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Victoria
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Posts: 3041
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:33 pm
Location: Santa Monica, CA
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Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:09 pm

Share something about yourself and your tea experience so far, so that other members will know something about you and where you are coming from.

A few examples of what you might share:

How long have you been drinking tea?

What kind of tea do you drink?

How do you prepare your tea?

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?

What is your location?


* limit posting links in Introductions, those can be shared in User Control Panel/ Profile (upper right of screen where your name is).
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debunix
Posts: 1811
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:27 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Sat Dec 02, 2017 9:25 pm

Victoria wrote:
Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:09 pm
Share something about yourself and your tea experience so far, so that other members will know something about you and where you are coming from.

A few examples of what you might share:
  • How long have you been drinking tea?

I started trying the tea at chinese restaurants in high school (30+ years ago), and then graduated to sharing tea with Dad, who was turned on to tea by his calligraphy buddies. Alice taught him to recognize particular teas by their packaging, so that's what I drank too--SeaDyke Ti Kuan Yin in the red tin, Te Au Jasmin in the yellow tin.

Some years later, I couldn't find either one of my usual teas at the local markets. No SeaDyke. No yellow Jasmin. So I picked some things almost at random, including some Pouchong, and Shu puerh. And after that, there was no stopping the exploration of the world of tea.
  • What kind of tea do you drink?
It took a while for me to figure out how to enjoy green tea (cooler shorter infusions), and longer still to 'get' matcha (need good matcha, and it all follows from there!), but today my repetoire includes Yunnan black, Taiwanese Black Ruby, Dan Cong oolongs, traditional roast Wuyi and TGY and Taiwanese oolongs, green/new style TGY and Taiwanese mountain oolongs, chinese greens, korean greens, senchas, matcha, gyokuro, white teas, shu and sheng puerhs, and a few that defy classification.
  • How do you prepare your tea?

At my tea table in the kitchen; in thermoses that travel to work or hiking or road trips; at work in my office(s), where my favorite thing to do is share tea with my tea-buddies as the office's pied piper of tea.
  • What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?

More about matcha!
  • What is your location?
Los Angeles, CA
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pedant
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Posts: 1516
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 4:35 am
Location: Chicago
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Mon Dec 04, 2017 2:59 pm

How long have you been drinking tea?
about 10 years

What kind of tea do you drink?
lately, i've been drinking a lot of sheng puerh, yancha, and taiwanese oolongs.
i also sometimes drink japanese and chinese green teas, darjeelings, and black teas.

How do you prepare your tea?
mostly gongfu style
the majority of my tea drinking has been solo due to not having friends interested in tea.
however, in just the last year, i've been very fortunate to gain a couple of local tea friends.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
over the last year, i've been mostly focused on learning about puerh.
i'm learning bit by bit about terroir, the famous 'recipes', storage effects, etc.
i've also been trying to pay more attention to things like mouthfeel, 'texture', subtle body effects, and even the esoteric cha qi (to no avail so far).

What factors do you think brought you to delve into the world of tea?
i discovered online tea communities by chance, and curiosity got the best of me.
i like that tea can be a relaxing, easygoing activity, but there's always more to learn if you are so inclined. i go back and forth between contentedly drinking from my stash and nerding out / researching.
also, i've only been drinking tea with people irl over the last year or so. it's really enriching to be able to discuss tea in person and learn from others. if you don't have tea friends, try to find some.

What is your location?
chicago, IL (USA)
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OldWaysTea
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Posts: 81
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 3:01 pm
Location: San Jose, California
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Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:34 pm

How long have you been drinking tea?
Seriously for about 5 years, while my wife has been drinking Wuyi tea her whole life.

What kind of tea do you drink?
Mostly Wuyi yancha and hongcha. I drink some puer tea and occasionally tea from other regions.

How do you prepare your tea?
Day to day in a gaiwan. I'll get out a teapot once in a while.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
Family. I was a high-end teabag drinker before I met my wife. Since then I've gone deep into tea and haven't looked back. When I visit her family in China it is great to be able to talk about tea, try new teas, and get some for the shop.

What is your location?
San Jose, California

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Bok
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Posts: 5779
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Wed Dec 06, 2017 12:28 am

How long have you been drinking tea?
Pretty much since my parents thought it was fine to do so. Back then brick-and-mortar-Chinatown-shop gunpowder lose leaf (a quality of tea so bad, in China it is not even sold, only export). Other nasty teas available back then in the West like Earl Grey and others.

