Friday TeaDay 8/07/09 First tea purchases?

[Chip]

Greetings and salutations everyone. Please come in and share with us what is in your cup today.

Yesterday we discussed what we liked best about purchasing tea online? You can still vote and discuss yesterday's topic.

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic. When you FIRST STARTED drinking tea seriously, did you make bad TEA purchases that you regretted? Please be sure to share with us.

I am looking forward to sharing TeaDay with everyone, bottoms up.

[Maitre_Tea]

I haven't made a bad tea purchase, since I'm sticking to trusted names and looking up what/where to buy from the threads here on TeaChat. My first "serious" tea purchase was from Hou De...definitely can't go wrong with that!

[Salsero]

I'm not so sure they were bad purchases since I learned from them, but I got some very disappointing light Taiwan oolongs with generic names like Jade Oolong that I took to be representative. They didn't do much to foster my interest in oolong. Some of the greens I ran across were also quite poor, but they all contributed to learning.

One tea that I disliked back then turned out to be a very good aged puerh. I just didn't understand how to approach it then. Fortunately I found it a year or two later and discovered what I had missed the first time around.

This SFTM ripe pu was one of the purchases that weren't great tea, but something definitely worth drinking and it didn't cost an arm and a leg either.

[Jack_teachat]

I agree with Sal. Buying and brewing more mediocre tea was all part of a learning curve for me.

Started the day with a steep of the Mr Liu's Hong Yun handmade Yunnan black tea (East Teas). I've been treating this one like a Pu-Erh, and unfortunately I don't think my morning tastebuds were quite ready for the delicate subtleTEAs of the latter steeps!

I'm now on campus so that will be about it for good tea until later, urggh!

Jack

[olivierco]

There are some teas I purchased that were just decent, but no bad tea.

Ippodo shincha this morning.

[Drax]

I've purchased only a couple of teas (even now) that I didn't enjoy to some extent. If I were to re-do anything, it would probably be to pull back on the amount, since I have a lot more tea that I can feasibly drink right now. Fortunately most of that is pu'erh, so it can age nicely. But I should probably be focusing on all the 2008 blacks, greens, oolongs, and whites that I have laying about...!

But this morning, I still haven't moved on from the TKY. I brewed a much longer cup than normal and it still turned out rather nice...

[Herb_Master]

My first purchases were in Malaysia after I stumbled upon the delights drinking tea in tea shops.

I bought Green Tea, Puerh and Oolong.

I was so captivated by the Oolongs, that 2 years later the Green Tea and Puerh remain untouched.

[JP]

Buying tea that I find I don't like is part of the learning process! While I haven't picked up anything undrinkable, I have made purchases that I won't repeat and I'm sure that'll happen again.

Starting off today with a Lichee Black that I found in a local Asian grocery.

[CutieAgouti]

So far I've lucked out, since I was able to do some research before buying most of my teas. Although I did buy a large quantity of rooibos that I can't stomach.

Matcha to start my day

[olivierco]

Himalaya gold this afternoon.

[brlarson]

I don't regret any of of my early purchases. I bought teas then that I wouldn't buy now, but I enjoyed them at the time -- they were my first steps on this TeaJourney. Besides, my brewing skills were terrible then. I had botched many good teas at the beginning but I learned through those failures. I have no regrets from my early TeaDays.

Teaspring's Bai Hao is my breakfast tea again today.

[leiche2]

I definitely regret most of the flavored blacks I bought early on. Even then, I didn't like most of them. Oh well. I learned from it. That's an okay kind of wrong.

About to enjoy some roasted TGY on this beautiful morning in Vermont.

[Victoria]

Perhaps I made some bad purchases, but that too was part of the learning curve. Mostly it was eBay purchases. I have not been floored by any of them, so I stopped.

My morning cup was a unmarked "FF" sample I believe from Salsero, the last of what was there. It still was pretty good.

Currently Tea Masters '09 Baozhong.

Have a nice day everyone!

[geeber1]

There are a few teas that I've bought because they sounded really good in the descriptions, but just didn't suit me. I'm sure they are good to someone!

I guess vendors can make a difference also - I tried Adagio's Yunnan Gold and Yunnan Noir, but didn't like them, but got some Yunnans in a tea swap and they were great!

Fujian Baroque in my cup this morning.

[sriracha]

Yes, some not-so-good purchases perhaps.

In a way I don't mind though, because being able to recognize a tea as inferior is a good thing. I didn't realize some of them weren't up to par back then, being very new to it all and perhaps not quite sure what to buy and how it was supposed to taste. I remember one or two oolongs, specifically.

I can't remember what tea I made with my breakfast but after that I had matcha. It really seems to help getting my energy levels up for the day and I often get more done in a shorter time these days.

Nipping out for a bit now to get my Hou De samples from the post office...I got the 1st issue of The Art of Tea with them so the package was too big to fit in my mail slot.