Which country's tea do you like best？

[Hezo541]

I prefer Chinese tea, especially the Chinese oolong tea！

 

 

[helenjp]

What do you like about it, and what type of oolong tea do you usually buy?

What I like best about tea is the huge variety of flavors that one plant produces! I drink an Assam blend Indian tea in the mornings, but recently a local Nepali shop has started stocking a cut-tear-curl pellet form Assam that I enjoy a lot. It's a little milder than the blend I usually buy.

I don't buy Chinese tea regularly, because most of the day we drink Japanese tea. I like a blend of leaf tips and stems. Stem tea (kuki-cha) is expensive and hard to find, so I buy a blend that has just enough stems to make the tea a little sweet. The modern trend is to blend powdered matcha into leaf tip sencha teas, but I prefer a lighter taste.

Biggest recent surprise is rooibos, especially if it has a little orange peel added. I thought I hated rooibos, but the tea I remember from years back must have been stale. Nowadays I love it, especially as cold tea in summer.

[cakewalk]

I'm not a tea drinker, but @helenjp, I really enjoyed that post. (And learned a lot.)

[Naftal]

In a perfect world, I would just drink Dragon Well, Pu'erh, and Ti Guan Yin (Chinese Teas) all day long. But, this is not a perfect world, so I include teas from India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Japan. I also like a Vanilla Rooibos on occasion. At home, I always keep an Orange Pekoe A (Sri Lanka) and a Green Pearl Tea (China) on hand. BTW, Green Pearl Tea goes back to the Tang Dynasty and is known in the west as Gunpowder.

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, Naftal said:

In a perfect world, I would just drink Dragon Well, Pu'erh, and Ti Guan Yin

 

 

Coincidentally, I bought some Anxi Tie Guan Yin just yesterday. I already had  Dragon Well which I bought to use in cooking rather than drinking, although I have had a couple of cups.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I still have a half pound of Tie Guan Yin that I bought from The Tea Farm. My husband liked it, but I can't develop a taste for it. I gave the opened bag I could find to my nephew who is really into tea the last time he visited and would have given him the remaining bag if I'd known it was in the pantry. Like with a lot of expensive things I didn't grow up with, I don't get it.

 

My favorite is Red Rose Original orange pekoe and pekoe tea blend. It seems to be made of blends from all over the world, including Africa, which I did not realize was a tea producer. It's about one tenth the price of Tie Guan Yin, and my peasant tastes much prefer Red Rose. It did win the 2007 Best Taste award from Chef's Best. I have a bunch of the little figurines made in Wade England that come inside the box. They are pretty much rubbish IMO. Often the seams from the two part mold are still visible, the glaze can be uneven, and I just don't like the designs. The horse, for instance, is one of my favorite animals, but it is the smallest of all the figurines I have. It looks like a throwback to eohippus or perhaps more fairly, this Pleistocene horse. I found better rendered Wade Red Rose Tea images for horse figurines and they have many different offerings. I found two examples of mine, but they are not eG friendly images, so can't link. They are about what you can expect for free in a box of inexpensive tea, but some people are mad for these things and determined to complete their collections of each series. All kinds of activity on Amazon and ebay for these little tea box figurines. Go figure.

 

A sort of aside, but still very much related to tea: My nephew is in the Navy and was living in a barracks after I gave him that big bag of Tie Guan Yin. About a month after I gave it to him he called one night to talk about seemingly nothing to my husband and me. That is his way. If you don't push him, he'll beat around the bush and small talk forever. Quite the opposite of me, who has a reputation for being abrupt, so perhaps I could learn a few things from him, but to me, it can be beyond frustrating. Finally, we arrive at the point of the call. He had had his tea stash confiscated under suspicion of being marijuana! He seemed unperturbed, but I was panicking! This could lead to a dishonorable discharge and legal punishment that would follow this young man for the rest of his life.

