Tea Thread

Do claims of health benefits of like helping anxiety, calming nerves or whatever else actually have any weight to them?

if you have any better alternatives to their sleeping dragon green tea then do tell.

beer brewer here.

was planning on brewing up a tea-inspired pale ale. my first thought was using earl grey, then adding lemon zest and some local honey.

does anyone have any brand/sourcing recommendations as far as tea? northern california if that makes a difference. I was going to just go to whole foods or something, but if there is something superior I'd prefer to do that.

I find it to not be important, in comparison to taste at least, there is no way to actually know how old it is, or how old the trees are, just get stuff people give good reviews to i guess

Depends on what kind of flavour you want to give your beer, sweet and floral? vegetable? smoky? woody/mushroomy?

Pu Erh would make a great stout flavor.
Check mandala tea, they have samples.

Looks like it's a type of Pi Lou Chung
Try:
uptontea.com/store/item.asp?itemID=ZGP4
or
uptontea.com/store/item.asp?itemID=ZG92

I'd recommend starting with Harney & Sons loose leaf tea. Their teas are very solid and not too expensive, and you should be able to order them easily on Amazon. You can start off with a 1.5-2" tea ball (to brew loose leaf), which will also be cheap and easy to order on Amazon.

For tea types, I'd start with "classic," popular types: English breakfast, darjeeling, sencha green tea, and maybe Earl Grey. These will give you a solid foundation for how black and green teas taste, and H&S's offerings of these are good for the most part.

Then if you liked most of them, try a single-origin blacks (as opposed to Eng breakfast, which is usually a blend), such as yunnan or keemun, jasmine green, dragon well green, and maybe an oolong.

You can hold off on a kettle unless you decide tea will be a hobby, and you can figure out how long to brew each tea based on their instructions, and the tea ball is easy enough to use. But do be careful with time and water temperature--don't steep too long, and don't steep too hot.

now go forth and drink tea, lad

What's your budget per pound? I work wholesale tea, we mostly have high end stuff but also some assams for tea cafes.

I love good tea and good beer, but I don't expect any tea flavors to work well in a beer.

Maybe the malt flavors of a rich black tea could complement hoppy beer or meld well in a stout. Sounds interesting enough to try though, I think.

Just drink it and imagine that it's calming you.

I used to only ever drink coffee when I was going on coffee dates with partners or family and so I associated the coffee with happiness/comfort so I drink it all the time now. Might be psychological

or you have a minor caffeine addiction

pu-erh friends, how many times do you resteep? I got a sample of some pu-erh, and I only get two steeps before there's no more flavor. I get 4-5 with black or green tea though.

Are you brewing gongfu or western? gong fu I get about 15 sometimes more, I dont see how you could get no flavour after two, how much leaf are you using and what are the steep times

I really like being tea drunk, whether it's placebo or not I don't know or care

Brewer from over the pond here m80
Marble (UK) do an amazing earl grey IPA my favourite of theirs also I bought an elyssium. Jasmine tea beer that was pretty decent. The moron at my local had a beer fest and ordered a bag of some tea sticking in a barrell, pretty bad it was too

I've been drinking a shit load of herbal teas recently, (which I know don't count as "real" tea), because I'm on the mend from going on a holiday where I was on a bender for about 3 weeks.
But, every morning, without fail, I have a small pot of Yorkshire tea, with milk, and then at noon I have some Puerh, and at around 3 or 4, I have green tea (usually Sencha). Those are my usual suspects, although I do like a nice Darjeeling.
Right now, though, I'm drinking a giant mug of Sleepytime tea, since it's late and I need to be getting my 7 hours a night.

I mostly drink mint tea because I feel it calms me.

Any other teas that make you feel relaxed?

this. and adding bergamot or jasmine notes to a lager would work. other than those 3 possibilities tea and beer don't mesh too well. nobody wants a vegetal beer, and the bitter notes of tannins in tea are very different (sharper, more acrid) from the bitter notes of beer.

There's a tea that is usually only sold in Wintertime, but you can buy it year round on Amazon, by Celestial Seasonings, called Sugar Plum Spice. It has a blend of hibiscus, chicory, chamomile, rosehips, roasted carob, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and plum. It's my go-to comfy tea when I just want to relax and not be wakeful.

>It has a blend of hibiscus, chicory, chamomile, rosehips, roasted carob, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and plum.

Where's the tea though

>tea drunk
haha i told a friend i get a kind of high from tea that i call a tea buzz and he said i was crazy. I think the caffeine, which is a stimulant, and the L-theanine, which is a relaxant, work in tandem to produce this effect. Kind of like how depressant alcohol and stimulant nicotine make for a very different feeling than just one of those substances being used

Yeah, I also think it's the mix of the caffeine with the relaxing properties, you feel very awake but very calm, mind very clear.

If "caffeine after noon" is so bad, then wouldn't big tea-drinking nations have higher instances of sleep problems? Especially ones that are maximalist with their leaves, e.g. gong-fu? Is this the case?

I think the threads are less common now that the summer is going strong. Not only because high culture attracts less shitposters, but because I assume people are tanking pure water for hydration instead.

>there is no way to actually know how old it is, or how old the trees are
In these cases, yes. But it's technically scientifically possible.

what kind of tea you drinking?
who your dealer?

