Culture - Tea Snobs... favorite blend(s)/brands?

[Boca Bitch]

One day I visited Teavana in my mall, and ever since then I've become a total tea junkie. I tend to prefer teas with low caffeine content (white) and those without any at all: herbal and rooibos are my favorites.

What are your favorite types? What is your preferred method of steeping: loose-leaf, sachet, or other...?

Are there any people out there that mix their own blends from scratch? I've considered doing that... growing chamomile and buying lemongrass, vanilla extract and just mucking around with it.

EDIT:.... shit lol... I meant to make the poll multi-option, is there any way a mod can fix it??? Thank you in advance!!!

[MisterV]

If SWIM takes some tea, prefering it in the cold winter days, he takes some earl grey, sometimes with a little bit of rum

[Potter]

Pu-Erh Hands down. There is nothing like a good Pu.

[Jatelka]

The flamingo drinks a lot less tea than she does coffee.

When she does drink it, she likes nothing better than Earl Grey, served with the tiniest bit of lemon. Or Assam, served without milk.

Very occasionally, usually after a hectic night, she will have Twinings Breakfast Tea which is the only tea she would consider drinking with milk.

All without sugar, of course

In terms of green tea: Well, it's OK, funny colour though, kind of like mouldy hay!

[honourableone]

SWIM voted for white tea; it has a nice mild taste, and the most relaxing effects in terms of it's high theanine content. For something with a stronger taste, SWIM sometimes has gunpowder tea, which is a form of green tea there the leaves are rolled tightly to preserve flavour. Being English, he often drinks regular black tea with milk too.

Prefferable, SWIM puts loose leaf tea in his "tea ball". This is a wire mesh sphere that can go straight into the cup.

[lucian]

SWIM likes tea but tends to drink coffee now. If you live in the UK, have access to a tea pot then Lyons Red Label is a good tea for the money without paying through the nose like in Whittards etc. I think its an Assam blend.

If I'm going to push the boat out, you know as in I have been drinking tea all day and suffering from tea induced mania, then I may purchase some Lapsang Souchong at higher cost. Thing is the next day I'll wake up to find discarded mugs around the house, lips and teeth stained black by the tanning and the Mrs has that tight-lipped expresssion on her face. She will ask me where I was last night:

"In the pub honest, getting drunk on our shared income" I will say.
"M_______ saw you in the tea room yesterday" She will say.
"No! No - it wasn't me!" I will protest.
"What's that in your pocket then? A receipt for Lapsang Souchong! You like the Oriental ones don't you!"
"No, No I was in the pub alnight, I wasn't on the tea, please believe me!!!!"
It will then take 10 uninterupted trips to Ikea before the expression softens on her face.

[Jatelka]

honourableone: you call it a "teaball":

Interesting. I have a "crocodile" (because of the way it opens up) that gets swished around!

[Boca Bitch]

Are you talking about "blooming tea"? Like the compact tea balls?... kinda like Pu, but they can pretty much do it with any kind of tea (I think).. there's a white and rooibos one at my tea shop.

I'm confused..

[honourableone]

No, I'm talking about a method of using loose leaf tea (you can get the idea by looking at this picture of a teaball that I have just added to the gallery).

[Boca Bitch]

... How interesting! I'm glad I asked!! It seems so much more convenient than your typical stainless strainer. I use this:

It's cute and machine washable, but a major pain in the ass when one wants more than one cup of tea per day.

I just ordered myself a teaball.

[Bajeda]

I'm not too picky when it comes to tea, though I enjoy trying new varieties. I enjoy a good number of Chinese teas, including white, black, green, and whatever other types they have. My palate isn't refined enough for the pricier ones though, so I wouldn't pay for those myself.

I have a special fondness for Sri Lankan (Ceylon) teas of most any variety, and enjoy a good orange tea now and then.

I absolutely love most any tea from the Middle East. It varies greatly from country to country, and even within countries. A lot of sugar (or perhaps honey) with mint or an assortment of spices. No clue whats in most of them, but damn they are good. Some of the - obviously Indian influenced - chai varieties made with milk are to die for. Which reminds me, chai is absolutely fantastic as well.

Actually, I think I'll make a cup right now.

[sweettea]

After being introduced to Japanese cast-iron teapots and hand-rolled first flush jasmine pearl tea I've been in love ever since. My oh my.

Still though, I do like a cup of plain ol' gumboot sometimes. (^_^)

[dyingtomorrow]

SWIM has a cabinet full of different kinds of Chai teas. So comforting and delicious. He'll drink other tea, but nothing holds a candle to even the most basic Chai in his opinion.

