sun will do wonders, but getting some kind of exercise routine going where you are actually physically tired at the end of the day will change your life.

[Anonymous No.14132987]

>>14131021
>>14131043
>>14132242
thank you friends. I think I will stick to lower-caffeine teas, together with exercise and general lifestyle changes (more "productive" hobbies, less time-wasting ones)

[Anonymous No.14133124]

worth ordering online? heard good things about it

[Anonymous No.14133454]

>>14133124
Yeah Rooibos tea is good, definitely try it, it's sweet. One tip, try brewing it for only 60 seconds instead of the 3-4 minutes that is commonly suggested. I find that it gets overbrewed easily.

[Anonymous No.14134734]

Running out of ripe puer again. I never prioritize it when I order but then I'm always bummed when I run out.

[Anonymous No.14134741]

What are you waiting on in the mail anons?

[Anonymous No.14134818]

>>14134741
ordered about $200 of different puerh, silver needles and gunpowder... 6 weeks ago. im so thirsty bros...

[Anonymous No.14134828]

>>14128313
Hello brothers, just wondering... what tea can I drink to let people know that I'm gay?

[Anonymous No.14134831]

I drink plain Lipton tea and if u don't like it I'll fuck u in the ass

[Anonymous No.14134836]

>>14128313
Thank you to the anon that told me making kratom tea was a waste of time. Now I can drink tea that isn't half gritty dirt.

[Anonymous No.14134840]

>>14133124
Basically the same as hibiscus tea. I like it with cinnamon, clove, and honey.

[Anonymous No.14135063]

>>14134828
Ripe pu'er

[Anonymous No.14135203]

>>14134836
Based

[Anonymous No.14136313]

>>14134828
Flavored strawberry loose leaf tea

[Anonymous No.14136325]

>>14133454
Interesting take. I always brew for a minimum of ten minutes. It's way too weak for me otherwise.

[Anonymous No.14136897]

>>14130668
>>14131021
I've been drinking a daily two shot cappuccino for years now. At first I noticed the same thing, but after a while you adjust and it's not noticeable. I also drink various types of tea almost daily in the afternoons.

Not sure if there is scientific basis, but don't drink on an empty stomach. Seems to help.

[Anonymous No.14136907]

>>14136897
yikes

[Anonymous No.14136914]

>>14128313
*Blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.14137589]

>>14128313
Someone give me a subjective rundown on light vs medium vs deep steamed Japanese greens. The deep steamed looks the nicest, but the description I read made it sound like the light steamed is actually the most flavorful, with more of the brightness that I like in green teas. Is that true?

[Anonymous No.14137653]

>>14136914
Roasted dandelion root is actually pretty good. It's almost like a sweeter puerh

[Anonymous No.14137665]

>>14136914
When I knew literally nothing about tea I mistakenly bought pic related thinking it was green tea since I didn't really read the label and it turned out to be a goddamn literal laxative. Why would anyone drink this stuff willingly?

[Anonymous No.14137720]

>>14137665
You don't like pooping?

[Anonymous No.14137778]

Recc a tea for sleeping, ive tried sleepy time, chamomile, and pic related lavender

[Anonymous No.14137789]

>>14137778
Valerian root or mugwort

[Anonymous No.14137945]

>>14137589

In my experience, light steamed green teas tend to have much more of a freshly cut grass flavor profile with an accompanying sweetness and bright, top end flavor notes like citrus and apples.

Deep steamed tends to go towards the seaweed end of the spectrum with very deep, rounded flavors that carry a lot of savory, bass note elements.

Brew parameters can then bring out different aspects of those teas. For instance, I'm brewing o-cha's Yutaka Midori (which is a fukamushi) at .8g/30ml water, 165 F for 30s, 15s, 60s, and then 90s at 175 if I'm trying to push it, and the extra leaf and low temp/times keeps the seaweed and brine at the forefront, but also helps develop a honey sweetness that rounds it out nicely.

If you're looking for a very bright sencha, though, I'd probably recommend an asamushi brewed at low temps/times with a decent amount of leaf. If you're getting from o-cha specifically (which I think you should) start with their brewing guidelines as they're usually the perfect middle ground that you can then adjust to your own taste.

[Anonymous No.14137947]

I've been meaning to try this. Does anyone know if it's worth it? I love floral tasting teas.

[Anonymous No.14137948]

>>14137778

The Kava tea from them is unironically really helpful. It legitimately feels like taking a slightly more mild Benadryl.

[Anonymous No.14137999]

>>14137945
Nice, thanks. So if I'm used to, say, longjing, it sounds like the lightly steamed green would be more up my alley. Maybe I'll just get one light and one deep

[Anonymous No.14138020]

>>14137999

San no Ma and Yutaka Midori from o-cha are each fantastic in their categories.

[Anonymous No.14138166]

>>14138020
Thanks, I'll check them out. I've only had a few senchas from Amazon, some of which were fine, others were bland. O-cha I'm sure has better wares

[Anonymous No.14138242]

>>14137947
Just get some tie guan yin

[Anonymous No.14138473]

>>14137778
>Recc a tea for sleeping

[Anonymous No.14138509]

>>14137778
>sleeping
Not tea, but melatonin and some interesting podcast does wonders here.

[Anonymous No.14138563]

What teas are good for cooking with? Like marinating, using as braising liquid, in place of plain water for pasta/rice, etc

[Anonymous No.14138619]

I used to be into Gong Fu cha but now I will not consume any product from China. Don't trust their agricultural practices. I got the yixing tea pot for my favourite ali shan oolong and everything.

[Anonymous No.14138665]

>>14138619
why

[Anonymous No.14138674]

>>14138619
Everywhere that grows tea is a third world shithole that has soil full of heavy metals and industrial run off and uses god knows what pesticides on them. Japan isn't a shithole on the level of china or india but an honest look at their agricultural practices will show they aren't actually better and in some ways are worse, they have the highest pesticide use in the world by a large margin.

[Anonymous No.14139054]

>>14128313
I'm a savage; I like a splash of cream & some sweet in my Pu-erh. Better yet, a splash of Horchata

[Anonymous No.14139083]

>>14137778
Kratom tea, red strain, orkava

[Anonymous No.14139150]

I’ve been putting random shit in my tea lately. Would rec: cloves + cinnamon stick or cloves +star anise

[Anonymous No.14140204]

Bump. Only cake I haven't sampled yet from my last order.

[Anonymous No.14140379]

>>14140204
Looks good

[Anonymous No.14140442]

for me it's a twinings peppermint tea

[Anonymous No.14140454]

>>14134831
Slightly sweetened black Lipton is what got me into tea initially, I respect it.

[Anonymous No.14140464]

>>14140379
Real...thick flavor for most of the steeps, but its still very subtle. I can see why they describe it as woody. 8 steeps in its almost damp? Kind of mossy? In the best way. Definitely more drinkable already than the 2019 Xiaguan sweet ripe I had the other day.

[Anonymous No.14140478]

Should I invest in a thermometer to check my water temps? Any suggestions for ones?

[Anonymous No.14140487]

How is ripe puerh possibly safe to drink? It's rotten, moldy tea stored in a damp cellar

[Anonymous No.14140488]

>>14140464
The leaf looks nice, i have to give that to YS their leaf always looks good in their cakes. Any bitterness? I like ripes that have a bit of an edge on them.

[Anonymous No.14140498]

>>14140478
If you brew Japanese greens its worth getting either a temp control kettle or a thermometer, maybe for other greens as well but less vital. If you just brew black tea, puer, oolong it's not really necessary. There is some good discussion in the previous thread linked in the op about recommend kettles and thermometers.

[Anonymous No.14140522]

>>14140487
It actually is moldy and covered in bacteria and fungus. Fermented food has a history as old as time. If it's was harmful than places like Hong Kong that like their puer extra mold probably would have noticed by now.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oI4yDyH1oUM

[Anonymous No.14140569]

>>14140488
Little bitter, not too bad tho. Def worth checking out. I ordered it because of the super kawaii artwork teebeeh.

[Anonymous No.14140597]

>>14130668
Make tea. Dump the tea after steeping for 15-20 seconds. Make tea again normally. Doesn't kill the flavor too much but most of the caffeine goes with that first steep.

[Anonymous No.14140608]

>>14140569

>super kawaii artwork

Hipster ass bullshit marketing got me for some White2Tea stuff. Still on its way but I'm excited. Looks like it was leaving China via air around two weeks ago, so it should probably be sitting in US customs by now. I'm curious to see what some $0.48/g tea tastes like.

[Anonymous No.14140617]

>>14137947
I haven't tried Nina's, but my friend friend says Mariage Freres is "more famous" in Paris. Can confirm MF earl grey has nice a floral taste, they add in some kinda blue flower

[Anonymous No.14140659]

>>14140608
This fucking shipping situation, i feel like I've been waiting for your reviews of these teas for months now.

