Tea |OT| A Spot Of

[Peru]

How do people feel about standard tea bags vs loose leaf bags?

Worth the extra price?

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All about what's inside, obviously. Traditionally, yeah, standard tea bags have lower quality tea. Not so much tea leaves as tea 'dust', just finely ground, cheap particles. If you see better quality leaves in the loose bags, go for it. But I've seen loose leaf tea sold by weight that's also poor quality. Even some tea shops sell mediocre quality leaves as 'pure leaf tea'. It should look like actual substantial individual pieces of leaf, whether they're needles or ball-shapped.

 

[dean_rcg]

If anyone's after a good decaf I recommend Brew Tea Co's. https://www.brewteacompany.co.uk/products/co2-decaffeinated-tea-15-whole-leaf-tea-bags-56-25g

 

[Delphine]

It's Christmas, and Palais des Thés always make a time limited Christmas tea blend, always a different one each year. This year, it's called "Le Thé Merveilleux" it's a green tea with caramelized almonds and pistachio, and honestly it's delicious, so I couldn't resist buying some! I also bought the new "Thé du Louvres - Garden Tea" that I tasted from my tea advent calendar, and was quite a fan of! And lastly bought a refill of one of my favorite herbal tea "English Garden", that I love to drink late in the evening after being done eating.

Yesterday I was at a Secret Santa party with friends, and one of my closest friend bought me a new teapot because she knew my current one is a bit chipped and that I was looking for a new one. It looks gorgeous and I'm so happy about it! This is what it looks like, more or less, (the color might vary a bit, mine is a bit more on the bluer side):

Last but not least, I also bought this Christmas Herbal Tea from one of my very favorite organic Herbal Tea brand, partly cause I love their taste, and partly cause I really adore their packaging as well, so fancy!

That's it for now, see ya later for more tea-related adventures!

 

[Bakrider]

Recently tried Harney & Son's Sencha and I must say I'm shocked at how different it tastes from standard greens I've bought from stores over the years.

Think I'll look into a variable temperature electric kettle next as I'm also surprised just how much the temperature effected the taste.

 

[Jasup]

Recently tried Harney & Son's Sencha and I must say I'm shocked at how different it tastes from standard greens I've bought from stores over the years.

Think I'll look into a variable temperature electric kettle next as I'm also surprised just how much the temperature effected the taste.

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Yeah, finding out about water temperature is an eye opener. I remember wondering how could people like green tea at all. Then I saw a Japanese YT video where some guys were using a portable tea maker and commenting in slight disbelief: "Look how hot the water is, it's boiling!" - I was like heywaitaminnit.
And no, I never read the printed instructions on the package.

In other news, my local tee shop had a test batch of Tanzanian Usambara Oolong tea. I didn't know they made oolong there, must be a relatively new development this. And it's surprisingly quite ok, I've tasted worse.
Seems like some German importer bought a big batch of the stuff as it's sold in quite a few places around the EU and as far as I know my local shop sources their teas from a German wholesaler.

 

[Samaritan]

Recently got back way into drinking tea thanks in part to this silly thing:

I say silly cause, well, it's a fucking mug with a battery inside of it, but as someone who can't enjoy anything hotter than, like, 54C/130F it's an absolute life-saver. Bought a big bag of Paris blend sachets from Harney & Sons and those have been a really nice balance between convenience and quality, but I can see myself getting a proper glass teapot for loose leaf down the road.

 

[Sword Familiar]

I'm partial to Houji and plain green tea myself, but I've liked most teas I've tried.

 

[Patriiick]

Pretty much the only got drink I have, apart from the off coffee from time to time. I will only drink tea if it's brewed in a teapot though. I think tea brewed in a mug tastes truly awful, IMHO. Just a touch of milk and half a sugar is how I take it usually.

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Only tea I'll drink. You're right about it needing to be brewed in a teapot too. If someone offers me one brewed in a mug I'll politely refuse because it tastes like arse.

