I began drinking tea when I became friends with the new girl in class when I was 11. Her family were drinking tea all day long, all of them. I don't remember the tea any more but I distinctly remember their HUGE handmade cups, and their steeping style of more or less just dunking a tea ball a couple of times in hot water. Very weak tea in other words, but it suited a first-timer like me.
I added both milk and sugar the first few times they made me tea, but quickly dropped the sugar. I still don't like sweet tea, not even iced. For most of my school years I kept on drinking tea, mostly Earl Grey since that was what my family bought, along with the occasional tin of jasmine. One cup before going to school, one or two when I came back. Sometimes later at night.
In my late teens and early twenties I started frequenting a certain tea shop in Stockholm and I became obsessed with flavoured teas, the weirder the better. This was the first of my tea crazes, which may have begun with a family trip to England where I bought tins of stuff like lychee tea at F&M.
I experimented with these for a number of years, until I realized most of them consisted of the same low grade teas with artificial flavourings added.
Around this time I developed a preference for pure black teas and I found a liking for Yunnan and Keemun, later Assam. Darjeelings have yet to wow me. It's not that I hate them, but given a choice I'd rather have something else.
Greens and oolongs I had only fleeting experiences with until quite recently.
I still remember what must have been my first oolong though, which must have been cheap 'Formosa oolong' a friend and I purchased from her local tea vendor. I remember the large leaves and long steeping times(something like 7 minutes done western style). The taste made me think of how an old, unpainted wooden park bench would smell in the rain.
In recent years I didn't pay much attention to tea, I kept to a small number of tried and tested favourites both flavoured and 'pure' and was ok with that. Greens crept in from time to time but failed to make an impression on me, in part due to me being unfamiliar with good brewing procedures...i e I basically cooked the lot of them
I do think however that having been a tea drinker for so long(I'm 38 ) has given me an understanding of quality and that I am able to distinguish between good and bad tea to an extent(Madeira greens...don't go there).
I'm no snob though, I happily drink what's available at any given time and try to make the best cup possible with what I have.
Recent developments have been finding a number of tea blogs...which led me here where I've lurked without signing up, for about four months.
These blogs introduced me to oolongs and the gong fu brewing method and I began buying my tea from the shops and Internet vendors they recommended.
Still greens didn't grab me until very recently after reading here and making a trip to my favourite Japanese food shop. This was two or three weeks ago and I'd been sort of curious about houji- and kukicha. That shop had both types on sale, marked down due to the packages having expired but they were ridiculously cheap so I though 'what the heck', got both plus some genmaicha for less than $1/100 g. I usually have it with food, very delicious.
But the kukicha....wow! The package said deep-steamed and the aroma is just...like no tea I 've come across before. Sort of savoury and strong...umami?
I had four 400 ml pots that first night.
And don't start me on teaware...
So here I am! Tea level +1
real name: Helen
lives: Sweden
occupation: IT "professional"
Most days I feel far from a pro...family: nope...five cats though
Right ,this is probably the longest post I've ever written...if you've made it all the way through i just wanted to say hi, and please take care of me...