[Anonymous No.14140707]

>>14140659

Imagine how I feel. I'm getting the itch for new stuff, too. From the 12 puers I have I'm basically just cycling through....

2014 YS Cha Tou Sheng Yun - creamy, woody, \sweetness like dried cherries
2007 Yi Pin Tang Yi Wu Zhi Chun - raisiny, reminds me of eating Fig Newtons at my grandma's, sweetness is very deep and round
2011 Mengku Rongshi Qiao Mu Xia Sheng Bing - tastes the most like "tea" to me, has background notes of blue raspberry candy like in gushers or hard candy, which is super interesting
2018 YS Autumn Bang Dong Zi Cha - very much like a sencha but turned up to the max, grassy, vegetal, easily astringent if not being very careful

Most of the others I have are smokey teas, which I do like, but the first one I got was the 2013 YS Autumn Ye Sheng on the recommendation of an anon here, and while it's very good, I drank like 15g of it per day for almost a month straight, so I'm a little burned out on smokey teas right now.

Luckily I decided to put in an o-cha order after initially thinking I was going to skip shincha this year, and since they went with FedEx it got here in two days. From them I got...

2020 Yutaka Midori Shincha - very very good when brewed with given recommendations but leaf increased to .8g/30ml. Classic deep seaweed fukamushi taste but with a honey sweetness on the top that balances very well
2019 Yame Gyokuro - basically a freight train of savory flavor, will go too astringent if not cared for properly in steeping. The roast beef and potatoes of tea.
2019 Kamejirushi Gyokuro - much subtler than the Yame...classic gyokuro tasting notes but with a very pleasant sweetness in later steeps.

I need to explore the gyokuros more to really flesh out my notes on them. These are my first two ever so it's throwing me through a bit of a loop. I feel like I have no frame of reference for them.

[Anonymous No.14140721]

>>14140707

Oh, I forgot the 2018 DaYi 7572 on that puer list. Honey, caramel, brown sugar - now that I think about it very much reminds me of a bourbon in that way. Also quite thicc and creamy, which I've found I really like. Tea is already such a baseline cornerstone in life, similarly to how bread is...its whole mythos just feels nourishing, and when it's physically substantial on top of that it just adds to it. Not sure if that made any sense or not.

[Anonymous No.14140743]

>>14140608
>importing Chinese things right now

[Anonymous No.14140760]

>>14140617
>they add in some kinda blue flower
Which contribute to nothing regarding taste. It's called a 'visual' ingredient.

[Anonymous No.14140906]

>>14128313
is this safe to drink? even though it's a souvenir they sell in Boston tourist traps some people say they use glue to hold together the tea so it's only decorative. the actual package says "scrape brick edge with tea spoon into tea infuser" so not sure if that's true. help me out /tea/

[Anonymous No.14140913]

>>14140906
this is the package. found this on the internet but my package says the exact same thing. just different font type, size, and color...

[Anonymous No.14140937]

>>14140913
>Chinese pressed dust from tea into bricks
>these high quality tea bricks
to the Boston harbor it goes

Just follow the instructions and report back. I'd just don't expect very 'high quality'.

[Anonymous No.14141442]

>>14140707
Haha, hopefully i didn't push too much smokey tea on you anon, I'm sure it will come in handy in the winter.
I'm always terrified someone is going to come back and yell at me for recommending some tea that they really hate but I've had decent luck so far.
I just ordered about 4 kilos of tea and most of it is going to be smokey as hell so hopefully I don't end up regretting it. I'm spiritually an old man so I think I will be fine but I am already regretting that I didn't order any ripe.
Can't wait to try these teas sometime in August when they arrive.

[Anonymous No.14141448]

>>14140906
It should be fine to drink, if there is some glue or something else weird in there you will know it because it will taste really nasty and chemically. Personally i would probably just use it as a decoration.

[Anonymous No.14141917]

This might be a dumb question, but why are Japanese tea leafs always broken (even expensive/high quality teas) as opposed to Chinese or Taiwanese loose leaf teas?
Are there even Japanese tea varians that have full unbroken leafs?

[Anonymous No.14141953]

The new batch of green tea I got smells like fish. I only encountered this once, in a cafe in Romania.

Is this normal?

[Anonymous No.14141988]

>>14140707
>2019 Yame Gyokuro - The roast beef and potatoes of tea.
I laughed but it's true

[Anonymous No.14142285]

>>14141917

To start, Japanese greens use quite small leaf varietals of C. Sinensis, and then go on to roll the leaves before they're dried, so even if they aren't significantly broken, they'll appear quite small until unfurling when steeped. The deep steamed stuff ends up breaking apart a bit, for sure, due to it being really heavily steamed, but the light steamed stuff is still relatively whole in my experience,

[Anonymous No.14142465]

Help me, tea sages.
What kind of tea will go well with a little bit(plenty) of brandy?

[Anonymous No.14142568]

>>14142465
Try a dark GABA oolong

[Anonymous No.14143351]

Got this a few days ago the caffeine rush is pretty smooth and mellow.

It also has a roasted flavor.

[Anonymous No.14143516]

>>14140937
>>14141448
so I figured ok. glue or no glue one cup won't kill me. got a knife and scraped away at the side of the brick. somehow doing that with a spoon didn't seem to make a lot of sense. it came out as rather fine powder - I gathered up the powder - maybe about half a teaspoon of it and put it into the kind of strainer filter things you use for coffee. ran hot water through it and got a really strong dark tea. tastes like regular tea except a lot stronger. it's a hassle to have to scrape a brick just to make your morning tea though

[Anonymous No.14143838]

>>14142465
https://perennialtearoom.com/collections/oolong-tea/products/brandy-oolong-bulk

[Anonymous No.14144891]

>>14143516
It probably tastes stronger cause it as a lot of surface area as a powder. Would probably make dank milk tea though.

[Anonymous No.14144932]

Ordered a new teapot to specifically go with some rice bowls I bought some time ago, and a kitchen thermometer for practical use. I'm so excited bros

[Anonymous No.14144985]

Oolong tea representing, all black tea drinking niggers can fuck off back to bongland.

[Anonymous No.14145319]

Before I place the order, you guys think O-cha is a good seller?

[Anonymous No.14145691]

>>14145319
Anyone who drinks green tea will always mention o-cha and how nice they are in these threads, gtfo newfag and order from them already

[Anonymous No.14145781]

for me it's another twinings peppermint tea

[Anonymous No.14145863]

I'm still really liking the 2013 Xue Ju Shu Pu snow chrysanthemum ys gives out free.

[Anonymous No.14145904]

Can someone recommend me a tea that is:
1.-Not from China
2.-Not Green Tea
3.-Organic
4.-Low on fluoride

[Anonymous No.14145912]

>>14145863
Can you describe what the chrysanthemum adds to the flavor? I haven't tried it before.

[Anonymous No.14145942]

>>14140760
It's dried corn flower. I tried it fresh, still no flavour whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.14145960]

>>14145904
The lowest amount of fluoride is in the youngest leaves at the beginning of spring, the older the leaves are the more they accumulate. Unfortunately those leaves are usually used for green tea. I guess you could look into first flush Darjeeling.
Organic is a scam, not just in tea but in general. If you are concerned about that kind of thing you could look for tea that claims that use biodynamic farming. It's a lot of weird magic spell casting bullshit like burying horns in the ground on the spring solstice, but behind that they use the actual farming practices that people imagine when they see something is advertised as organic.
I don't know of any tea that is sold as having each batch tested for fluoride levels, i think I looked for it before and couldn't find any but you could try searching for that.
Really there are just so many things you are exposed to on a daily basis that worrying about fluoride in tea or it being organic is pretty pointless unless you have done things like eliminate all plastics from your life, make all your on clothes out of fabrics you weave yourself and you grow all your own food and raise all your own livestock on land that you have had tested for levels of heavy metals.

[Anonymous No.14145974]

>>14145912
Something in it is giving off a not too subtle dark spiciness. Its pretty fucking nice .I assume the "dark" element is the age showing through, and the spice is just decaying floral notes, but the tea is over all pretty sweet and balanced. Slight earthiness on the aroma but its not murky at all. Very clean and drinkable.

[Anonymous No.14145985]

imagine getting into chink tea and then using 3x the amount you need in your gaiwan

op youre a faggot

[Anonymous No.14145991]

>>14145974
Sounds good.
>>14145985
I just took a picture off of image search. I wish that was my picture though, that gaiwan is full of expensive ass tea.

[Anonymous No.14146032]

Hey bros. I would like to get into the world of tea. I've been a coffee guy for all my life, and the guy at the teastore recommended me some assam CTC to start my conversion from espresso to tea. It's allright but it i feel it's a little bit of a tryhard tea. Where should i start, i mainly like black tea and white tea but then i never tried proper tea in my life just supermarket crap.

