/tea/ - Tea General

>tfw live at altitude and water boils at 202 F

Teafags are even more annoying than coffeefags.

Same but personally I've never had a problem

Here's your (You), now go away

is that dry mold

can anyone help me find a decently priced matcha?

also, does anyone know when this years harvest will be sold?

I am looking to buy from China Life Teahouse, already picked out about 50 bucks worth of tea, but I'm pretty sure it's all last years harvest.

any good recs on online stores that ship to urop?

does anyone know shit about GABA tea? I did some research and it seems that GABA is literally the same technical compound that is also found in liquid ecstasy.

theres a lot of bs around it, from the chinalife store:

GABA stands for gamma-amino butyric acid, an amino acid that is one of the main neurotransmitters in your central nervous system. Neurotransmitters help nerve signals to travel between cells (neurons). The GABA chemical functions to prevent over-excitement of the nervous system by controlling the movement of signals between neurons.

GABA tea has an abundant amount of health benefits. Some would even describe GABA as a ‘super tea’.

ANTI-ANXIETY, DE-STRESS: GABA is a chemical that your body produces to keep the brain calm, control blood pressure and manage stress. High levels of GABA prevent an over-active nervous system by blocking excessive levels of nerve signal transmissions that cause anxiety-related health issues. Not enough GABA in your brain can lead to epilepsy, seizures, convulsions, Huntington’s disease and Parkinsonism.

ANTI-INSOMNIA: GABA's calming effect can aid a deeper sleep and help combat sleep disorders. Drink an hour before bedtime.

ANTI-CANCER: GABA tea can inhibit the growth of cancer cells. In particular GABA has been studied for its ability to reduce airway-derived lung cancer.

LOWERS HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE: GABA is your body's own tranquilliser and is known for its role in lowering blood pressure. Please avoid if you suffer from hypotension.

PREVENTS DIABETES: GABA lowers blood sugar in your body by encouraging the production of insulin and secretion of insulin from the pancreas, preventing the risk of diabetes.

STRONG MENTAL HEALTH: GABA aids in memory retention, improves overall mental alertness and aids the development of learning abilities.

more: chinalifeweb.com/shop/product/tea-rgoc/86/

>Buzzfeed: the post.

you do realize I copypasted that shit from the website, right?

I just want to know if anyone has ever tried GABA tea.

Yeah that's what I meant dude.
It's snake oil isn't it?

Green teas like long jing and sencha are only being picked right about now. It'll be a few weeks yet before they hit the stores. Chinalife's imperial green long jing from last years crop is still drinking beautifully though.

GABA doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. enjoy your minor muscle relaxant.

Amber gaba is delicious. All that matters. No idea if it has any health benefits.

O-cha.com has cooking grade matcha at about 3k yen per 300 grams. Haven't seen it get much cheaper outside dubious Chinese matcha.

>General

yes, I think so, too

so, maybe buy oolongs and related teas now and wait for green teas to come out?

thanks very much. any scientific reading on this you can rec? I want to read up on it a little more. muscle relaxant doesn't sound too bad.

maybe it can help with restless legs? fucking hate that shit..

thanks man, I think I will cop.

>cooking grade

I'm looking for thick matcha for drinking, I have plenty of cooking grade and low-grade matcha at home.

>"maybe it can help with restless legs?"

See "Doesn't cross the blood brain barrier." It's a neurological condition.

wasn't even aware that restless legs was entirely neurological. I knew it was categorized as a form of insomnia, but that's just depressing :/

>Stop using teabags

Why?
What if I just cut open the teabags, would that be acceptable?

The TeaSource has some really great teas like the Zen Mai Cha, they're 100% better the Teavana

Anyone order tea from Adagio? They good?

starbucks tier

Thoughts on earl grey? I know it's kind of a poor mans tea but i kinda like it.

>Used to drinking Red Rose all my life but decide to be a hipster and go to Teavana to see what 'gourmet' tea supposedly is
>Buy Earl Grey Creme because I love Earl Grey
>It tastes like water mixed with artificial vanilla flavoring
>Look on the ingredients list and it's actually BLACK TEA MIXED WITH ARTIFICIAL VANILLA FLAVORING and NO BERGAMOT OIL

I bitched about it and the lady at the store was like 'oh well we're working towards getting rid of any artificial flavors in our teas'. bullshit.

It's like how the cheap Twinings earl grey in the orange packets doesn't specifically say 'bergamot oil' it just has 'citrus oil' and it tastes like dirt

The Red Rose, Stash, Celestial Seasonings, and Harney and Sons earl greys are all decent. I don't know how the fuck Red Rose does it being so fucking cheap but so much better than all the garbage bargain tea brands. Lipton is terrible.

