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This is the second tea tasting of 2009 thanks to eGullet Society member Greg Glancy of Norbutea.com. This time we will be tasting and discussing an Imperial Dian Hong -- a Chinese red tea. Greg has provided five samples of 10 grams each that I will mail to the five eG Society members participating in this tasting. While the tasting is open to all members who have posted at least five substantive posts in the Coffee and Tea forum, preference will be given until midnight next Monday to those who did not participate in the last tasting of TGY Oolong. Please PM me if you would like to participate in the tasting and discussion. Here is some background information on Imperial Dian Hong from Norbutea.com. (Copyright Norbutea. Used with permission.)

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?

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?

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

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"?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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 am looking to buy some good quality loose tea that (ideally!) would be produced in the US. It will be made in a bodum tea pot. Is there good quality tea produced in the US or does the rest of the world the franchise on tea? Where would you recommend getting tea? Thanks!

Journeys: Beyond Tea and Crumpets in Portland OR http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/trave...html?ref=travel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/foodprogramme.shtml this shop is also one of the better teashops to purchase taiwanese tea

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.

Has anyone tried this? Kombucha fermented tea. Maybe it's not tea. I don't know. There’s a bunch of wild health claims on the label, but I just drink it for the taste and the pick-me-up. It’s fizzy and sour – I like the ginger version which tastes like a really sour ginger ale.

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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

Hello to all the Coffee Lovers out there, I have a question for you from someone(me) that doesn't know a lot about high quality coffee... What kind of quality do the larger coffee chains have? poor, ok, good, or great quality coffee products... I'm interested in the chain stores like starbucks, coffee bean and tea leaf, peets coffee, etc.... I would love to hear your opinions on who is the best out of those three or other big chains and why... Thank you for your help in advance,

Coffee and chocolate is, of course, one of the great flavor pairings of all time, and one of my personal favorite treats. Lately I've begun drinking tea occassionally in place of coffee, and this afternoon decided to try a bit of chocolate with it. Neither was a very exotic variety, Earl Greys and Baronie Bittersweet, but they certainly didn't enhance each other. Is this just a peculiarity of mine, a general rule of thumb, or are there some tea-chocolate combinations that work well? SB

I just received issue #2 of this beautifully prepared magazine- I purchased my copy at www.houdeasianart.com The magazine has articles on yixing teapots, puerh tea, gong fu style tea servic joanne r. aka jpr54_