 

[Patriiick]

What kind of mugs is everyone using?

Personally I really enjoy handless mugs but I've struggled to find more than 2 I like.

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Gift from my sister who's a civil servant. They had them made to get some cash raised for cat food. Love it.

 

[Jasup]

Mugs:

I need to step up my Moomin mug game.

 

[TheNotoriousAFG]

Do people still post here? Made this today since I got it in a free sampler and was lovely.

Silver Needle White Tea (Bai Hao Yin Zhen)

The Silver Needle White Tea owns a beautiful name, Bai Hao Yin Zhen. Silver (Bai Hao) prefers to the white pekoe; while Needle (Yin Zhen) describes the appearance of the thick and straight tea buds, which have tips as straight and sharp as needles. Recommend Brewing Method Cup Method...

www.teavivre.com

I'm learning to use infusers and loose leaf tea, even though i don't have a thermometer nor an electric kettle that boils specific temperatures yet (I usually just boil and let it cool accordingly). Tea has become my latest obsession over the past few months.

 

[Peru]

I¨ve had some lovely silver needle teas

 

[SonofDonCD]

I've been in the search for a tasty, spicy tea. I have made my own ginger tea, but I'm looking to find another flavor. I've often asked different tea shops for their spiciest tea, and they were very mild to my tastes (barely had any kick to speak of), so any suggestions that are actually spicy would be great.

 

[Teriyaki Blues]

I've been in the search for a tasty, spicy tea. I have made my own ginger tea, but I'm looking to find another flavor. I've often asked different tea shops for their spiciest tea, and they were very mild to my tastes (barely had any kick to speak of), so any suggestions that are actually spicy would be great.

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Do you want actual heat or do you want something with a lot of spices like chai? Chai or Thai tea is pretty good, a lot of spices. I personally do not like Thai tea because there's an excessive amount of something in there that tastes soapy to me (star anise or cloves more than likely). I think the chai instructions for the one I have say to make it at double strength, so double the amount of loose leaf tea and spices as you would normally use when making black tea. That could be a big reason why your samples have been a huge dud. There are also very good cinnamon black teas out there as well, I don't think I've had a bad one yet, but they're very one note.

If you just want something spicy and you're used to making your own tea with fresh ginger... well, depending on the heat level of the ginger you're using, you might want to just keep doing that because a dried product isn't going to come close to fresh ginger oil. Otherwise you could probably put a bit of ginger tea concentrate in your other spiced teas. Korean saenggang cha is damn good if you're not overly concerned about added sugars.

 

[whatsinaname]

I've been in the search for a tasty, spicy tea. I have made my own ginger tea, but I'm looking to find another flavor. I've often asked different tea shops for their spiciest tea, and they were very mild to my tastes (barely had any kick to speak of), so any suggestions that are actually spicy would be great.

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Since you have added ginger and it doesn't do the trick, try adding some crushed green cardamoms and a small cinnamon stick while brewing. If that isn't enough either, try adding a clove or two.

And like Teriyaki Blues said, brew it stronger and add some sweetener.

 

[SonofDonCD]

Do you want actual heat or do you want something with a lot of spices like chai? Chai or Thai tea is pretty good, a lot of spices. I personally do not like Thai tea because there's an excessive amount of something in there that tastes soapy to me (star anise or cloves more than likely). I think the chai instructions for the one I have say to make it at double strength, so double the amount of loose leaf tea and spices as you would normally use when making black tea. That could be a big reason why your samples have been a huge dud. There are also very good cinnamon black teas out there as well, I don't think I've had a bad one yet, but they're very one note.

If you just want something spicy and you're used to making your own tea with fresh ginger... well, depending on the heat level of the ginger you're using, you might want to just keep doing that because a dried product isn't going to come close to fresh ginger oil. Otherwise you could probably put a bit of ginger tea concentrate in your other spiced teas. Korean saenggang cha is damn good if you're not overly concerned about added sugars.