Only if there's actual tea leaves in there, instead of the dust that's normally in a teabag

This site is new to me.
I think this is my tea, or it's close: yunnansourcing.com/collections/oolong-tea/products/wu-yi-shan-qi-lan-rock-oolong-tea-spring-2015

Thank you very much for the link!

Anyone know of any stores selling in Europe? Specifically the Benelux region (Belgium - Netherlands - Luxembourg).
Not too experienced in tbe art of the tea, mostly drink fruit-flavoured water.

holy fuck..

google.com/maps/search/tea shops/@51.4522033,4.8301738,8.5z

I think it is perhaps the weakest of the black teas. I can no longer drink it.

>If you are using teabags, stop leaving it in the cup after it's done brewing
>brewing tea in a cup
fucking murricans

What would you brew it in?

>stop using boiling water
I've been into chinese tea for a while now and the more I drink it the more I realize it is very resilient, even whites and greens take boiling water just fine, you just have to tweak the other parameters.
I find the people who care about temp more are people drinking finicky low quality tea, or people who are into jap and indian tea that require in fact stricter temperature control due to characteristics of the processing/ of the tea itself

Just wait for the 2017 version, no point in getting 1 yo tea when the harvest is happening as we speak for most teas
I like YS's teas as much as the next guy but their selection of wuyi oolongs is nothing special, which is to be expected, they are based in yunnan not fujian, there have been a few wuyi based shops popping in recently like lazycattea and oldwaystea, they are a lot more expensive than ys but the quality is worth it imo
Duck shit is a dancong from guandong, very different from wuyi oolongs, especially the greener kind

A kettle you nigger.

Im so tired of the brits know about tea meme

Coffee will always be my one and only but unfortunately I've developed a panic disorder in regards to high amounts of caffeine, weed, alcohol etc. Caffeine the the best of the 3 for me but anything more than a 3rd of a proper black cup can set my heart burning on certain days.
Given that OP is a fag and didn't post the sticky, what would ya'll recommend as a lightly caffeinated tea with anti-anxiety effects, with as strong a flavor as possible?

pastebin.com/4ZEuMwBJ
I think this is the most up-to-date pastebin.

Have you tried rooibos? No caffeine and it has a silky sort of tea taste. If you're looking for something bitter I'm not sure what to recommend.

correction:
>dirty sort of dirt taste

Nah man, rooibos is really nice. What do you prefer?

I'm just shitposting, I've only had trash rooibos that tasted like dirt in a somewhat tobacco-y way

I like assam from what I've had

Why are teabags degenerate senpai?

If you're a poncy little cuck most are bad, few are acceptable.

Most of those websites in that pastebin are obsessed with pu'er tea. Is pu'er actually that good?

If you can't be arsed to respond seriously don't respond at all.
All I'm asking for if there's any trustworthy webshops thay ship to or are based here, as I there's no proper Asiam community where I live.

Is bigelow tea any good? I've been drinking from their tea bags for the past year and I just recently started getting more seriously interested in actually trying the good shit out there.

Its not that its better or worse, it's just super varied so it has more grounds to be a hobby, there are a ton of variables to study, from what mountain it was picked to stuff like storage, all of that affects the flavour a lot.
Most other teas are all about getting fresh and quality material and that is it, drink it while it's good and wait for the next harvest

Whats wrong with tea from Teavana?

A kettle? I use a teapot myself.

$10 off your next purchase of over $30 or more?

I think Bigelow is an ok place to start tea tasting just so you don't throw a shit ton of money on a tea you might not like. Play around with different varieties. Twinings is also a good brand to experiment with, too.

Yes, I know: bagged tea is vastly inferior. I don't drink it myself, but I did when I first started drinking tea.

>Artificial vanilla flavoring in the earl grey

How do I make tea the way it SHOULD be done? Teach me Veeky Forums, I've loved tea since forever but I usually just buy any mark of teabags and throw them into hot water. How do I enjoy this fine drink properly?

Time for tea! Yeee haw!

>Stop using boiling water
Make me, my coconut tea tastes like ass if I don't use boiling water thats been cooled for about a minute.

>boiling water cooled for a minute
>objecting to using boiling water
>boiling water that has been cooled for a minute is somehow still boiling water

W-wew lad.

convenient twinings teabags pleb passing through

>Stop using boiling water

youtu.be/rG-rMpQT-GQ?t=65

Kind of a retarded question but does Earl Grey contain almost the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee or is it way lower?

