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What Tea Are You Drinking Today? (Part 3)

Richard Kilgore

By Richard Kilgore
in Coffee & Tea

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted

Liuzhou Qingming Tea (柳州清明茶)

 

liuzhoutea.jpg

 

Liuzhou is the city I live in. In Guangxi Autonomous Region in the south of China. So a very local tea. I work right beside the plants. 

 

Qingming, for those who don' t know, is a festival to commemorate the ancestors (something taken very seriously in China). It usually takes place in April (it is calculated on the lunar calendar so it moves a bit).

 

Its use in the tea name just means that the tea was picked before Qingming. That is in spring.

 

It is very green in appearance and very herbal in taste. Grassy even. Probably not a classic tea, but perfectly acceptable and it's nice to try the local stuff.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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egalicontrarian

egalicontrarian

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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.

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Naftal

Naftal

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Hello- Lately, I have been drinking Lapsang Souchong from Goldfish Tea. I've also been drinking my green tea Tibetan-style (with butter).

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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Wholemeal Crank

Wholemeal Crank

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Curious about green tea with butter:  are you starting with a roasted or steamed green tea?  And how do you add the butter?  I know the traditional Tibetan-style tea has origins in   the compressed tea bricks that gave rise to puerh, which when young have a bit of green character to them, but after long travel/storage would be more earthy and dark. 

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Naftal

Naftal

Posted
Posted (edited)

Curious about green tea with butter:  are you starting with a roasted or steamed green tea?  And how do you add the butter?  I know the traditional Tibetan-style tea has origins in   the compressed tea bricks that gave rise to puerh, which when young have a bit of green character to them, but after long travel/storage would be more earthy and dark. 

Hello- My very personal, nontraditional take on this style: I combine 1t of matcha or a very similar green tea powder,  with 1 3/4-2 C hot water  and 2T butter in a blender. I blend it till I can't see the butter. Then I pour it into a large, clean jam jar and enjoy. I Know this is very strange and not everyone's *cup of tea* :shock:  :wacko:  :huh: I should try it with a black tea, but I am concerned because the blending/processing stage is a very important one and I have not yet found a way to get a leaf-type tea really smooth. If I could solve this problem, I might do a pu-erh.

Edited by Naftal (log)

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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Naftal

Naftal

Posted
Posted

Curious about green tea with butter:  are you starting with a roasted or steamed green tea?  And how do you add the butter?  I know the traditional Tibetan-style tea has origins in   the compressed tea bricks that gave rise to puerh, which when young have a bit of green character to them, but after long travel/storage would be more earthy and dark. 

I just had a nice dark oolong. I thought it might be nice to brew a cup of that, or a nice strong black ,  add butter and blend....

 

I do not need leaves at all!

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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Naftal

Naftal

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I am continuing my experiments with Tibetan-style tea. In my most recent (per)version, I brewed a full cup-liquid measure- of atomic strength Ceylon black. I put that and 2T of butter in a blender...the ultimate morning drink!

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"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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I opened a package of Masubuchi-en first flush this afternoon.  I am not knowledgeable enough of Japanese tea to comment further, but I seem to be having trouble controlling my trackball to write this.

 

https://gifuproduct.jp/english/product/detail/index/FOD000905

 

 

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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Richard Kilgore

Richard Kilgore

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I know, I know. I should be drinking iced tea in this Texas summer; that's what all my friends tell me. But I had not ordered any Japanese green teas in several years, drinking black teas and Chinese Oolong and green teas in the meantime. So I recently took a look at http://www.yuuki-cha.com/, a dealer that has been good to us in the past by contributing organic Japanese teas for multi-person tea tastings here in the eGullet Coffee and Tea Forum, and ordered an Organic Karishima Matcha and a Sencha. I have not opened the Sencha yet, but the matcha made as usucha is excellent. Just checked and they are out of this matcha, but I am guessing they will get it in again, and there are several other matchas from which to choose.Today I whisked my bowl after pouring the water when it was at 158-160 F, and that produced a strong green, flavorful drink that was not too strong, not bitter. The whisking easily produced a bowl full of tiny bubbles, just like you want it to do.

