A moderator told me i should introduce myself on here so before i forget i better get to it.
How long have you been drinking tea?
In some form or other for a long time but only occasionally and never out of my own initiative. Then maybe about three years ago i decided to try and make iced tea myself and started buying some loose leaf teas and experimented. Out of that i learned to appreciate green tea with moroccan mint but i haven't had that tea for about two years now. It got serious once i discovered oolong. I had to study for an exam while at university and while procrastinating i learned a whole lot about tea. That's when i first learned about gaiwans and small teapots etc. and started acquiring teaware and different kind of oolongs. This coincided with me discovering yancha. This was about two years ago and ever since i have been drinking tea every day and tried to expand my knowledge about it.
What kind of tea do you drink?
While i started out with green tea i mainly drink oolongs. About 95% of my tea stash consists of oolongs. The first oolong i drank that really started out my journey i would not drink today because my palate changed a lot while trying out the different bounties this tea category has to offer. I am a sucker for taiwanese oolong. Especially those that have been roasted to bring out more flavour and i also like the guifei teas a lot. Dong Ding was my first love and still is one of my favorites and by Dong Ding i mean the more traditional processing style not the low oxidized non-roasted stuff that is sold as Dong Ding in lesser shops nowadays. I also enjoy exploring aged oolongs. Apart from that i really enjoy drinking yancha which is easily learned from my username
. Apart from oolong i like tasting other tea categories as well but none have amazed me as much as good old wulong-cha. Other than oolong i sometimes drink the occasional sheng puerh. How do you prepare your tea?
I enjoy using a gaiwan most i think and a close second is using teapots in between 80-150 ml to brew my tea in. I use filtered water because the rather mountainous area i live in has a lot of calcium in it. If i have enough of a tea i prefer to use a high leaf to water ratio because i really enjoy getting that thick tea liquor.
What tea knowledge are you interested in exploring right now?
How to brew a good cup of tea is still high on my list as i find one keeps finding out how to better one's tea practice and i think the development never stops. Another aspect i'd like to know more about are of course all the oolong teas out there. And another area of interest is the effect of different teaware on the taste of tea and how to source the teaware that does that best.
What factors lead you to delve into the world of tea, and what is keeping you there?
As mentioned above procrastination is really to blame for me getting into tea. What's keeping me here is definitely the sheer possibilities in flavour, mouthfeel and such that exist within tea. And i feel that one can drink tea for ages and still learn new things about it which makes it a very interesting activity which is also rewarding because one will never completely master it or know all about it. Might be frustrating to some but that's what i admire about tea.
What is your location?
I hail from the mountains of Switzerland.
Looking forward to learn and discuss.
certainly openend a few doors for you. Many serious oolong drinkers here to join you in your exploration. Where are you in Switzerland? My mother’s family is from Zurich, Lucern, St Gallen.
