Tearoom

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machinebacon
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Tearoom

Unread post by machinebacon » Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:57 pm

Just wondering if there are any tea drinkers here.

Before I waste time and stuff about details or tea reviews that nobody reads :D
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wuxmedia
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by wuxmedia » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:04 pm

I am intrigued about those silver tea leaves.

I drink gunpowder green tea now and again, I never liked it until I read how the chinese drink it, a pinch in a cup with some off the boil water and It was much nicer...

My parents are tea buffs, only loose leaves, no bags.

so yeah, I'm into it.
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GekkoP
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by GekkoP » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:35 pm

Tea drinker here, so happy to read some reviews.
Favorite ones in random order:
- Pu'er
- Earl Grey
- Bai Cha
- Jasmine Tea
- Oolong

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DebianJoe
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by DebianJoe » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:52 pm

Yessir: Black Chai, Green, Orange Pekoe
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by pidsley » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:57 pm

Sri Lanka black tea every morning, unless I have to work and need coffee.

Irish breakfast, Lapsang Souchong, or gunpowder green for special occasions or good books.

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gutterslob
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by gutterslob » Thu Jan 02, 2014 3:02 pm

Oh, it's alive!! Yay!!

I tend to drink more tea than coffee, but I wouldn't call myself a tea connoisseur. It's mostly just iced barley tea or other forms of "cereal" based tea most of the time, and the usual fruit flavoured stuff (lemon or peach, mostly), since the weather here is hot and humid.

Used to make a drink called Blackfire in the old days when I lived in a much colder country - basically 1 cup of black tea + 1 shot of rum - which did wonders for my low blood pressure in the mornings, but not anymore since I suddenly developed a distaste for rum.

I'm not picky, really. Any tea is fine as long as it's not too pungent. I hate milk or creamer in my tea though.

Often contemplated delving into proper tea-culture (the healthy kind .... not that spiritual or aristocratic crap) but never really got down to it, sadly.

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GekkoP
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by GekkoP » Thu Jan 02, 2014 3:17 pm

No milk or anything else in tea for me either.

machinebacon
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by machinebacon » Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:31 pm

Fucktastic! Really glad that there are some tea-heads here, too!

And interesting that the Gunpowder is so popular.

All-day/everyday:
My favourite 'all-day' teas are some Sichuanese variants of jasmine tea and Tieguanyin from Zhejiang province, all rolled up to pellets (maybe a kind of gunpowder, too). Just recently I got introduced to an extremely fragrant Jasmine tea from the province I live (Guangxi), which I sampled over a few days and found to be one of the most intensive flavoured/herbal teas I ever had. As some #! user would say: "Too much lakeland!"

Green tea:
Biluochun (the little green snails), and of course Longjin. I don't usually buy the top grades (usually only the 'super' quality, which is like 3rd grade I think), because I only bother to buy them in the tea corner of our local supermarket, so they are quite affordable (way below 20CNY for 50gr.)

Oolong:
The best one IMO is the Renshen Wulong from Anhui. Very nice aftertaste, menthol feel but licorice sweetness, that stays on the tongue for hours.

Anything else:
Actually I am not picky either, anything that can be brewed with hot water is warmly welcome.
Slobby, cheers to the 'cereal tea' (just finished a cup of hot Milo) or however we might call it, this year I have discovered the beauty of fruit teas with fruit pieces - the stuff that can be eaten after the second infusion. Unfortunately one jar of this fruit tea (of course before preparation!) only lasts for a few days, but is so much more refreshing than anything else. Peach and blueberry lover here. There's also a rose version which I haven't tried yet. Another 'gimme something sweet and warm' drink I like is Strawberry Milk Tea (yeah, strange) - it brings back some childhood memories when we had vanilla, strawberry and chocolate milk bags in the school's canteen. Usually, choc and vanilla were sold out first in the 10am break, so I occasionally had to drink the strawberry flavoured version and grew to like it :)

As for black tea (called 'red tea' or 'dark tea' here) I am still searching for some faves. Right now I accept anything, maybe Pu Er is least accepted :))

Got an elitist tea ceremony set with Yixing teapot, gaiwan, fragrance and sipping cups, and all that bullshit. Find myself drinking this stuff alone (no memes please) :D
..gnutella..

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gutterslob
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by gutterslob » Thu Jan 02, 2014 5:01 pm

I don't think drinks like Milo, Ovaltine, Horlicks, etc would be considered tea. They're more like malt drinks, am I right? When I said cereal tea, I meant tea that's usually brewed from a combo of tea leaves and roasted grain (brown rice, wheat, etc). It's still a mostly clear or translucent liquid. You can also use that as a base and add dried/smoked fruit or hemp seeds and stuff. Possibilities are endless, I suppose.

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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by machinebacon » Thu Jan 02, 2014 5:27 pm

Oh yesh, of course, they (Milo and stuff) aren't teas. Completely ignored the fact that they do not contain tea at all... except of the real milk tea (which in turn contains no milk, ha!)
Cereal tea, that's like the genmaicha in Japan, right? Haven't had that yet, probably there is something like this here in China, too. Hmmm, I know what I'll do this weekend :)
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wuxmedia
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by wuxmedia » Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:16 pm

hmm hemp seeds, never tried that when i had access to bags of them.
I have a nice handmade teapot and cup for green tea.
I used to have something called yogi tea, that was very peppery, quite invigorating, without any caffeine.
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by wuxmedia » Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:22 pm

turns out yogi teas makes about 1 million teas.
this was the one i had;
http://www.yogiproducts.com/products/de ... dia-spice/
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by rhowaldt » Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:53 pm

dunno much about tea but do drink it occassionally (wow, too many letters there..?)
i usually drink green tea with honey. somebody once told me to boil water, let it stand for 2 minutes to stop it from boiling, add the tea bag, let that stand for another two minutes, then drink it. works fine for me, tastes good.
now i have an English GF and she made me Earl Grey with milk, and it was really nice and creamy.

