Tea

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I just tried silver needle tea and I think I can hear my wallet crying in the other room. It does taste really good

This week, I also tried white peony and did not like it at all. I will try it again (I have a small bag still left to drink), but first try did not taste like anything. Given that I managed to steep the silver needle correctly, I don't think I fucked it up that badly that it was my fault.

I also tried milk oolong in a store when buying tea and bought a small bag of it. It did taste really good (still made wallet cry)

I want to ask why do people buy chinese or japanese teaware? I also find it looks good, but cannot justify the expenditure.

It does make me a bit angry when people comment on how expensive these teas are though, when they are visiting carrying a starbucks cup that cost the equivalent of multiple servings.
 
Soggy paper straw said:
I want to ask why do people buy chinese or japanese teaware? I also find it looks good, but cannot justify the expenditure.
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At least for the specific kind of teas I think a lot of people who go for those like the ceremonial aspect of it and it's not just a beverage, but also a calming and meditative act. Matcha is a lot like that.
 
Soggy paper straw said:
I want to ask why do people buy chinese or japanese teaware? I also find it looks good, but cannot justify the expenditure.
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Aside from what AnOminous said, Yixing teapots have optimized heat retention and water-pouring rate, so the tea does not steep more if you choose to keep it in the vessel while pouring. I don't bother with them, personally.

I'm happy to brew all my tea in a porcelain yokode kyusu (that one with the side handle) that I got at a thrift store. I think it's part of a larger set that's supposed to come with a bunch of teacups, but it didn't come with any of that, but it's no big deal since I prefer to use bigger cups anyway.
 
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For my oolongs I have a couple of Yixing teapots. I use one for light oolongs and the other for dark. I've had them both over 15 years so they're quite well seasoned. I have a tea board so I do the whole pouring water over the teapots after they've been filled. Got a few gaiwans. For my green teas, I have the whole matcha set up and a really nice Japanese teapot and cups. I have a Zojirushi water boiler which I absolutely love.
 
Soggy paper straw said:
I want to ask why do people buy chinese or japanese teaware? I also find it looks good, but cannot justify the expenditure.
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The small cups quickly cool off each serving of tea which is useful. Whenever I brew tea in a coffee mug it's too hot for 10 minutes and the second half gets cold. Maybe its mostly psychological, but the shape and size of the cup does have an impact on flavor, or at least perception of flavor. Same reason coke tastes better out of a glass bottle I imagine. You don't need to buy the expensive artisanal hand-made stuff either, there's plenty of cheap Chinese teaware that's perfectly serviceable.
 
Super Guido said:
What brand is it? The only one I got was this:


Which sounds good, but it's not what you're referring to.
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I bought it a few years back and got it all mixed up. Since I bought multiple, the different ingredients were actually in 3 different teas. I could only find one of them (the other two can't remember). Keltic Sorceress is a blend of black and green tea, rose flowers and mistletoe. There was a seperate one with prunes and chocolate.

It's from a local tea shop, they don't ship internationally. I guess you could search by ingredients to find something similar.
 
Not sure if this counts for the thread, but I drink this honey-zitron-ginger tea twice a day. Great stuff.


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I thought it might be a good thing to become a tea guy, so I prodded myself into buying a gaiwan, some pu-erh (ripe and raw varieties), and three types of loose-leaf black and darjeeling tea.

It's remarkable how much better the loose-leaf tastes than regular bag tea, but I confess I find pu-erh somewhat disappointing and not all that enjoyable to drink.
Like, I don't find it gross, it's just that it seems more of a long-term project than something you look forward to actually drinking. That is to say, I don't particularly feel the impulse to put in the effort to be able to discriminate the percent humidity my tea was stored at with a mere sniff. It's fun doing several separate steeps for a single wad of leaves and pouring it into my tiny cup, but I can just do this with other teas that taste better and are far cheaper.

On a separate front, I started making tea with chicory root granules and it tastes so similar to coffee that I have three cups a day with half-and-half in it. It completely scratches the coffee itch for me (which was admittedly always more flavor-based rather than drug-based). On top of this, chicory seems to have beneficial effects on insulin response and gut microbes. All in all, this is a much better outcome than anticipated.

I've also started using chamomile on a near-nightly basis. It's been somewhat interesting because I notice the GABA-A agonism from the apiginin results in my mind getting more "slippery." My associations are wider and looser, and I kind of feel more creative. It's not crazy like a pharma drug or anything, but it feels pretty good and has no negative effects. Chamomile tea does tend to get unpleasantly bitter if you use too much plant material or steep too long, though (using loose whole-flowers has made this abundantly clear). And the psychoactive effects of the chamomile seem to plateau pretty early on, which is actually nice because there's no temptation to ramp up dosing and waste it. I rather like this quality about certain herbs, where they have all these built-in guardrails such that their proper usage is easily derived through even the most casual experimentation.

Based on my personal experiences, it seems that organizing your life around the consumption of various water-based plant extractives is not a particularly bad way to go about things.
 
Wuhan Wet Market said:
Dong Ding Oolong is good. So is Osmanthus tea. Lately I've been slamming back barley tea and ginger tea
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Barley tea is great. Have you ever had buckwheat tea? I like tartary buckwheat, but the flavor seems to vary a lot between brands. One tastes a bit peanut buttery, but another tastes kind of biscuit-like.

Duckshit Dancong is also good, imo.
 
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Super Guido said:
Barley tea is great. Have you ever had buckwheat tea? I like tartary buckwheat, but the flavor seems to vary a lot between brands. One tastes a bit peanut buttery, but another tastes kind of biscuit-like.

Duckshit Dancong is also good, imo.
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Buckwheat tea is good . 옥수수수염차 (corn silk tea) is delicious. It is floral and very sweet despite not having any sugar added to it!
 
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