having a cup vs. ...a session; best vs. almost the best

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Ethan Kurland
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Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:44 am

Spent a lot of time (almost obsessively) being very serious about tea drinking. Came to some conclusions:

1. Drinking tea throughout the day is fine. A cup or two to start the day, again after a couple of hours, after lunch, mid-afternoon, after dinner, a couple of hours after that. Variety makes it more enjoyable for me. (Green gaoshan, roasted oolong, black....) That is how most days will go when I am properly stocked.

2. In that routine, my very best teas do not give me much more pleasure than teas almost as good as the best. Tea that provides more rounds than needed can lead to leaves waiting hours and hours for more steeping. It is odd for me to be "working on" more than one at a time. Also, for example, a strong black tea drunk after supper, is well-appreciated even if it is not my very best one. It feels right though it offers less flavors.

3. A tea session is a wonderful event, special even if one is having them often. For these the best teas provide pleasure other tea may not give. I had not enjoyed a "high" from oolong for some years until recently. Some sessions of drinking foushoushan or dayuling in quantity (cups of 120ml or more) for many rounds provided that pleasure. (Some sessions did not.) Other oolong may be able to do the same, but after three rounds of them, I am not so interested in drinking more rounds immediately. So, the teas offering more flavors and/or transitions through the rounds, that is, the best teas, are my tea session teas.

4. Overall my best teas cost the same to drink as those almost as good (which cost much less per gram). The best oolong provides 3 x as many infusions; my best black tea is good for gongfu sessions (possibly lesser black can be used that way but I would not want so many rounds of it). But again consider: Once opened, a packet of green gaoshan is noticeably not at its best in 3 weeks; and, leaves used for some delicious rounds but ready to provide more infusions may make one feel wasteful, if he does not steep again though he is ready to go to sleep.

5. Sometimes one just enjoys tea that is not the very best but hits one perfectly at some moments. Sweetness in green oolong may be lost to a drinker though it is there in better, more complex teas because there is too much going on; a lack of mellowness in a roasted tea or black tea may not win contests but provides character a drinker may enjoy greatly sometimes.

Note: I am aware I did not mention that less-than-very-good tea. I have drunk a lot of it and hope to drink much less of it. I do not see why we should buy it on purpose it. Others may disagree. Cheers
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Baisao
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:07 am

Sounds like a matter of lifestyle and kinds of teas that you like. In contrast:

1) I never have more than one tea going at a time.

2) I tend towards teas that age well, rather than gaoshan, so I don’t need to fret about opened tea. The exception to this is matcha but it is easily consumed within a week. I keep sencha on inert gas in mylar packages or vacuum sealed. Even on the rare occasion I do open some gaoshan I vacuum seal it with an oxysorb until I am ready to enjoy it again.

3) I have a proper tea session almost everyday. It allows me to relax and focus without distractions. It’s almost a meditative activity. I get cha zui frequently and often after just a few cups. I credit this to being drug free for decades. Yes, even alcohol and tobacco are drugs. I also meditate and try to have a wholesome diet. I had a bowl of matcha today and felt a narcotic-like warm relaxing feeling swaddle my whole being, and yet it was so delicate that a square of chocolate could have disrupted it (and has in the past). I doubt I could have felt this if I drank alcohol or smoked even infrequently.

4) I almost never have half spent tea leaves sitting around. I’ve established boundaries during sessions so that no one interrupts me. For the exception, see bullet A.

Where I don’t see a contrast:

A) I drink a mid-tier organic sencha while at work. It’s forgiving of interruptions and high temps. In a lot of ways it’s “just tea” for me. I work indoors and I like having something warm to drink. The flavor of coffee overstays like a bad guest so tea is ideal. I also like that sencha doesn’t make me jittery yet helps me feel alert. I’ll fill a teabag and steep this repeatedly throughout the day.

B) I spend as much or more on mid-tier sencha for work than I do on high grade senchas for sessions. This is because I drink so much more of it by volume.
swordofmytriumph
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:34 am

For me,

1. The best tea is always steeped gongfu, (except for chinese greens like Long Jing which imo can be better steeped grandpa style). I never bring my best tea to work unless I'm having a truly horrible week.

2. Mid grade tea is brought to work, or else higher grade tea that, while the quality is good I just don't enjoy for one reason or another.

3. I always have around 10-5 teas going at any given time (for home use, work I usually only have one going), not including puerh tea. Usually this is a good mixture of around 5 greener gaoshan and 2 roasted, 1 black, 2 white, 4 green (chinese, haven't made the jump to trying Japanese greens yet). I'm working to reduce that amount a tad and finish some of the open ones I have right now, which is somewhat more than the amount listed :oops:, but I have to have variety. Can't do only one tea at a time, too ADHD.
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debunix
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:04 am

swordofmytriumph wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:34 am
4 green (chinese, haven't made the jump to trying Japanese greens yet).
I limit my open greens to a few--one sencha, and no more than one gyokuro, korean green, and one or maybe two chinese greens if they're both greens that 'hold' while open well. It has taken a long time to be this disciplined with the greens. It's hard to do comparative tastings with Japanese greens because they are so delicate and go off so quickly that I can't get through two full-scale pouches fast enough. Dark roast oolongs and puerhs, I can have a half dozen or more at once, and because aging does not ruin them, it's fine as long as I have the space on the tea shelf.
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Bok
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:08 am

@swordofmytriumph better finish quick then! Greener high mountain falls off very steep once opened after 1-2 weeks tops. Drier climate might aggravate that.

