Wednesday TeaDay 5/13/09 How long a tea drinker?

[brad4419]

I can say with 100% certainty that my SERIOUS tea drinking began on Feb 1st '09 8:31 pm If you notice thats when I joined teachat. Thanks to teachat I even know the time.

I had been drinking teabags off and on for several years before but that doesn't count.

On a side note yesterday felt like I won the lottery because a local tea/coffee shop had a huge moveing sale. In all I bought a little over 2 pounds of loose leaf tea + 20 harney & sons bags for less than $20.

Heres a list to make you drool
kenilworth
white peony
peach Oolong
genmai chai
borengajuli
earl grey cream
earl grey
blueberry/black
royal ceylon gunpowder

To top all that off this morning my teasprings package came

[Herb_Master]

brad4419

on my screen it says Feb 2nd

1.31 AM

But that is Greenwich Mean Time

we are now on British Summer Time so most of my TeaChat display times are 1 hour wrong, but as you joined in February when GMT prevailed the 5 hour difference would be correct!

[shogun89]

less than 3

[Geekgirl]

Great news, your PM boxes have been increased! And there was much rejoicing in the land of TeaChat ...

Yay!


In my cup: momo oolong super grade from lupicia. yummy. I've been drinking loose leaf seriously for less than two years. Before that, I would put down a full pot of coffee most days, but it was starting to cause me some health problems, so I switched to tea out of necessity, and it turned into a bit of an obsession!

Sal, that looks like a cup full of eels.

[Cinnamon Kitty]

During a trip up to Stratford, Ontario, Canada for the Shakespeare festival in the spring of 2004, my friend and I stopped at a tea shop during our explorations of the city. The owner of that shop taught us about the importance of timing and temperature while brewing loose leaf tea. I ended up with a large bag of loose peppermint leaf, some Earl Grey, and my tea scoop that I still use every day. I remember coming back from that trip and actually using a timer with my tea for the first time. That event definitely switched me to being a serious tea drinker.

Currently in my cup is Fukamushi sencha supreme.

[spot52]

both in my cup



this too

[brad4419]

Spot52 howd you get Earl in your cup and how did he taste?

[spot52]

Spot52 howd you get Earl in your cup and how did he taste?

LOL, it was tough but he tasted grey.

[CutieAgouti]

Always had tea throughout my life, but seriously started a year ago with loose leafs and the more expensive stuff

Jasmine earlier today. Matcha and some other greens for the rest of the day

[yoshter576]

About a year and a month now. Today i wanted something new so I tried black Mango and later today white peach.

[mangaka]

Oh no! I just received my Teavana order, which should have included a bone china tea set. But the many parts of the tea set is broken and the wrong items were included in the set. What do I do? Do you guys know if Teavana is generally good with refunds and whatnot? >.<

(bad choice of vendor, I know, but i was tempted by their double walled glasses with flowers on them, and the bone china set seemed like a good deal too)

TT.TT

[entropyembrace]

I've been drinking tea for most of my life but as a kid it was mostly Celestial Seasonings and Tetley...you know the basic supermarket brands. In high school I started using better teabags like Numi, Stash and Twinnings...then just over 3 years ago I accidentally bought a tin of loose Twinnings English Breakfast...I found a small local teashop and went to buy a ball infuser for the Twinnings and also picked up a bag of strawberry flavoured Ceylon...Even though it was mostly fannings and broken pekoe the Twinnings did taste better without the bag around it and the strawberry Ceylon was delicious...all broken but not dust! Anyway after that I kept coming back and trying more and more loose leaf teas, pretty quickly moving towards the whole leaf artisan teas in the shop...I was pretty seriously into it by then!

Drinking Phoenix #1 Iron Goddess today ^^

[DoctorD]

I said longer than 15 years, but it depends a bit on how seriously you take "seriously." Most of the time I'm pretty light-hearted about it... But our house has been a coffee-free zone for at least 15 years, and loose tea has been lurking around the place at least as long, if not longer, so maybe that's as good an index as any. For us as for many others, the Internet dramatically changed the rules of the game a decade or so back.

Hairy Crab oolong tonight, Longjing earlier in the day.

[Chip]

Thank you Chip! They are the Uji- jumped into Ocha cart after reading your review on one of the teachat polls- and I'm finding that I love them for travel and at work at this very busy time of year.

One more question- I brewed a cup this am with every intention of brewing a second right before the kids came in- well, its now 2:30 and I decided to just go for a fresh bag. How long do Japanese greens keep even if in a teabag?

Prolly toooo late, I never experimented with the bags since I use them in restuarants usually. But sencha is best when used fairly quickly, still hours later, I am sure you can derive some pleasure from them. Worst case, throw it in ice water.

[Chip]

TeaDay progressed with genmaicha served by Yao (not Ming).

This evening, a bit later than what I would call wise, I tried one of a major and very unanticipated windfall of Darjeeling First Flush, compliments of the "A" team, around 35 or so samples (all sold by the Kilo, so I won't be buying here)!!!!!!

This is the first one I tried with my wife, and one of the more expensive ones, Singtom White Tea, (lot # 1808 if anyone is interested). This is a pretty different white. The first steep was distinctly apricot and evolved quite nicely through 4 steeps so far. Oddly, a bit of black walnut leaf taste crept in and some floral undertones.