Gather around my tea drinkers, let us connect spiritually and emotionally to our favorite pass time.
It's a drink of noveltea.
>>7219371
Can we keep the thread alive until bump limit for once?
First for Tie Guan Yin
Second for Earl Grey
>>7219371
>>7219516
>>7219528
F A G S
A
G
S
>>7219609
you gotta be a little gay to enjoy tea, it's a feminine thing to do.
>>7219609
We're all fags here. Its a safe place.
Fuding White tea I got in fujian.
>>7219516
Probably my favourite green tea.
>>7219726
>>7219726
>Probably my favourite green tea.
Tie Guan Yin is more oolong than green, though.
Just got done drinking some chai rooibos. The rooibos smoothes out the sometimes potency of chai.
>>7219730
That looks disgusting.
>>7219730
>white tea
you got shafted by some Argentinians m8
>>7222787
Can you read?
Puerh isn't the only kind of tea you can found in cake.
>>7222787
>That's a pu-er tea cake.
How did you arrive at that result?
i like cups of tea.
>>7219371
Just made myself a nice, hot masala chai latte.
Loose masala chai, coconut milk, and a couple tablespoons of a strong masala chai syrup I make and keep in fridge for such occasions. Coconut milk froths really nicely.
In the mornings, I usually start off with just some straight Assam or Keemun, no sugar, no milk, just hot and dark. As the day goes on, I'll switch to Sencha or Darjeeling, or Gunpowder green. In the evenings, though, I like something like I said I'm having now, a soothing, spicy chai latte OR if I'm too awake or wound up and I know I'll have trouble falling asleep, I'll make some chamomile tea or one of those "sleepytime" type blends.
Currently drinking a cup of organic Sencha green tea. Although being a cheaper version of Gyokuro (€2.80 per 100g) it's still quite nice and smooth.
>>7222787
So basically someone took old moldy tea and stashed it away for so long, and were like "ching fuck it chong lets drink this shit".
>>7223740
>organic
This nigga gets it. Anything organic is automatically top tier.
>inb4 Monsanto shills coming to defend GMO products.
>>7223740
Sencha isn't a cheaper gyukuro. Ones grown in the sun, and the other the shade. However, both totally kick ass and I wish gyukuro was cheaper.
>>7224798
We've got internet for 25 years and you know since then what people are capable of.
Now, consider the fact that tea culture is 5000 years old, by that time everything has been tested, you can be sure of that. Someone someday has tried to shove it up his ass, you can be sure of that.
I used to buy overpriced shit in tiny bags, nowadays I usually drink cheap green or fruit tea from the drug store or this one.
I like genmaicha. How entry level am I?
>>7224856
Forgot to add a picture.
>>7224804
>This nigga gets it. Anything organic is automatically top tier.
Don' be ridiculous, all teas are organic. It doesn't make it god tier. It's more like, thank god it's organic, it would be shit tier otherwise.
When they say that this one is organic and not this other one it just means that one actually took the time to make the paperwork and the other one just doesn't care.
But for real, all loose tea that aren't total shit are organic. If not, it's shit-tier. Just look in your cup, if you got some whole leaves or even part leaves there is no way this isn't organic. The only ones that aren't organic are the ones that do crush, tear, curl and all you get is fanning or dust.
There is only one exception: Japan. Because Japan both is very industrial and care too much about tea to use crush, tear, curl. Be careful with Japanese teas. But China, Nepal, India, Taiwan, Sri-lanka are all good and most probably organic even if there is no label.
>>7224872
I also forgot to mention how many tea crops are sprayed with pesticides which aren't even washed off after the harvest. So all those chemicals are going straight into your cup when you drink it. Cancer.
>>7219371
I put thethar drething in my tae
>>7224945
Source? I doubt that.
Maybe for shit tier supermaket brands but expensive loose tea? I don't think so.
>>7224872
You should definitely be concerned about organic - particularly with Chinese teas. It was huge news in 2012 for Chinese tea drinkers.
http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/publications/reports/food-agriculture/2012/pesticides-chinese-tea-report/
>Richun tieguanyin
>Eight Horses Jasmine
>Tenfu's Bi Luo Chun
>Zhu Ye Qing
But organic doesn't make God tier - there are too many different factors that go into the flavour profile for tea, such as root growth, sun exposure or the lack of, roasting or curling methods, etc.
>>7225001
>http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/publications/reports/food-agriculture/2012/pesticides-chinese-tea-report/
>well-known tea companies including China Tea Company Limited (referred to
below as China Tea), Tenfu’s Tea, Beijing Wuyutai Tea Company Limited,
(referred to below as Wuyutai), Zhang Yiyuan Tea Company Limited, (referred
to below as Zhang Yiyuan) and Richun Joint-stock Company (referred to below
as Richun)
WTF are those? I looked up some of these, looks like pleb tier shit. Probably industrial huge amount cheap tea from China to China.