[RX420]

swim prefers coffee :P hah

but its usually just sleepytime with Valerian tea by Celestial Seasonings

[Potter]

How could I have forgotten zavarka, the Russian tea concentrate that makes espresso look like penny candy! Zavarka, killer of the weak hearted! Zavarka, the brown liquor that truly drives the Motherland! Zavarka, that sharpens the world, enlightens the soul, warms the heart! Zavarka, the last tea you'll ever need!

Russians learned a secret, that by using a large quantity of tea leaf and boiling water, one could saturate the solution with alkaloids and flavanoids, and the tannins would not fall into solution, creating a strongly concentrated tea with no bitterness. Diluted with water and given a dollop of marmalade for sweetness, tea is as ingrained in Russian culture just as deeply as it is in Japan and China.

Before going into specifics, I feel the need to warn you, this is hard drugs. This stuff can kill you. Do not drink this stuff if you have a weak heart or are sensitive to caffeine, or are taking other stimulants. Do not drink a cup of this your first time, you will regret it, start with an ounce and see what happens. Zarvaka is not a joke.

It all starts with the samovar. On top is a small pot where the zavarka, and the main tank holds the kipyatok, the boiled water which is used to make the concentrate and then to dilute it. They used to heat samovars by burning pine cones, now a days they are usually electric. To compensate for the loss of flavor imparted by the pine cone smoke, smoked teas are often used in Russian blends.

A brief note on buying electric samovars. At least in the US, samovar's are next to impossible to purchases new, and as such they need to be imported. Depending on the country of origin, there's a chance it will be built to handle a different electrical current then what is availible in your wall. A friend of mine had to re-install the heating element of his Russian samovar, and remarked that it was not a pretty scene inside the pot, and was quite a bit of work to do. Also, because there was no auto-shut off, if the water level were to fall below the top of the heating element, a fire could result. Just so you know what you might be getting into. Of course he was specifically looking for a Russian samovar, one that he could fit his Russian tea glass (see below) under the spigot, which he could not do with his Turkish samovar. He was kinda crazy like that.

It is very important to use kipyatok for the tea making process, the water must be in a rolling boil and not given a chance to cool down. It is recommended that you steam the inside of the zavarka pot before mixing the tea and water. Allowing "raw water", no matter how hot it is, to contaminate the tea making will result in bitter tea. Best to use filtered water, if not spring water.

You use 5 teaspoons of tea per cup of water. Put the tea in the pot, pour in the water, and let sit for 20 minutes or till all the leaves settle to the bottom, which ever takes longer. This concentrate is then diluted 10:1 with more boiling water.

The color of the tea should be similar to that of a chestnut. If your glass, cup, or mug has vertical walls (constant horizontal cross-section, that is), you can control the color very easily. Observe that the color of the tea does not change if you look from above, assuming the water is completely transparent (the proof of this statement is left as an exercise to the reader). Therefore, all you have to do is pour zavarka until it reaches the desired color, and water it down thereafter. Cups with increasing horizontal cross-sections do not offer such an easy method, you will either have to solve an integral equation or make an educated guess.(source)

Now of course a glass tea cup is going to get hot, luckily the Russians have just the solution, the podstakannik, literally "thing under the glass". This allows for proper dilution of one's tea while maintaining one's dignity under the pressure of a hot glass in your hands.

If one were to be so miserable as to be imprisoned in a gulag, you're one bright hope for the day was your daily tea ration. It was not uncommon for inmates to store their rations up, and cook them down into chephyr, a thick goo used as a drug substitute. It is of the author's opinion that this is unnecessary for the free individual, and does not condone the use of chephyr as the zarvarka is strong enough to be worrisom to the health.

Eight ounces of zarvarka is the most I've ever had. Euphoria, body rapture, shape-shifting, energy, crystalline vision verging on the edge of hallucinogenic, later, irrational thoughts, foolishness, exhaustion, and a rather intense crash, literally, to the ground.

By using such a large quantity of tea leaf and boiling water, you supersaturate the solution with flavanoids and alkaloids before the slower dissolving tannins fall out of solution, the end up trapped in the tea solids. This not only allows an intensly concentrated tea with out bitterness, but certain alkaloids that normally are normally only in trace quantities, to reach active doses. It should also be noted that the leaves of Camellia sinensis has twice as much caffeine by dry weight as roasted coffee beans. We just usually use a whole lot less tea for a cup.

