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My local fine teashop, The Cultured Cup, has created a couple of personal blends for me and I have been very pleased with them, especially the one called "Richard's Three Mountain Blend". (I get nothing out of this, but you can call them and order it with a minimum 6 - 8 ounces). But I am interested in learning more about how to do this myself. It appears to be similar to blending coffee beans - you select one solid, smooth tea for the body of the blend and then something for more of a bass note and then a little of something more distinctive. Or something like that. Has anyone else experimented with creating your own blends? What has worked well for you?

I have read and been told about several methods for seasoning a Chinese Yixing teapot. All assume you are going to use only one type of tea for the pot. One suggests boiling it in a pot with used tea leaves of the type you plan to use in the pot, then letting it soak for a few hours. Another suggests steeping new tea leaves in it for three hours. A third method, told to me by a Chinese aquaintance, who says it is used by tea professionals in China, is to steep new leaves in it and then leave it in a cool spot for three days. I have tried a modification of these that worked okay, but not as well as I expect that the three day soak would producce. What method do you use? Any of these or something different?

i was n nyc today wth my son and his fiancee- it was extremely hot outsde- we needed to rest for a few minutes and also to have some tea, etc- i had heard so many nice things about the tea galley- we were less than impressed with this tea shop- the owner was rude and not very friendly- we wanted some tea-none was oferred to us-we were told that we could have a tea tasting at $24.95 a person- we left and will not return-

Now that I really have enough vacpots to keep me going for many years of inevitable breakage, I'm turning my attentions to a hand grinder. I like the idea of not using electricity when I can get a good workout in the morning instead (we've stopped using our dryer, too!), and sometimes I just don't want to make so much noise early in the morning. It appears that the Zassenhaus is really the only one I should take at all seriously. So I'm looking at old ones on eBay. Anyone using one of these grinders? What's your experience with it? Do you have an old one or a new one? Should I take my chances on an old one and save myself some bucks? Or just spring for a new one? If I'm looking at an old one, what should I be sure to look at? What's the difference in the grinding experience between the one held between the knees and the table-top version? Thanks for all your help!

Ok- so I know I prefer An Ji to Dragon Well White, But why? I haven't the clue. I do know why I love Pu'er. An 8 year old loose Pu'er reminds me of the lake front. I think of clean lake water and wet tree-bark(I said this was subjective!). So, The point is...how do you describe the taste of your favorite tea?

I am planning on baking a French-style cake that uses Earl Grey tea as a major flavor component. The cake is a typical French entrement, with two layers of light chocolate cake brushed with an Earl Grey-syrup mixture, a layer comprised of an Earl Grey tea mousse, and finally two regular chocolate mousse layers that have no tea at all. I am looking for an Earl Grey that is bright, with a lot of the orange flavors that make it Earl Grey in the first place. Any suggestions on a brand to use? The cake, btw, is from Pierre Herme, the famous Paris pastry chef.

I bought a Camellia Sinensis. BEAUTIFUL plant! Gorgeous hue of green! I steeped a small handful of leaves in hot water and added a little sugar. It did not taste like traditional tea, but rather what the color "GREEN" would taste like if you could eat it. No bitterness at all. How does it taste like tea? Anyone else have a tea plant?

I reported on a Food & Tea Pairing Dinner in Dallas, Texas at Sharon Hage's York Street in collaboration with The Cultured Cup and it's T-Bar Club. Is anyone doing Food & Tea Pairing Dinners or anything similar in your part of the world?

Welcome to the Coffee and Tea forum where, not surprisingly, you can discuss every aspect of making and enjoying coffee and tea, from leaves and beans to specialty equipment. Our popular topics include How To Roast Your Own Coffee; the Least Expensive Machine For Decent Espresso; Bagged Teas; and Iced Coffee. To view a complete listing of frequently discussed topics see: Coffee and Espresso Topics and Tea and Chai Topics Not a Society member? You’re welcome to read the eG Forums to your heart’s content, but you will have to join the Society in order to post. You can apply to join the eGullet Society here. If you support the eGullet Society’s mission to and wish to help further it, you can make a donation here. Our members’ questions and comments make this forum interesting, exciting and useful – we look forward to your contributions. Before posting, you may want to browse through the forum to read up on current and older topics. If you’re looking for something specific, or wondering if there's already a topic on the subject you wish to discuss, try our Search feature (use the Advanced Usage Help link to improve your results) or our built-in Google Search function. If you would like to post photos, they must be uploaded into ImageGullet. Click here for a tutorial. We encourage food-related external links (hyperlinks to websites or other media outside of the eGullet.org webspace) to the extent that they substantially contribute to the dialogue. Web pages and websites that exist today may not exist tomorrow, and most online articles are often free only for a short period of time. Thus, links to external media should always include a brief summary and/or quotation that makes it possible for readers to understand the spirit of the linked material without the need to follow the link. For more information on our external linking guidelines, click here. The Society is committed to respecting intellectual property rights. Members are responsible for making certain that their posts conform with our copyright guidelines.

Coffee & Tea Forum Index Tea Topics

This week I read Rebecca and watched the Goods Eats episode on tea. Between the two, I am seriously wanting to begin a daily tea ritual. I find the idea of 'afternoon tea' very smart. I am generally a coffee drinker. I need the pick me up 3-4 times a day. I am a little sensitive to caffeine though. I find that my very strong cups in the afternoon make me too jittery. I also get very hungry around 3-4. This makes it difficult to do all my cooking for supper. So...I would love the slow gentle lift of tea that Alton discussed. As well as a scone or cake to pick me up everyday. I would love suggestions on tea pots, water kettles, as well as online sites to buy good loose leaf tea. Are cast iron pots like Staub the best? I am headed to the Austin/San Marcos area in a couple of weeks. I plan to go to the high tea at Keria Teas in Round Rock. I can't wait. Thank you for any help.