>0 images

4-5 minutes at 100c. was using this adagio.com/pu_erh/pu_erh_dante.html

i think it might be shit. my last batch of pu-erh was good for 6-7 steeps

try doing gong-fu m8

I take mine to work, re-steep 5 or more times through the day. That's with cheap shit so far from a coffee place, I ordered some good stuff so we'll see with that.

steepster.com/teas/golden-dragon/9531-china-black-tea-with-rose-loose-leaf

I've been drinking this via all-ceramic infuser mug. It smells fantastic, and that's its main quality, though the flavor is quite nice as well, and it's cheap as fuck for how good it is. I have to admit, I haven't experienced that many teas, not enough to become a tea snob, but some day, I would like to.

You know why.

Americans must work hard and late along with a worse diet + stay up all night with electronics.

40 hours a week, plus an extra 10 from home, but I still drink a shit ton of tea and post here. I also have no social life, though.

>resteeping
i've been drinking loose leaf tea for a couple years now and i never considered that as a possibility, i've wasted so much tea.

the caffeine effect from tea doesn't seem to be the type that gives you adverse effects. I've never felt jittery or had trouble sleeping, even after drinking 10-plus cups in a day.

It just doesn't affect you like the caffeine in coffee or a pill does.

And I think the weather is partially responsible for fewer tea threads. I'm definitely drinking less hot tea now.

I haven't particularly liked any of the loose-leaf tea I've resteeped, and I've only tried it with legit high quality stuff. Well, there are a couple green teas that resteeped pretty well, now that I think of it.

but the point is, resteeping doesn't pan out well for all teas, only with certain greens and oolongs. so you're not really wasting much.

>blend of hibiscus, chicory, chamomile, rosehips, roasted carob, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and plum.
I never thought tea could have that many herbs together
I bet it tastes like hot water

Nope, it tastes like a snuggly holiday season night. Perfect for when you want to feel comfy and relaxed.

Tea is just dishwater for old ladies

There's not even any tea in there.

Spiced tea can be good though. Masala Chai is delicious.

An Indian lady at work has been giving me masala chai she makes. So spicy and sweet it's great. Going to make some tonight. Someone gave me a diy chai blend that I never bothered opening.

Maybe even tea drinkers want to fucking relax and not be full on wired all night. The "tea" in question was my post, and I drink it at night, after a long day, where I drink mostly Yorkshire (in the mornings) and puerh and sencha in the afternoons. Nothing wrong with herbal teas (or "tisanes" if you have to call them that) for relaxation purposes, or medicinal purposes (such as the case of ginger tea or mullien leaf tea). People need to stop being so ridiculous about beverages, especially teas and coffees.

fuck you, weebs.

favorites are oolongs like tie guan yin, honey phoenix, buddhas hand

also drink jasmine, sencha, and long jing

theres a ton of good tea sites regularly posted in the Veeky Forums tea threads

after I resteeped them I even coldbrew the leaves :^)

Drinking some lapsang for the first time, has a nice pine flavour so im assuming it was smoked with pinewood, when I smelled it I was expecting the smoke flavour to overtake the tea but it doesnt, it complements the black tea flavour.

I thought mine was way too smokey and earthy to boot. Couldn't drink it.

To be fair I didnt use a lot of leaf, perhaps 3 grams(for ~100ml of water) and pretty much flash brewed it for the first three steeps or so, so it might have been that, or you just got hold of a bad tea

also protip for coldbrewing: leave it in the fridge for two nights. one just isn't enough flavour imo

>Drinking some lapsang
same. I think pinewood is the cheaper practice, at least it's more common.

I don't usually recommend shit, but I had this sencha blend called Shinko from a tea store in Portland that was really good.
thejasminepearl.com/Shinko_p/2036.htm

Yeah, i know now but had pretty much no info on it when I wrote that, just noticed the flavour, didnt order from an expensive place or anything, just a local store with an old lady that actually knows about gong fu and stuff, the only one in my city

Raw is where its at when it comes to puerh. Im pretty happy with what I have gotten from yunan sourcing. Check out xijuan if you are in to slightly smokey flavors.
I usually get 5-6 if brewing gong fu style. Maybe 2 or 3 if brewing western. Dont forget to do a quick 10 sec or so rinse.

Interesting in trying out some Pu Erh from Yunnan Sourcing. Any suggestions? Looking for the cheaper side of the spectrum, or samples if possible. I've had pu erh here and there but I'd like to really get into it.

I sent an email to scott yesterday about recs on some raw puer samples, ill post here when he answers

Drinking a blend from my local tea/coffee store called "evening mist" - japanese sencha with a bunch of different blossoms i cant remember.
Pretty good desu

You buy absolute shit tea m8. In western brewing green tea should be able to be resteeped at least twice and Oolongs/black tea even more.
Your "legit high quality stuff" is shit.

Either that or he uses some twisted parameters like super low amount of leaf or like 3l of water

Yeah, maybe too high temperature so all the flavour extracts at once.

is it safe to drink tea that was cold brewing at room temperature for over 12 hours?

room temp here is 20-25'c

Id drink it, not sure if its within the regulations but you should be fine

I tried it and it was pretty bland anyway. Probably because I'd steeped it too many times already.

I find cold brewing to be perfect for when you only steep the tea once. More than that and I would steep it normaly and then flash chill it.

might be the case but I push my teas and then just cold brew it for two nights. brings out way more taste.
cold brew being in the fridge doe