Monday TeaDay 10/12/09 China in your cabinet?

[Chip]

Greetings Tea afionados and welcome to TeaDay. Please come on in and share what is in your cup ... and your cup as well ... today.

Yesterday we had a teaware discussion. You can still vote and discuss yesterday's topic.

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic. Today we continue to discover a consensus of teas by country for TeaChatters. Today, please share whether or not you own any Chinese teas that are still fresh and usable? Share some information regarding your Chinese teas.

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

Be sure to check out Special Hagi Offer #6 under Teaware!

[Maitre_Tea]

Chinese teas dominate my tea cabinet, though it's more like a shelf. Whether it's yancha, high fired TGY, or even Pu-erh...China has it all, and these things can't be found anywhere else.

2008 Xiaguan FT "Instant Sensation" in my cup...the name is a huge understatement IMO, but it's a good drink this instant, but maybe it won't have the legs to age later on....(could be a leaf amount issue though)

[brlarson]

+1

Chinese Oolong comprise half of my tea stocks, and pu comprises a quarter of it. Most of my recent Chinese tea purchases will age well, so I don't mind having excessive stocks of yancha and pu. I'm a little heavy with good dancong, and I'm a little light with An Xi oolong, so I'll need to make some buying adjustments adjustments next year.

I still have too much sencha open, so that's what I'm drinking this morning -- a fifty-fifty blend of O-Cha Surugawase and Hibiki-an Sencha Premium. I think I'll crack one of the Kuradashi Gyokuro on Friday. In the meantime I might have some semi-wild wudong this afternoon.

[Drax]

+2

~90% of my teas are pu'erh... of course, I'm not actively drinking those. I do have a fair amount of oolongs and greens from China as well. I think as my interest settles down, I will get more into Japanese greens. I love them a lot, but I've been distracted by the 100 other types of tea... and then the greens go stale. So I think that now my tastes are settling down, next spring I'll focus on Japanese greens and enjoying them at their freshest.

I've got Columbus Day off, woo hoo! So I went out this morning for an early run. It's beautifully cool out, and it's nice to have the windows open to let in fresh air.

I need to brew up something here after I take a shower. Perhaps a Chinese green to celebrate the topic...?

[brlarson]

For me this measure isn't particularly useful.

A more reasonable measure is the amount of each type of tea consumed per month, per season, and per year. Each type of tea that you buy moves through your storage cabinet with some velocity, and you can measure that velocity if you look at your consumption rather than your purchases.

For example, roughly half of my tea stocks are Chinese oolong, one quarter are pu and one quarter are sencha and gyokuro. However, my consumption this year is 2090 grams of Chinese oolong, 1806 grams of sencha and gyokuro, and 78 grams of pu. This story about consumption is much more useful to me when I am planning tea purchases.

These rations will change as the weather grows cooler, but at the end of the year I will know exactly: the weight of each type of I tea I consumed, the true cost for each type of tea that I consumed, and the cost per gram of each type consumed. Over time I'll certainly refine this even more, which I will need to do to have better measures for gyo and matcha.

If I was only looking at dollars per gram purchased, then I could dilute these ratios artificially for Japanese greens by buying 400 grams of houjicha, even if I didn't intend to drink it. I do make a point of buying inexpensive Chinese oolong in addition to the very nice ones so that I can keep those average costs for consumption down, but I'm afraid that I've been less successful with the Japanese greens:-) (which are truly the ``crack'' of the tea world).

Anyway, measures are important to me, so I thought I would share these thoughts with you.

[Victoria]

Yes, at least a few. A few blacks, a couple of greens, and a few oolong. Humm and I guess some whites too. I think I have more then I initially thought.

Darjeeling Gopaldhara FF in my cup this morning from Camellia Sinensis.

Have a nice day everyone!

[depravitea]

Chinese teas dominate my tea cabinet, though it's more like a shelf. Whether it's yancha, high fired TGY, or even Pu-erh...China has it all, and these things can't be found anywhere else.

I couldn't have said it any better or differently. Exactly the same for me as well.

More Menghai Pu this morning. I can't stop...

[Intuit]

Yes, I have more than a few Chinese teas: greens, oolongs, blacks/reds and yellows/whites. Does not dominate distribution by origin, but comes close which is not a surprise given the sheer mass and diversity of teas produced and exported by China. Does represent a sizable portion, but does not constitute a majority by mass or number, of teas in my cupboard.

I'm an equal opportunity tea drinker.

Roasted high mt oolong in my cup. Assam/Ceylon blend for starters on this cold morning. We set new records this weekend for unseasonably low temps. Instant winter. Brrrrrr.

[geeber1]

Yes, I have a bunch - black, green, and white, although the greens and whites don't get used as much as the blacks.

Keemun Rhapsody at home this morning, and some bitter Nilgiri Kairbetta at work. I think I'm dumping this out!

[CynTEAa]

There are a lot of Chinese teas here! They probably dominate the assortment. When I reorganize I'll know for sure. Time for lunch! Have a great Columbus Day everyone!

[Chip]

Yep, I have a pretty good number of Chinese teas in house. Some Blacks, Oolong, Green, White, and Pu-erh. Chinese teas used to dominate my selection, and possibly still do in numbers, but not in usage anymore.

Began the TD with Hatsumi from O-Cha. SweeTea joined in while Wulong and TEAh and Fuji made a social call only.

Sencha Premier from Adagio might be next ...

[olivierco]

Two keemun, two yunnan gold, gold needles, five green (all first flush and almost finished), jasmine pearls, some oolongs and a white.
Many teas but I would say that tea from China represents only about 1/5 of my tea consumption.

Otsuusan sencha right now.

And I have just bought a nice looking wakasa nuri chashaku. Now I have a chashaku for each day of the week... (I couldn't think of any better reason to justify it)

[chamekke]

Lots of Chinese tea at the moment!

And... Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadian TeaChatters! We hold our Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. Our holiday arguably owes as much to the British harvest festival as American Thanksgiving ... but as North Americans, we do indulge in the turkey and pumpkin pie! (And maple glaze on the yams )

[Victoria]

You had pumpkin pie!!!!
Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Had some iced tea on the go and now a probably brewed-too-late
baozhong. Delish though.

[Dreamer]

Yep, I've got a couple of Chinese teas and room for more, too.

Yunnan Imperial from SpecialTeas is a yummy breakfast tea and just last week I got Black Spiral from Tao of Tea. I did enjoy some other Chinese teas in my Sampler from Adagio too, I've just not gotten back to them yet.

Today in my cup...Ceylon Vithanakande for the morning, fuka supreme for the afternoon and pretty soon some soothing Tulsi tea.

Mmmm, pumpkin pie...and I was just thinking about making a pan of my power pumpkin bread...pumpkin bread and hot black tea, mmmm so good.

Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian 'chatters.
Dreamer