Friday TeaDay 1/7/11 First TeaBuy?

[msurads06]

Thats funny, because when i first started drinking tea, it was earl grey (by chance, leftover from sisters wedding) and every time my dad saw me drinking tea he would do his best Picard impression "Tea, Earl Grey, hot."

Today was actually a pretty heavy tea day for me with three sessions. Started out with Rishi sencha supreme, managed to actually get it drinkable 1.5g/100ml water first brew approz 30 sec at approz 150. Not sure greens will ever be a fave, but not bad. Followed that up with rishi silver needle and finished the day with Ruby tea from Norbu.

[Skippyandjif]

The first tea I purchased was some jasmine sencha, and I still drink this quite often. Mmm, jasmine sencha...

I've been having matcha all day today, with a lot of iced green tea thown in there as well. It's an effective thirst quencher.

[iannon]

Enjoying some Bu Lang Jie Liang tonite..quite tasty. Wild Arbor from the county of Menghai

[brad4419]

Lol. This is a tough one because technically the first tea I bought was a lapsang souchong purchased online but then later that day I found a local teashop and bought some earl grey cream So I didn't get to drink the lapsang for about a week, where as the earl grey cream was drank immediately. Either way I drink them both very rarely.

[rhondabee]

I think my first loose leaf tea purchase was probably a Chinese green tea, since I couldn't find any green oolongs. This was in the early to mid 1990's. I have no memory of where I bought it, but remember getting Chinese gunpowder tea. I also remember buying Republic of Tea teas when they first came out. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to buy online now.

[AdamMY]

My first tea buy, was from a little local shop that sold all sorts of Asian items, from carved wood, decorated screens, to a tea section. I picked up a Sencha from there, although I think I really did not know how to brew it as I am not sure I ever really got a good cup of tea out of that sencha and I kept it for far to long.

[Amaikokonut]

Hmmm... my first loose-tea purchase was a random no-name bag of genmaicha from the local Asian grocery. I remember being very confused as to how I should brew it and had a ridiculously complicated setup involving a pitcher, a strainer, a coffee filter, and a mug. I actually found it way too much effort and nearly gave up on it entirely until I picked of a couple of fine mesh basket-strainer things that I could just set in my mug. Those made the job a ton easier. But then I began exploring other loose teas and ended up giving the remainder of the genmaicha to a friend in favor of higher-quality stuff (the poor girl still gets an awful lot of my hand-me-down teas that I don't see myself finishing before they go stale).

I certainly still drink genmaicha, though usually from Den's and brewed in a kyusu. I think I've come a long way!

[entropyembrace]

The first tea I bought myself was a box of Numi Chinese Breakfast tea bags...which I thought were wonderfully rich and flavourful back then...and rather bland now. Though for a few years before that I was always reminding my mom to pick up Twinnings teabags at the supermarket...english breakfast and earl grey were my favs.

I´m not especially likely to drink any of those anymore...sometimes I have the Numi at a restaurant but I usually go for coffee instead since it´s usually better. Though coffee in Canada is usually not that great either.

[Marco]

Talking about real tea - so not in bags and not herbal - my first teas have been Matcha and Gyokuro - bought at the same time in a local teashop.
Both have been nice and hooked me on Japanese tea.
But would not buy them again - compared to what I order from Japan directly they are only mediocre quality for a premium price.

On Friday at home I had some Antlers d'Amour from NbT. Interesting African white tea that is made of little twigs and not leaves. Tastes great though.

ciao
Marco

[Cael]

The thing I realized recently was that every large step that I have taken forward in my tea journey was started by an herbal tea. The first one was mint, which was later accompanied by some real teas, but none of them held any meaning for me. The next step forward was a lemon tea of my own concoction which would start me on figuring out how to drink teas for when I was sick and what was helpful and what wasn't. The next step forward was licorice which was accompanied by a Puer. I put it down as being a puer that was the first one I bought. I know that I hadn't had either of those teas before that day, but on a whim I decided that I was going to buy them. Since then I have never looked back, only forward to explore new teas and learn more about tea in this wacky tea journey I seem to be on.