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Yeah, I mean actual heat. I would like something with a different flavor profile, though I have spiced up other teas with ginger before.

I'll try to find some cinnamon black teas and add cinnamon sticks when I next make my ginger tea. Thanks for the suggestions.

Since you have added ginger and it doesn't do the trick, try adding some crushed green cardamoms and a small cinnamon stick while brewing. If that isn't enough either, try adding a clove or two.

And like Teriyaki Blues said, brew it stronger and add some sweetener.

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I don't think I have any cardamom, or at least any whole cardamom. I think I have powdered.

In general, I just wanted to find another kind of spicy (as in heat) tea to try, as opposed to literally making my own from scratch.

 

[Jasup]

This is, in the end, just a shop that wants to sell you product, but they've been doing a ton of simple and clean educational videos on youtube for years, and it's one of the ways I got into tea back then.



Their shop is pretty good too, certainly better than chains you'll find on high street, and a very good place to get an overview if you're starting out with chinese style brewing, although more serious tea heads will probably point you to sellers like Yunnan Sourcing for the best in Chinese tea.

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You know, it took one of their videos for me to find out that I can get good quality silver needle tea from a supermarket nearby, at a decent price.

Reviewing Supermarket Tea - Finland

Can you get quality tea from your supermarkets? In these tea reviews, I blind taste a selection of supermarket-bought teas and give you my opinion. In this v...

www.youtube.com

I've known the brand for ever, they're mostly known for their flavoured teas, and that's what you usually find from them in supermarkets. Although generally considered as being a higher end brand they are also responsible for some really, really bad teas I absolutely loathe. So this was a pleasant surprise.

 

[MrBS]

The BS household Breville The Tea Maker Kettle is still going strong. Tea life!

 

[Wordballoons]

Love green/early grey/darjeeling/rooibos

Been thinking about getting loose leaf chamomile because it looks beautiful in the jars

disappointed this thread isn't very active !

 

[Cosmic Bus]

We mostly buy loose from the Chinatown herbal shops: genmaicha, hojicha, sencha, jasmine, and maybe the best chamomile I've had. For boxed teabags, I don't mind trying different things that happen to be on sale. Tazo's lemon loaf is legit, herbal blends with licorice or lavender are usually nice, and Traditional Medicinals have some great spice-forward blends (their laxative tea is really delicious in spite of the after effects 😅)

 

[Darkatomz]

The site has been mentioned before, but I highly recommend Teavivre for an online source of Chinese/Taiwanese teas, plenty of varieties to choose from, below are the staples I consistently order.

• Award-winning Superfine Ali Shan Oolong
  • Also the high mountain Da Yu Ling version, but only when on sale and not for daily drinking
• Award-winning Yunnan Dian Hong Golden Tip Black tea
• Nonpareil Yunnan Dian Hong Ancient WIld Tree Black tea
• Organic Superfine Dragonwell Long Jing Green tea

 

[SapientWolf]

How do people feel about standard tea bags vs loose leaf bags?

Worth the extra price?

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You don't get nearly as much flavor from the bags, unless they're bags of loose leaf. At which point you might as well just buy loose leaf and bags. Also, you can easily get multiple steepings out of the loose leaf but the bags are pretty much one and done.

 

[AnimeJesus]

Quitting coffee (Americanos) in an attempt to reduce anxiety levels and finding black tea to be a suitable replacement, though I cant drink it on an empty stomach like I did with coffee, otherwise I get insanely nauseous.

For now I'm just sticking to standard tea bags (Stash English breakfast or Super Irish breakfast) and was wondering about leaving the bag in during stepping? Any downsides to just leaving the bag in while I drink it...I think I heard the longer you leave the bag in then the more caffeinated the tea is.

