Friday TeaDay 10/03/08 Enough tea in your life?

[kongni]

Beautiful image sal! I especially like the single leaf that managed to make its way into the cup. Perfectly imperfect! That's the beauty of tea. It's not some pristine perfectly clear beverage all of the time. Seeing the tea in your tea is part of the experience!

I'm pretty happy about the tea in my life. Every now and then I get the urge to buy
some high mountain oolong but I'll just have to wait until my next BIG purchase

Had some Hibiki-an organic shincha this morning. Sipping on kali cha from Tao of Tea right now. I love it!

[geeber1]

I believe for many tea users, the ultimate fantasy will not be owning all the tea at home, but having all kinds of tea in a reachable store and at a reasonable price.

I wish I had ANY kind of tea shop in my area. We have tons of wineries, but no tea, so sad! I would love to be able to go into a store and try out different teas before buying them

I have plenty of tea to last for a long time, but there are so many more that I want to try. Thankfully my husband is tolerant of my "addiction."

To answer the poll, there is NEVER enough tea!

Assam Melody in my cup this morning.

[olivierco]

I picked up some sencha at an asian import store while buying myself some ice cream (mochi). That stuff is amazing (the tea, not the ice cream), and I'm sure it's a sub-par sencha.

I underestimated you green people.

Welcome to the green world!

Miyabi sencha right now to start the week-end.

[Shelob]

I sometimes barely have enough food, let alone enough tea, and there are soooo many teas out there sometimes you just don't know where to start! I am having fun learning!

To loosely quote Victoria from yesterday {I don't know how to use that quote thingy!}
'Go for the teaware not the food'

Barely 5'1", barely 105 - no wonder i am nasty and feisty ;shelob needs good food or surely would curl up and die a tortured death in her 'lair' thanks for the sp correction chip

However, gifts will be graciously accepted to the Shelob's Sencha oops Oolong fund! Pottery is my thing, glass is high on the list!

In my cup right now is Silver Needle Yum

I have a feeling I'll b pulling an allnighter tonite, any tea suggestions to keep me 'fired -up'? [Inside pottery joke]

Tchin, Tchin to a FAB TeaDay
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[chamekke]

I have yet to try mugicha, and have wanted to for some time. What is the best way to get it?

I've always bought it in bag form (!) from local Asian grocery stores. Usually the label will look like this, with the first two characters (mu-gi) in hiragana:



... although sometimes you see a kanji for mugi instead - I think:



I've never bought it online so I can't advise re: a vendor, but honestly I don't think there's much to choose among sellers, as long as it's not beyond its best-by date.

The bags, incidentally, are huge - don't be shocked! I use two bags to cold-steep four litres at a time. During the summertime I keep a jug of this in the office refrigerator and help myself liberally. The taste is really refreshing.

You might enjoy these articles - about mugicha and how to home-brew it:
A Refreshing Summer Brew
Mugicha: How to Make Barley Tea
Mugicha (barley tea) is the flavor of summer in Japan

P.S. There's some information on U.S. sellers of mugicha at the bottom of the third article.
P.P.S. The Korean equivalent (which I think includes some roasted sweetcorn?) is called boricha. I've never tried it, but if you have any Korean grocery shops around, might be worth a go

[TIM]

I don't think there can ever be enough tea in my life!

Absolutely!

[Maitre_Tea]

and he brought me some of the roasted barley, Mugicha.

Mugicha is great - and healthful, too. I regularly bore people by telling them how great it is

It's best known as a chilled drink for summertime, but in Japan people also drink it hot in the winter.

The only thing is, it must be fresh. Stale/rancid mugicha tastes like the bottom of an ashtray. Not that I brew in ashtrays much, now that I've discovered gaiwan!

I have yet to try mugicha, and have wanted to for some time. What is the best way to get it?

I have considered just getting some barley and toasting or pan firing it myself since it is strangely hard to get in tea form. Or is it best to buy it as a tea? Where from, reasonably priced. I thing Ippodo has it, but I am not about to buy mugicha direct from Japan.

I find that they have bagged mugicha at many asian supermarkets, although the quality is so-so, it tastes great chilled in the summertime.

[gingkoseto]

For either real tea or barley tea, I don't like the bagged tea. I feel if I were the manufacturer, I wouldn't put the best-looking ones in bags

I get my barley tea from asian stores. It took me a long time to find it in our tiny asian store though. Eventually I found it on a shelf with rice, beans, cornmeal and other crops, same location in the other store. It turned out, since barley tea is not really tea, the store owners wouldn't put it on the shelf for tea.

[Wosret]

Working from home, so sadly, bagged tea for me today. I really need another infuser ball!

I just found out (looking at tetsubin on Amazon) that one of the trivets I inherited from my grandmother is specifically for tetsubin! Nice. Now I have a fabulous excuse to get one.

[leiche]

Yes and no. I have plenty of tea and all the time in the world to drink it (I'm a student in a non-traditional graduate program, so I do all my work from home), but can you ever really have enough tea? I always want more!

Still dragging despite the two cups of Assam Majulighur this morning. I suspect this will be a very tea-filled day.

[caligatia]

I chose "most definitely NOT". I have plenty of time to drink tea -- I'm on disability, although I'm trying to get into the vocational rehab program so I can go back to college -- but I don't have much money for tea. There have been times when I had to go without because I couldn't even afford Twinings! Thankfully my financial situation has improved a little and I can order a few different inexpensive teas this month. Mom and Sis chipping in means I can get some sample tins of different things, too. Yay!

[Cinnamon Kitty]

There is definitely not enough tea in my life at the moment. I ran out of sencha and can't get more until I go home for October break in a week. The rest of my tea stash is getting dangerously low so I keep hording all the good stuff that I really like and drinking the mediocre stuff that I am trying to finish off. The teas that are okay, but not favorites, do not make for overly thrilling tea days.

Today is starting with Valentines since I was craving something sweet.

[Victoria]

In my work cup - Tung Ting from Tevana
I'm getting a slight cinnamon note along with
a cooling aftertaste. It's interesting.

[henley]

Was in the mood for something completely different today. Finishing off the sample of Spiced Green that a friend shared w/me. It's not something I'll order but glad I got to try it. Am coming to the conclusion I'm just not a big fan of cardamon.