other than that, Lipton Ice Tea ;)

btw, the Yogi tea is nice if only for the little 'words of wisdom' they have on the teabag-labels.
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by DebianJoe » Thu Jan 02, 2014 9:59 pm

rhowaldt wrote:btw, the Yogi tea is nice if only for the little 'words of wisdom' they have on the teabag-labels.
Ha ha ha.
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I can't stop myself from reading those.
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wuxmedia
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by wuxmedia » Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:24 pm

aw I feel left out, I never got any pearls of wisdom from a teabag before!
maybe i didn't look close enough.
green tea, imo should be made with off the boil, perhaps not 2 mins.
I read a great description of an old chinese tea house - the waiter would chuck a pinch of tea in the cup then pour the water from a big fire kettle. It's ready once the tea sinks (mostly) to the bottom.
Mmm, milky earl grey, lovely
lapsang souchong, is a great flavour too, perhaps not with milk, but i'm a heathen!
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by bones » Fri Jan 03, 2014 12:06 am

I'm not a big tea fan, I really only do chai tea and medicinal herbal teas, when I need to. I'm considering cutting coffee out, however, so this may change.

machinebacon
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by machinebacon » Fri Jan 03, 2014 3:41 am

The delicate green teas (the more expensive ones) indeed don't like to be bathed in boiling water, but the oolongs and half-fermented green teas can be infused with boiling water.
I never really check the temperature with the finger ;) but I follow the simple rule: when you see the small bubbles that rise in the kettle, you have reached the lower temperature limit for green tea, and when the bubbles get bigger, the water is already at around 92 degrees Celcius, which is above the upper max. I only use bottled mineral water, by the way, so boiling up to 100 and letting it chill out is not really necessary, IMO.
If you remove the kettle from your fireplace then and walk over to the tea kettle, you would add a bit of hot water to your tea ware and bring it up to temp: rinse the teapot or the cup, then add the leaf into the teapot or the cup, and infuse. This would take less than a minute and chills the water down to optimal 83.747518932 degrees Celcius. If you want caffeine (some green teas lose up to 80% of their caffeine there), you also drink the first infusion. Wux's method is the regular one-person-one-serving method. Infusion time is around 2 minutes, and the amount of tea - as my rule of thumb - is: the shorter the infusion time, the more leaves. There is a nice serving glass for this method:
Click -> http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/203/753/ ... 03_188.JPG
This is good for any kind of tea.
One Taiwan Gong Fu Cha method is to throw away the first infusion (which is only a little water - maybe 50ml - that cleans the tea), then produce two infusions, each around 45 seconds, and put them into the serving teapot. This makes sure you have a balanced first cup, and it also chills down to a drinkable temperature.

One tea, twelvty-eight methods :D

My morning tea today:
Image
Dengcun - quite unspectacular.
..gnutella..

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johnraff
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by johnraff » Fri Jan 03, 2014 3:55 pm

pidsley wrote:Sri Lanka black tea every morning
With pidsley on this. Ceylon tea is perfect for breakfast - dark, full-flavoured and quick-brewing. A pot every morning gets me awake, after a fashion, but I get by without coffee, or much other tea for that matter, the rest of the day.

FWIW how I make (Ceylon, or any fermented, dark,) tea: unlike many (most?) other teas, you want the water as hot as possible. OTOH you mustn't let the kettle boil too long. When it's nearly boiling, pour some hot water in the teapot to heat it up, throw that away. When it comes to a boil, take the teapot to the kettle (not the other way round) with the tealeaves in it and add the freshly boiling water. Let it brew 2 min or so, give it a stir to even out the strength, another few seconds for the leaves to settle, then pour into a cup with a cm or two of milk in already. Opinions differ on whether the milk goes in before or after the tea, but this is my way. Definitely reccomend milk if you're brewing the tea nice and strong (say, 2 or 3 teaspoons to a biggish pot). (Of course if your're brewing the effete continental-type tea then there's no need for milk.)

No offence meant to followers of other tea beliefs, many of which are also worthy of great respect. My (Japanese) wife says that Japanese tea (usually green) is best brewed with not-quite-boiling water which sounds like the Chinese way. Mugicha and genmaicha are maybe less fussy, and nice summer drinks, cold.

Some 30 years ago in a Taiwan teashop the owner treated us to something nice - the main feature of his teamaking method seemed to be hot water everywhere. On the pot and cups first, then onto the (rather special) tealeaves in the pot, only to throw that away, finally on the tealeaves again, all the time with much splashing of hot water. The final cup of tea was delicious though, I have to admit.

Still, a nice strong cup of Ceylon tea with milk is the only thing to start my day.
I noticed on visiting India years ago that they brew tea the same way as us - with milk - and it's usually delicious. Did they get it from us, or we from them?
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by dkeg » Fri Jan 03, 2014 4:12 pm

I like tea, but mainly drink coffee. With this thread, getting more motivated to start again. Definitely, like my coffee, no milk, no sugar. Darjeeling, chamomille, earl-grey, green, etc, most of the ones already listed. I did at one time have one of those tea balls for loose leaves. Not sure where that is. That was great.

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wuxmedia
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Re: Tearoom

Unread post by wuxmedia » Fri Jan 03, 2014 4:15 pm

^^ you remain a true British gentleman John.
you just described my Dad making a cup of tea 8)

I know people who put the milk and teabag together, then add water - aarrgh!
I also heard ground coffee (if made in a cafetiere/plunger type thing) is better with off the boil water.

+1 for tea balls. lot less messier, no spitting twigs out either 8)
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