 

We found out a month or so later that testing had been negative for controlled substances. My nephew was insistent that his tea be returned from evidence and this took some months longer, but he finally did receive it less testing samples. If it were me, I would have been breathing sighs of relief and laying low, but bravo for him on insisting on the return of his confiscated property. 

 

He never said it was the gifted Tie Guan Yin that led to suspicion and he had been purchasing other loose teas. TGY might look a little like seedless weed, and the label had fallen off the bag when the adhesive let go. I remember offering him the separate label, but he was traveling with this wife and pets and declined. It's not in his nature to cause me discomfort by telling me I was causing all his problems by giving him the tea, but I would not  be surprised if that was exactly what caused the FUBAR. I was so relieved to hear he was going to be okay. Phew!

 

 

 

[Hezo541]

On 2017/8/19 at 10:48 PM, helenjp said:

What do you like about it, and what type of oolong tea do you usually buy?

What I like best about tea is the huge variety of flavors that one plant produces! I drink an Assam blend Indian tea in the mornings, but recently a local Nepali shop has started stocking a cut-tear-curl pellet form Assam that I enjoy a lot. It's a little milder than the blend I usually buy.

I don't buy Chinese tea regularly, because most of the day we drink Japanese tea. I like a blend of leaf tips and stems. Stem tea (kuki-cha) is expensive and hard to find, so I buy a blend that has just enough stems to make the tea a little sweet. The modern trend is to blend powdered matcha into leaf tip sencha teas, but I prefer a lighter taste.

Biggest recent surprise is rooibos, especially if it has a little orange peel added. I thought I hated rooibos, but the tea I remember from years back must have been stale. Nowadays I love it, especially as cold tea in summer.

I have drunk many oolong tea, such as Tie Guanyin, Dahongpao and Taiwan oolong tea. But now I prefer the Wuyi Dahongpao.
Umm, I think the Assam tastes too strong for me. 
I seldom drink the Japanese tea because most of them are green tea. But I'm going on buy some matcha online. As you said，matcha is more and more popular now, but I don't know whether blend it into leaf tip spencha teas or not. I think it a little complex.

[Hezo541]

1 hour ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

A sort of aside, but still very much related to tea: My nephew is in the Navy and was living in a barracks after I gave him that big bag of Tie Guan Yin. About a month after I gave it to him he called one night to talk about seemingly nothing to my husband and me. That is his way. If you don't push him, he'll beat around the bush and small talk forever. Quite the opposite of me, who has a reputation for being abrupt, so perhaps I could learn a few things from him, but to me, it can be beyond frustrating. Finally, we arrive at the point of the call. He had had his tea stash confiscated under suspicion of being marijuana! He seemed unperturbed, but I was panicking! This could lead to a dishonorable discharge and legal punishment that would follow this young man for the rest of his life.

 

We found out a month or so later that testing had been negative for controlled substances. My nephew was insistent that his tea be returned from evidence and this took some months longer, but he finally did receive it less testing samples. If it were me, I would have been breathing sighs of relief and laying low, but bravo for him on insisting on the return of his confiscated property. 

 

He never said it was the gifted Tie Guan Yin that led to suspicion and he had been purchasing other loose teas. TGY might look a little like seedless weed, and the label had fallen off the bag when the adhesive let go. I remember offering him the separate label, but he was traveling with this wife and pets and declined. It's not in his nature to cause me discomfort by telling me I was causing all his problems by giving him the tea, but I would not  be surprised if that was exactly what caused the FUBAR. I was so relieved to hear he was going to be okay. Phew!

Don't blame yourself. And trust your nephew. I believe he will be better！

[Thanks for the Crepes]

9 minutes ago, Hezo541 said:

Don't blame yourself. And trust your nephew. I believe he will be better！

 

Oh, he's very, very fine and has been promoted several times since this unfortunate incident. I pretty much knew he would be, but mistakes can be made in labs and they never go in favor of the accused. Also if someone in power has a vendetta against a person, and the military is all about power, it can go badly for the accused. I can't imagine who would have ill will toward my nephew, but when I first got the news, I was very apprehensive.

