Your day in tea

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belewfripp
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:36 pm

belewfripp wrote:
Thu Jun 03, 2021 5:36 pm
For those of you who try to embrace drinking the same tea many days in a row (and not for reasons of freshness, but as a completely voluntary thing), at least some of the time, is this something that has always been your approach to drinking tea or did this come much later, after earlier periods of trying many different things over shorter periods of time?
Thank you to everyone who replied to me with your answers to this question. I read and appreciated the perspectives from all but have been too busy to reply/formulate thoughts in response.

I do believe I may have found a tea that works for me on a daily or semi-daily basis, though given the demands of work I usually only get to drink one tea/day during the week and drinking the same thing every day gets somewhat old. That said, the 2019 Hong Mudan oolong from Zhangzhou Tea Factory in Fujian - available to Westerners, as far as I can tell, solely through Chawangshop - may be the best tea bargain I've yet found. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it's reliable, smooth, somewhat sweet, nice cocoa/dark flavor and aroma, along with decent mouth/body feel. I wouldn't say it has much cha qi per se, as I don't get the energized feeling and free/easy respiration that I associate with that, but it's still pleasant to drink.

And, it's dirt cheap - $6 for 50 grams. I've had much better tea, but I'm not sure I've had better value. Too bad Chawangshop doesn't use DHL and I only ordered 100 grams - next time I order from them i'm going to stock up, I think. It's also easy on the stomach, to the point that with medication and further-refined lifestyle habits I'm now able to drink hot tea again, as long as i don't overdo it with young raw puer/green tea.
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Baisao
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:08 pm

I’m drinking a yellow tea. A shout out to @pedant that there are no dedicated places for either Korean or Yellow teas as there are for other countries and genres.

This tea is a Chinese yellow tea called “Mo Gan Huang Ya” from Zhejiang Province. The description from The Steeping Room says it is made by “a nationally recognized master of the genre within China, Wang Xiangshen”.

4.25g/140ml @ 80° in an Inge Nielsen internally glazed pot.

There’s no astringency or bitterness to it whatsoever. Subtle subtle floral aromas up front and a delicate tartness in the aftertaste. The florals remind me of Taiwanese BLC. It has great body. It’s not overbearing in any single aspect, giving it great structure. It’s expensive but a real treat!

For those concerned about caffeine or jitters, the body feel is very mild and relaxing.

https://www.thesteepingroom.com/product ... yellow-tea
Dry leaves
Dry leaves
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Liquor
Liquor
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klepto
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:15 pm

A tea drinking social club I started back before covid finally had their first meeting, drank a lot of tea in the park and got tea drunk.
I wanted to show the varying differences in tea processing and terroir. We started with green tea(sencha), went to lightly oxidized oolong, then to hong shui oolong then hong cha.
Interestingly enough, they enjoyed the hong cha and the green tea the most. By the end of the meeting I thought I had taken 10 shots of bourbon to the face :D .
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LeoFox
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:30 pm

@klepto looks like premium stuff from hojo! 🥷 looking strong.


If you added some pu, it would have been black out
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klepto
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:36 pm

LeoFox wrote:
Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:30 pm
@klepto looks like premium stuff from hojo! 🥷 looking strong.


If you added some pu, it would have been black out
I would have run them off if I didn't pick the right puerh :D. We had tea from a variety of vendors but of course I had to bring out the good stuff :)
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LeoFox
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:38 pm

klepto wrote:
Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:36 pm
LeoFox wrote:
Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:30 pm
@klepto looks like premium stuff from hojo! 🥷 looking strong.


If you added some pu, it would have been black out
I would have run them off if I didn't pick the right puerh :D. We had tea from a variety of vendors but of course I had to bring out the good stuff :)
I'm sure the da xue shan from hojo would have been well received
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LeoFox
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:36 pm

Baisao wrote:
Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:08 pm
I’m drinking a yellow tea. A shout out to pedant that there are no dedicated places for either Korean or Yellow teas as there are for other countries and genres.

