After a month or so of nothing but Lipton bags, I finally got some good stuff from Upton Tea today. A packet each of good loose-leaf Yunnan and Assam. I got about half stoned just smelling it. (and yes, it really is tea, not some “other” herb)
So, here’s a cup of the Yunnan, steeped for four minutes. The smell is amazing. Sweet, just a hint of smokiness. The taste is completely different from the smell (so it’s like enjoying the same thing in two different ways). It’s very rich and complex, strong but not at all bitter, with the “Yunnan” taste which I don’t know how to describe. I’m having it plain tonight, but it’s strong enough to take milk and sugar, which I will try tomorrow morning.
Ah. Now I’m off to throw a rack of ribs on the barbeque. Isn’t life just grand?
Geez, Tom, wait till you get ahold of some Lapsang Souchong and Darjeeling (preferably a really good one like a Marybong), Or a really good Formosa Oolong. I went on a day trip with someone once and brought a liter of Marybong along for each of us. He remarked that the tea was really sweet, but he didn’t think I usually put sugar in my tea. I hadn’t. The stuff is the nectar of the gods.
I always found Yunnan a little earthy tasting. Assam is a wonderful tea, strong enough for the morning, delicate enough for teatime.
Kind of an all-breakfast-tea-all-the-time kind of guy, are ye?
I’ll freely admit that my taste definitely tends to the milder teas, the Darjeelings and oolongs, but I do enjoy a good Assam, keemun, or Lapsang souchong now and then.
Well, I’m neither newly minted nor a snob. Teabags are better than nothing, and finances being what they are, the price is right. It’s wierd, sometimes when I have been drinking good stuff for a long time, I actually get a craving for Lipton. But after a long period of economically imposed blandness, it is great to finally have some really GOOD tea again.
Darjeeling is great, but generally I like something with some kick to it. Usually something strong enough to take milk, preferably a really good, malty Assam.
I keep some Lapsang around, but a little goes a long way for me. White tea is nice, but generally far too sophisticated for my philistine palate.
I like matte though I’m not crazy about all the foo-foo flavored stuff. Chai should be made with real tea!
Rooibos just tastes wrong to me. Maybe it’s the name. Maybe I can’t shake the feeling that if they made tea out of bugs, it would taste like that. Wierd stuff.
I tried the Yunnan with milk this morning. It is better plain.
My favorite tea these days is the Chai Spice Black Tea from Stash, I love Chai tea, a bit spicy and some cinnamon… They also have a Double Spice tea if you feel like overloading your mouth with spices…
I am happy to see that there still are other tea lovers than me.
I thought everybody nowadays had converted to that rubbish in bags with flavorings from the lab…
Warms my heart
Oh tea…reminds me, breakfast time now.
I will make myself a big pot of strong irish breakfast.
In the afternoon I usually have emperor’s chest, which is a blend of lapsang with other teas, more subtle but still smokey.
Or a lady grey, which is a blend of earl grey with other types I haven’t identified yet. As long as it tastes good, no need either.
Sometimes when I am in the mood I make mint tea…or something other herbal.
I like celestial seasonings now and then but not all those funny tastes…my only exception to teabags.
Mmmm, tea. I drink somewhere between 5 and 10 cups a day. But I only drink green tea, love flavoured green teas of all kinds. I could never drink a natural unflavoured green tea, some of the nastiest stuff I’ve tried, smells like old hay and tastes much the same.
One of my favourites is acctually marketed by Lipton, they have it both as bags and loose leafs. I always use loose leafs except when I’m at work. It’s called Green Tea Orient (it was branded Tchaé before), don’t know if you have that in the states. That one, and a lemon flavoured- Fairtrade green tea by Kobbs, and a mint flavoured green tea by some small Swedish company I picked up at a fair recently. I brew them using a japanese method: Use quite a lot of leaves which you have rinsed in cold water, water should be no where near boiling just hot enough to be slightly steaming, pour over the leaves and brew for no more than 30 seconds, re-use the leaves 3-4 times. Second brewing is usually the best.
I don’t drink black or red (Rooibos), and I never use milk or sugar. When I have a cold I may add a little honey.
For weekdays, and weekend mornings, tea is my “Uisge Beatha”, but in the afternoon I’ll gladly replace it with
whisky
Henke - I agree with you that most green teas taste like hay…or grass. I’m a fan of floral flavored green teas (jasmine, chrysanthemum, etc.). I have a particular fondness for jasmine tea thanks to an early childhood indoctrination at all my favorite local Chinese restaurants.
No one has mentioned oolong teas. Bad oolong can taste like dirt, but really good oolong is one of my all time favorite teas.
Good, tail-kicking single estate Assam this morning. Ready for the 10:30 session now!
It interests me how many parallels there seem to be between fine tea and fine booze. For example, a lot of the better (or at least more distinctive) Indian teas are “single estate,” meaning they aren’t blended–all the leaves come from a single picking from a single tea estate. Some plantations in Africa and Nepal seem to be seeking to up their snob potential by doing the same, sometimes with not-so-good teas; China and Taiwan not so much. Reminds me of vintages and single-malts: The blended ones are more consistant, but the singles are more the real thing, more fun to drink because of the differences.
I want something to kick my butt at teatime after all I haven’t had a cup in three hours by then.
