forestofglory | 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

redbird

I mostly like black teas. I drink a lot of Assam, and Irish breakfast is my first-choice blend when I'm at a cafe or restaurant that doesn't have Assam.

What I'm drinking as I write this is a combination of loose Golden Assam (mail order from McNulty's in New York City) and a chai blend from Camellia Sinensis (of Montreal, also mail order) that turned out to be mostly spices with only a little tea. This morning I made the Assam and dropped in a cardamom pod.

When I'm not home, I get Irish breakfast if it's available, with English breakfast (I like the Irish breakfast better, but fewer cafes and restaurants stock that).

When I'm in a Chinese (Cantonese, mostly) restaurant I often drink the tea that they serve by default, which I think is a pu-ehr. I don't seem to want that in other contexts, though.

Edited (updating because I hit "enter" in mid-word) Date: 2020-07-22 05:30 pm (UTC)

From:

forestofglory

Those all sound delicious!

From:

extrapenguin

I order from TeaVivre, too! My favorite green teas are Lushan Yunwu, Xinyang Mao Jian, and Anyi Baicha (green, but very pale). WRT brewing tea, I find that the sound the water makes while it's boiling changes twice – the first time is at about 80°C and thus suitable for green tea. The second is at 90°C, maybe? I admit it takes a bit of practice as well as having the time to sit next to the kettle the first few times. (Or you could measure the cold water temperature and figure out the mixing ratio – a quarter 20°C water and three quarters boiling will yield 80°C, but that would require more estimation.) For summer, though, I often do cold brew tea with Japanese teas and then stick it in the fridge for later consumption. Gyokuryo is particularly good for that.

From:

forestofglory

More things to add to my list to try!

Some of my historical books mentioned people listening to the sound to figure out when the water was hot enough but I didn't think to try in myself. I do have tendency get distracted and wander off while the water is boiling though, so I'm not sure it would work for me.

From:

extrapenguin

I've reached the point where even if I wander off I'll notice the change in sound and can rush over to stop the boil, but that probably depends on the layout of your apartment. It's a pretty decent hack, and I use it even though I have a multi-temperature kettle (albeit one where the temperature selection isn't finegrained at all).

From:

lunabee34

Oooh, this is interesting.

I love black tea and have tried several varieties of it (orange pekoe which is the default iced tea of the South, English and Irish Breakfast, Earl and Lady Grey). I like English Breakfast the best of that.

I also drink a lot of peppermint tea and several different varieties of sleepy tea which contain all sorts of elements like catnip, valerian, and etc. These are technically tisanes.

From:

starandrea

+1 for herbal teas/tisanes, my favorite! ♥

From:

forestofglory

I didn't talk about herbal tea in this post, but I'm one of those people who can't have caffeine in the afternoon or evenings so I drink quite a bit of herbal tea. Mint is my go to.

From:

lunabee34

I'm the same way. I don't drink caffeine after about 2-3 or I won't be able to sleep. So it's all herbal from then on.

From:

darkemeralds

I've been enjoying your tea explorations via Twitter, and I'm glad you pointed me back here to good old DW.

Isn't it amazing what these Chinese dramas are bringing out in fans and fandom? I'm not any little bit Asian of any kind myself, and I'm enjoying this feeling of a flowering brain, as it were, listening to (and trying to learn a little of) a really foreign language, learning a little about Chinese history, maybe a little cookery.

I've been here before, back in the Firefly days. However dumb and appropriative its take on China and Mandarin, it was what first got me to Mandarin lessons and Chinese cooking.

As to tea, I own a single gaiwan that I've never learned to properly use, and have (in those glorious days of yore when we actually went places) drunk tea at the Lan Su Classical Chinese Garden tea house in downtown Portland.

From:

forestofglory

I've been enjoying talking to you about tea on twitter as well, so I'm glad you found this post!

The flowering brain feeling is great! I'm not very good with langues so I haven't been trying to learn Mandarin, but I have been enjoying learning a lot of history, and trying some new recipes.