This tea is a Chinese yellow tea called “Mo Gan Huang Ya” from Zhejiang Province. The description from The Steeping Room says it is made by “a nationally recognized master of the genre within China, Wang Xiangshen”.
There is some nice info on yellow tea made by the same master and her grand daughter including detailed history, pictures of the master and the processing steps. Interesting stuff:

https://sevencups.com/shop/mo-gan-huang ... llow-buds/

They also offer a green made by the same master and granddaughter dual

https://sevencups.com/shop/yu-qian-mogan-green/
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Baisao
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 5:33 pm

@LeoFox - nice info and background on these teas and family.

The Steeping Room is running a 12% off sale to the end of the month. Code is “UMAMI”.
Andrew S
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:38 pm

@belewfripp: it's good to hear that you've found a pleasant daily tea, especially one that works for your constitution.

Young puer would come with cigarette-style health warnings on it, if I had my way...

While roasted teas do tend to be easier on the body and more comforting to drink that many other styles of tea, I find that many cheaper yancha can be quite harsh, especially if they haven't been roasted or oxidised enough (or correctly), or if the roast has given rise to its own type of harshness, so it can be hard to recommend them.

My morning routine tea for when I've been busy recently has been the house rougui from EoT, brewed very strongly in a small pot for just a few infusions (my version of Chauzhou style brewing, I suppose). It's comforting to drink something familiar to start the day, and it takes well to strong brews which mean that the tea session doesn't take up much time, but you could only describe it as 'cheap' relative to the price of other yancha. I see it as the tea-equivalent of having a double espresso to wake up before the onslaught of work takes the rest of the day away.

The photos of your tea on the chawang website and your description of it remind me a bit of muzha tieguanyin, and similar heavily-roasted wulong, where the style of roast is smooth and rich rather than 'roasty' or harsh, if that makes any sense. Perhaps that's another style that you can try.

Andrew
tommyroland
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Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:39 pm

I am new here and have something to ask, if I want to make a good cup of tea, is the amount of water different? For example, green tea, breakfast tea and oolong tea, is the amount of water when brewing different?
Thanks!
Last edited by Victoria on Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Mod edit: moved post
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debunix
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Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:32 am

tommyroland wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:39 pm
I am new here and have something to ask, if I want to make a good cup of tea, is the amount of water different? For example, green tea, breakfast tea and oolong tea, is the amount of water when brewing different?
Thanks!
Welcome!

You will get many different answers if you ask many different tea drinkers here, but I think all will agree is that what matters is whether you like the resulting tea. And I'm guessing from the way you wrote your question that you're using teabags. You can get better teas that may taste good more concentrated (more leaf/less water) and that may have more flavor to give (less leaf/more water/multiple infusions) when buying loose leaf. But regardless of the tea's source or form (bagged, loose, rolled, compressed), it's all about what you like and how you like it.

And: different teas are traditionally brewed differently. I tend to infuse the same leaves multiple times, and teas that tend to bitterness (most blacks, many greens) I infuse shorter (in some cases, as fast as I can pour the water in and out of the pot again) and less leaf to water; teas that do not (most oolongs, shou/ripe puerh), I infuse longer and more leaf to water.

I routinely determine leaf to water ratio now by eye and experience, but I needed to use a scale off and on as I trained my 'eye' with different teas, and I still sometimes use one for reference when sharing tea brewing parameters. Different teas vary hugely in their weight per teaspoon and your teaspoons may vary too....

ImageWhy I prefer a scale by debunix, on Flickr

Temperature of the water is also key to many teas, because the flavors we like and the bitter compounds dissolve out of the leaf at different rates at different temps, and I hated greens until I learned shorter/cooler infusions and now I like them very much.

And finally, one of the most important things I didn't realize for a long time: if the result is too strong/bitter, don't toss it out, but first dilute with more water to see if you like it better that way. If it still tastes vile when you have diluted it enough for the flavor to be losing the good parts too, then for sure start over. But sometimes a little dilution is all you need.

Here are some examples of how I've brewed different teas:
debunix wrote:
Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:32 pm
30 year old Dong Ding from Wistaria Tea House, a tea Victoria introduced me to recently and thank goodness more was still available.

The scent of just the dry leaves of this one is insane: fruity, earthy, spicy, sweet....clearly roasted, but not smelling of the roast. It's amazing. I'm prepping only a tiny bit of leaf because it's already warming up too much for a long session of hot tea, so it is just 1.9 grams, which will have plenty of room in Petr's treebark pot.