[Anonymous No.14146048]

>>14146032
Why do you think ctc is tryhard? It was probably suggested because it's about as bracing and strong as tea gets, so i guess you could call it the closest to an espresso like experience with tea.
As a big fan of coffee i think that trying to get a coffee like experience from tea is a mistake because they are very different beasts.
What country are you in? With the shipping situation cause of bataids I can't necessary make my usual recommendations.

[Anonymous No.14146062]

>>14146048
Thanks for your response. I'm not trying to get a coffee experience from tea I would just like to explore the tea world. I live in the Netherlands, so Eurofag. How important are brewing temperatures? Should i get a proper kettle or can i just use the hot water tap from my espresso machine

[Anonymous No.14146107]

>>14146062
You can't go wrong with a proper kettle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI2vKrpCOkQ

Coffee centric review but I don't know shit about the euro market, so I'll defer to them.

[Anonymous No.14146117]

>>14145912
i find it makes tea smell like potpourri and rose hips. its very perfumed, you can really smell it as soon as the water hits the dry leaf. not terrible and the 2 teas i have with snow chrysanthemum are growing on me but i probably wouldn't buy it again
>>14145904
vahdam sells Indian and there's a ton of variety, i recommend thier daily Darjeeling for a very good cheap 2nd flush black tea(2nd flush is best for Darjeeling) or double fuck the commies by buying from taiwan
>>14146032
or assam for a stronger maltier tea, you'll need boiling water for most tea, get a cheap kettle with temp control for if you want greens/white buds

[Anonymous No.14146167]

why are harney and son teas so flavorfull? despite having relatively similar looking leaves for black teas they taste amazing...

[Anonymous No.14146190]

>>14146062
If the water that comes out of your espresso machine is boiling hot than it's fine. If you want an electric kettle than get an inexpensive one that let's you set different temperatures. Ignore the guy trying to push 200 Euro kettles.
Unfortunately i don't really know what online places in Europe are good to order from so I would suggest finding a tea shop that is based in NL and ordering from them, or maybe going to the shop that you got the CTC at if they have a decent selection. The best thing to do starting out is to try a variety of different teas and figure out what you like.
Try some Darjeeling, some oolong, some sencha and some Chinese black tea if you can find it. Buy small amounts at first. Then you can start to find some overseas sellers for the teas you like most.
For example if you like sencha you should try and order some Japanese green teas direct from Japan, or if you like Chinese black tea you should order from a seller in China.
There are some basic brewing instructions in the pastebin in the OP and a list of some popular vendors.

[Anonymous No.14146207]

>>14146190
Invest in your hobbies and routine. You'd be surprised how your QOL skyrockets when you're not a miser.

[Anonymous No.14146246]

>>14146207
spend your money on the tea not a kettle, the qol gained from an expensive kettle is pure placebo. as long as it isn't plastic and can brew from 70-100 its good enough. mines glass, has temp options every 10c and cost ~£30

[Anonymous No.14146260]

>>14146207
Is this some gag you are running or are you still asshurt that anon last thread called your kettle a waste of money?
Some anon shows up in the thread and says he wants to get into tea and your advice is to buy a 200 euro kettle? No tea suggestions? No recommendations for vendors? Just buy an expensive tea kettle? It's not even a hobby for him, he doesn't even know if he likes tea all that much.

[Anonymous No.14146342]

Thanks guys i just checked the hot water dispensor from my espresso machine and it's about 80c which my be a bit low for black tea i think. I'll try to find a inexpensibe kettle with a variable temp option. I think i'm going to start trying: ceylon, darjeeling, oolong, pu-erh, assam and some white tea and see from there.

[Anonymous No.14146443]

>>14146342
I fucking love puer.
DON'T BUY IT LOCALLY! JUST DON'T!
I can't stress this enough. Low quality puer is undrinkable dogshit and I don't want you to think all puer is crap.
If you decide to buy puer buy it from one of the vendors in the pastebin. Normally you also shouldn't buy it on eBay either but I will give you a few links to ones I know aren't fake or disgusting, just order some, forget about it and it will be a nice surprise when it shows up in 3 months.
This is a pretty basic raw puer, a bit smokey but not too much.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Zi-Yun-FT-2012-Xiaguan-Purple-Cloud-Tuo-Cha-Boxed-Raw-Puerh-Puer-Tea-100g/253154720241
And this is the benchmark ripe puer, the most popular recipe by the factory that invented the process. Creamy, vanilla, chocolate
https://www.ebay.com/itm/7572-Menghai-Dayi-Factory-TAETEA-Puerh-150g-Pu-Erh-Puer-Pu-Er-Ripe-Shu-Tea-2018/252987221957
This is the benchmark raw puer from the same factory, but it's a little more pricey than the first tea I linked, strong, bitter, a bit smokey, but it's aged so it should be more mellow than when it was young. Get whichever one you feel like between this and the first one.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2007-TAETEA-Menghai-Dayi-7542-Aged-Raw-Pu-erh-Tea-Shen-Puer-70g-In-Tin/253179992872
If you enjoy these then come back to the thread and someone can help you out with where you should go from there.

[Anonymous No.14146456]

fucking esoteric Belgium shipping service keeping my new gaiwan and cup from me. Also big shoutout to the potter I commissioned from, for covering the new shipping cost after the post office screwed up and shipped it back to her. Nice lady. Definitely gonna order more teaware when I'm not broke and I recommend you guys do to if you want some new pieces.


https://www.etsy.com/shop/PotterybyIngeNielsen

can't wait to get my pancake gaiwan and cup.
But besides my bitching, I'm drinking some jasmine scented white tea from verdant, brewed gong fu in my tea pot, 12 g cause it holds 250 ml.
So heavily jasmine scented it sometimes is minty, bit creamy, honey sweet, and you can smell the jasmine in the liquor itself

good shit and if you're in the US it arrives super quick. really refreshing tea, bet it'd be perfect to cold brew

[Anonymous No.14146647]

i ordered tea from ebay 5 days ago, but it's not even shipped yet, should i be worried?
should i write a message to the chink?

[Anonymous No.14146695]

>>14143351
you should be drinking either real tea or real yerba mate, that thing does neither

[Anonymous No.14146846]

>>14146647
Just keep an eye on it and give it a few more days. It's super easy to get refunded on eBay if they just never ship it. I guess it wouldn't hurt to message them but i would wait until tomorrow because nobody ships on the weekend.

[Anonymous No.14147475]

>>14146846
just shipped, maybe the chink is lurking here

[Anonymous No.14147792]

>>14146246
I buy more tea than kettles. You morons are suggesting he brews with 80c gaggia water. Buy once cry once. I bet you've got cheap pillows too.

[Anonymous No.14147800]

O-cha purchase update. I said fuck that after seeing a $23 shipping fee on my $33 order.

[Anonymous No.14147892]

>>14145974
>>14145991
Agreed on that spicy note. Almost reminded me of peppercorn tbhfam. After that first brew, i got the more balanced flavored (though still with that snap in the background). As for floral, I didn't really feel like any floral notes stood out in the traditional "fresh, bright, springtime air" sort of way. Again I'll agree with the other guy that the spice was likely from the flowers

[Anonymous No.14147909]

>>14147792
>You morons are suggesting he brews with 80c gaggia water.
no one here has said that retard
>Buy once cry once.
even if a cheap kettle only lasts a year thats still a decade before your overpriced rip off is viable, mine is on its 4th with zero problems
>I bet you've got cheap pillows too.
i dont use pillows, im not a woman

[Anonymous No.14148068]

>>14147909
>If the water that comes out of your espresso machine is boiling hot than it's fine.


>i just checked the hot water dispensor from my espresso machine and it's about 80c


So are you more of a walmart firm, or an extra firm? You're trying to get him to import teas without having the proper equipment. He should probably order a few boxes of cigars with no humidor ready too, since we're just throwing money away here.

Its okay to be upset you can't afford decent gear. Its not ok to cry on 4chan about it. We're not all neets here. Some of us have made sound financial decisions over the course of our lives. I'm about to import a $600 ddr stage from poland. Kind of want to play some ddr without going to dave and busters. Mostly just because I can though, and it won't make a fucking dent.

[Anonymous No.14148156]

>>14148068
>flexing over a kettle
sad

[Anonymous No.14148197]

>>14148156
Smoking bowls with a $100 LE lighter while I decide what I want to drink. Think of all the brentwood kettles I could buy with that. Bics work too desu, but I can't tell you the last time I stepped foot in an establishment that sold bics.

[Anonymous No.14148699]

>>14147800

It is only economical to buy tea internationally, Japan included, in relatively large quantities. Wait until you want about 100 bucks worth of tea.