 

[cobell]

Quitting coffee (Americanos) in an attempt to reduce anxiety levels and finding black tea to be a suitable replacement, though I cant drink it on an empty stomach like I did with coffee, otherwise I get insanely nauseous.

For now I'm just sticking to standard tea bags (Stash English breakfast or Super Irish breakfast) and was wondering about leaving the bag in during stepping? Any downsides to just leaving the bag in while I drink it...I think I heard the longer you leave the bag in then the more caffeinated the tea is.

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It depends. Leaving a tea bag in there is ultimately fine; it just means the tea steeps longer, so everything will get stronger. What that means is that it'll get darker, more caffeinated, and extract more flavors from the leaves. Teas will extract more tannins the longer you steep it (which is what causes more bitterness), so generally the steep times are sort of the "optimal flavor". And depending on how into tea you are, different temperatures will be more ideal for extracting those flavors.

That said if you like stronger flavors steep longer; if you like it lighter, steep it for a shorter time. Note you could also just pull out the bag and resteep it for future cups (though this is more of a loose leaf thing).

Edit: Hmm, the nausea you mention could be because of the black tea is steeping too long and you're reacting to the tannins. You could try steeping it for less time to see if that helps with that (or offset it I suppose with some milk or cream which would go against the americano replacement). You could also switch to a lighter tea like a oolong or a green.

 

[Bakrider]

Quitting coffee (Americanos) in an attempt to reduce anxiety levels and finding black tea to be a suitable replacement, though I cant drink it on an empty stomach like I did with coffee, otherwise I get insanely nauseous.

For now I'm just sticking to standard tea bags (Stash English breakfast or Super Irish breakfast) and was wondering about leaving the bag in during stepping? Any downsides to just leaving the bag in while I drink it...I think I heard the longer you leave the bag in then the more caffeinated the tea is.

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Leaving the bag in to long will over brew the tea and make it more bitter.

For black tea I tend to go 3 minutes.

 

[Delphine]

It's been a year since I last posted in this thread.
Here are my latest tea haul/gifts!

First, as per usual around Christmas season for several years now, I bought Palais des Thés's Advent Calendar:

Discovered quite some new teas through it, some that I'll need to get my hands on eventually for sure (Saint-James O.P., I got my eyes on you!).
We fully finished it a few days ago, it was delicious from start to finish as usual!

My mother had also sent me Pukka's Advent Calendar, full of herbal teas:

We almost finished it, we only have herbal tea to go. That been said, we found the range of flavor rather repetitive and we've been pretty fatigued about it for a little while now, hence why it's taking us so long to finish it. Won't buy one again (but to be fair, I didn't buy it in the first place, again, my mother sent it to me and I'm grateful she did, she's a sweetheart).

With that being said, for next year, I'll genuinely be interested in getting Dammann Frères's Advent Calendar, I saw several of my friends having it this year and oh boy it looked delicious as hell!


Other than that, recently bought those teas!

Lovely Palais des Thés' Thé des Trésors. Each year for Christmas they release a new limited Christmas tea flavor, and this year was green tea, caramelized fruits and almond, so of course I had to have it. No regrets, it tastes amazing!

I also offered for my SO some Genmaicha Premium Shincha from Palais des Thés for Christmas, because we both love this kind of tea a lot and I wanted to get them the fancy version. Cause they're worth it.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago, my SO had gifted me La Diplomate's Genmaicha Toba, because it's a Rose & Cherry Blossoms flavored Genmaicha, and I'm here for all the flowery stuff (except Jasmine, it can stay dead in a ditch), yessss.

For Christmas, my brother gifted me some Pretty Good Breakfast from Le Parti du Thé, it's a very powerful black Yunnan tea with natural hints of chocolate flavor in it. It's amazingly delicious and rich, I really love it!

