Tea Adventures

So one result of my recent enjoyment of Chinese dramas is that I've been learning about and tasting more tea.

It started when I was working on my Guardian Food and Drink Project. Someone commented on one of my posts about it with a link to this the Tea House Ghost Youtube Chanel and I enjoyed those videos very much! But for a while that was all. Fancy tea is intimidating, its expensive and it seemed like you need a lot of special equipment.

However earlier this year I decided that rather than being sensible and finding some good surveys of Chinese history I was going to dive into the deep end with some very focused academic history books. And the first thing I read was Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History by James A. Benn. Which I really adored.

So that got me to take a few more steps. I order a tea filter and a few samples of different Chinese style teas. The tea filter is just a mess basket that sits in my tea mug, and you put the leaves in there while the tea is brewing. I also started actually timing how long my tea brews for, which isn't as complicated as I thought. I can use the clock on my phone.

So the tea samples where very enjoyable, and I wrote a fic featuring a lot of tea, and read another book about the history of tea in China (The Rise of Tea Culture in China by Bret Hinsch) so I decided to order more tea. After asking around I ordered form TeaVivre I still wasn't sure what I liked so I ordered a bunch of sample packs and also some things that where on sale. It's been great to have lots of try.

So far I've learned that I really like pu-erh, and don't like oolong. (I sent the extra oolong to a good home). Not only is the pu-erh delicious but its relatively low fuss. I got a bunch of mini tuochas or tiny cakes of pressed tea so its all pre-measured. Unlike some of the other teas I have it brews with boiling water so I don't have to fussy with trying to cool the water down. Also it can be brewed many, many times!

With green teas I'm still figuring out what I like. I've enjoyed the dragon well tea I have now and the sample of Bi Luo Chun was very tasty too. The fact that I don't have precise control of the water temperature is making trying the green teas a bit more difficult. I have fancy kettle that does variable temperatures on my wish list, I'm hoping some one will give it to me for my birthday if not I will buy it for myself.

Tea is great! It has been lovely to learn more about the history of tea and also taste a lot of different teas. It is a bit complicated to do loose leaf tea, but its simpler than I thought. Do you have favorite teas? I'd love to hear about them!