What kind of tea do you drink?
Almost only oolongs. Mostly Lishan from Taiwan. In recent years increasingly more oxidised and/or roasted Taiwan oolongs (Dongding, aged). More rarely Taiwanese black. But in short oolong anytime, others only if gifted or in the right place and time.

How do you prepare your tea?
Gongfu. Teapot only, sometimes à la Chaozhou (three cups), mostly with pitcher and if lazy a big cup.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
Venturing and being intrigued by oolongs from China: Wuyi, Dancong etc. The only other teas outside of Taiwan which caught my curiosity so far.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
Always had a thing for hot drinks, be it coffee, mate, or tea. Kept learning and exploring until I found my match in terms of wife and tea, haha (both from Taiwan).
What keeps me there? The tricky thing with tea is – once you tasted the good stuff, there is no way back! It is also a way to calm down and rest from the day. A sort of liquid meditation. The teaware and its functional beauty adds more layers to the enjoyment. I learned pottery just because of tea, I would not have liked to play with dirt if it wouldn’t allow me to create my vision of teaware…

What is your location?
Taiwan
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mrmopu
Posts: 269
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:48 am
Location: Blacksburg Va.
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Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:58 am

mrmopu/mrmopar depends on where I post.

Mainly addicted to puerh with a decent growing collection. Albeit my grandson will probably get most of it.

Preparation is normally gong fu . Western on occasion as I have too much teaware as well.

Living in Virginia near Blacksburg but no teafirends close by. I have been known to do some swapping . I know this is not from this site but here is a link to my current inventory. Mainly correct but some stuff that is special is hidden in there as well.

https://steepster.com/mrmopar/cupboard

Thanks for the invite over here pendant!
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Chip
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Posts: 371
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:47 pm
Location: In the TeaCave atop Mt Fuji
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Wed Dec 06, 2017 1:17 pm

Greetings TeaFriends both old and new ... and future.

Yes, I am Chip formerly of TeaChat. Although I am still a member of TeaChat, I will no longer be active on that forum.

I appreciate the long leash Adagio gave us and the virtual autonomy we enjoyed for about a decade. Although you will see me mention TeaChat periodically when relevant since my tea journey was long woven into the fabric of TeaChat, I am firmly planted in this ... partially transplanted community.

I look forward to experiencing tea with this new community!


How long have you been drinking tea?
I made several lifestyle changes in 1999. Perhaps the biggest was immersing myself in all things tea. I wanted to try every tea I could find. The incredible teas we have access to today in the US were not available back then, nor were resources like TeaChat.

What kind of tea do you drink?
Once I finally tried a very good sencha, really my need to try every tea suddenly stopped, I found my tea! My journey took a new turn, trying as many sencha as I could find.
Which led me to gyokuro, my 2nd fave tea.

How do you prepare your tea?
This is a rather complicated question to answer ... fully. So I will keep it simple here and post more detail elsewhere over time.
I have "sessions" that generally include a Kyusu for sencha or houhin for gyokuro.
I brew fairly strong at around 1.25:1 (grams per ounce water or 30 ml) for sencha.
And around 2.5:1 for gyokuro.


What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?

I am fairly comfortable where I am at today, and remain relatively focused on Japanese green tea. So I can always learn more in the realm of all things Japanese tea related.


What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?

Tough question. I never drink coffee, never did. So in the absence of coffee, I found tea. There is clearly the attraction of the unique rituals of drinking tea especially Japanese tea. When I see a Kyusu for the first time, I knew this was my path.
Taste ... pure and simple ... somewhat understated but unique.
The chemical component interactions with my physical and mental being.

What is your location?
Reading PA. BLEH!
Atlas
Posts: 138
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:09 pm
Location: SGV, Los Angeles CA
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Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:02 am

Hi, I'm Alex - Pasadena-area LA County (if anyone wants to meet up for tea).

I drank sencha for a year about five years ago when espresso started causing me problems, then picked it up again a year ago. An ABC friend bought me some shu pu'er for my birthday, and that was that.

I'm all about sheng pu'er, and shu as a comfort-drink. I've been tempted by a friend's Fenghuang dancongs, but until I manage to nail down the thick body he gets from them I won't stray too far. Pu is intimidating enough as it is.

Sheng brewing is typically 4-6g, 25-35ml water, short steeps. Shu is a few grams in a pitcher, topped up until it gets weak. Sencha is a thick and syrupy 4g/15ml, starting at 10sec steeps.

