So here’s the deal. I’ve recently become quite obsessed with Green Tea. I’ve enjoyed drinking it for years, but now it has become sort of a collector thing as well. I enjoy collecting and tasting tea’s, not just drinking them. It’s become sort of like my interest for whisky, although I drink a lot more tea than I drink whisky thankfully
I’ve also started to look down disdainfully at anything resembling black tea that comes in bags and all that sort of stuff (and I’m fully aware you brits will kill me for this as that very much include Earl Grey and so on).
Also, the normal green tea you can get from grocery stores and stuff just don’t cut it, and most of the stuff available from asian import companies are the cheapest stuff available from asia that they sell for a huge profit and it might also be old and poorly stored.
So if you want to drink the good stuff (and you do), you have to import it from asia yourself. There are a few online shops that seem to be trustworthy and not over priced.
So, I was wondering, does anyone share this passion for tea? I know a lot of you are drinking black tea but I’m interested in Green Tea alone (maybe White Tea as well), and mostly japanese and chinese tea. As I’ve just started to develop this passion I’m not very knowledgeable. Are there any long time tea connaiseures around? Any favourite blends?
We did have a go at Tea a while back. Green tea did come into it.
One of our local “Village” shops specialises in Chocolate and Tea. Left hand side of the shop: chocolate. Right hand side of the shop: Tea. It’s where I get my Genmai Cha.
And you would have to be an insensitive brute to make Earl Grey using Teabags! (Although the last time someone made it for me, they put milk in. Yuk!)
I suspect it’s a lot easier to get good Tea in the UK than it is in Sweden.
When I’ve ventured over to France, I’ve always been disgusted by the quality of tea there. Of course they have good Coffee and Chocolate, but still… The best “reliable” tea in France is Liptons - or at least it used to be.
Twinings still do good leaf tea (as opposed to tea bags).
I was looking for “The Tea House” in Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden, but this looks like a good site, too: http://www.theteahouse.co.uk/buy_tea.html
i started giving up on coffee right after the heart surgery. de-caf teas are very nice. i mostly stick with chamomille and i do like earl grey. i’ve had a couple of the most nasty of green teas and tend to avoid them now. good luck on your quest for the perfect cup of tea.
I’m sure if you delve into it enough you’ll find some Japanese make that goes to ridiculous extremes in the making of their tea, but ridiculous extremes is sometimes a Japanese hall mark. Other than that, I have only found theprice to be the biggest difference between Japanese and Chinese teas. I only drink black teas, and avoid green teas as much as possible. They are unhealthy when drunk more than one or two cups per day.
Tetley’s pyramid tea bags for ordinary and Marks and Spencers green tea bags for green. I drink gallons of tea and it’s keeping me alive basically. I need help. I’m absorbing every word of this thread except one: “decaffeinated.” That’s like swearing.
I drink black tea sometimes (English Breakfast - from a box of a rather nice brand that Lambchop sent me) and green tea sometimes, not the best stuff in the world and it’s just plain old japanese loose leaf green tea bought at the Japanese grocery, but it’s passable. I also occasionally buy rooibos tea at the Teavana store in the mall, when I get a chance to go there (which is very rarely). I like the peachy flavor blend.
I’m not really a connoisour (or however the heck you spell it) but I’m fond of tea. I hate coffee in all its forms, except for mocha cake frosting and ice cream, or occasionally chocolate covered espresso beans.
Really?! What do you base this on?
I’ve never heard it before myself, but I have acctually heard lots of things that contradicts it.
I’ve catched a bit of a cold sadly so I’m sitting here with a pot Chinese green tea from first brew leaves. I plan to do a second brew of them after lunch. The name of the tea eludes me and the bag is discarded, it’s not a fancy one but it has a strong minty sort of flavour and works charms for colds.
The most resent tea of choice for me is Genmaicha. It has toasted rice in it and gives tea a nice full rich taste. In Minneapolis, United Noodles seems to be the best place to buy it.
As a side note the tea has little white popped rice from the toasting. It looks much more like popcorn than popped wild rice though.