[Anonymous No.14148868]

Anyone got recommendations for some containers to put tea in? I've got a handful of reasonably air-tight, double-lid metal containers that hold a decent amount of tea, but I need some more containers for additional varieties of tea. Plus, I've got some pu-erhs coming from YS USA's sale that I'll need to break up. I kinda want some nicer clay/ceramic containers, but a lot of the ones I'm finding are quite small and seem like they wouldn't hold more than 15-20g of tea. Any suggestions?

[Anonymous No.14148890]

>>14148868

I just use ball jars for my Japanese greens, and then have my puerh in Cambros with Boveta packs to keep the humidity right.

[Anonymous No.14148900]

>>14148890
yeah I mean I could do that, but that's not ~aesthetic~. I want some containers that will also look nice on a shelf next to traditional teaware.

[Anonymous No.14148907]

>>14148900

O-cha also has some nice looking tea containers. They'll each hold about 100g of Jap greens if that means anything to you.

[Anonymous No.14149002]

>>14148900
by traditional teaware you mean bad dragon dild-ohs and mecha figurines? between your faggotry and $200 kettle wanker I honestly don't know what's worse.

ziplock bags, the metallicky kind, deep in the cabinet. tea is meant to be drunk, not showcased you reddit rejects.

[Anonymous No.14149008]

>>14149002
take your meds

[Anonymous No.14149011]

>>14149002
That's like parking your sports car in a shitty and tasteless garage, because "cars are meant to be driven".
Nothing wrong with wanting to store your tea in a way that brings joy to you.

[Anonymous No.14149042]

>>14141953
Is it a japanese green? Their tea is often grown in ocean areas (because island) like Kagoshima and carries a seaweed or ocean scent and taste. For a lot of people it's fine but for me it's too fishy. Kind of like how cilantro tastes like soap to some people. Try a chinese green or oolong.

[Anonymous No.14149115]

>>14149002
Imagine having a budget lol

[Anonymous No.14149629]

>>14128313
Casual tea drinker, potentially stupid question, but is this tea pot just for display or actually meant to be used? It was my grandmothers and my current pot has seen better days.

[Anonymous No.14149633]

>>14149629
Also, I know, filthy apartment poster.

[Anonymous No.14149670]

>>14147800
Holy shit thanks for the heads up
>>14148699
Bro it's one thing to be a teafag but I can't seriously find a reasonable justification to wanting to try new and actually *good* loose leaf green teas when you're forced to buy such large quantities to make up for such bullshit shipping costs. And I thought j-list was unreasonable.

[Anonymous No.14149678]

>>14148900
At that point just find nice looking mason jars with the proper fitting lids. Nothing better than clean glass to showcase nice looking loose leaf

[Anonymous No.14149686]

>>14149678
light ain't great for your tea, especially if you're planning to store something longer-term

[Anonymous No.14149689]

>>14149629
>>14149633
If you haven't seen paint chipping off or any similar problems then yes it should be safe to drink from. Although, the lack of filtering makes me cringe mostly because I like my tea free from the leaves. If you so desired you could totally retire your current teapot and invest in a "proper" one that still keeps the old school aesthetic. The more vintage looking the better imo but that's just because I'm kitschy

[Anonymous No.14149696]

>>14149686
Then it's a good thing I'm not the fag who's wanting to showcase tea like they're crystals or some shit, makes me happy knowing I've been keeping my tea fresh

[Anonymous No.14149703]

>>14149670

I just order enough for a year all at once. 100 to 200 bucks for a year's worth of tea with 20 or 30 so in shipping is completely reasonable, imo. Amortize that over the 12 months and it's barely anything as far as hobbies go.

[Anonymous No.14149706]

>>14149696
if you want opaque, air-tight ceramic containers to put your tea in, the point is clearly not to show off the leaves. the point is just to have a nice container instead of an ugly one. what exactly is the issue with that?

[Anonymous No.14149713]

>>14149686
>>14149678

The key is Mason jars in a dark cupboard.

[Anonymous No.14149717]

>>14149629
As long as it's ceramic it's fine even if it's for display, you just want to make sure there isn't paint inside and you only use it for steeping. In other words, don't put it on a stove or fire, don't heat it, and wash it by hand. If you're really concerned, best way to handle fragile items for use with hot liquids is to add some warm water and let it sit until you're ready to add hot water, , then exchange, to avoid sudden huge temperature jumps. It usually only affects thin porcelain and that looks like a ceramic piece so it should be perfecfly fine for regular use with hot water.

[Anonymous No.14149766]

>>14149689
It has a filter. Visually, I like it, but it is kitschy.

>>14149717
Definitely ceramic. No chipping of paint and I've flushed it with hot water several times.

>don't put it on a stove or fire, don't heat it, and wash it by hand
lol no worries on that anon.


Thanks for the advice anons.

[Anonymous No.14149803]

>>14149706
Look for weed containers then or something, usually those containers are similar to the food grade air-tight containers you find but instead of it being boring plastic or glass they're usually decorated or visually interesting. Find hobby shops for witchy/Pagan shit too, I dunno, I tend to find air-tight, lid fitted containers like you're wanting in the weirdest of spots for particular hobbies of mine.

[Anonymous No.14149976]

>>14149670
Shipping is extra expensive right now because of wuflu. The only reliable shipping from Japan right now is fedex and dhl and they are both expensive.

[Anonymous No.14150448]

>>14149803
Big cvaults aren't a bad idea. Throw a sensorpush in there and you're good to go.

[Anonymous No.14150569]

>>14149703
Doesn't that defeat the purpose of trying to get the freshest tea by ordering direct from Japan if you're going to be drinking that same order the whole rest of the year?

[Anonymous No.14150654]

>>14150569

Jap tea's shelf life is about a year. First flush is harvested in spring and I don't really mess with anything other than that. As long as you're getting first flush green tea from the year you're in, you're good to go, but there's really no getting around that later on since they aren't harvesting good stuff in fall and winter.

That's why for Jap tea in particular, the general idea is to buy your entire year's worth in the spring, and make sure you get enough to last you until next year, because anything you get later on is either going to be equivalently fresh to what you got (say, a first harvest that was in cold storage at the wholesaler) or less fresh/lesser quality (second and third harvests, etc.). There's no re-upping in the late year for anything that's more fresh than what you could have gotten in the spring.

[Anonymous No.14150699]

>>14150654
Ah, right, that makes sense. So if I order now, do you think I'd be getting spring picked tea, or are they already selling the summer picked tea?

[Anonymous No.14150802]

>>14150699

If you're ordering from o-cha, each tea is labelled with the year of harvest and whether or not it is first flush. It's early enough that they're still doing shincha, which is the first harvest that they never put into cold storage.

Wherever you order, make sure it has a year and month harvest date on it or it's probably swill.

[Anonymous No.14150851]

>>14150802
Cool, thanks. I guess I might as well bite the bullet and buy it all at once. Normally, I order a 100/110g pouch of green tea about once a month off Amazon. I think I'll order 4 or 5 teas and let that last me a while.

[Anonymous No.14150888]

>>14150851

That sounds like a solid plan. From o-cha, they have most if not all of their shincha up right now. It's also still a decent time to order 2019 gyokuro. Gyokuro tends to be aged and then released in the fall of the harvest year, so the 19 stuff isn't too old right now.

I can whole heartedly recommend the Yutaka Midori for deep steamed stuff, and the Yame gyokuro is a pretty good budget option for that. The Kamejirushi gyokuro is more expensive but very subtle and complex in a way that is worth the money, imo.

For light steamed stuff my favorite is San no Ma but it looks like that may not be in stock right now.

Don't forget to look at their tea ware, too. It seems like the FedEx shipping doesn't go up much with package size/weight so it you're looking to drop some cash on some handmade Jap teaware this is the time to do it.

[Anonymous No.14150938]

>>14150888
I've never had gyokuro but I'm not sure if that flavor profile would appeal to me. I like the brighter, grassier green teas.

In my shopping cart right now, I have the Yutaka Midori and the Kawane Wa-Kocha (interested in japanese black). I'll pick a few more (maybe some teaware) and probably have to order my Amazon tea just to tide me over until then since I expect the shipping will probably take a few weeks.

[Anonymous No.14150962]

>>14150938

FedEx shipping got to me on the US east coast in 48 hours from ordering.

[Anonymous No.14151051]

>>14150938
If you want to order some tea on Amazon check out the dayi taetea shop on there. The flagship China puer factory actually has stock in Amazon's warehouse and an official storefront. It's a great way to try top notch puer without worrying about fakes or sketchy stored teas. They don't have dates on the listings but most of the stuff they are selling is from 2014 or so. The 7542 raw and 7572 ripe are top recommendations.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/13C2EA08-0075-49A9-BFCD-163233DD6D39

[Anonymous No.14151202]

>>14151051
I'm telling Chinese products to fuck off right now, although I do miss aged whites

[Anonymous No.14151571]

>>14151202
Tea is about the only Chinese product I still buy, other than electronics that aren't made anywhere else. It's not like I can just buy puer from another country. There are places that make vaguely puer like teas, mostly worst korea but it's incredibly expensive and the market is pretty opaque to westerners.

