Hello and Thanks from Colorado!

[brian]

I've been a coffee drinker off/on for years, with occasional excursions to the supermarket tea aisle for the typical bagged and boxed Earl Grey, Constant Comment (tm), etc. I am a bit sensitive to caffeine, which has led me to Celestial Seasonings, Yogi, and others for herbal beverages when I want something hot in the evening (oh, and rooibos -- I shared an office with a South African guy a few years back who taught me the joys of rooibos, I love it). A tea-drinker friend at work recently introduced me to (shu) pu-erh, which I really enjoyed, so I thought I'd expand my horizons a bit and work tea into the morning rotation.

I tend to get a little (or a lot) obsessive when I get into something new, so of course I went to the internet and started researching before I bought anything. How lucky I was to find this forum! Lots of great info and suggestions for getting started. Green tea caught my fancy for no particular reason, so I ordered the green tea sampler and one of the little glazed kyusu from Den's, and the Chinese green sampler from seven cups. And I had seven cups throw the rock oolong sampler into my order as well, we'll go there next.

One of my kids (high-school aged son) is a bit of a "foodie", and has been a tea drinker for a while (he doesn't care for coffee), so he's pretty excited to be joining me on this journey. We got up early this morning and brewed up our first pot, the Sencha Fuka-midori from Den's. Poured about 1/2 of the 10 g. sample into the pre-heated kyusu, steeped for 1 min. as suggested, very nice! Beautiful pale green color, a bit grassy but I was reminded more of a light flavor of cooked greens. 2nd infusion cut back to 30 seconds, wow, that may have even been a bit long. Much bigger hit of flavor and maybe a bit of bitterness (now I see Den's suggests 15 sec. for second infusion for this tea). 3rd infusion similar flavor profile to the first. Tried for a 4th with full boiling water and 2+ min. steep, but I think it's done, this one is very pale and weak.

So we're on our way! Wanted to stop by and say thanks to all who have posted. With your help we felt confident this morning that we would get a decent brew, had fun playing with the new toys, and had some nice, relaxing time together before the rest of the family got up to get ready for the school/work day.

Cheers! Brian

[LauraW]

Welcome! Always nice to hear a great story like that. Hope to hear more as you keep discovering more!

[Chip]

Welcome to TeaChat, Brian. I am looking forward to seeing you and your obsessed behavior on the forum!

Thanks for sharing with us.

[Victoria]

Welcome, nice to have you with us!

[olivierco]

Welcome!