I have some genmai cha too. I’ve noticed you have to brew it a bit longer than regular green tea to get the best flavor, at least in my experience. It’s different alright.
DJM - I don’t know where you heard that green tea was bad for you if you drank more than a cup a day, but I don’t think that’s true. I’ve heard the opposite on several occasions.
I’ve been reading studies maintaining that green tea
staves off Alzheimers and dementia. Apparently people
in Japan who drink two or three cups of green tea daily
have significantly lower rates. Allegedly it postpones
this bad stuff by four years. Whether black
tea is as good isn’t clear. I’m not absolutely convinced,
but the study looks alright and, well, why not?
I lived in Sri Lanka for awhile; tea planted everywhere.
Visited tea plantations. Ordinary tea in Sri Lanka
beats good tea here. We visited tea plantations too
and saw the process of making tea. Green tea comes
from the early shoots; they’re just dried, not
fermented and roasted. Black tea is made of
mature leaves fermented and roasted.
A tea plant is a non-descript bush. If you
chew a leaf it doesn’t taste like tea.
There is a saying:
Green tea is the taste of Zen.
In India, at altitude, tea could make me nearly
psychotic. One thinks of coffee that way, but
tea in India could really pack a wallop.
I love a good cup of green tea!
Genmaicha is one of the ones I buy at the local asian market sun by an older vietnamese couple.
If you’re interested in other “green” teas, Yerba Mate is one I drink on a daily basis.
I go by what my sifu taught me, and what the older Chinese in the area tell me, as well. They tell me to take it easy on green tea, avoid jasmine altogether, as well as teas with chrysanthemum flowers added (e.g. gok bo), as these are all too acidic and do not lead to balanced health.
Looking at green tea in the Japanese diet without considering the total diet is pretty stupid. If you want to go with a completely Japanese diet that is another thing altogether.
In the winter I might buy tea in Chicago’s Chinatown at a tea specialty store called Ten Ren. They have some teas that cost $$ by the pound
but they’ll sell it by the ounce as well.
In the summer I drink infusions of herbs from my garden.
I started buying in teas at Ten Ren as a treat for my clients but the ones who drink tea seem to prefer what comes out of my garden as well.
What has come as a surprise to me is how many people have told me they don’t like tea, when admittedly all they’ve really tasted is that stuff in bags by Lipton.
Its sort of like people who have told me they don’t like beer when all they’ve ever had is Budwiser
Henke I’m not a tea connoisseur by any means - I just drink a lot of it in English or Irish style - but I do know a few tea freaks, including the fellow who runs this business
The stuff he imports is the finest of the finest Darjeeling. Nothing like the Darjeeling I quite liked and was used to, the taste of which, he explained to me, was the taste of old tea!
A few years ago I went to a tasting at his house to try out the various samples he had received at the start of a new season - and came out high as a kite on the tea and the oxygen (he recommended tasting it by slurping noisily from a spoon with a good intake of air). I brought home a sample of a very special white Darjeeling tea, which was exquisite, as it ought to have been at about $50 for an ounce (28 g). I was also surprised to learn that to prepare very fine teas the water should not boil but be at about 90 C.
I soon went back to muscular orange pekoe with milk though, usually with a bit of grated fresh ginger root thrown into the pot.
djm, never heard of that.
The things I have heard from many different sources is that green tea is very good for lots of different things, for example, it’s full of vitamin C, antioxidants and it has no calories. It’s supposed to contain substances that prevent cancer, helps keep the teeth healthy and the skin good and strong. Most beauty products sold these days contains green tea, and a lot of (serious) diet products contains it.
I sound like I’m trying to sell something here. I’m not the kind of guy who falls for these health treatment products.
Tea is different though, I’ve heard from so many independent and trustworthy sources about the health benefits. Lots of sources that have no interest in me drinking tea.
The primary reason for me drinking tea is that it tastes good and it makes me feel good. The health benefits are just a bonus.
I’m just a bit surprised because I’ve heard so many good things about green tea, and no bad things. I suppose over consumption of any product is rarely good, but if the bar for over consumption is that low I think I should have heard about it.
And Steve, that sounds really cool. I’ll check out that website.