At the moment I'm purely interested in exploring sheng pu'er - after a year I'm still blown away by the intensity and range of flavour inherent to a relatively unprocessed leaf, and my controls/automation background makes the long-term storage aspect an interesting challenge. I'm currently working on low-budget wireless datalogging and temperature/humidity control for storage, and once I have that down I'll be running my own tests to see how storage environment affects tea in the mid-term.

As I said before, it was purely lucking into a discovery of pu'er that lead me here, and (like many others, I'm sure) the unique sensory experience has me sucked in.
Aya
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:17 pm
Location: Yokohama, Japan
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Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:10 am

Hello, I'm Aya from Japan.

How long have you been drinking tea?
Almost through my entire life. I am a Japanese and Japan is a tea country, everyone drink tea on a daily basis. I learned Japanese Tea Ceremony for more than 10 years starting from after-school activities at my junior high.

What kind of tea do you drink?
Now I mainly drink Taiwanese oolong (gaoshan, Don ding, Wen Shan Bao Zhng and Dong Fang Mei Ren =Oriental beauty), Shen Puerh, Darjeeling, Bai Mu Dan, and ocasionally Phoenix Dan cong, Moonlight white and silver needles.

How do you prepare your tea?
Usually Gongfu style for Taiwanese and Chinese tea. However I drink Bai Mu Dan in my mug with strainer & lid during lunch/dinner etc., and I take advantage of Assam or Darjeeling tea bags, as nearly everything I drink is tea (if you count barley tea as tea) except a bit of bottled water.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
I've been into Gaoshan for more than 10 years or so, and quite new to Puerh. So I'd like to learn more on raw puerh.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
It's just been part of my life naturally.
I don't like coffee or sweet beverages, and I'm allergic to alcohol. That left tea practically only choice for me :P
Aside from that "practical" reason, I love how relaxing gongfu tea sessions are, and also am into Yixing teapots.

What is your location?
Yokohama, Japan.
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Fuut
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Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:31 am
Location: Netherlands
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Thu Dec 07, 2017 2:55 pm

Victoria, where are your answers? :p


How long have you been drinking tea?
Its been about 6 or 7 years since i truly woke up to the beauty of Japanese ceramics. Drinking green tea since young, but since the interest in teaware its been more apparent.

What kind of tea do you drink?
Mainly green tea and matcha.

How do you prepare your tea?
Mainly with several kyusu, however most of the times its a large 400 ml Gisui pot (i'm generally with someone when i use this). If i make matcha i just use my standard electric waterkettle and a yazumashi to adjust the heat.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
Anything and everything related to Japan, teaware and anything in between. Unrelated to this place, Japanese swords and history.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
The incredible variation in Japan, the unique traits to each place, each style. The history and philosophy of Japan, and evolution thereof.

What is your location?
I was born and live in the Netherlands. Cheers,

also i used to be on teachat with the same name & avatar, should be pretty straightforward :)
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Victoria
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Posts: 3041
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:33 pm
Location: Santa Monica, CA
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Thu Dec 07, 2017 7:16 pm

Okay Fuut I’ll take your challenge and reply as I’m 35,000 miles above the Grand Canyon going 560 miles an hour. By the way, I didn’t know you were from the Netherlands just assumed you were Japanese, given that you are so into all things Japanese.

How long have you been drinking tea?
I’m thinking I’ve been into tea a pretty long time since I was a child really, starting with Mate in Argentina with the gauchos in the pampas, later Pau d’Arco in Brazil, English Breakfast and Earl Grey in the USA, Negro, Verde y Tila in Spain helped me party most nights until 3am, in Italy though it was espresso time mostly.

I got more serious about tea around 2009 fermenting kombucha and blogging about the various teas I used. A heated discussion about the pros and cons of only using green tea opened up the floodgates to my exclusively exploring and loving Japanese teas and teaware for a few years. Later a 2013 OTTI that Chip did with Origin Tea opened a new world of oolong and Taiwan exploration. This year I’ve been exposed to more Chinese and Indian teas along with pu’erh as a result of having tea tastings at my house with the Los Angeles International Tea Club. Basically, I use to be a vertical explorer going deep into one country’s teas, but now seem to be spreading out more horizontally trying teas from many more countries and enjoying them.

What kind of tea do you drink?
Taiwan oolongs and Japanese greens mostly. Slowly exploring Wuyi and Sheng too.

