egalicontrarian

Here is a recent piece on NPR's site by Allison Aubrey, "Tea-Infused Sweets: Chocolate + Jasmine Tea is a Match Made in Heaven." Maybe there's another thread on this, but perhaps people could share their tea-related food creations.

Greetings, everyone. This evening I'm enjoying a Wu Yi Yan Cha oolong from Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak, MI. Here is a nice article from Seven Cups about this famous style of oolong, and here is the Goldfish Tea page. As I am partial to earthy teas (like raw pu-erh), I'm very much enjoying this oolong, which has a distinct earthy flavor.

Thanks! And nice pictures.

To Wholemeal Crank and anyone else - what does "new style" mean?

Interesting idea, Joe. I happy to have some Sleepytime in the house. Unfortunately I don't have Scotch, but I do have some bourbon whiskey, as well as some rum. I think I'll start experimenting with some nighttime mixtures!

Inspired by an exchange between Naftal and Hassouni in the winter tea thread, I thought I'd ask something different but possibly related: what coffee or tea mixtures do people make that they are either embarrassed to admit, or that they find delightfully disgusting or painful? This could be anything from plain old "I drink Folgers black every day!" to an exotic but grotesque mixed drink. I'll start: I'm about to drink my favorite disgusting infusion, Ku Ding, with a cheap bourbon whiskey, Fighting Cock. Interestingly, in my experience the aftertaste of Ku Ding easily outlasts - by a lot - hard liquor. My first experience in this genre was leaving several "nails" of Ku Ding in a bottle of Smirnoff for several days. The experience was roughly this: upon drinking, one is immediately hit with the familiar feeling of drinking Vodka, but then the extreme bitterness of the Ku Ding emerges and permeates the entire gustatory system. (Note: you may remember me from the "butter coffee" thread. Some posters reacted in horror to the idea, so I suppose that would count here as well!)

Hi Duvel. This may be a stupid question, but how hot should the wine be? I have never had hot red wine in a beverage before!

I also made a black tea today, from this company: http://en.bsxtea.com/ My brother brought home some of their tea (in brick form) directly from Hunan itself.

Hi everyone. Thanks for having some discussion on this. I thought I would return to say that recently I went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Chapel Hill, Queen of Sheba, and was surprised to find coffee with butter on their menu - "Ethiopian coffee with purified butter." There is a reference to this practice on Wikipedia, here (people add sugar to their coffee, or in the countryside, sometimes salt and/or traditional butter (see niter kibbeh)"), although oddly the source for that claim doesn't contain any mention of butter coffee, as far as I can tell.... I should say, it was quite sweet and delicious. The butter coffee recipe I've been using does not involve any sugar. Has anyone had "Ethiopian coffee" with butter before?

Very interesting, Hassouni. Thanks for the link to the thread! - and I do prefer my teas nuclear strong!

I was very confused by this. In one of the polling results the UK gets like 40 something percent of the vote, so obviously bias in the Guardian's readership is part of the explanation. But I was also thinking about whether, at least in the case of China, the authors are thinking of China as the origin of tea and are interested instead in what various cultures do with the tea. But who knows.

Interesting discussion in The Guardian, here. There is also a huge amount of reader-contributed material here.

Thanks Naftal. One of the things I'm interested in is what variations people have made on this sort of recipe. The company of course recommends all sorts of special products - grass fed butter, MCT oil, and the company's own coffee. But this can be prohibitively expensive, and is in some cases of dubious health value (relative to ingredients one might get at a standard grocery store).

What do people here think of the "bulletproof coffee" fad, or just butter coffee in general? Here is a company that promotes it, and here is a random discussion on the Interwebz, plus this piece from Fox News. The basic idea is mixing butter and/or something like coconut oil with coffee. Obviously there is also a tradition of mixing butter and tea, but until recently I never heard of the coffee variation (or abomination?). But I've had trouble finding any... let's say, unbiased discussions of its effectiveness, health value, etc.

Right now, I should say, I'm drinking some Milk Oolong from Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak, MI! It's one of my favorite teas.

I recently had a Muslim student in a philosophy class who recommended Ahmad tea over Alwazah; I've yet to try it because I'm trying to drink all of my Alwazah first...

Like Naftal, I'll mention what I take to be a cost-effective choice, which is one of Upton's Chinese greens, "Young Hyson." You can read about and order it here. I find that it satisfies my desire for green tea quite nicely, and so I try to keep some around, whatever other greens I may have. (Of course it is not as cost-effective as a box of Alwazah!)

I use a timer mainly because I like to get several infusions out of my tea. Apart from that, I don't really mind very strong tea that's been steeped "too long."

Alwazah's loose black tea. My wife and I discovered a nice middle eastern store in the area (Chapel Hill/Durham/Raleigh, NC) and they have a good supply. They also have Alwazah's green tea, which (per Naftal's suggestion above) I'll try next.

I was just thinking that this is something you could request at places that simply don't have actual tea pots, infusers, etc. available and foolishly use French Press pots. I would never voluntarily use a French Press.

That's a great suggestion. Obvious when you think of it, but I never would have!

I think my above suggestion of a decent presentation, with little timers for steeping and letting customers know they can resteep gives a nice personal touch. In terms of quality, I think it's nice when a place has a sort of standard selection of loose-leaf teas: a jasmine, a "china green," an assam, an oolong, etc. I'm always especially impressed if a coffee shop has Lapsang or Pu-erh. Although it seems you're interested in better than the standard small selection. My favorite establishment in the world, Goldfish Tea, is a nice example of a good seletion (although they don't list everything online).

I think presentation is important - so decent looking pots and cups for people who want to drink their tea at the shop. Also, if you want to really make people happy, give people little timers with recommended times so they can remove the leaves (whether in bags or infusers), and ask for hot water later for a second steeping. Very few places do this, and it's a nice touch (and helpful to people who aren't as familiar with tea drinking). As an illustration of why this is important, I live in the Research Triangle area in North Carolina, and we have a lot of great coffee shops, and they usually have a halfway decent selection of loose-leaf teas. However, it's near-universal to serve the tea in French press pots. This is annoying, because while the apparatus does keep the leaves in the pot, it causes the tea to (1) oversteep and (2) it prevents a good second steeping.

On good days I have two pots. On great days I have two pots of something strong like Pu-erh in the morning and two pots, usually of a green tea, in the afternoon.

Perhaps stupidly, I have the belief that tea admits of more varied and subtle flavors than does coffee, which varies more in quality than it does in distinct flavors. Partly because of this probably stupid belief, I am more likely to see coffee as a more functional drink (for example, if I am having trouble staying awake in the afternoon). For enjoyment itself, however, I tend to drink tea. Another functional role for coffee: there are some social settings, like "getting a cup of coffee," where I feel it is more appropriate to join my fellows in coffee drinking rather than buck the trend. Finally, as Hassouni remarks above, good tea is hard to find in American establishments. Because of this, I do often order coffee at restaurants; this isn't because the coffee is particularly good, but is because bad coffee is easier to mask (with cream and sugar) than is bad tea.