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about 100mL water just off the boil, 30 seconds or so: the smells rising off the liquor, enjoyed in a tallish Tetsuki Nakao Spring Galaxy yunomi to capture the scent, are just as promised from the dry leaf. It's sweet, honey and raisins and dried cherries, so nice.

Another infusion, 1 minute or so, so similar, deep honey dipped dried fruits, hints of spice. Mmmm.

Image

Lost track of time with the third, but let it go several minutes...and still so, so good. Thick liquor, deep flavor, rich scent, beautiful color of the liquor.
and quite different for this green tea:
debunix wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:22 pm
Five Penny (Yen Bai) green tea from Hatvala, Vietnam
Five Penny is a highly refreshing wild green tea from Suoi Giang in Yen Bai province. The tea produces a smooth, sweet liquor with light floral notes that become sweeter and more grassy with each infusion. A gentle hint bitterness on the tongue serves to emphasis the sweet aftertaste that lingers long after the tea has been drunk.

Five Penny is a one bud and two leaves green tea...
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leaf is delicate curls of deep green to white thin leaves, deep vegetal scent with hint of fruitiness
4.3 grams in 80-90 mL Petr Novak unglazed shiboridashi

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first infusion 60 seconds with water 180 degrees
scent like cooked peas, tea is delicate, a hint of floral, a little cooked spring vegetables; leaves are lovely rich green

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second 30 seconds, water cooled a bit to 170 degrees
more cooked peas, delicate, floral is gone, more light vegetables with astringent/bitter hints in aftertaste

3rd another 30 seconds, water to 160, haven't reheated
bitter coming out over cooked peas

4th at 30 seconds, water off boil
delicate and even floral vegetal notes are back but bitterness is up

5th at 1 minute, water off boil, then diluted about 1.5 fold with cool water
delicate vegetal goodness and bitterness now better balanced, going to call this one done now

Image
It may not be as concrete an answer as you were looking for, but I hope this helps!
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debunix
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Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:51 am

A fine morning for sencha, just chilly enough that the warmth feels great, with a new Stagg kettle. A Gourmia kettle just stopped heating the other day, and while I had a spare because my travel kettle was no longer needed for routine travel, that one doesn't fit my work needs as well (fast heating of enough water for my 2L thermos in often very limited time between one thing and another before an afternoon away from my desk--and I have more colleagues who are sharing my tea now, so I really need those 2L to share around. So....a little kettle/base shuffle, and I had a spot that finally justified getting the Stagg I've been admiring for several years at Victoria's.

One quick boil and pour out to rinse the new pot, and it's just lovely. The intuitive keep-warm that doesn't require fussing every time I return the kettle to the base is terrific; and so easy to increase temps infusion by infusion for the sencha. This may be super useful for work too, where I so often forget to hit the heat butten when returning the kettle to the base and end up thinking I've got hot water only to be sadly puzzled when cool stuff comes pouring out. I see another purchase in the near future, because that plus quick heating may make up for the smaller kettle volume....but need to do a head-to-head to be sure.
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Victoria
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Sat Jul 31, 2021 3:34 pm

Glad you like your new Stagg @debunix. I really enjoy how precisely, quietly and quickly it heats up, super light too so I can easily take upstairs sometimes. Two have two electric kettles is very handy one for work, one for home areas, or just to house different types of water for different teas. Here in Annapolis though I’m still just using a Pyrex glass stovetop pan, easy for off-boiled Oolong, more focus needed though for Gyokuro, Sencha and Darjeeling 🍃
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Quentin
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Location: Minnesota, USA (Twin Cities)

Thu Aug 05, 2021 8:35 pm

My day in tea was an exciting one because after a week of waiting for the package to arrive, it was finally time to spend my first day with two new teapots! So far I've drunk close to a liter of Uji grown Shincha AB testing them and couldn't be happier with the teapots, or the lasting sweetness I'm left with :D

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LeoFox
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Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:07 pm

Quentin wrote:
Thu Aug 05, 2021 8:35 pm
My day in tea was an exciting one because after a week of waiting for the package to arrive, it was finally time to spend my first day with two new teapots! So far I've drunk close to a liter of Uji grown Shincha AB testing them and couldn't be happier with the teapots, or the lasting sweetness I'm left with :D


Image
Is that hokujo vs sou mayake? Is there an obvious difference in terms of effect on tea for you?
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