 

I'm so thankful he came out of this stupid thing with flying colors and very proud that he demanded his property of tea be returned. 

[Hezo541]

19 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Oh, he's very, very fine and has been promoted several times since this unfortunate incident. I pretty much knew he would be, but mistakes can be made in labs and they never go in favor of the accused. Also if someone in power has a vendetta against a person, and the military is all about power, it can go badly for the accused. I can't imagine who would have ill will toward my nephew, but when I first got the news, I was very apprehensive.

 

I'm so thankful he came out of this stupid thing with flying colors and very proud that he demanded his property of tea be returned. 

There are always mistakes or misunderstanding in our life. You will find it's just a small shadow when you overcome it. It depends on how you look at it. And I think you nephew has did  a good job. Congratulations！

[Martin Fisher]

I don't drink tea much anymore, unfortunately.

Nothing fancy, PG Tips sometimes. 

I wonder what the Queen drinks? 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

14 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

I wonder what the Queen drinks? 

 

I'm not sure if she actually drinks this or not, but I have some Twinnings of London Earl Grey tea that is marked "By appointment to her majesty Queen Elizabeth II" on the labels. Sounds impressive, but I am not sure if that is a personal endorsement or exactly what it might mean. Perhaps someone who has lived in England might expand on it?

 

I don't like the Twinnings version of Earl Grey as much as I do Bigelow's version. Bigelow's company address is in Fairfield, CT, USA. I'm not a betting gal, but I'm pretty sure they don't grow any tea in Connecticut. I also have some Ahmad Earl Grey, which suggests Indian origins to me, but the company is actually out of London. I am finding it difficult to ascertain the country of origin of many of my teas.

[Martin Fisher]

3 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Bigelow's version.

 

Yeah. Bigelow does have some good stuff.

Their chamomile 'tea' is much better than most other off-the-shelf brands I've tried.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

9 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

 

Yeah. Bigelow does have some good stuff.

Their chamomile 'tea' is much better than most other off-the-shelf brands I've tried.

 

I think it might boil down to their superior packaging. You pay for this, of course. Each bag is enclosed in a moisture and air proof pouch, rather than the paper overwraps of practically everything else for bagged tea. Even though I put my tea into glass jars upon opening the box, the Bigelow wrappers seem to preserve freshness and aromas (which is what tea is all about) better. I too, love Bigelow's chamomile but don't have any now.

[Martin Fisher]

15 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

I think it might boil down to their superior packaging. You pay for this, of course. Each bag is enclosed in a moisture and air proof pouch, rather than the paper overwraps of practically everything else for bagged tea. Even though I put my tea into glass jars upon opening the box, the Bigelow wrappers seem to preserve freshness and aromas (which is what tea is all about) better. I too, love Bigelow's chamomile but don't have any now.

 

I've found that others with similar packaging (like Wegmans) don't have the same robust flavor. I think the major difference may be in the sourcing of the teas. The Bigelow chamomile 'tea' may be high-quality Egyptian grown.

Edited August 22, 2017 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[liuzhou]

3 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

I'm not sure if she actually drinks this or not, but I have some Twinnings of London Earl Grey tea that is marked "By appointment to her majesty Queen Elizabeth II" on the labels.

 

Yes, the much valued "by royal appointment" is a personal statement that she is responsible for the choice to purchase that particular tea. It does not necessarily mean that she drinks it, though. She does have guests.

Edited August 22, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

3 hours ago, Semb said:

I like Chinese tea best, especially lapspang souchong black tea.It has a lot of effects，such as，diuretic efficacy, anti-inflammatory germicidal efficacy, detoxification efficacy, refreshing efficacy, health and heat effect,
Antioxidant, anti-aging effect, stomach and stomach effect, anti cancer efficacy, diastolic blood vessel effect and so on.