[Anonymous No.14151602]

>>14151571
Fair enough, I'm just using the current political climate to direct my focus towards Japanese teas. I still have a stash of Chinese teas to fall back on, but the only new tea I plan on buying for the time being is Japanese, which is also cool because I'm not as acquainted with it.

Also gonna try using my new Chuck Norris brand water to brew with tomorrow. I've only been using "filtered" tap water and I keep reading that spring water is better, so me and Chuck are gonna explore the true flavor of tea tomorrow. Goodnight, bro

[Anonymous No.14151615]

for me it's a twinings peppermint tea

[Anonymous No.14151713]

anji bai cha

[Anonymous No.14152154]

I think I enjoy smelling tea more than drinking it. I am not talking about cheap scented tea, but high quality stuff. Smelling the tea is such a joy, to which the drinking doesn't compare for me. But I want to learn to appreciate that as well.
Anyone feel like this too? Anyone have any advice?

[Anonymous No.14152168]

>>14152154
I dunno, but it helps if you drink "correctly". Slurp the tea when you drink it, this oxygenates it and makes some flavors stand out. Hold it in your mouth for a second or two, appreciate the sensations, the flavor, and the way it coats your mouth. Swallow, feel the way it goes down your throat, then exhale through your nose. Pay attention to the sensations that rise up the back of your throat and through your nose. Then, pay attention to the finish and any aftertaste.

Could also be what you're drinking, some teas just smell better than they taste.

[Anonymous No.14152251]

what are kyusu good for

[Anonymous No.14152257]

>>14152251
brewing tea

[Anonymous No.14152403]

i finally bought one of these for 8 bux and i hate that i didn't do this ages ago. the lid also works as a coaster. lowkey best purchase i've made in years

[Anonymous No.14152783]

>>14152403
Yeah those infuser baskets are nice.

[Anonymous No.14153027]

Lads, it seems like the planes are starting to fly now with our parcels. After a little more than two months I just received some packets from The Land of Rising Chink.
First Umbrella from w2t, now my KTM order (picrel). There seems to be hope. YS and Crimson Lotus on the other hand...
None of my covid orders exceeded 3 month mark, so there's that.

If anyone is interested about those pingchas I can give you a quick rundown.

[Anonymous No.14153072]

>>14153027
Im interested in the W2T tea there aren't many posts about w2t here. Id also like to hear about the two raws from ktm and im interested to hear if that 2019 ripe has any noticable fishy smell at all just from sniffing the cake. I keep reading that dayi usually waits a year or two to press their ripes after fermentation so I'm wondering if that cake is old enough to be mostly free of funk at this point.

[Anonymous No.14153144]

>>14153072
There aren't many posts about w2t because it's mostly overpriced tea for the "hip" crowd with designer wrappers to match. Most of them "ya'll folk" resides on reddit an insta type of thing. Try asking there. I'm sure they will tell you how "tea drunk" they get off of w2teas. But joking aside, from what I tried, decent stuff. Typical boutique blends, of course in form of cheeky xiao bings, to lower the effect of sticker shock.
Maybe someone here tried their high end blends and is willing to pitch in?

[Anonymous No.14153275]

>>14153144
>overpriced tea for the "hip" crowd with designer wrappers to match
>in form of cheeky xiao bings, to lower the effect of sticker shock.
That's why I haven't ordered from them yet. That and I'm not all that in to young raws. Every single tea blogger insists that w2t puts out lots of good teas, but the guy that runs it makes sure to give out lots of tea to keep the skids greased and tea bloggers make YouTube product review shills look honest. I don't really trust most people that actually buy a 400+ dollar cake to review it honestly either due to buyers remorse. But I do like that w2t isn't into hyping muh 800 year old trees and muh ancient Bingdao tea hand-picked by virgins.
Not listing a teas origin raises an interesting question, it implies to the consumer that it's from some secret hidden tea garden or maybe even somehow elicit, but it just as easily can mean that the tea is from somewhere with a poor reputation, or not known for expensive tea, and the vendor thinks they can sell it for more with mystery instead of honesty.

[Anonymous No.14153413]

>>14153027
>YS and Crimson Lotus on the other hand...
It has been two months since it was placed and I still have no evidence of a single thing happening with my CLT order

[Anonymous No.14153435]

>>14134741
Some Yunomi shincha and wakoucha that was part of a group buy, as well as some Nilgiri and Korean teas from What-Cha. My college hasn't forwarded the latter package despite it being two months after the package arrived there.

[Anonymous No.14153448]

How do you guys brew Japanese tea? I'm waiting on an order for some shincha I placed a while back, and I have too many teapots in my collection, so I can't get a kyusu right now. I've brewed sencha before in my 500 ml ceramic pot.

[Anonymous No.14153470]

>>14153435
Have you tried korean teas before? I don't see a lot of discussion about them.

[Anonymous No.14153524]

>>14153144
That was the impression I got when browsing the website and saw cakes called with vulgar names. I did order their samplers of raw and ripe, though, just to get a sense of some general distinctions since I'm new to puer, but overall I won't order from them again most likely. For me, it's Don from Mei Leaf here.

[Anonymous No.14153595]

>>14153524
but what if you'll totally love their teas?
>For me, it's Don from Mei Leaf here.
ok, so you're just trolling softly, carry on.

[Anonymous No.14153788]

>>14153595
>you're just trolling

[Anonymous No.14153791]

>>14153448
When I ordered from o-cha a month or so ago I didn't have any suitable teaware so I bought a 360ml kyusu and an 80ml shiboridashi. Both of them work well, but the kyusu just makes too much tea for me so I only use the shibo. The big divide within sencha is light-steamed vs. deep-steamed; I like to brew both at around .8g/ml and 70c, three times, with brew times of 45s-30s-60s for deep-steamed and 90s-60s-120s for light-steamed. I'm no expert at this but those parameters give me the best tea so far. For gyokuro, brew like light-steamed sencha but at 60c and using twice as much leaf. Not sure what sort of gear you can use if you don't have anything like a shibo or kyusu on hand.

>>14153524
>For me, it's Don from Mei Leaf here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhIsWYuayxk

[Anonymous No.14153819]

>>14153791

It's worth noting that the leaf water requirements for Japanese tea are given in leaf/water ratio rather than leaf/vessel ratio like Chinese teas. So if something is saying .6g/30ml water, it means use .6g for every 30ml of water going into your pot. For this reason I use my kyusu on a scale unless I'm filling it all the way up (since I know how much water will fill it when leaf is in it).

As you said, that's a lot of tea though, so I tend to use the scale to help do 1/2 and 1/3 pots of tea.

[Anonymous No.14153827]

>>14153788
>>14153524
>>14153595
I like Don and his tea drinking videos. His wife is pretty and charming too.

I also find it funny that they're both mixed race, but his Chinese/French wife just looks like a prettier Chinese woman while Don's Chinese/Swiss ancestry somehow left him looking Indian

[Anonymous No.14153842]

>>14153827

Don just gives me scummy salesman vibes, and I'm completely convinced that he's destroyed his wife's self confidence to the point where she's subservient to him. There was a video I saw a while back where he just picked at her the entire time and she took it with a smile. It was uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.14153851]

>>14153827
Don isn't pajeet? I don't believe you.

[Anonymous No.14153875]

>>14153791
wow, this video is pretty scary, not to mention the furry avatar. I much prefer chilled out vibes of this here classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfk9TqWlzKc

[Anonymous No.14153876]

>>14153851
Here's his mom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLrMeBwaY3g
He got the dark skin tone of his south Chinese dad but the facial structure and eye shape of his mom, which combined to make the most Indian looking non-Indian man that ever lived

[Anonymous No.14153905]

>>14153876
Well that's unfortunate. I bet his pops looks like the man from the front page of yunnansourcing.

[Anonymous No.14153922]

>>14153470
There's not a lot of discussion because Korean teas aren't really exported at all. Koreans don't import tea from anywhere; the farmers in Hadong just drink their own product and sell it to the domestic markets. As a result, what little teas are exported to foreign markets are, in my opinion, often prohibitively expensive for consumers on a budget (like me). I've heard Korean teas are a middle between Japanese and Chinese teas in terms of taste and brewing, though. Anyone know of any vendors of Korean tea, preferably ones that ship from the US?

[Anonymous No.14154658]

>>14153876
Well, I hate him less now that I know he's not indian.