Those videos I linked to have some info on gaiwan use if that would be helpful to you. Plus they have pretty person with a soothing voice talking to you about tea.

From:

fleurdeliser

I will take your share of the world's oolong! It's the first tea I can remember having and I still love it. I haven't ever had a good, proper pu-erh. I didn't particularly care for the one I had, but I will definitely withhold judgement until I get some decent pu-erh to try.

From:

forestofglory

You are welcome to all my oolong! It's very differnt than pu-erh so even if you have good one you might not like it.

From:

dolorosa_12

This was really interesting to read!

I'm not a tea connoisseur, but I was brought up by parents who only bought and drank loose leaf tea, which did at least leave me with a lifelong dislike of teabags!

Normally I drink black tea, with no milk, and my preferred kind is Darjeerling. I'll generally drink any kind of black loose leaf tea, though. I also like jasmine tea, and enjoy drinking green tea when I'm in Chinese or Japanese restaurants.

From:

forestofglory

Thanks!

Drinking only loose leaf seems fancy to me! How do you usually brew your loose leaf tea?

From:

dolorosa_12

I start pretty much every day with a teapot of Darjeerling tea, shared with my husband. The pot I have has a little strainer that sits in the top of the pot, so it's easy to fill that with a spoonful of tea, then boil water and let it sit in the teapot for five minutes or so.

If I want to have just a cup, or if my husband and I want to have different types of loose leaf tea, we use infusers like this. You put a spoonful of tea leaves in the infuser, boil water, and hang the infuser in the mug, leaving in there to brew until it's ready.

When I said I wasn't a tea connoisseur, I meant that if I really cared about all this stuff, I would be weighing the tea leaves out on a scale, boiling the water to a specific temperature (which would vary depending on the type of leaves), and leaving it to brew for a specified amount of time (which would again vary depending on the leaves) — but all that seems way too fussy for me, so all my tea brews with boiling water poured directly into the cup/pot, and sits there either for five minutes, or until the colour seems right.

From:

forestofglory

Thanks I enjoyed reading about your tea rituals. I do feel like there's always higher level of fussy one can be about making tea.

From:

trascendenza

I haven't tried too many oolongs, but I like Iron Goddess after it's been brewed a few times (the flavor changes noticeably from the first brew vs the third or fourth).

I'm also big into dried flowers, brewed into tisanes or added to teas -- chrysanthemum, osmanthus, and more recently I bought some peony. I particularly love the light sweetness of osmanthus.

From:

jesse_the_k

Indeed, the second and subsequent cups are always better. I also recently watched the Tea House Ghost series mentioned in the post where I learned about "rinsing" the tea. The results from the first pour is simply thrown away to get closer to the better taste.

From:

forestofglory

Well, I guess I'm going to have to try oolong again at some point, but try rinsing it first.

From:

forestofglory

I keep seeing reference to osmanthus flavored things recently and I've never tried it. Clearly I need to fix this!

From:

jesse_the_k

I also longed for a variable-temp teapot until I discovered how to systematically and quickly cool down water right off the boil: pour the water between two vessels a set number of times.

If you're boiling in an open container (or a glass kettle), there's the traditional rubric for determining temperature by the shape and frequency of the bubbles:

Shrimp Eyes, Crab Eyes, Fish Eyes, Rope of Pearls, Raging Torrent

Edited (I had more to say!) Date: 2020-07-24 08:53 pm (UTC)

From:

forestofglory

I'm going to have to try that pouring trick!

And thanks for the article with pictures of the different stages of boiling water. These where mentioned in my history reading but its really helpful to have pictures.

From:

satsuma

Oh judge water temp by the way it looks/sounds but I didn't know they all had names! That's very cool

From:

stultiloquentia

I have a lot of tea, mostly gifted or inherited from various roommates, everything from little rolled up balls of leaves that "bloom" prettily in the pot, to a lemon ginger that announces itself, bafflingly, as "probiotic" on the box.