Then again I do drink a lot of High mountain, but I do not feel them sufficiently different that I would feel the need to have 5 open! The nuances tend to be subtle and more often a question of difference in quality rather than radically different taste profiles.
swordofmytriumph
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:21 am

Bok wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:08 am
swordofmytriumph better finish quick then! Greener high mountain falls off very steep once opened after 1-2 weeks tops. Drier climate might aggravate that.

Then again I do drink a lot of High mountain, but I do not feel them sufficiently different that I would feel the need to have 5 open! The nuances tend to be subtle and more often a question of difference in quality rather than radically different taste profiles.
Yeah, it helps that a lot of mine are packaged in smaller 25g amounts. So I’m working on small ones. I’m looking into vacuum packing in the next year as I intend to be buying larger amounts of goashan. And Victoria mentioned that @Baisao uses some kind of air displacement technique?
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Rickpatbrown
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:18 pm

Bok wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:08 am
swordofmytriumph better finish quick then! Greener high mountain falls off very steep once opened after 1-2 weeks tops. Drier climate might aggravate that.

Then again I do drink a lot of High mountain, but I do not feel them sufficiently different that I would feel the need to have 5 open! The nuances tend to be subtle and more often a question of difference in quality rather than radically different taste profiles.
Wow! 1-2 weeks, really?? I've never had a full pouch of Baozhong, so I wouldn't know. I just opened a Shan Ling Xi and felt it was greener than the Hehuan/Alishan I've been drinking all year. I guess I will vacuum up half of it again.

I've become much more flexible, depending on what 's going on. I work at a bike shop on the weekends and all we have is a microwave, so I grandpa style alishan. I use only enough leaf for 1 or 2 steeps. It's good enough for an on the fly midwork drink, but I get much more out of gong fu sessions with the same tea at my desk job during the week.

I can hammer out 6-10 steeps pretty quickly at home, though. I make sure to pick a vessel that is appropriate for the time that I have. A 60mL gaiwan is great for sheng, since I can pretty much finish it out in 45 minutes, if I'm in a rush.

I really enjoy the times that I can sit down and focus on a session. This is when I break out the good stuff. It is a deliberate, meditative practice that I feel sharpens my mind and my senses. I can get pretty high off of tea. Like Bok, I haven't taken any drugs, including alcohol in decades.
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Tillerman
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:55 pm

Rickpatbrown wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:18 pm
Bok wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:08 am
swordofmytriumph better finish quick then! Greener high mountain falls off very steep once opened after 1-2 weeks tops. Drier climate might aggravate that.

Then again I do drink a lot of High mountain, but I do not feel them sufficiently different that I would feel the need to have 5 open! The nuances tend to be subtle and more often a question of difference in quality rather than radically different taste profiles.
Wow! 1-2 weeks, really?? I've never had a full pouch of Baozhong, so I wouldn't know. I just opened a Shan Ling Xi and felt it was greener than the Hehuan/Alishan I've been drinking all year. I guess I will vacuum up half of it again.
1 - 2 weeks is a bit hyperbolic. Well made and properly dried gaoshan will last considerably longer than that even if it is the greener style.
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Bok
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:46 pm

@Tillerman If sealed and left in a cool environment a good Gaoshan can last years, but I did notice that some of the highest notes disappear, as well as a little less body noticeably after 2 weeks. A very good tea will still be enjoyable as you rightly notice, but having too many open seems a bit of a waste, also financially, if I don’t drink them at their best - in my book at least!
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Bok
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:47 pm

25g on the other hand would not last me a week... haha
swordofmytriumph
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Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:54 pm

Bok wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:47 pm
25g on the other hand would not last me a week... haha
Lol well it helps that I always have so many teas going at once. It ends up lasting me about a month.
Ethan Kurland
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Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:24 am

Tillerman wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:55 pm
Rickpatbrown wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:18 pm
I will vacuum up half of it again.
Well made and properly dried gaoshan will last considerably longer than that even if it is the greener style.
For me, for greener gaoshan, it is 3 weeks after opening that I notice the leaves are not delivering as much as before. I never have considered opening a vacuum pack and then dividing and vacuum-packing again. Crazy that it seems odd to me because it makes sense. Being very careful about using clips or bands to keep opened packs tight and then putting those packs in a tin without a lot of extra space helps a lot for the greener gaoshan. (For other teas I transfer at least some to ceramic caddies to breath.)

I am not surprised that someone works on 5 - 10 teas. My youngest sister keeps many small packs of coffee on hand & will prepare at least 3 different ones a day and up to 8 (cups of only 4 - 6 ounces). She can taste the difference and craves specific coffees or coffee blends at different times of the day. (And combines that with varying use of drip through paper filter or use of French press.)
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