Yes.. Yours will close. And yours too.. http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=833 Little surprised I didn't see this already in this forum. Will this help the troubled franchise? Do you even CARE? Will the streets of the United States be littered with people unable to get their "fix"?

I few years back, Kevin Knox, the author of Coffee Basics, but who secretly is more into teas, told me that you can decaf tea by pouring on the hot water, immediately draining it, then pour the water on again to steep. His claim was that a chemically processed tea was 92% caffeine free, while this method made it nearly 98%. For sake of his reputation, I'll admit that my memory can veer after a few years, so this may not be what he said at all. But, I've spread the info as gospel ever since. Is this true?

In Amsterdam, we have a couple of chains, I call them Starbucks wannabes (no Starbucks in The Netherlands yet). They serve all the usual suspects, espresso, latte, a 'regular' coffee they call Americano. While in most cases, a regular black coffee, is my preferred coffee-beverage, I cannot stand their Americano. It's bitter, ist's too strong no matter how much I makte them dilute it, it's vile. (okay. why am I going there anyway? because they have one place, near the market where I always shop, and it has the best view, nice people come there, it's on my best friends + dog route to the park so I always meet him there, they have all the newspapers and magazines I want to read, it's quiet and I just love to sit there for hours, reading, working, writing, thinking, looking out the window). So, no Americano. After ordering all their coffees I settled on the latte, with skimmed milk. It has a good flavor. I like the skimmed milk. But. It's COLD. After they pour it, I could just swallow the whole thing in one gulp. Now to me, that's not coffee. I like my coffee steaming hot. So hot that you have to take a careful first sip, and then slowly a second sip, and after 5 sips, the coffee is still hot. Their latte is lukewarm. I ask for a hot latte. They preheat the cup, which helps a bit, and then I ask them to make the milk extra hot. They do this, but it does not help much. I ask for extra extra hot milk. And then they tell me that they are not supposed to heat the milk above 150 F. That it will ruin the flavor of the milk. I go home and look this up online and yes, they seem to be right. So. Should I stop annoying them and ask for hot latte? Does nobody else care about drinking lukewarm latte? Am I missing the latte-point? Should I just learn to drink their black coffee (which is hot)?

http://handpresso.com/ since this thing uses water rather than steam, its not espresso, but is it any good? is it palatable, has anyone used it? i would love a portable espresso maker for hikes, but im guessing my little campfire moka is still a better choice than this thing... any thoughts?

Most Chinese restaurants serve cheap tea. Would it be rude of me to bring in my own tea and ask for boiling water? Has anyone else done this? How do you transport your tea? Do you buy the packets (loose-leaf, not bags of dust) or bring a small sealed container?

this kettle search is harder than i thought it would be -- neither consumer reports nor cook's illustrated has reviewed electric kettles (that i can find), and feedback on big sites like amazon varies a lot (some people love a particular brand, some people find nasty strange smells and frequent breakages). i'd be grateful for any feedback on non-plastic models -- i don't care if the outer part is plastic, but i don't want plastic on the part that touches water (and i've heard that some of the metal models will still have plastic on interior parts of the spout, or level indicator). all details appreciated.

I've recently discovered that some of the higher quality teas I've been buying really can be reused for several cups of tea. This is working beautifully with oolongs, chinese green teas, and pu-erhs. Some questions that have come up, and my apologies in advance if this is discussed elsewhere, but I can't figure out how to search for this topic without getting huge numbers of irrelevant hits: Why does the resteeping not draw as much bitterness out of the leaves as does a longer primary steeping? How long do the leaves need to rest, if at all, between steepings? And a related but more general question: when served tea in a gaiwan, the handleless cup with shallow saucer and lid, how do you prevent oversteeping and bitterness and at the same time avoid a burnt tongue from drinking the tea too quickly?

ON HGTV this weekend there was a 1 hr show of International Housewares- There were several items for coffee and tea that were interesting- www.hgtv.com----search products to see items

Greetings, I have been greatly enjoying the FrancisFrancis X5 given to me as a birthday present last year. I just had the unfortunate experience of my trusty machine literally raising its lid; the clock blew out as well as one of the indicator bulbs(which I still can't find). The entire steel top/casing has lifted up which save for the screws and bolts which held it (finally in place) might have come out completely. I had just switched the machine to the steam milk setting and had stepped out onto my deck and hadn't been out there longer than 30 seconds when this happened (so I heard a big "bang" and immediately came in, switching off the machine and unplugging it before I fully appreciated what had happened)... In the last few weeks, I have noticed that when I steam milk, the machine has gotten a bit noisier, obviously with heating up sounds but this was an utter surprise. I just wanted to see if anyone else has had this experience. I've written FrancisFrancis' customer service department. thank you

i have a bit of fresh mint left and want to try to make mint tea with it, Any recipes, ideas anyone? Would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.

I found a lovely site for tea related items- notepaper cards cookie cutters www.theteatable. com I crochet and at present I am making a tea cozy for someone in a swap-I needed some little extra somethings for the pkg and found this site. Joanne

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Chamagudao TeaChamagudao Tea 212 Glenridge Ave Montclair, NJ 07042 (973) 746-0975 I went to this teashop with my son's girlfriends mother- We spent a wonderful 2 hours chatting over tea- The service was great and the tea excellent- we had green oolong

My wife will be in Sinapore, Manila, and Hong Kong on business, and i am going along for the experience. Are there partiular places to purchase quality teas, maybe for a better price than is available in the states? Any rare or special Chinese blends that are worth trying? Thanks for any insight--I usually drink iced Luzianne or Tetley's to accomodate the Houston heat.