One of my favourite tea pours was courtesy of my brother-in-law's brother, the week my sister got married. BiL is half Moroccan, and everyone in his family grows several types of mint in window boxes for traditional mint tea, which is made in a ritual as lovely as those for Japanese tea or Ethiopian coffee, with boiling water poured over fresh leaves, with a big spoonful of honey. He served us in tiny, antique glass tea cups, and I had a sugar high for the rest of the morning.

From:

forestofglory

The blooming tea sounds so pretty! And the mint tea sounds amazing too!

From:

worlds_of_smoke

JASMINE GREEN TEA.

I love that shit to death.

From:

forestofglory

It is excellent tea! Especially now that I've started using lower temperature water to brew it.

From:

satsuma

I tend to prefer what are (by western standards) very re-steepable teas, which then mean's I can get away with buying a little pricier teas since I'm only using a few grams a day. Not entirely sure where this habit came from, since my parents are tea aficionados (they've been buying from Upton since the start haha) but they tend towards stronger, single steeped black teas

Right now my section of the tea shelf has a gunpowder tea that is fine but I probably won't repurchase, a pearl style jasmine tea that is a standby of mine, & a really lovely low-oxidation Taiwanese oolong

I also drink a lot of herbal tisanes (mostly peppermint & lemongrass) in the evenings

From:

forestofglory

Those all sound lovely. I don't think I've had a lemongrass herbal tea and now I really want one.

From:

satsuma

Lemongrass tea is very nice! I mostly drink it hot, but it also does a decent overnight infusion in the fridge when the weather gets too dreadful for anything that hasn't been served over ice

From:

brigdh

(Sorry for the late reply!)

Tea! I have so many thoughts on tea. :D I also love pu'erhs – they're so forgivable, as you say! Forget about them until they're way oversteeped, water too hot or too cold, resteep them a hundred times – they'll still be great no matter what you do to them. Have you come across the pu'erh stored in a tangerine peel, like this? TBH, I never notice much of a taste difference, but the mini citrus is so adorable to me that I can never help buying these when I come across them in stores.

I appreciate your dislike for oolongs, but I would still recommend that you give milk oolong a try, if you happen to come across any. It's got such a wonderful creamy flavor, you'd never know it doesn't actually contain milk! And if you've never tried lapsang souchong, it's worth doing at least once, though it's the sort of tea that divides people into love-it-or-hate-it camps. It's smoked, and has a strong smoky flavor (my girlfriend calls it 'bacon tea', since the whole house smells like bacon whenever I brew it). A high-quality Darjeeling is also really worth giving a try, though it can be hard to be sure you're actually getting what is advertised (4x as much fake "Darjeeling" is sold than authentic Darjeeling worldwide; a good tip to probably get the real stuff is that it should be labeled with what specific garden and flush it came from).

Green tea was my first love! I only recently started branching out into blacks and oolongs and pu'erhs. I adore matcha, even if you don't have all the proper equipment, and genmaicha is a fun easier tea (it's plain sencha plus roasted rice; my continually helpful girlfriend calls it 'popcorn tea' for the scent).

I love your book recs, too! I read The Rise of Tea Culture in China myself recently and found it amazing. Do you mind if I give you a few more recs? The Opium Wars are as much about tea as opium, and are incredibly fascinating/horrifying. A History of Tea: The Life and Times of the World’s Favorite Beverage by Laura C Martin (the same book has also been published under the name Tea: The Drink that Changed the World, idk why two titles) is a really good global overview that has great coverage of the Opium Wars. Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire by Roy Moxham is another good book about them, and also has a lot about the British labor system on tea plantations in Sri Lanka, which led almost directly to the recent civil war there. Tea: A Global History by Helen Saberi is a good, short book that covers approximately a million topics; it's not specifically relevant to Guardian, but I found it very interesting. And my favorite rec is For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose, a very readable pop history about how the East India Company sent a spy into China to steal the knowledge of how to grow tea.