TeaChat

I was wondering whether I am the only one whose favourite type of tea changes along with the seasons. My cravings are Japanese green and Taiwanese high mountain oolong in spring and summer and pu-erh, yancha and bo luo chun in autumn and winter.

I haven't been drinking tea seriously long enough to be able to discern seasonal preferences. I do love Taiwanese high mountain oolongs, some days when it's a little chilly I like to have a roasted tea.

This Autumn and Winter will be telling

My preferences do change a bit with the seasons. Earthier, darker roasted puerhs and oolongs go especially well in the winter. But they're also nice for a change during the summer, and on gray overcast summer days.

My preferences ... subtly change.

Spring is all about new harvest Shincha.

Summer to early Winter is mostly about Sencha and related teas like Guricha.

As we settle into Winter I begin to check out gyokuro ... part of this is due to circumstances. Not wanting to load up too much on Sencha with Shincha approaching and gyokuro now in its aged prime.

I do mix other teas in ... particularly tastings that are group oriented.

But what can I say, I like what I am doing. It has taken around 14 years to come to this "schedule."

I don't know if it's the onset of fall and cooler weather, but I've been craving roasted oolongs!

I'm with hobnob on this one, I think that it's too early to tell if my tea choices will change by the seasons. However, it makes intuitive sense to me that darker roasts will be more appealing in the cooler temperatures.

One wrench is that regardless of the season, when my stomach is bothering me I tend to shy away from greens and greener oolongs because it seems like they're a bit harsher on my stomach.

Shincha in the spring, gyokuro in the summer, oolongs in the autumn and pu'erh in the winter.
That is of course not to say that I won't have a pu'er in the middle of summer if I feel like it.