How do you prepare your tea?
Kyusu for Japanese greens and some oolong, Yixing for oolong and Wuyi. Almost never use gaiwan, not enough wabi sabi going on there, I do have a few porcelain kyusu that I’ll use instead. Lately in the morning when I want to hydrate, I’ll stack the first two steeps from Hokujo’s 250ml stoneware kyusu into 450ml glazed Kiyomizu vine handle pots.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
Exploring Wuyi teas and region as well as Puerh.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
Initially fermenting kombucha and researching how various teas interact with the scooby colony. But really I’m into the wormhole vortex of tea because it is so broad, engaging and tantalizing all the sense, plus encompassing so many aspects of our cultural and agrarian histories; from cultivars, terroir, art, aesthetics, history, philosophy. Tea and teaware awakens all my senses in a way that allows me to have a calm meditative focus and enjoyment of the very simple.

What is your location?
Santa Monica, California
Aya
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:17 pm
Location: Yokohama, Japan
Contact:

Fri Dec 08, 2017 3:37 am

Usually Japanese people are not that into Japanese things :P
.m.
Posts: 873
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:26 pm
Location: Prague

Fri Dec 08, 2017 4:28 pm

How long have you been drinking tea?
Since around 2006 when i've discovered Amsterdam's Chinatown and Seadyke Brand TGY which got hooked me up. I still like it. :lol:

What kind of tea do you drink?
i) lately it's mainly semi-aged sheng ii) rolled roasted oolongs iii) hong-cha, shu, liu bao, liu an, wuyi, darjeeling, balhyocha....

How do you prepare your tea?
Casual brewing, small yixing teapot at home, large tomato jar at work. Occasionally shu in an old thermos flask.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
Aging. lol

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
It provides those peaceful moments of relaxation and happiness. And its cheaper than beer! (maybe not).

What is your location?
Brno / Montreal
Kconv
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 1:37 pm
Location: Las Vegas

Mon Dec 11, 2017 2:07 pm

Hello, im Ken from steepster.

How long have you been drinking tea?
About a year and a half to two years, got started drinking tea when I got rid of soda. Found Mei leaf, Tea DB, and green tea guru and kinda dived right into puerh!

What kind of tea do you drink?
Everything, though mostly roasted oolong and puerh. Not so much on the green tea except during spring.

How do you prepare your tea?
Traditional clay teapots, I have a couple yixing, a Qin Zhou, a Chouzhou, a couple of gaiwans, and a couple glass teapots for green tea.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
Everything I can, though right now starting to delve a bit into herbals.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
A strangely silly one, I had to give up soda, and started on tea bag tea, then found how much better traditional tea is and totally dived in. I adore traditional teas, and starting to get a taste for regional teas from other areas. Kenya, Ceylon, India, Darjeeling, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.

What is your location?
Normally I would say Sunny Las Vegas, but for some reason its cold, :lol:
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christian
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 12:48 pm
Location: Sicily

Mon Dec 11, 2017 2:23 pm

Hi everyone nice to meet to you all. I'm just "arrived" following a Victoria's post on FB.
Anyway, i'm Christian, i'm italian and i'm a tealover that is the only reason why i'm here.

How long have you been drinking tea?
I beginned very early to be an Italian, so is about 20 years old i'm daily drinking and exploring the real tea world. But of course, i got my stages, as most i started with tea bags, then scented tea leafs to arrive to pure tea leafs and all the secrets they hidden inside.

My approach to the tea is meditative for on side, and sensorial on the other. I studied philosophy, middle age philosophy, tea helped me during the studies and i discover how could help to find a "inner dimension". I, also, used to be (and work) as wine sommelier. During my persona tea journey study to became a sommelier changed a lot my approach to the tea, i fully discover the sensorial side, and that opened me really a world, or better a universe on tea tasting.

What kind of tea do you drink?
I drink any kind of tea, it depends by situation or mood, or season. But by numbers mostly oolong or puerh.

How do you prepare your tea?
Mainly gong fu cha stile, in yixing if i have, or i love a lot the glass. Since I beginning to study as sommelier, i started, also, to drink tea in glass wine. I found this practice very interesting, because the wing glass is a very excellent tool to convey smells.

What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
Im very interesting on tea tasting of course, and knowledge differences between terroirs and farmers. But you know, is not so easy, because of tea marketplace usually cover farmers and production terroirs.

What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
Just pleasure and love for this amazing experience that is drink a "glass" of tea.

What is your location?
I'm settled in Sicily, the great island in the south of Italy, in a small village under the Etna volcano.
On internet you can find me on Istagram https://www.instagram.com/_quest/
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