I don't feel concerned at all.
>>7225024
Read the report instead of skimming and jumping to conclusions. Both the EU and Japan tightened Chinese tea import controls due to pesticide levels - doesn't that suggest to you that it's not just a matter of "China to China"?
>>7225050
I buy tea from Western Or Western-China collaboration companies that always that always make the trip to the actual tea field before buying anything. I mean, the PHYSICAl shop in my town does that! Some of them aren't labelled as "organic" but for fucking christ they are!
Then, you're telling me that some big brand shit teas Chinese company does some shit. I don't fucking care, WTF? The tea you buy from most high quality tea shops online don't buy from these companies.
Does, teavivre tea has pesticide? Does white2tea teas have pesticide? Does Yunnan-sourcing teas have pesticide? No, I don' think so. Even if they aren't always labelled as organic.
Those shitty companies don't provide west. Except maybe supermarkets and teavana. You don't have to buy only organic tea because everything else is bad, you just have to not buy shit.
I don't feel concerned at all by this report.
I'm new to tea drinking, trying to wean off shitty sodas so I want to stick to water and tea. What's a good tea that won't require some sort of bizarre taste to acquire? Think something very citrusy or something of that nature.
Pls help
I never order tea at a cafe because the price is just to(o) steep.
>>7225082
It's great that you buy teas from companies that are aware of where their teas come from - I think this is important and it's something that I do too. But let's go back to what you originally said - "all teas are organic". And then you went on to say that the teas are bound to be organic, provided that they're not just fanning and dust. I don't think this is a reasonable gauge.
How can you assume that these are shit tier companies just because you haven't heard of them. Chinese tea companies don't have much of an online presence anyway, let alone one in the West. But look at the prices - quite a few are around 1600RMB/kg, i.e. $111/lb. This isn't shit-tier tea. What would it take to convince you that this problem does exist?
What makes you think that teavivre, white2tea, etc. don't have teas with pesticides? What companies do they source their teas from? And what does location have to do with pesticide? Of course Yunnan teas could have pesticide - Fujian and Anxi teas do.
>>7225097
>citrusy
Lady Grey.
>>7225107
Because Western drinkers are kind of a very small market buying from very small companies. It's all human-sized. I don't think anybody in this general thread buy from these Chinese companies tested by green-peace. This kind of small online website that aim for westerners are very trustable.
>What makes you think that teavivre, white2tea, etc. don't have teas with pesticides?
I don't know for white2tea because I never actually bought from them but for teavivre it's simple:
They actually provide an analyse certificate of all of their product organic or not. They're all being tested. They also provide the exact address where it was produced and the year it was made. And they STILL don't are all labelled as organic.
>What companies do they source their teas from?
Those kind of tea company never have any intermediate, they deal with the producers.
>And what does location have to do with pesticide?
Yunnan-sourcing is an online teashop that sale high quality tea, not labelled as organic, but probably without any kind of pesticide.
Yunnan is a huge region, of course a lot of shit happens there.
The western market of high quality tea is probably very safe to drink. It works in parallel of the industrial market and just has nothing to do with it.
>>7225159
Good answers, teavivre sound trustworthy.
I would say, however. that a lot of people buy tea in person from stores that just sell cheap, generic loose leaf teas, whether this be supermarkets or Asian stores. There are also those that buy teas on eBay or Aliexpress. I do know that such people have posted in tea threads in /ck/, /jp/, and /cgl/.
I hear Teavana uses artificial flavoring in their blends... is this true? Are they seriously adding laboratory made chemicals just to make their tea taste "better"?
>>7225181
I don't know about the US, but here in France all teashops I've seen buy from tea companies that can be found online and only FRENCH tea companies. It's actually very easy to tell from which company which tea come. The most popular is Dammann frères which isn't the most trustworthy but it's still not a huge industrial, it's human-sized and they care about what they are doing. I don't think there is a pesticide problem even with them.
That's the probably one of the worse of loose tea selling. And even them have some (not too demanding) certifications: http://www.dammann.fr/img/cms/CERTIFICAT%20IFS%20FRANCAIS%202015_certificate_154299_fr%2011-08-15.pdf
I'm convinced that what green-peace found is very specific and not very concerning the western loose tea market.
>>7225185
Wouldn't surprise me. Teavana is at least not as bad as lipton but they still are a powerful industrial brand.
>>7225185
This is a problem with a lot of blends from mainstream tea shops.
Basically, if it's anywhere near a mall or supermarket, it's shit.
>>7225097
Well most teas will taste surprisingly at first I believe, if you only drank bad quality before that.
All tea taste very differently and there is very litter things to compare accurately. So you really have to taste it to understand what it taste like, and it will probably surprise you at first.