You're a tiresome faggot.

How would someone use boiling water? Wouldn't it stop boiling even during the pouring process?

Also I like Lapsang Tarry

Big haul coming

They don't mean literally boiling at all times, they mean water that has reached boiling temp, aka 212 degrees Fahrenheit, which is much too hot for any tea that isn't black or herbal.

>britbongs thinking they know shit about tea

They trashed most of the world looking for tea and fucking turmeric, I think they know at least a little about it

You would think, but they only thing they learned was how to smuggle opium.

Overpriced?

Tedious child

Gormless Britmong

Tea noob here. Sick of teabag crap and I know the other stuff is better. I have had the real deal before and thus know what I am missing out on. Problem is I really don't know very much at all or how to really even get started.

Like I have no idea which online sources are best for ordering tea.

I also don't know what kind proper teapot and tea cups to even look for.

Don't exactly have a lot of spare dosh to waste due to stupid/newbie mistakes so I am hoping for some guidance here.

>tea cups
Doesn't matter, your own mugs are fine.

>teapot
Only matters in as much as there's room inside of it for the leaves to swell up without compressing against anything.
Hell, you could steep the leaves in your mug if you wanted, but you'd have to filter the brew through your teeth as you sipped.

Personally I use a $3 ceramic pot I got from the dollar store.
The little grill inside of the spout is kind of sub-par, so I pour through a mesh strainer I had lying around as well.

>online sources
Can't help you there, I buy from a kind asian lady downtown.

try to add coriander then?
at least it helps heavy metals to cross the blood-brain barrier
be cautious if you aren't detoxed properly you will toxify your brain

Although if you really want a nice teacup and saucer for cheap, check out thrift/charity shops.
People offload their old china all the time.

>Green tea isn't going to keep you up if you drink it before bed
Really? I've stopped drinking green tea after about 8pm because of that. I seem to be quite sensitive to even smaller amounts of caffeine at night.

>smaller
Green tea can have as much caffeine as espresso.

>kettle

What year is it?

>it's a "anons whom only drink the Brisk tea at Taco Bell tell other anons how to 'properly' drink tea" episode

This guy gets it.

can you use a french press for tea

He gets soap in is mouth is what he's getting.
Bagged Twinings is disgusting.

Yes, but two caveats:
- You can't use it for coffee, lingering coffee oils will ruin your tea
- Don't actually press down on the leaves like you do for coffee, that'll squeeze tannins out and ruin your tea

I've even heard it's the best possible thing to make tea in, since you can pump the plunger and stir the leaves up thoroughly for a fuller extraction

>coffee oils ruin your tea
I use a coffee maker for both. There is very minimal contact with coffee oils, only in the bottom of the basket, and if you keep it clean there's nothing to worry about.
I taste no difference. I'm a man and I do what I want in my own home involving caffeine.
Your coffee making techniques make me wonder why you don't use your time cooking, cleaning, gardening and laying around instead.
You can't possibly have so much time on your hands and so little to do that you would want to spend 16 minutes making a cup of coffee.

Who takes care of your normal person shit like cooking and cleaning while you spend hours in the kitchen attempting to improve bitter caffeine water?
Have some self respect and get a coffee maker my friend.

Nice projection, bro.

French press makes coffee in exactly four minutes, I use it not only because it tastes good but it's faster than anything else I own.

Any previous experiences with this brand?

Bump, want to know if Amazon sells any worthwhile teas.

Too much fiddling. If I want to sit around smoking cigarettes, sweating at the pits and twitching, I'm not putting effort into it.
It's practically less effective than using a coffeemaker, which can be loaded and switched on in 30 seconds.
That's ignoring the fact that 8oz coffee takes only another 30-40 seconds to show up in the bottom of the pot.

Maybe I just have a really fast coffee maker.
I refuse to join your cult. You stay in your corner and I'll head off to mine.

The bulk gunpowders generally aren't bad.

>fiddling

I'd grant you that if we were talking pour-over, but press is literally just pour water in and let it sit for four minutes.
8oz or 80oz, the time is the same.

If time is that valuable to you and you don't give a single shit about flavor, then you might as well drink instant.

I said I was hiding, get out of my corner.
I am terrified to leave my stoop, I admit it, leave me alone frenchman.

I don't care about converting you at all, just quit spouting made up bullshit with that smug grin on your face.

>got some loose yerba for the first time
>think I fucked up brewing it
>still tasted heavenly
I'm new to yerba, do you guys have any tips? I don't have a gourd/bombilla so I need to use a coffee cup.