According to Pendell, "Some of the phenols in the essential oil are dangerous, though in a minimal sort of way. The reputed effects of the essential oils in calming the nerves probably far outweigh the dangers, unless the quantities are excessive." We are talking about excessive quantities of tea here. He goes on "Tea also contains small amounts of theophylline, a strong diuretic, and a more powerful CNS stimulant then caffeine. Theophylline is used for treating asthma and emphysema." He does not offer any suggestions as to which phenols may be problematic.

A patient of mine once overdosed on normally brewed tea. He drank around two and a half gallons of the stuff, over the course of the day and ended up laid out on my floor, cool, clammy, pale, pounding heart, weakness, that lasted the better part of an hour. He has previously experimented with a water overdose and said this, was not that, different set of symptoms.

A warning video on the effects of excessive tea consumption... of sorts...

If you're going to bother exploring the surprising limits of tea, you best be using some good stuff. Kusmi is one of the best exported brands of Russian tea and I highly recommend their, Troika, Kashmir Tchai, and Samovar blends. This brand is widely distributed and should be able to be found in any gourmet food market or tea shop. Warning, if you make zarvarka on a regular basis, you will find even a large tin will not last long, this stuff can get expensive, avoid bagged tea, it's always far more expensive then loose, and of course buy in bulk when availible.

I'm glad I was finally able to get this all down, I've been wanting to share this for a while and just hadn't gotten around to it. I highly recommend trying out the formulas presented here, it's a good reminder on how easy it is to over look potent plants, especially those we take for granted. Use six times the amount of tea you would normally use and you get a beverage of a very different nature then it's more common variety. It takes 60 fresh leaves of Salvia divinorum to become active, how many plants have you eaten 60 leaves off of in a single sitting? What else is out there that we haven't given thought to? That we haven't ever tried eating enough of?

The Turks also use a samovar and a concentrate for their tea drinking, though I don't know the recipe. Their tea is served diluted 1:1 with water in a demitasse glass, with two lumps of sugar, and is as potent as a cup of coffee. In Turkey, should someone decline sugar in their tea, the proper question to ask is "Are you diabetic?" As the only rational reason why someone wouldn't want almost equal measures of tea and sugar, is that it was dangerous to them, and you would probably want to offer your guest soemthing other then the sweets you had planned. It's not uncommon for a Turkish man to drink 40 some servings of tea in a day, even in ounce and a half glasses, that's a lot of tea, a lot of sugar, and a lot of stimulants. Guess it probably helps even out all the hashish.

While a bit off topic from this post, but important to the thread, I just uploaded the Royal Chemistry Societies publication How to Brew the Perfect Cup of Tea for your enjoyment and consideration.

Maybe we SHOULD let the DEA in on this one, let the kids on YouTube get messed up, let the tabloid news run wild, maybe the uproar that would come when they tried to ban tea would be enough to carry out the rest of our goals, would waken people up to what's going on with drug laws. People FIGHT for tea, I live in a country that is what it is, because 200 years ago England raised an obscene tax on tea. Like chocolate and coffee, people see tea as their RIGHT, not a privilege. Even the US government has put out propaganda saying "Coffee gives you you're fair share", not "something extra", but what you and everyone else minimally deserves. People kill for their rights.

It's been too long since I've indulged in some Russian tea, I no longer frequent the house where I had first drunk this most intriguing brew, but I know an old China man who runs a dusty little shop not far from here. I think it might be time to go visit him and get my fix of one of the last sanctioned drugs, while I still have time.

Nothing quite like a hot cup of brown joy.

Reputation Comments on this post:

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[Boca Bitch]

Originally Posted by Potter

How could I have forgotten zavarka, the Russian tea concentrate that makes espresso look like penny candy! Zavarka, killer of the weak hearted! Zavarka, the brown liquor that truly drives the Motherland! Zavarka, that sharpens the world, enlightens the soul, warms the heart! Zavarka, the last tea you'll ever need!

That borders horrifying. Yet I'm overcome with pure fascination... thank you so much for posting this!!!!! I have to inquire though... within SWIYs experiences, is it comparable to other more powerful stimulants? Obviously, the mechanisms of action are entirely different; adenosine antagonists and dopamine releasing agents are obviously not the same... but are there enough similarities to be comparable to say, amphetamine? Is it significantly different than a pure caffeine binge?
I would imagine so, as the theobromine and theophylline must be induce more calmness in higher doses than pure caffeine does. Or are all xanthines pretty much the same in their psychotropic effects in high-dose situations?