[Anonymous No.14154693]

>>14150938
>Kawane Wa-Kocha
has anyone had this before?

[Anonymous No.14154705]

>>14152154
get sticky rice oolong tea, best tea for sniffing

[Anonymous No.14154709]

Does anyone actually drink tea with friends? No one I know really gives a shit about tea. They all view it as "it's like coffee, but in a little bag".

[Anonymous No.14154731]

>>14154709
HAHAHAHA, no man sadly not. My friends are the same way. I always want to break out something special when they visit but then I remember they slurp it down in 1.36 seconds and won't enjoy any of it because it's seen as coffee's faggy and "less energetic" cousin. So that's why im here.

[Anonymous No.14154786]

>>14154709
Closest I got was having my friend smell my spent silver needle and mi lan xiang dan cong leaves

[Anonymous No.14155060]

>>14154709
My mates always want to have some weird, fancy tea when they come by. They wouldn't do it on their own, I think, but they humor me at the very least.

[Anonymous No.14155619]

>>14154709
Just how life goes, man. At least if you have good friends they'll humor you.

[Anonymous No.14156341]

I've been pretty excited that dayi tae tea is selling ripe puer teabags on Amazon in their official store, they also have some loose leaf but even that is a bridge too far for most people.
Finally I have a good ripe that I can shill to friends and family that they can buy and try without any inconvenience of international shipping, weird Chinese websites, etc.
My mom had bought some sea dyke ripe teabags at one point and she didn't like them at all (They weren't awful surprisingly but they weren't good either) so now she can order some of these and there is actually some chance she might enjoy them.

[Anonymous No.14156737]

I love giving myself a sweet finish by putting a little bit of condensed sweetend milk in my last cup of a gong fu session

[Anonymous No.14156888]

any aussies here?
what's a good domestic source for tea (mostly after green tea, either steamed or roasted but equally happy to branch out)
o-cha (or any other japanese company) can't ship here atm

[Anonymous No.14157143]

>>14156888
Some annon has posted that they liked the tea from kura.co before, they are based in Australia. They specifically recommend the Vector raw puer. I would also recommend reading the listings for their 2019 raw puers as young raw shares a lot of similarities with green tea. It won't have quite the same umami broth flavor as a steamed Japanese green but it has a lot of the vegetable green notes.
https://kuura.co/collections/raw-puer/products/vector

[Anonymous No.14157189]

>>14157143
Adding to this their white tea is also probably worth trying. I see they have a single green tea but I would suggest avoiding it since it's old and they said they specifically bought it because it doesn't taste like Japanese greens.

[Anonymous No.14157364]

>>14128313
What is /ck/'s consensus on green tea vs black tea?

[Anonymous No.14157430]

>>14157364
They both suck, fermented and semi fermented tea 4 life.
Puer
Oolong
Liubao
Etc

[Anonymous No.14157539]

>>14128313
Anyone else like Hojicha? It’s probably my favorite tea, low caffeine, really good calming taste, roasted but not acidic

[Anonymous No.14157549]

>>14157364
I don't see the need for a competition, there's a time and a place for both. The health focus has always been on green but it's cool to see more emerging about even black tea having some cool unique properties.
It's really easy to overlook blacks if you're a Westerner getting into good tea- easy to see it as something of a safe, boring style. But there's plenty of complexity to a good hongcha.
I don't know why there's still so little awareness of white tea in the West; mainstream tea sellers seem to think people won't like it unless it's bombarded with other flavors, for some reason.

[Anonymous No.14157757]

>>14157364
they taste different

[Anonymous No.14158402]

Sup /tea/bros, /biz/ here. I’m switching from coffee and i’ve enjoyed the transition so far. Was just wondering what prebagged grocery store brand stuff is your favorite. Caffeine is a must, pretty open minded on type and taste. If this is a pleb question I apologize, but I don’t intend to grind my own leaves or whatever /tea/ patricians do, I just wanted to see if some basic bitch shit is better than others.

[Anonymous No.14158455]

>>14158402
Yorkshire tea is pretty good for a bagged, caffeinated tea you can get at the grocery store. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/254888470

[Anonymous No.14158484]

Hello /tea/, newfagging here and buying what-cha's intro batch, but I want to buy a little more on the side. Does anyone have any recs for someone who likes floral, citrus and wintery (as in christmas spice) tastes.

[Anonymous No.14158541]

>>14158455
Thanks bud i’ll give em a try.

[Anonymous No.14158567]

>>14153524
to be fair ive only had 1 tea of them i didn't like(lost robe btw), but i think i just dont like da hong paos, although thier crimson empress was really nice and the best da hong pao i've had off anywhere

[Anonymous No.14158572]

>>14157539
I like it. The one I had tasted like burnt buttered popcorn

[Anonymous No.14158579]

>>14158402
> I don’t intend to grind my own leaves or whatever /tea/ patricians do
Hahaha, you fucking coffee drinker

[Anonymous No.14158593]

Mornin.

[Anonymous No.14158603]

>>14158593

[Anonymous No.14158612]

>>14158603

[Anonymous No.14158627]

>>14157539
love hojicha. i make my own all the time, very fun to experiment with different types and blends plus they taste way better than any hojicha i've bought from a tea supplier

[Anonymous No.14158645]

>>14158402
tazo tea is ok, but basically any tea bag is basically the equivalent of real shitty diner coffee to patrician tier vietcong whatever. if you have a strainer just use a pyrex measuring cup and leaves if you want to try a small amount of some loose leaf teas. i reccomend trying an ounce of japanese green or loose leaf full leaf (not broken) assam, depending on if you like blacks or greens better. if you want a good place you can buy small amounts from i have lots of reccomendations

[Anonymous No.14158648]

>>14158402
>I don't intend to grind my own tea leaves
get a lot of this fucking guy

[Anonymous No.14158684]

>>14158579
>>14158648
No bulli

[Anonymous No.14158705]

>>14158402
>>14158684
Memes aside, bagged tea is almost always going to be shit. Tea is made to be drunk from whole leaves, with very few exceptions (things like matcha). Generally speaking, a tea producer will create the good stuff, and then sweep up all the dust and broken bits of leaves. Those bits of dust get put into teabags and sold to people who don't know any better. Like >>14158645 pointed out, this shit is basically the equivalent of a diner selling the cheapest coffee they could get their hands on. It's gonna be trash.

Most whole-leaf teas will be decent at worst. Another difference is that many coffee drinkers are used to buying pre-ground coffee and simply brewing it. Unless you burn the coffee, it's hard to fuck this part up. Contrast with tea, where the steep is something you have to pay attention to. It's not difficult (for the majority of teas), but you just have be pay some attention to what you're doing. Tea that's over-steeped or steeped to hot WILL be bitter and unpleasant. That's another difference, actually. Coffee is typically brewed with boiling water, or water just off the boil. Some teas are brewed with water that hot, but the majority actually call for much lower temperatures. A chinese green tea, for example, brewed with boiling water is pretty much guaranteed to be bitter leaf water. Brewing a good cup of tea a bit is closer to buying beans, then roasting and grinding them yourself.

I don't say any of this to make you think tea is complicated or anything, just that brewing a good cup of tea is different from brewing a good cup of coffee. If you want a good cup without too much fuss, I recommend getting yourself a tea strainer than you can put in a mug, and buying some decent loose, whole leaf tea.

[Anonymous No.14158714]

>>14158402
just buy some cheap oolong for a start and brew in a glass ~3g 250ml for 2 minutes and pour brewed tea in other cup or glass or whatever
you can brew several times so it's already cheaper than shitty bag tea

[Anonymous No.14158785]

>>14157539

Hojicha is great and I have a fair amount, but my kyusu is unglazed so I don't want to brew it in there, and the leaf size is not great for a gaiwan, so I rarely have it. I need to get a glazed kyusu already.

[Anonymous No.14158790]

>>14133454
i strongly agree. i brew with distilled water in the fridge cold for this reason
>>14134818
silver needle is overrated. white peony is better
>>14134840
hibiscus is so tart. what can be done without adding sugar or honey? is clove and cinnamon actually good?
>>14136325
madman or ur shit is weak
>>14137778
poppy seed tea. good luck

kek this thread is older than i realized

[Anonymous No.14159178]

>>14158627
How do you make it? Is it just roasting green tea or are there more steps?

[Anonymous No.14159190]

>>14158572
Are you sure it wasn’t genmaicha? That always tastes like popcorn to me

[Anonymous No.14159216]

>>14159190
dens tea gave me a free sample of that and i didn't like it. tasted like roasted rice crispys with freshly mowed grass

[Anonymous No.14159218]

>>14158612
Based

[Anonymous No.14159223]

what's the point of the little ring piece that usually comes with sets of tea tools?

