Tea

[Gohron]

Thanks Nomi. Your post was very informative. I'll have to check some of that stuff out.

[Nomi]

I do recommend the $3 Den's Tea green sampler, because it comes with two full color booklets (20 or so pages) of really nice information. Gives you suggestions on at what temperature to brew various teas, how long to steep, different ways to experiment to find your preference, all that jazz. You can find a lot of that information online but I found that Den's booklet to be a great condensed guide for when I didn't know what I was doing (turns out I was scorching a lot of my delicate tea leaves and it made everything more bitter than it should have been).

[Dolemite]

Some teas are more prone to being burned than others...if I'm steeping one of those teas, I usually throw a few ice cubes on top of it before pouring the water.

[Nomi]

Well, each tea type has a different temperature range needed, as well as a length of time to be steeped, and amount of tea used can vary as well.

For example, a robust black tea needs freshly boiling water and can be steeped for 3-5 minutes. Green teas should never be originally steeped around 165-190 degrees F, depending on the tea, for 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Green tea (and white, and oolong) can be steeped multiple times, too! The second, third and subsequent infusions generally need an extra 30 seconds to 1 minute each and a 10 degree increase in temperature. You can get 3+ cups of green tea out of a hearty tsp or two of loose leaf green.

Sometimes you just get a really delicate or robust tea that needs to be treated as an exception. I had an amazing full-leaf green tea before that only needed steeped for 15 seconds, and at 20 degrees lower than I usually started at. I'd ruined several grams of the tea before taking note of the recommendations on the shipping slip. If you prefer stronger tea, it's usually best to add more actual tea leaf (or a second bag) than it is to increase the temperature or steep time.

Here's a general chart for types and average temperature + steep lengths. http://teasenz.wordpress.com/2013/03...brewing-guide/

[gameoverDude]

Teavana is awesome but so fucking expensive.

Agree on both. Seriously, monkey picked oolong is $200 per pound. I like their Body & Mind mix, which has some of that mixed with Jasmine Pearls green and Mao Feng white tea- very good, while not quite as expensive as the straight MPO.
Next time, I'm thinking of trying some Matcha green (80g/$35) and getting another couple tins of Moroccan Tea mints.

[Shin Johnpv]

My sister gave me some of their Green Tea Dragon Pearls, and some black tea pearls (forget the exact name) for Christmas. It was some damn good shit. I'm tempter to try some of their White Tea.