Weekend TeaDays 3/5-6/11 Coffee or TeaBags, oh my?

[SlientSipper]

teabags are a sin

coffee is delicious!

My thoughts exactly.
Stole the words right off my finger tips.
Since I'm typing and not talking.

[Skippyandjif]

Neither-- I'm a big believer in "drink what you love, love what you drink", so I think if you like coffee or bagged tea, then it's fine to drink it. Besides, there are some occasions when it's impossible to have anything other than bagged tea... Like in every restaurant I've ever been to except for maybe one. Oh well.

Pu-erh all day and all night today. Mmm. I love it so much!

Also, yesterday, I tried Korean green tea for the first time. I LOVED IT.

[Chip]

HA, in true irony ... or was it coincidence ... well, whatever. Had a very verrry generic teabag at a birthday party held at a local restaurant/banquet hall. Brand name "LUKAS" I believe. Wasn't any worse than Lipton.

Fortunately before that, had a grand opening of Ippodo's top tier asamushi, Kaboku. The first steep was fantabulous!

[entropyembrace]

I started my day with medium roast Veracruz coffee....and now in the evening I´m drinking raw puerh...Dayi 8582-802

[TubbyCow]

I can respect good, black coffee just as much as good tea. I don't prefer coffee, but I understand people who do.

'Course, my husband works at Starbucks, so I'm a bit biased.

[Jayaratna]

Being a tealiban I would go for teabags.
Cappuccino could work for me though

I'm probably brewing some Wild Arbour King Puer from Mengku for the family this morning.

Sencha Shizuku (Fukuoka) for myself later.


A

[karmaplace]

I'm not a big fan of coffee, and I definitely would never choose to use a tea bag over loose leaf, but I don't think it's necessarily a "sin" to drink either. I had complained on the "likelihood of using a tea bag" topic because I was carrying around a tea bag a co-worker had given me for days, putting off drinking it. It turned out it was a peppermint tisane, and tasted pretty good.

Coffee shops are a big thing here in Korea, but very few of them do coffee that would be considered great, and most of them don't offer tea other than the bagged variety. If you order a tisane, you may get a pot or infuser, but teas are usually bagged or powdered (shudder). I'll stop rambling now.

I've had decent TeaDay so far. The boyfriend and I started out with some Formosa Bai Hao we started yesterday and had refrigerated overnight. Then we tried out Adagio's Ceylon Sonata. After he left, I started preparing for the week's classes with some Assam Melody.

I'll be taking the those last two sample bags (the Ceylon and Assam) with me to work. They're not bad, but neither I nor my boyfriend have much taste for them. I'll guzzle them at work and save the good stuff for home and relaxation.

Today's class preparation:

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[Marco]

Very nice view karmaplace

I've chosen "neither", 'cause it depends what’s in it.
There is sold a lot of crap coffee and a lot of crap teabags but a lot of crap loose leaf tea too. Don't you think?
With a good quality tea there is no problem with putting it into a bag. (Okay the leaves need its space but it could be worse)
And a good quality coffee is something great. I like my espresso after dinner.
So be tolerant with drinking habits

A nice tea-weekend so far sampling different Puer. Some are not my kind but some are very nice. Especially liked a 2004 Menghai Square Puer called Fangcha. It is Sheng but I have seen this as Shu too somewhere. Is this possible?
Have to drink some greens later on I think.

[NOESIS]

I voted "neither".

I still have a few good cups of french pressed arabica coffee (usually Ethiopian, Kenyan or Sulawesi) every week. Fresh beans ground just before brewing, produce a wonderful brew. Teabags often get the job done when I'm on the road, but obviously it can't match quality loose leaf.

[iannon]

"Good" coffee wins out for me over teabags..but Bad coffee vs teabags? ehh...

[Proinsias]

Good teaday today.

Started off with some of Master Matusumoto's Japanese black/red brewed western style in a 1.2 litre stainless steel pot. Drank from a mug with a splash of full cream milk to accompany some bacon rolls for a lazy, sunny Sunday brunch. My better half said it was foul, so I made her some weak instant coffee with skimmed milk & sugar to ensure everyone was happy

A close friend and his fiancé popped by and I managed a round of Korean sparrow tongue green. It's lovely but by the tenth brew I'm sweating, a lot. Making the odd brew with much hotter water feels like it gives me more of an insight into the tea, I'm finding subtle nuances become very obvious and easier to detect and enjoy when reverting back to gentle brews.

With evening came some '03 loose Menghai shu pu from Jing. At first I thought this needed to be left for another few years as it's still a little funky but it's nothing that 3 flash rinses doesn't sort out, and it still leaves the leaves with plenty of life. I bought it to drink now and glad I've found a way to make that very enjoyable.

So today I have been mainly enjoying using rather careless brewing for master grade tea and then putting milk in it, brewing pricey greens with boiling water and pouring the first three brews of my pu down the drain.

[verus]

I have some tasty baggy tea! It sure ain't no sin to drink the juice I squeeze out of them.

And coffee is sinfully good, but still it's no sin to drink it.

[Cael]

Wincing and laughing as I vote. I have to say tea bags are the worse sin. Funny though because I just reviewed a tea bag that I love. I guess sometimes it feels good to sin a little.