[chibi curmudgeon]

I don't want to sound like I'm advertising http://www.distinctlytea.com, but this place is awesome. Their website is really nice and has proper brewing instructions for black, green, white, oolong, rooibos, mate, etc. And if you go to one of their stores, in Stratford and Waterloo, Ont., you can smell every blend before you buy it. Like, hundreds of different blends, if you can imagine it they probably have it.

I have this chocolate yerba mate with cornflowers and coconut, tiramisu mate with macadamia, coriander, pepper, all kinds of stuff, their Russian caravan blend, which is lychee flavored with Assam, Keemun, and Lapsang Souchong, the latter being my favorite tea ever. I want some incense that smells like it.

Anyone else find it amusing that English speaking countries have what they call "chai tea" when "chai" is the Russian translation of "tea?"

[Boca Bitch]

Originally Posted by chibi curmudgeon

Anyone else find it amusing that English speaking countries have what they call "chai tea" when "chai" is the Russian translation of "tea?"

That's interesting... doesn't Chai in English refer to Indian spiced black tea? I'm not really certain to be honest, as I hate chai and most black teas, so I've never looked into the history of it.

[chibi curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Boca Bitch

That's interesting... doesn't Chai in English refer to Indian spiced black tea? I'm not really certain to be honest, as I hate chai and most black teas, so I've never looked into the history of it.

Yep, it's spices like cinnamon, cardamom, etc., usually with milk. I just came across this as I'm learning Russian (veeeery slowly...) and thought it was odd.

[Junkhead23]

Originally Posted by Boca Bitch

That's interesting... doesn't Chai in English refer to Indian spiced black tea? I'm not really certain to be honest, as I hate chai and most black teas, so I've never looked into the history of it.

I always wondered why my grandad used to call having a cup of tea a cup of cha. Now I know

I'm a simple person I guess and just like black tea with milk. Tried redbush and that was ok I guess. Green tea is horrifying. I do like Twinings earl grey though.

Has o be a good brand of tea though. Can't stand the weak shit.

[Lady Codone]

Yerba mate, coca, poppy...the list goes on. SWIM likes a variety of teas. Ginger and peppermint are lifesavers for nausea and taste pretty darn good too. Green and white tea every now and then...and iced tea (black) has always been my jam

SWIM's not really into buying expensive "blends" and doesn't see the need when you can make your own out of various herbs and spices around the house.

[Subvert]

Chamomile, It's quite relaxing, especially mixed with some valerian.

But as a drink...Earl Grey everytime.

[Potter]

Ever cold brew your tea? It's perfect for those touchy green teas that get bitter when steeped for more then a minute. Just drop your tea in a plastic bottle full of water and let it sit overnight in the fridge. Best part is it takes very little tea, a few grams will do for a 2 liter. During the summer I'll have at least one or two in my fridge at all times, though recently I've been experimenting with various herbs like basil, sage, mint, thyme, since my garden has been simply awesome this year. The herbal water makes for a hella refreshing treat.

[helene]

Hmmm a nice cup of tea.

What a lovely subject - so much nicer and friendlier than the dark, nasty stuff we normal talk about in this forum.

In the mornings, a nice, strong cup of Twinings English Breakfast tea hits the spot nicely. With a dash of milk, no sugar. And a fag. Lovely.

I used to drink loads of tea, throughout the day, but have had to slow down in the afternoon/ evenings, as insomnia is getting ridiculous, and there's no way that the tea is helping.

So I try, in the afternoon, to drink Twinings Earl Grey, which is slightly weaker. And if I get desperate for a cuppa in the evening, I've been resorting to hot milk, with some sugar and a bit of cinnamon in it. I know, it's what you used to be given before bed by your granny when you were a kid, but it's better than nothing!

Occasionally, a cup of really milky chai tea is lovely. One of those disgustingly capitalist international coffee shops that exist on every high street actually does a lovely chai tea latté...

And, very rarely, I'm taken with the idea of a cup of strawberry herbal tea. Twinings again, I'm afraid. I agree with Pacman on this one, it's definately worth spending those extra pennies on a decent brand.

Off to have a cuppa now, methinks...gonna treat myself to a "real" cup of tea, even though it's so late, as I doubt I'm gonna be getting much sleep tonight anyway.

H

[wespawloski]

Chamomille is one of god's gifts to Earth. I always find it has just the slightest relaxing effect; so when its effective, it is calm and subtle.