wednesday, TEADAY, 4/02/08

[witches brew]

I drink my tisanes for the pure variety of tastes that they offer. I drink a little sencha for the excuse to own Japanese teaware (hey, that wasn't a poll option! )

Today i've had sencha and some lemongrass tisane. Not sure what my after dinner cup will be. I have cherry blossoms on my mind. They aren't out here in NY, of course. I am debating a quick train ride to DC this weekend for blossom viewing.

Any good tea shops there? Good teaware?

[TaiPing Hou Kui]

Well, I chose other becuase my story is slightly different. I had always been a tea drinker in the since that I loved iced tea and really liked that Arizona Green Tea that they sold in the 7-11's in my area. True, they dont really taste like green tea, but they are still good. In my senior year of highschool I accepted admission to the College of William and Mary, known for its rigorous academics and high stress related suicide rates.......I had always read things such as "Chewing cinnamon gum will help you retain 30% more information while studying, etc." So I bought a buch of Big Red cinnamon gum before I went to school. Once I got there I also read in one of my classes (within the 1st week of freshman year) that green tea aided in memory retention. So....when I went up to the store to get some food I saw some green tea bags on sale (100 for about 3 bucks) and a travel mug....I thought to myself "This will be perfect for me to take to my labs, etc.." I started drinking it and like ing it alot and then about a month later I was talking another resident on my hall and he drank tea as well. He told me about a store right in Colonial Williamsburg that sold loose leaf tea. So, the next day I went up there (the place was called "Steeps"....it is no longer there) and purchased a mug infuser, 1oz of sencha, 1oz of dragonwell, 1 oz of dragon pearls, and 1 oz of white peony, and regrettably, 1oz of gunpowder.......I got backto my room and brewed up the gunpowder and even that compared to the tea bags was amazing, then I tasted the others and pushed the gunpowder aside. It has been TEADAY every day since then for me!

*Today has been a Pu day. 2006 Wu's Ripe Tea Cake in my cup at the moment!

-Nick (TaiPing)

[soapy]

I reduced my daily coffee intake when I started to be a more serious tea drinker....also lost some weight and of course with teas there lots of health benefits

[jogrebe]

For me taking tea seriously started my freshman year of college when it hit me how expensive soda is when you have to buy it for yourself. So I started getting tea bags and bags of sugar from the local grocery store which were not only cheaper but also easier to carry on the 20 minute walk back to campus. Back then I didn't know any better and thought Twinings teabags must have been a really good tea because they had the coat of arms of the British Royal Family on the box.

[Beanbean]

I had to answer "other". My mother started giving me "cambric tea" when I was about two years old so I have always been a tea drinker. I enjoy the occasional cup of good coffee but I would say I have coffee fewer than six times a year. Other than tea I drink water (LOTS of water) and milk. That's it.

Tea is my favorite though.

[augie]

Augie, I hope your Bassett Hound didn't get any chocolate - yikes! Hope your poochie is ok!

She got a hold of the M&Ms and licked the wrappers, but gratefully didn't chew open. It was mostly skittles and starburst left at that point. She did this at Halloween also. Kids found her asleep on a pile of sucker sticks and wrappers. Candy stuck to her sides. She is very ingenuis, when not napping.

Regarding TaiPing Hou Kui's post: I also noticed the increased memory/better ability to concentrate after drinking regular green tea.

[tenuki]

aged nan tou oolong
dan's organic sencha ( I like it, don't care what the sencha snobs say ) in my new Kyuusu.

[trent]

fukamushi sencha from my friend's grandpa's tea farm

just4tea.com tie guan yin

[Space Samurai]

Slow day...some sort of sencha I picked up from Whole Foods this afternoon.

[olivierco]

TGY=Ti Guan Yin
same as Ti Kuan Yin
it's a chinese oolong

Thanks.

[Chip]

I am still sipping an oolong from 8 hours ago...worked Sakura Sencha in between oolong steeps. It was a good TeaDay.

[horsencl]

I was always a casual tea drinker, just the normal lipton and tetley stuff. While I was dorming at college I started trying other kinds of tea, mostly whatever flavored stuff the supermarket had on sale. Then one cold day I wandered into the local tea shop. I was amazing at loose leaf tea and how many different varieties there were. That eventually snowballed into the obsession that I have today

[skywarrior]

I always drink tea. I've never been a soda fan, and I've never drank coffee. (I could never develop a taste for coffee).Tried some huckleberry tea today. It was very yummy.