[Anonymous No.14159345]

>>14159216
Probably genmaicha, it’s green tea with roasted rice so it always has that popcorn flavor

[Anonymous No.14159444]

>>14158612
Nice. Love the webms.

[Anonymous No.14159733]

>>14140617
love Mariage Freres, really good tea

[Anonymous No.14161186]

>>14157539
i heard mugicha is similar, anyone tried it?

[Anonymous No.14161195]

Behead those who insult Oolong

[Anonymous No.14161200]

>>14159223
>the little ring piece
I have no idea, it's either supposed to be a rest for a teapot or something, or it's supposed to be a ring where you can strap your own piece of mesh on it to use as a filter to pour your tea through, except it's been cloned and copied and copies of clones so many times by cargo culting Chinese factories that make cheap chinkshit for westerners that they don't actually know what it's for and they have removed the lip that you are supposed to tie the mesh to to make it easier to manufacture.

[Anonymous No.14161291]

>>14161186
Mugicha basically tastes like very light iced coffee. A little more grainy if you're drinking it hot, but cold is superior imo.

[Anonymous No.14161331]

>>14158790
> i brew with distilled water in the fridge cold for this reason
Interesting, I will have to try that. Do you like honeybush? I've been a big fan of that as well but found it incredibly temperamental when brewing, maybe cold brewing will fix that.

[Anonymous No.14161401]

>>14134836
Better off just swallowing the kratom quickly like a shot desu, there's no point in heating it up

[Anonymous No.14161416]

>>14159178
>>14159178
white tea and raw puerh work too, mixing different teas works well. get a saucepan out and put it on a burner on high for a while, like 30sec on full red hot, take it off. keep the burner on. put the tea in the pot and shake/stir it around making sure it doesn't burn if it's smoking and put the lid on. leave it sitting for a few minutes. take the lid off and hold the saucepan over high, shaking/stirring the tea to make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom but still not moving it fast enough to not brown it/let it smoke on purpose. after a while it should smell and look like hojicha, probably should take like 5-7min

[Anonymous No.14161424]

>>14161195
okok who knows where to buy tieguanyin that has a long aftertaste/tangy feel and not just floraly perfume scent but no real lasting mouth feel

[Anonymous No.14162444]

bump

[Anonymous No.14162449]

>>14161424
That's a good question. I don't think any of the vendors discussed here really specialize in Chinese oolong. I guess i would suggest yunnan sourcing but I haven't tried any of their oolong personally.

[Anonymous No.14162522]

should i get a teapot

[Anonymous No.14162530]

>>14162522
What tea brewing paraphernalia do you have now? What tea do you drink?

[Anonymous No.14162548]

>>14162530
an old kettle, supermarket breakfast tea (barry's, yorkshire, etc).
got rec'd a loose leaf assam from upton on here, was gonna get that cause brewing by the mug is annoying and I like to slam 3-5 cups in rapid succession like a complete degenerate

[Anonymous No.14162781]

i'm an american and i bought some pg tips for the first time. i gotta say, for all the tea you guys drink, for this to be UKs favorite tea it just kinda tastes like lipton

[Anonymous No.14162803]

>>14162781
lipton is "america's favorite tea"
use ur brain moran, it's marketing bs

[Anonymous No.14162851]

>>14162803
yeah i figured as much. what's a good, easy black tea?

[Anonymous No.14162936]

>>14162781
They're both Unilever brands. Seemingly a lot of people actually like PG Tips but I never understood the hype.

[Anonymous No.14163184]

>>14162781
I straight up don't understand how PG tips is the "top selling" brand. Yorkshire is objectively better, though I haven't found it here in the US and have to order on amazon.

[Anonymous No.14163323]

>>14162548
Then hell yeah get a teapot, the ones that upton sell are kind of pricey but apparently are pretty nice. I have a chatsford by the london teapot company and I like it, it's a slightly cheaper alternative and you can find them on Amazon. You should probably get the smallest one unless you drink 3-5 8oz cups, getting one that's too big can be a bit of a hassle.

[Anonymous No.14163381]

>>14163184
Yorkshire became the top selling brand years ago, used to be PG tips in the 90's

[Anonymous No.14163429]

Mornin.

[Anonymous No.14163438]

>>14163429

[Anonymous No.14163446]

>>14163438

[Anonymous No.14163452]

>>14163446

And yes, I did shamelessly steal this whole bit from W2T's social media.

[Anonymous No.14163575]

>>14163438
Gotta keep the nazi penis turtle hydrated.
That's from YS right?
So you have tried a decent amount of puer at this point. Do you notice the wet storage notes on this tea? I keep going back and forth between enjoying the accelerated aging from wet storage and hating it because it affects the purity of the flavor. I actually really disliked this tea when I first got it but I have come around a bit since then.
In this tea i notice the wet storage a bit of very mild funk or damp taste on the first infusion, and the high or bright fruit flavors come off as a bit more muted than I think they would be with totally dry storage.

[Anonymous No.14163822]

>>14163446
Damn bro living on the edge of surface tension how do you even lift that up without spilling?

[Anonymous No.14163983]

>>14163575

I can see what you're saying about the tasting notes from the storage. I think I still don't instinctively recognize that because most of the puerh I have is at best semi-aged, so the amount of time that storage has had to affects its taste is rather limited. I'll start keeping an eye out for it more, though. I definitely do get a bit of must on the earlier infusions of this tea, though that doesn't put me off of it at all. I think in this case it pairs very nicely with those dark dried fruit flavors that I get off of it.

>>14163822

Classic mouth -> cup for the first sip.

[Anonymous No.14164452]

>>14161424
I'd recommend Taiwanese Tieguanyin. I love the Maokong grown.

[Anonymous No.14164492]

First YS order, very excited. Ordered it 17 days ago and according to tracking it's still traveling around China. Just waiting it out.

[Anonymous No.14164514]

>>14164492
nice, usually takes around 8 weeks for orders to get here in bongland, tracking never seems to update for me after it leaves YS. if you have a hard time breaking those melon ripe puerh tuos, garden secateurs work really well

[Anonymous No.14164575]

>>14164514
Thanks mate.

Anyone familiar with white tea cakes? Are they comparable with pu-erh? I guess they are not fermented, at least not in the same way. What is the general effect on flavor and experience of 'caking' tea, besides that it is a favorable method on aging tea.

[Anonymous No.14165226]

>>14164492

I have the 2014 of that Cha Tou Sheng Yun and it's one of my favorites.

[Anonymous No.14166644]

Coof

[Anonymous No.14167747]

Coff

[Anonymous No.14168029]

Tea noob here.

What is an actually decent tea for cold tea?
Fridge cold with some lemon juice, that is.

I'm currently using 1 tablespoon of sugar per liter, I would like to move to no sugar but the low-ish quality tea I have at home doesn't really taste great by itself.

I also just tried second-brew, didn't know it was a thing. Noticed the flavour is still very good albeit less complex, but it's easier to drink sugar free. Does it compare in terms of caffeine? I want it to be my summer go-to daily caffeine source.

[Anonymous No.14168052]

>>14168029
You are going to want tea that is "low quality" in that its more broken. That's cause it will give more surface area to brew and will yield a stronger brew. If you want to upgrade from cold brew bags at the grocery store try Harney & Sons if it's at the grocery store. I also like to recommend Adagio teas to new comers cause they have a lot a variety and sell decent tier so you can figure out what you like.

[Anonymous No.14168072]

>>14168052
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean "what is a brand to try". Not american, you're naming brands that don't exist here. I mean variety. Also by cold I don't mean the brew, but the serving temperature.

What I tried second brew with is a black darjeeling tea. First brew was bitter, second wasn't but most of the flavour was there. What might be good low-sugar for someone not used to it?

[Anonymous No.14168087]

>>14168072
Oh sorry, I misunderstood the post. The one sure advice I can give is try chinese teas instead of indian assamica teas. Chinese teas tend to be much less bitter compared to indian teas. I'd look at there black teas and maybe even roasted oolongs.

[Anonymous No.14168139]

First time visitng the thread is it safe to assume my tea bags were made in the US I don't want coroanvirus

[Anonymous No.14168247]

>>14168139
no most tea bags are soaked in infected Chongland batcum, try yorkshire gold though i've heard it's good

[Anonymous No.14168442]

>>14168139
Lipton is made and grown in the US (at least the Lipton that's sold in the US). So is USA gold. Pretty much everything else is made overseas. You probably won't get chinkflu from teabags. It doesn't live very long outside the body.

[Anonymous No.14168588]

>>14168442
>Lipton is made and grown in the US
unless you're paying $10/gram i doubt that, it maybe bagged in the US

[Anonymous No.14168636]

>>14168588
Yeah I was wrong, they used to have a tea farm in the us but it wasn't a large portion of their production. I think it was mostly a tourist thing.
However American Classic aka Charleston Tea Plantation teabags are 100% grown and processed in the usa and pretty cheap, I think they are sold at Walmart and you can find them on Amazon.
Everything else grown in the USA sells for around $10 per gram and probably isn't worth it.

