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Reading that hipster thread got me thinking... Any tea drinkers in here? People who just have tea instead of coffee in the morning, or people who go a little beyond that and have a passion for the stuff? Share your favourites and your habits, your favourite tea shops and blends of choice. Tell some of us other tea drinkers where we might be able to get the good stuff.
At this very moment I'm drinking a glass of keemun congou - a Chinese black which is lightly smoked and maintains a hint of the grassiness of a green, with a pot of green rooibos (young redbush tea) on the side - I often drink a black and a herbal/rooibos on the side. Both are Davidson's brand bulk tea. The one tea - though it's not a true tea, as it doesn't come from the tea plant - that I couldn't live without is chamomile. I buy it by the pound and harvest it wild as it grows like a weed in North America.
Amazon product ASIN B000SARJRY
Amazon product ASIN B000SAPXPY
(Only read beyond this point if you're bored)
For me, I love tea. I'd give up booze and meat before tea. I drank various herbal blends as a kid and, as I grew older, I got to love all things tea. When I was living in Vancouver I used to frequent The Bayswater Tea Company ( http://www.bayswatertea.com/ ) and I likely tried everything on their wall in my time there - recommended for their variety and, last I was there, competitive pricing. The owner is annoying as hell though, but the rest of the staff is usually sociable young college girls. They are lacking in really high end stuff and specifically culturally linked stuff.
I'm also a novice practitioner of gongfu cha, the Chinese tea ceremony, which is surprisingly involved. If you're in Vancouver, go to the http://www.thechineseteashop.com/ if you want a crash course in it - the shifu there is really quite good, willing to get you involved in the process as he tries to sell you yixing clay tea pots, and their site is quite informative. Essentially, it's the art of using tiny little tea pots (pictured below) to make very small batches of tea, steeped multiple times at varying temperatures and for various times, to unlock the different flavour profiles of a tea over multiple tastings. A small pot containing well under a cup will be carefully steeped and poured to quite exacting standards. The process is quite meditative and the tea is nuanced and delicious - the small quantities allow for a richness you don't get in more conventional tea preparations. Practitioners tend to have teapots that they use for their whole lives which, over time, build up tea oils and "season" the pot producing better and better steepings. You are not supposed to use different pots for different tea types, as it ruins the seasoning and the flavour profile, so it's one pot per type of tea. Some individual pots, aged hundreds of years and holding a fraction of a cup of tea, run into the five figure range to buy, though new ones will only set you back about $40+. Individual tea cakes can run into the five figure range as well.
I have several large glass tea pots used for different types of plain black, oolongs, greens, pu-erh, flavoured, and herbal teas and more conventional brewings. These days I get most of my regular drinking tea from Amazon - Davidson's bulk tea and Adamo tea, which sells mid-high quality loose leaf by the pound for a steal - and it's a great place if you don't have a good tea shop like Bayswater nearby. Hell, Amazon is next to impossible to beat for price for bulk teas and they have some legitimate quality stuff there and solid variety.
My recommendations for the day? If you've never done so, try a pu-ehr tea. It's a type of tea which is aged beyond the stage of black tea - so, oxidized long after the fermentation level of a black has been reached. It's easy to steep - just boiling water and steeping anywhere from seconds to a minute won't ruin it - and it has a unique flavour to say the least. Whereas greens tend to be grassy and blacks take on a complex character, pu-erh teas tend to be very rich and earthy, though oddly subtle and less powerful than blacks. Not good with cream and sugar, they are not as caffeinated as blacks and greens, but a neat thing to try.
Edit: Also, just a note for any real purists out there... I understand that if it doesn't come from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, it isn't technically tea. Though it's a bit like referring to any sparkling wine as a champagne, for the purposes of this thread, I'm doing what most of the world does and referring to any boiled plant that makes a beverage as tea.
At this very moment I'm drinking a glass of keemun congou - a Chinese black which is lightly smoked and maintains a hint of the grassiness of a green, with a pot of green rooibos (young redbush tea) on the side - I often drink a black and a herbal/rooibos on the side. Both are Davidson's brand bulk tea. The one tea - though it's not a true tea, as it doesn't come from the tea plant - that I couldn't live without is chamomile. I buy it by the pound and harvest it wild as it grows like a weed in North America.
Amazon product ASIN B000SARJRY
Amazon product ASIN B000SAPXPY
(Only read beyond this point if you're bored)
For me, I love tea. I'd give up booze and meat before tea. I drank various herbal blends as a kid and, as I grew older, I got to love all things tea. When I was living in Vancouver I used to frequent The Bayswater Tea Company ( http://www.bayswatertea.com/ ) and I likely tried everything on their wall in my time there - recommended for their variety and, last I was there, competitive pricing. The owner is annoying as hell though, but the rest of the staff is usually sociable young college girls. They are lacking in really high end stuff and specifically culturally linked stuff.
I'm also a novice practitioner of gongfu cha, the Chinese tea ceremony, which is surprisingly involved. If you're in Vancouver, go to the http://www.thechineseteashop.com/ if you want a crash course in it - the shifu there is really quite good, willing to get you involved in the process as he tries to sell you yixing clay tea pots, and their site is quite informative. Essentially, it's the art of using tiny little tea pots (pictured below) to make very small batches of tea, steeped multiple times at varying temperatures and for various times, to unlock the different flavour profiles of a tea over multiple tastings. A small pot containing well under a cup will be carefully steeped and poured to quite exacting standards. The process is quite meditative and the tea is nuanced and delicious - the small quantities allow for a richness you don't get in more conventional tea preparations. Practitioners tend to have teapots that they use for their whole lives which, over time, build up tea oils and "season" the pot producing better and better steepings. You are not supposed to use different pots for different tea types, as it ruins the seasoning and the flavour profile, so it's one pot per type of tea. Some individual pots, aged hundreds of years and holding a fraction of a cup of tea, run into the five figure range to buy, though new ones will only set you back about $40+. Individual tea cakes can run into the five figure range as well.
I have several large glass tea pots used for different types of plain black, oolongs, greens, pu-erh, flavoured, and herbal teas and more conventional brewings. These days I get most of my regular drinking tea from Amazon - Davidson's bulk tea and Adamo tea, which sells mid-high quality loose leaf by the pound for a steal - and it's a great place if you don't have a good tea shop like Bayswater nearby. Hell, Amazon is next to impossible to beat for price for bulk teas and they have some legitimate quality stuff there and solid variety.
My recommendations for the day? If you've never done so, try a pu-ehr tea. It's a type of tea which is aged beyond the stage of black tea - so, oxidized long after the fermentation level of a black has been reached. It's easy to steep - just boiling water and steeping anywhere from seconds to a minute won't ruin it - and it has a unique flavour to say the least. Whereas greens tend to be grassy and blacks take on a complex character, pu-erh teas tend to be very rich and earthy, though oddly subtle and less powerful than blacks. Not good with cream and sugar, they are not as caffeinated as blacks and greens, but a neat thing to try.
Edit: Also, just a note for any real purists out there... I understand that if it doesn't come from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, it isn't technically tea. Though it's a bit like referring to any sparkling wine as a champagne, for the purposes of this thread, I'm doing what most of the world does and referring to any boiled plant that makes a beverage as tea.
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