However, I don't think that it's a taste to acquire. You can drink it for the first time and already tell if you like this kind of tea or not. It will take some time to tell if a tea taste bad or not (as in not supposed to taste like that) though.
>>7225097
>Think something very citrusy or something of that nature.
You can start anywhere, really.
see
>>7214944
>>7225285
I think some teas are acquired tastes. To those who have not had similar teas, Japanese green teas can seem disgusting at first but very pleasant later (it's mostly down to how vegetal they can be).
>>7225308
Well, I just tasted Matcha for the first time recently and it tasted bad, so you may be right.
But Sencha is more accessible. Especially the kind of Sencha you'll find at first price. And you always start at first price and go up. You don't start with pricy teas.
>>7225252
Sooner or later it's gonna catch up to Teavana. The recent health food trend in the past 10 years is propelling even places like Walmart to support organic food, and people are becoming more aware of the processed shit in what they ingest. Teavana will have to abandon their current methods of making synthetic chemicals in a lab just to give it an extra zing. People are demanding real food that isn't sprayed with pesticides and isn't genitically modified.
>>7224872
>It's more like, thank god it's organic, it would be shit tier otherwise
yup, pretty much this
>>7225097
>citrusy
A lot of green teas have blended versions of them with citrus herbs, a nice one is green tea with lemongrass
>>7225185
yes I asked them and they said certain blends have artificial flavors
>>7224818
Ah I didn't know that, nice info. And yeah I agree, Gyokuro is way overpriced, my store sells it for €17,- per 100g...
>>7231074
>Gyokuro is way overpriced
The only Gyokuro my store sell is priced 50€ per 100g. (the higher price of all Japanese tea they sell) 17€ really isn't that bad
Well it's not just any Gyokuro but supposedly "one of the best Gyokuro". But still, that's telling. It can be way worse that 17€
Also, gyokuro is a lot of fucking work to make and it's no surprise it is expensive. Tea can't grow 100% in shade, they have to uncover and cover it again. Processing is made by hand, etc. It is a high quality tea and so it is pricey, just deal with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdxzB5p6h8
>>7224964
yes yes good goy...why would we lie to you?
why wouldn't we care for your health over profits?
>>7231140
I keep checking many other brands. It's the same every fucking where.
http://www.dammann.fr/fr/gyokuro-perle-de-rosee-bio-.html
https://jingtea.com/tea/type/green/gyokuro
http://www.uptontea.com/store/item.asp?itemID=TJ81&from=searchResults.asp&searchString=gyokuro&searchOptionMatchAll=1&searchOptionCategory=1&searchOptionItemName=1&searchOptionItemDescription=1&searchOptionDocuments=0&searchOptionLimitCategory=&searchOptionPriceRange=0&sType=new&begin=0
http://www.adagio.com/green/gyokuro.html
http://www.teavana.com/us/en/tea/green-tea/gyokuro-imperial-green-tea-31359.html
It's a pricey tea. Deal. With. It.
What's next? "Bouh jasmine pearl and silver needles are overpriced"?
cold rooibos "tea" is my go to during the summer after I have my morning green tea. give it a try sometime. it's great for warm summers in the evening.
>>7219528
earl is a good alternative to coffee in the morning because of the light acidity. it's what i recommend to anyone trying to get off coffee.
>>7221591
..."chai rooibos" doesn't make any sense. you'll have to be more specific, particularly about the "chai"
So I have a pretty basic question. I'm looking to upgrade from infusers/strainers to proper teapots, possibly a cast-iron type. Mainly because of falvor reasons and whatnot.
Now, I've never used a teapot in my life, so I'm simply wondering how you remove the tea leaves from the brew? I was thinking that one advantage would be that you could keep larger batches of tea warm easily and just pour more into your mug at need, but the tea can't steep for more than a few minutes.
I know most models come with built-in strainers and such, but that kinda defeats the purpose of getting a teapot in the first place.
>>7232762
>so I'm simply wondering how you remove the tea leaves from the brew
Long short story. It's probably a pain in the ass. There isn't any magical way to do it. It's the same than you strainer except bigger and more leaves everywhere.
That's probably not what you're looking for at all. But I can't help but recommend you a gaiwan. That is fucking easy to wash. But of course that isn't a solution for "larger batches" at all. In the contrary it's made to brew small quantities of water but over and over again.
>>7232762
Going from a decent brew basket (think finium) to a teapot isn't really an upgrade.
Also you can get a separate pitcher to store the tea in.
I made a green tea then a smoothie for some asian girl I met in Monterey Park. That night she gave me a good BJ and I banged her hard. Then I began to ignore her calls. I really like green tea smoothies. I usualy buy lipton green tea.
What do you think/
>>7232819
>lipton
Get out.
