Tuesday and Presidents' Day 2/21-22/11 First Impression Tea?

[Chip]

Happy Presidents' Day!

Welcome to a new TeaDay. Everyone is welcome here, so do drop in throughout the day and share what is in your cup with us!

Over the weekend we discussed ... heights. You can still vote and discuss the weekends topic!

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic. First Impression Tea, what was your most memorable/best first impression tea? Please be sure to share details.

We are looking forward to sharing this TeaDay with ... everyone. Bottoms up.

[Xell]

I didn't know that tea can be really nice drink until i came to Japan. Before that my drinks were usually water/cola/juice/beer.

[Nenugal]

My tea-awakening came from a small box of Tie Guan Yin that was part of a set of 6 different Chinese teas. A really exceptional first impression.

[IPT]

My first tea was a Yunnan dark tea back in the mid 1970's. What I wouldn't give to have some of that now. I grew up on milk, orange juice, and water and that was a huge shocker! The first cup I didn't like, but I was told to keep drinking it, and to not be rude, I did. By the time the tea leaves were spent I could accept it. By the end of the second pot, on the next day, I was hooked.

[debunix]

I think my best first impression of a tea was my first brewing of an inexpensive pouchong from TenRen. I had been drinking a very limited group of teas for a long time--traditional dark roast TKY, green tea with jasmine, occasional cheap shu puerh. This tea made a 'wow, are there more out there like you?' impression that shortly inspired by tea journey of the past few years, into the wider world of tea.

Today, having a lovely 4th or 5th impression of Dens Tencha Kuki Houjicha, a lovely gentle evening tea, still a pleasant flavor after many infusions. This was another tea that made a good first impression.

[karmaplace]

Best first impression tea... Technically I have two, because there are two specific moments I can think of where I just said, "Wow."

The first time was after my mother gave me my first teapot (a Japanese beehouse pot) and looseleaf teas from Argo Teas. I tried their green chai, and was just blown away. I still drink it today, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to find it to order again.

The second time was after I came back to Korea, and bought my first Korean green. I had been drinking deep steamed Japanese sencha daily, but grabbed a canister at the local mart and tried it out. I had had to translate one of the words in their description, which turned out to be "soft" as in "soft tasting." It was very true. Since then I've been hooked.

Today's tea day has been really interesting. I picked up a small travel set while I was in Daegu and brought it in to work. I decided that I wanted to use up all the rest of my Teavana teas so that I have room for new and better things, so I brought in my canister of their Ayuverdic Chai to keep at my desk. My students (all in elementary school) were so intrigued by the smell and watching me brew that they all begged me for tastes and LOVED it.

It seems I may have inspired future teaheads, even off the low quality stuff.

[Tadpole]

The tea that really captured my obsession with tea in general was an Alishan from Red Blossom Tea Co sometime in 2005 or 2006. At that time I had tried jasmine pearls, tiekuanyin, dragonwell, some white tea, and some black tea including darjeeling. When I tried a sample tasting cup of Alishan, I was surprised at the flavor profile. No other tea is quite like Taiwanese oolongs. Fruity, creamy, light but substantial, sometimes vegetal, often floral, always lingering aftertaste. And then I kept going on to try Li Shan, San Lin Xi, Fu Shou Shan, Wen Shan Baozhong. I'm crazy for any Formosa oolongs! I enjoy comparing Spring vs Winter versions whenever available.

Didn't vote this one, but recently tried a dancong that tasted like lychee and flowers. It's kind of unattainable right now due to cost per ounce, but I'll keep fantasizing until my birthday.

My first memory of consciously enjoying loose leaf tea was at a modern tea lounge called Samovar in S.F. A friend invited me to go. This was maybe in 2005. Prior to this I did not know there were places that people go to for pots of loose leaf tea. All I really drank at home was Lipton and Celestial Seasonings (which are just fine BTW for what they are). I want to say I ordered a pot of either white or oolong, because I wanted to try something that wasn't typical. At the time, I believed typical tea is either green or black. How cute, huh? After this first tea lounge experience, I sought out ALL the tea houses and tea shops in the city, spent the next 2 years trying 1oz-2oz samples of any loose tea I thought was interesting.

Fast forward to 2011....I'm a regular urban tea snob with a fabulous teaware collection that really does not need to expand, but I can't help myself. So I invite people over so everything is put to use all the time. This means buying more tea, all the time!