And last but not least, and this one was a bit more of a joke, but I went to Portugal a bit this Summer, and brought back this Pastel de Nata flavored black tea from Piacere Portugal. And YES, you can taste the Pastel de Nata in it. A bit. Also the packaging is absolutely bomb, I just might never want to drink it just to keep it around as much as possible.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but it's not like I'm cluttering anything anyway, this OT barely received any update in a year, and I guess that's my fault for not posting more consistently in it :'D

 

[water_tempo]

I'm in the US, can someone recommend me a good electric kettle? My wife prefers a stove top kettle, but I've been getting into tea more and want something that I can set the temperature on. Otherwise, I just pour boiling water over everything. :(

 

[Bakrider]

I'm in the US, can someone recommend me a good electric kettle? My wife prefers a stove top kettle, but I've been getting into tea more and want something that I can set the temperature on. Otherwise, I just pour boiling water over everything. :(

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I was always recommended this kettle https://www.amazon.com/T-fal-Balanc...1&keywords=tefal+kettle&qid=1609350446&sr=8-3
I've never used it personally but I'll probably buy this when my Nesco dies.

 

[Teriyaki Blues]

I'm in the US, can someone recommend me a good electric kettle? My wife prefers a stove top kettle, but I've been getting into tea more and want something that I can set the temperature on. Otherwise, I just pour boiling water over everything. :(

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I have the cheaper of the two Adagio kettles (an older model of the UtiliTEA) and I like it a lot.

 

[Samaritan]

Been in sort of a tea rut this year, just trying and rebuying the same basic flavors, mainly spiced black teas and fruity greens. I have a pretty good idea of what kinds of tea I like and don't like (not a big fan of whites, but love blacks, greens, and roobois), but I'd like to branch out a bit more with individual flavors. The advent calendars you posted Delphine seem like a terrific way to try a bunch of new teas without having to commit to 50 cups worth of tea you might not even like.

Anyone have some thoughts on the best ways to go about broadening your tea horizons to new and interesting flavors?

 

[BarefootTea]

Bear Masala Chai

Ingredients

• 6-10 Green cardamom pods
• 10-14 Whole cloves
• 7-10 Black peppercorns or 1-2 Long peppers
• 8-12 Whole allspice berries (optional)
• 1 Saigon cinnamon stick
• 1 thumb length (1 1/2 inches) of fresh Ginger
• 3 cups Water
• 2 tablespoons loose leaf (2 tea bags) Black tea
• 2 tablespoons Brown sugar
• Milk

Directions

1. Lightly crush cardamom pods, cloves, black peppercorns / long pepper, allspice (optional), and cinnamon stick in a mortar & pestle. Then add the ginger and crush in the mortar & pestle.
2. Place crushed spices in a pot with 3 cups of water.
3. Bring water to a boil water, then simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Turn off heat.
5. Add the tea to the pot and let steep for approximately 6 minutes.
6. Add brown sugar to taste.
7. Pour thru strainer into a mug.
8. Add milk until light brown in color.
9. Alternatively, you can add the milk to the pot before straining. Simmer to warm the drink, then turn off the heat. Pour thru strainer into a mug.
10. Enjoy!

Makes 2-4 cups.

NOTE: I tend to use long pepper over black peppercorn, it has a more complex flavor profile than black peppercorns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_pepper

 

[water_tempo]

I was always recommended this kettle https://www.amazon.com/T-fal-Balanc...1&keywords=tefal+kettle&qid=1609350446&sr=8-3
I've never used it personally but I'll probably buy this when my Nesco dies.

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I have the cheaper of the two Adagio kettles (an older model of the UtiliTEA) and I like it a lot.

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Thank you, both. I'll take a look at these.

 

[DrForester]

Discovered this tea shop after getting a few flavors for a secret santa. Been trying some of their other stuff, and it's great.

Online Store — Quintin's Tea Emporium

Loose tea, green tea, black tea, oolong tea, rooibos tea, herbal tea, chai tea, estate tea, white tea

quintinstea.com

They do some nice seasonal stuff too.