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Hello to all, I am wandering if any of the "older" drinkers here have actually reached a point in their tea journey where they have found their few perfect teas and stopped searching for a better/more interesting one.

Because in my experience, I do find great teas that satisfy me, but I can't drink them daily without starting to crave a different tea after a few weeks.

I do circle around to the teas I liked occasionally, but since I have a relatively small budget for tea (about 60$/month) I can't have many types of tea on hand at a time.

So what is your take? Are you loyal to a few daily drinkers, or are you hopelessly addicted to finding new teas to enjoy ? (or maybe you have enough money for both )

I have long ago settled on oolong teas in general. More specifically oolongs from Taiwan in all their varieties, greener, roasted and/or aged. The differences in season, harvest, farmer alone allow for a loot of variety.

I rarely get bored of those and the price value for me is unbeatable as I live in Taiwan.

Rarely, I venture into Chinese oolongs like Yancha or Dancong, but those are so much more expensive, thus often not worth it (for me).

If I venture into other teas, it mostly confirms my current rotation of teas. Rarely, a new tea makes it into the selection.

Better is relative, often more expensive is only marginally better. Often the tea is always greener on the other side

Bok wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:48 am

I have long ago settled on oolong teas in general. More specifically oolongs from Taiwan in all their varieties, greener, roasted and/or aged. The differences in season, harvest, farmer alone allow for a loot of variety.

I rarely get bored of those and the price value for me is unbeatable as I live in Taiwan.

Rarely, I venture into Chinese oolongs like Yancha or Dancong, but those are so much more expensive, thus often not worth it (for me).

If I venture into other teas, it mostly confirms my current rotation of teas. Rarely, a new tea makes it into the selection.

Better is relative, often more expensive is only marginally better. Often the tea is always greener on the other side

Huh, well I guess oolong is a big category with enough variety as to not get bored; I too hope to temper my exploring one day after I experience enough teas to really find my absolute favorites, but I know I'll still be tempted from time to time by some new Japanese black tea or Armenian greens ...

Archer, I remind you that varying your preparation will provide nuances to your tea-drinking experience. Sampling teas at friends' homes or at teashops often does not lead me to a new tea that is great for me; but, it does something more important which is confirming that my routine rotation of teas is working out very well.

A $60 monthly budget makes it difficult. You cannot afford many disappointments; so, online shopping is too much of a risk.

If you do find a new diversion, buy in small quantity. A few times I have bought some puerh which seemed so good, but it seemed better than it was because pu is not part of my routine. On your budget I would also avoid spending much on teaware. Varying temperature, brewing time, & quantity of leaves changes outcomes more than varying teaware, in my opinion.

Ethan Kurland wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 11:22 am

Archer, I remind you that varying your preparation will provide nuances to your tea-drinking experience. Sampling teas at friends' homes or at teashops often does not lead me to a new tea that is great for me; but, it does something more important which is confirming that my routine rotation of teas is working out very well.

A $60 monthly budget makes it difficult. You cannot afford many disappointments; so, online shopping is too much of a risk.

If you do find a new diversion, buy in small quantity. A few times I have bought some puerh which seemed so good, but it seemed better than it was because pu is not part of my routine. On your budget I would also avoid spending much on teaware. Varying temperature, brewing time, & quantity of leaves changes outcomes more than varying teaware, in my opinion.

Totally agree, knowing the tea is much more important than good teware. (I don't really buy teware, exept for a gaiwan now and then.)

But I think you might be surprised how much you can do with 60$/month in terms of experiencing good tea, especially as a beginner like myself; I can either get about 150g of various samples, or get about 200g of daily drinkers (like some good senchas).

And because there literally aren't any tea houses in the country I live in, (and only one tea shop) I currently do my shopping online, on websites such as yunnan sourcing, ippodo, Taiwan sourcing, sazen etc...

Anyway, I guess that with experience I'll at least know what kind of teas I dislike

Archer wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:26 am

Bok wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:48 am

I have long ago settled on oolong teas in general. More specifically oolongs from Taiwan in all their varieties, greener, roasted and/or aged. The differences in season, harvest, farmer alone allow for a loot of variety.

I rarely get bored of those and the price value for me is unbeatable as I live in Taiwan.

Rarely, I venture into Chinese oolongs like Yancha or Dancong, but those are so much more expensive, thus often not worth it (for me).

If I venture into other teas, it mostly confirms my current rotation of teas. Rarely, a new tea makes it into the selection.

Better is relative, often more expensive is only marginally better. Often the tea is always greener on the other side

Huh, well I guess oolong is a big category with enough variety as to not get bored; I too hope to temper my exploring one day after I experience enough teas to really find my absolute favorites, but I know I'll still be tempted from time to time by some new Japanese black tea or Armenian greens ...