I just told TC my whole story of intro to tea, didn't I? It is 2:32 am where I am right now. I have no business being up this late. Six hours ago I was drinking silver needle. Two hours before that, it was Fu Shou Shan. Some time before that, it was a Tiekuanyin following a decaff flavored black tea. Four different teas in a day. Is this excessive???

[artmom]

Victoria (I miss her posts)shared a white rose tea with me that absolutely brought tears to my eyes it was so exquisite. Have never found another white rose tea that was that good. I will never forget that experience.

This morning, Golden Lion Assam. Again.

[verus]

Cheap oolong from a local shop here...it's my tea secret.

It feels a bit like finding a million dollar Ming vase in a second hand charity shop on sale for a couple of bucks... It's cheap (5 euros for 100 grammes) and yet it tastes better than all the expensive oolongs I tasted afterwards (although I haven't tasted the really expensive stuff yet )

I'm sipping on Margaret's Hope first flush.

[LauraW]

Wow.. so it's been a while since I've been around. Life kinda got turned upside down for a while, but things should start slowing down in the next couple weeks, so hopefully I'll be around more.

Two stories stick out to me for today's topic: one was being in France for 3 months and drinking tea every morning, which I'd never done before. It wasn't quite so much the particular tea as the experience, thoigh o did enjoy the tea. Second would be a pot of white tip silver needle shared with a good friend - this really opened my eyes to the world of tea.

Well, and then, like artmom, I got a package from Victoria one day, but mine was full of oolong samples. All of which i loved.

Today, just Fujian so far. Might switch to Snowbud shortly...

[Abracadaver!]

The tea that made a big enough impression to get me to switch to loose leaf was, funnily enough, a vanilla tea from Tealuxe in Harvard Square a little over ten years ago... I still crave that tea, now and again.

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Snow on the ground, Mao Feng in the pot, Mystery Aloeswood in the burner and Neil Young on the stereo. Not a bad way to spend a Monday afternoon.

[dokpm0]

I'm still in the newbie sampling stage trying to figure out what I like. Out of the umpteen samples I've tried there's been one where I took one sip and thought, "WOW!!" It was an inexpensive loose leaf pu-erh from Upton Tea, China Pu-Erh Standard. I've sinced sampled a couple of other pu-erhs from Upton. I've liked them all, but none have had the wow factor of the first.

I haven't had any tea yet today. I'm still trying to choose a kettle to acquire for tea brewing at work. After this morning's experience with the coffee club at work I'm even more anxious to to switch from coffee to tea at work. The off brand coffee brewed with tap water usually takes a good bit of creamer and sugar to doctor it up enough to drink. I drink good coffee black. Every so often lately a random pot of coffee at work has tasted absolutely horrid, like there was something very wrong with either the coffee or water used to brew it. The last cup I got this morning had such a taste. I took one sip and tossed the rest.

[tortoise]

This is the one that comes to mind. It was some green oolong from TenRen on Mott Street. I think it was Chinese Anxi because it was single rolled leaves. Up to that point I had not experienced any green oolongs only heavily roasted, dark brown ones like TKY. I loved and still love the aroma of dry green oolongs. I still have the tin that it came in. I should post a pic and see if anyone can tell me exactly what it is.

After lunch I had 4 infusions of 2010 "farmer's choice" baozhong. Another great green oolong.

[Chip]

It seems so many teas made lasting first impressions, and it took all day to rewind my personal TeaJourney to find that first and perhaps best first impression. Around 12 years ago, I believe the very first looseleaf tea I purchased was from gateway tea company Republic of Tea. Back then they had pretty good teas, but their focus was clearly moving towards mainstream.

All Day Breakfast was my looseleaf intro, my intro to keemun, and also was combined with a highly oxidized Taiwan oolong. I remember trying to replicate the blend ... so also fueled my interest in blending.

There are a lot of teas not far behind, including the pivotal sencha ...

Speaking of sencha, began the TD with Hosen from Ippodo with the Mrs. Next up, yeah another sencha, 7132 Organic from the O-C. And finishing with Musashi karigane also from O-C.

Currently, continuation of yesterday's Malaysian 90's Pu-OTTI.

Great TD.

[Chip]

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