 

I'll post something about the Sencha when I open it and have brewed it a few times.

 

No financial interest in yuuki-cha, just a satisfied customer, who is again contributing his tea dollars to the enterprise.

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Richard Kilgore

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Wholemeal Crank

Wholemeal Crank

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I've been living on semi-iced Taiwanese oolong this summer, a not-too-pricey 'Zhangshu Lake Oolong' from Wing Hop Fung.  I take a small quantity of leaf, cover with boiling water, usually in a small porcelain gaiwan (it must be easy to pour brew and leaf out), wait 5-10 minutes, and pour the brew and leaf together into a large chawan or water bottle, fill the container with cold water, and ideally give it another 20-60 minutes before drinking.  So the leaves get a hot 'wake up', and I only have to heat a small amount of water, and drink cool lovely tea. Depending on how long the leaves stand before I drink it all, I sometimes try for a second brewing, especially to drink in the evening before bed. 

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Naftal

Naftal

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I don't know how I missed those last two postings!

I have recently been drinking-gong fu style-a wonderful chen nian pu'er from the Golden Bridge Brand. I found it at a large oriental supermarket that opened recently in my area.

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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Naftal

Naftal

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The local tea house just acquired a very interesting Raw Pu,er Rose Square.  I was pleased to to discover that it actually had a slight rose flavor, not just a rose scent.

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"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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lindag

lindag

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I like to drink a lot of iced tea in hot weather and since it's just for me I use the Luzianne K-cups   Just a tiny amount of sugar and lots of ice and I'm all set in just a few minutes.

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Naftal

Naftal

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I have lemon balm in my garden. Today I made my first batch of tea with it. Wonderful stuff!

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"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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andiesenji

andiesenji

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1 hour ago, Naftal said:

I have lemon balm in my garden. Today I made my first batch of tea with it. Wonderful stuff!

I have a very vigorous patch of lemon balm.  It likes the desert, thrives in the heat.  I use quite a lot.  I also have a great crop of anise hyssop and blend that with some of my teas.  It is very good with milk oolong - I had some this morning hot and later poured the rest over ice.  

 

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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chefmd

chefmd

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Posted

Made ice tea with mixture of green tea and min tea.  Perfect for sunny warm days that we are enjoying this weekend on Chesapeake bay.  Cuts back on my temptation to drink rose wine all day!

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jpr54_

jpr54_

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1 hour ago, chefmd said:

Made ice tea with mixture of green tea and min tea.  Perfect for sunny warm days that we are enjoying this weekend on Chesapeake bay.  Cuts back on my temptation to drink rose wine all day!

Lemon verbena also makes a good iced tea

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jpr54_

jpr54_

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I have been drinking 2017 First Flush Darjeelings from vahdamtea and teabox.  

I have found both to have good customer service and products. Delivery is by FedEx and takes about a week to arrive

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Naftal

Naftal

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I've also been drinking the green pu'erh that my nephew brought me on returning from his last trip to China.BTW that trip was last year and the tea has been holding up very well, as you might expect with pu'erhs.

Edited by Naftal (log)

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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TicTac

TicTac

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Picked up another 200g of this White Peony from a local tea importer - fantastic stuff.  No more pu'erh for me!  That stuff did a number on the gut (and others who tried it as well!). 

 

One point to note for someone who mentioned cold tea and brewing with hot water - an unnecessary step, and truth be told, actually negates a significant amount of the beneficial antioxidants found in tea. 

 

Check out a study done by an Italian university teamed up with a Korean university and compared hot brew of green/black/white vs cold brew of the same.  Results were very interesting.  Cole's notes version - White cold brewed tea has the highest level of antioxidants of any method/type of tea, interestingly enough, green tea wins in the hot brew category.

 

 

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