Often new and seemingly exotic is just marketing. There are good reasons why some areas do not grow tea normally. Soil, climate and very importantly skill of the farmer all contribute to good tea.

I’m settling on Taiwanese oolongs (baozhong & dayuling) throughout the week and sheng puer sometimes though only on the weekends.

I've been drinking loose leaf tea since 2006 and haven't settled into buying only familiar teas. Something I really enjoy about tea is how much variety is out there which makes it impossible to get bored of. I still try new teas and sometimes new vendors, but I also re-order old favourites.

Usually how a tea order goes is that I'll buy a large bag or two of a tea I know and order smaller quantities of teas I haven't tried before from the same vendor. They tend to stock some different teas from year to year so there's always something to try even without going to other vendors. Less commonly I'll try a new vendor if others here seem happy with them

Archer wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:04 am

Hello to all, I am wandering if any of the "older" drinkers here have actually reached a point in their tea journey where they have found their few perfect teas and stopped searching for a better/more interesting one.

Because in my experience, I do find great teas that satisfy me, but I can't drink them daily without starting to crave a different tea after a few weeks.

I do circle around to the teas I liked occasionally, but since I have a relatively small budget for tea (about 60$/month) I can't have many types of tea on hand at a time.

So what is your take? Are you loyal to a few daily drinkers, or are you hopelessly addicted to finding new teas to enjoy ? (or maybe you have enough money for both )

I'm settled and loyal to an evening yancha, morning sencha, and mid-aged/aged puerh somewhere in between. Sometimes I add something different just for the fun and when I get a chance to try something new, I will usually do so, but this is more or less my tea schedule. $60/month is manageable, though I usually spend closer to $100.

ShuShu wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 12, 2018 6:43 am

I'm settled and loyal to an evening yancha, morning sencha, and mid-aged/aged puerh somewhere in between. Sometimes I add something different just for the fun and when I get a chance to try something new, I will usually do so, but this is more or less my tea schedule. $60/month is manageable, though I usually spend closer to $100.

Sweet, it sounds like a great compromise ; how long did it take for you to figure out your tea schedule?

I am content with the teas I am drinking now, to the point that I am no longer obsessively studying every new online shop, blog, or forum post looking for something new and different; but I'm always open to some new things that sound terrific, after about a decade of taking teas seriously.

I haven't settled on one type, because I like something in nearly every type of tea: both older and newer style oolongs, senchas, chinese and korean greens, Balhyochas, sheng and shu puerhs, and sometimes a black tea is just right, and this last year I finally discovered I can enjoy matcha. Matcha was my last great tea frontier where I was actively trying different things, because so many people like it so much and I wanted to understand if my previous poor experiences were due to poor preparation, poor tea, or just not liking matcha. I was happy to discover that I do like it, and it's now part of my rotation, but it won't have a big impact on the tea budget because it will continue to be an occasional thing. (It did impact the teaware budget in a bigger way, because now I have an excuse to buy some matcha bowls....)

If my tea budget suddenly shrank, I'd be OK because I have years' worth of puerh beengs now; and I could get by with a limited selection of daily drinkers from several trusted online sources, and limiting others to occasional treats.

debunix wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:39 pm

I haven't settled on one type, because I like something in nearly every type of tea: both older and newer style oolongs, senchas, chinese and korean greens, Balhyochas, sheng and shu puerhs, and sometimes a black tea is just right....

Exactly! That's why I find it hard to believe that I'm ever going to settle on one type of tea. I'll probably just set up a monthly tea drinking rotation system to cut down on expenses... Or just open my own tea shop (I wish).

Archer wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 13, 2018 7:59 am

debunix wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:39 pm

I haven't settled on one type, because I like something in nearly every type of tea: both older and newer style oolongs, senchas, chinese and korean greens, Balhyochas, sheng and shu puerhs, and sometimes a black tea is just right....

Exactly! That's why I find it hard to believe that I'm ever going to settle on one type of tea. I'll probably just set up a monthly tea drinking rotation system to cut down on expenses... Or just open my own tea shop (I wish).

Some here tried and still do, selling tea is not easy! Move closer to the source I say

For 60$ I can drink a looooot of tea in Taiwan

Bok wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 13, 2018 8:58 am

Some here tried and still do, selling tea is not easy! Move closer to the source I say

For 60$ I can drink a looooot of tea in Taiwan

Bok, you lucky guy.
But yeah, I know what you mean, it's not easy selling tea, especially online I would say...

I used to drink mostly oolong: tieguanyin, Taiwanese gaoshan cha, some yancha. Now I find myself drinking sheng puer 80% of the time, though I do still drink oolong, black tea and shu puer (and green tea when longjing is in season) sometimes.