[Anonymous No.14168649]

>>14168636
*$1 per gram
There are some very small producers in Hawaii that sell on a few websites. And not much else that actually does online sales

[Anonymous No.14168982]

What's the appeal of lapsang? I got some with a YS order a while back, been drinking some of it lately. The smell is interesting, definitely has a smokey smell to it. And there's a bit of that in the cup. But, it mostly just tastes like black tea. It's not bad, but it didn't blow my mind or anything. Did I get mediocre lapsang, or is it just not for me.

[Anonymous No.14169104]

>>14168982
most lapsang souchong is produced for western markets and generally tends to be average quality black tea with a strong smoky aroma. it's nice decent tea but if you're looking for something nicer try and find one that doesn't look 'generic' from wuyi or taiwan, i think unsmoked lapsang is generally higher quality based on what i've seen and tasted. i just bought a pack of mr zhang lapsang souchong from teasource, i'll post a review for anyone interested when it comes

[Anonymous No.14169326]

>>14168982
I can't stand lapsang, or at least the very smoky kind (have yet to try a non-smoked). It's the least subtle thing you can put in a teacup. If you like a smoky profile you can do much better with sheng (something like the 2013 YS Autumn Ye Sheng), a houjicha/kukicha, or Wuyi oolong- all of those are a lot more complex and engaging.

[Anonymous No.14169329]

>supporting china
buy taiwanese tea

[Anonymous No.14169336]

>>14153413
Well then, YS order gone through customs and already home, CLT in post office, to be picked up tomorrow. Just few days shy of two months to EU.
So there is hope, people who wait on their plague orders.

[Anonymous No.14169367]

>>14169329
where's a good place online to buy taiwanese tea? been thinking about switching to indian but i prefer chinese to indian & buying from taiwan is a double fuck you to china

[Anonymous No.14169419]

>>14153072
whoops, sorry to keep you waiting on notes. If you are still here:
funny thing with those two ripes - 2019 "8592" is completly free of bass funk. it's as daily drinker ripe as it gets, grade 9 leaves, so pretty much sticks and (broken) big leaf. highly fermented to blackness, I guess that dissipated the funk. taste is nothing to write home about, but benefits from heavy hand with leafing. just put more into gay-wang. don't even google the price I paid for this if you're buying only western vendors ripes.
2018 "0562" - now, that's more my territory. middle grade like 4, 5, 6 is where it is with ripes, for me at least. but hold on, this here fucker is funky as hell. I'm talking gym socks fetor, not even usual carp funk. the cake stays out of my storage for the time being, the smell slowly goes away. liquid was promising in taste and texture, but it's not ready for me yet. have to go back to that one in coming weeks.

[Anonymous No.14169479]

>>14169419
why is Greenland labeled as the UK?

[Anonymous No.14169492]

>>14169479
It's the world according to Chink.
Italy is balkans, Germany - scandinavia, the wole South America is Brazil and of course Spanish people are blacks from north Africa.

[Anonymous No.14169908]

Just got an order in from YS today, got a bunch of pu-erh. Got a cake of 7562 and 7572. Also got a tuo of V93 and a couple non-descript mini bricks. First time I've ordered full-size pu-erh cakes, though. I've still got a good amount from the first tuo of pu-erh I ever ordered a year or two ago, so I probably won't open them for quite a while.

Also got some spring 2020 green snail bi luo. I got I think a 2018 picking of the same tea before, and it was really good. Had an aftertaste exactly like good sweet corn, surprisingly so. I hope this year is just as good.

[Anonymous No.14170816]

Coof

[Anonymous No.14170931]

KTM calling out Dayi on social media right now. Interesting to see vendors getting fed up with hyped up prices.

[Anonymous No.14171396]

>>14128313
What's the point of a 70 ml tea cup? What the fuck am I going to do with that? That's barely a sip of tea

[Anonymous No.14171636]

>>14170931
plenty of dumb chink tuhao will buy up these cakes. dayi knows what they doing.
advertising campaigns and opening up western amazon storefronts don't come cheap.
but I think western buyers are smarter than that. on the other hand people are buying fresh 7572 for $40 so I don't know.

In other news, seems like importing undervalued packages from China to EU will finally end this year. We'll pay VAT on everything, even 10 cents knickknacks.
Wild wild west era from three years ago when you could slip anything through customs ends thusly. Well, it's a 1 dollar plus on $15 valued parcel, but imagine all the rides to customs office.
My advice is to stock up now, maybe a tong of your daily drinker and forget.
Fresh green tea nerds have worse. Prepare to pay up.

[Anonymous No.14171684]

>>14170931
>>14171636
Dayi has been getting very greedy the last couple years.
It will be interesting to see if the EU can actually get a handle on the tax situation. The latest trend I have seen is that they actually smuggle the plastic crap into Eastern Europe and then ship to the end buyer from there.

[Anonymous No.14171693]

>>14169419
No worries, thanks for the notes.
Did you have any particular xiaguan ripes that you might recommend?

[Anonymous No.14171931]

>>14171693
I wouldn't go to xiaguan for ripe.
Dayi (Taetea/Menghai TF) or Haiwan (Lao Tong Zhi).
Dayi from the last year, Haiwan three years back.

[Anonymous No.14173086]

Mornin.

[Anonymous No.14173093]

>>14173086

Gyokuro is a hell of a way to start the day.

[Anonymous No.14173108]

>>14173093

Okay, done posting basically the same series of .webms every day before y'all get tired of it

[Anonymous No.14173130]

>>14173086
That's fucking beautiful

[Anonymous No.14173234]

>>14173108
May I suggest instagram for this type of thing? You could even receive "likes" from other "y'all's" over there.
That said I think there's nothing wrong with a nice picture of tea and/or teaware on an imageboard. But then again I'm a bitter cunt.

[Anonymous No.14173259]

>>14173108
I like it. I'd rather have the same sequence of webms every day with different teas than 10 questions about bagged tea

[Anonymous No.14173357]

>>14173234

Likes from y'all's on 4chan are more validating because I'm equally as likely to be called a faggot and told to eat shit.

[Anonymous No.14173411]

>>14173093
Can you post some spent gyokuro leaves next time you get the chance? I'm having a hard time picturing what they look like unfurled.

[Anonymous No.14173478]

>>14173411

[Anonymous No.14174391]

>>14128313
I've tried to enjoy matcha a few times but it just destroys my stomach and makes me sick for half an hour afterwards, similar to when I take a zinc supplement on an empty stomach. How do people drink this?

[Anonymous No.14174426]

>>14173108
No, we enjoy it! And we enjoy the photos of the tea too! It makes my day a little better to see another anon enjoying some sencha or gyokuro. :-)

[Anonymous No.14175268]

>>14146456
Based Andersen poster. Those tea pots look wonderful. I'll have to keep her in mind when I can afford things. Would be nice to have porcelain gong fu tea pot to brew multiple teas in. Post images when it arrives.

[Anonymous No.14175282]

Has anyone here ever tried buying tea--specifically puerh--off Ebay or Amazon? It seems like you'd be playing Russian Roulette with tea.

[Anonymous No.14175328]

>>14173478
Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.14175348]

>>14174391
Green tea especially matcha can really fuck with some people's stomachs, try drinking it after a heavy greasy meal. If that doesn't work than it's probably not for you. I can't drink it either.

[Anonymous No.14175416]

>>14175282
I've had some decent tuo cha from Amazon. Just don't buy desperately low priced tea and read all reviews first

[Anonymous No.14175424]

>>14175416
Would you recommend any Amazon storefronts in particular?

[Anonymous No.14175450]

>>14171693
I'm sipping on some 2016 xiaguan pin ge ripe. The little mini chocolate bars. Pretty tasty.

[Anonymous No.14175554]

>>14175424
No

[Anonymous No.14176015]

>>14163446
Any comments on your pouring method?

[Anonymous No.14176370]

>>14175424
See
>>14151051

[Anonymous No.14176447]

Bought some Jin Xuan Dong Pian at my local tea shop and the Taiwanese shop owner gifted me some sweets she made with her husband. I'm convinced they buy most their teas from YS and sell them with a mark-up but they're nice people.

[Anonymous No.14176693]

>>14161331
yes absolutely dude. same guy btw

[Anonymous No.14176705]

>>14147800
DHL?
this is only until Japan-Post start shipping again

[Anonymous No.14176754]

>>14176447
Those look dank. Tbh wouldn't mind paying a markup if it meant not waiting months for tea.

[Anonymous No.14176869]

>>14176447
damn wish i had a shop near me that sold YS tea lmao