 

 

Don't believe everything you read about the medicinal benefits of Chinese tea (or Chinese anything else). There are many wild, unsubstantiated claims.

 

For example, this typical site lists some of the same supposed benefits you do, but hedges its bets by saying "may" or "could". If something may be true, it at least equally may not be true.

 

They also note that

 

Quote

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease .

 

Edited August 25, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[Lisa Shock]

It varies by what I am eating, or how I feel (between meals). I enjoy Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Chinese white, and Jasmine on their own. I tend to make Chinese tea with Chinese food, and Japanese tea for Japanese food. That said, one of my hobbies is trying new teas -has been since I was a teenager. So, often my preference is to try something I just discovered.

[liuzhou]

17 minutes ago, Lisa Shock said:

tend to make Chinese tea with Chinese food

 

I find it interesting that Chinese people almost never drink tea with food. Before or after, yes. but during the meal, no.

 

This is not to suggest that you are in any way "wrong" to do so. I just thought it might be an interesting observation to throw into the conversation.

Edited August 25, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[Martin Fisher]

Dang! I'm certainly curious, but I wouldn't know where to start working with 'real' tea.

And I don't really need another 'hobby.' 

Plus, I'm dirt poor! 

[chileheadmike]

3 hours ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

Dang! I'm certainly curious, but I wouldn't know where to start working with 'real' tea.

And I don't really need another 'hobby.' 

Plus, I'm dirt poor! 

 

I used to drink a few beers in the evening after work. The last time I visited the doc, my labs were not good. I have given up all drinking, started exercising  and went to our local tea store, MonTea. I tried to pick a slow time to talk with whoever would be working. It happened to be the owner. Told him that I know nothing about tea but wanted to learn at get a variety.  I left with a couple of Oolongs , a Pur eh? aged 5 years, one green tea, and an Irish Breakfast tea. 1oz each set me back about 20 bucks. 

 

My favorite of the bunch was the Black Dragon Oolong. The aged Pur eh is very good as well. I did not really care for the Irish breakfast. 

 

New labs will be drawn in Sept. Hopefully they will be better. 

[Martin Fisher]

No tea shops in this county or nearby as far as I can tell. 

 

ETA: This place isn't far—Corning, NY

Edited August 25, 2017 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[liuzhou]

14 minutes ago, chileheadmike said:

My favorite of the bunch was the Black Dragon Oolong. The aged Pur eh is very good as well.

 

"Oolong"  (Chinese:乌龙 wū lóng) means "Black Dragon". So, Black Dragon Oolong is tautological

 

Also, it's Pu'er or, less commonly, Pu'erh. (Chinese: 普洱 pǔ ěr).

 

Hope that is helpful.

 

 

[chileheadmike]

5 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

"Oolong"  (Chinese:乌龙 wū lóng) means "Black Dragon". So, Black Dragon Oolong is tautological

 

Also, it's Pu'er or, less commonly, Pu'erh. (Chinese: 普洱 pǔ ěr).

 

Hope that is helpful.

 

 

So I got the au jus sauce of tea? 

 

Thanks, as I said, I really don't know anything about tea. I do like the ones I got though. 

[KennethT]

I used to drink a lot of Lung Ching (Dragon's well green tea) - although, when I had it in Beijing they called it Long Jian.  Now, on the weekends, I like a nice Jasmine in the morning, and usually either a Taiwanese oolong (only lightly fermented) or a Ti Kwan Yin (the one I get is pretty heavily fermented).  I wish I could get some of the Ti Kwan Yin that I had in Hong Kong - it was only mid-level fermented - not as grassy as the Taiwanese Tung Ting that I have, but not nearly as heavily fermented as what I get at home.

 

At work, I can't deal with loose leaf tea so I have to use tea bags... so for that I have a Japanese Sencha that's pretty good and pretty inexpensive.  My local Japanese mart sells it for about $4 for a box of 20, and I can get two steepings out of a bag.