Herbal tea

[The Mollusk]

FUCKING WEEKEND YES GET ON THE CAMOMILE AND AN EARLY NIGHT

Only joking I'm drinking four Lech just like I do every Friday. But I'm starting to really get into herbal tea lately. The first part of the appeal to me was that it wouldn't taste like regular British tea, which is dreck. I've been a fan of lapsang souchong for years because my housemate used to buy it and it smelled like Drum tobacco so I had to have a blast on that and see what was cracking. "It is smoky isn't it!" I remarked. Good times, happier times.

Anyway peppermint and fennel, that's great. Love having that of an afternoon, it's so refreshing and for some reason it always makes me feel good — well, not good, but better. If I'm feeling spicy I'll have a turmeric and ginger. Sometimes I'll have a chai but that's just like sweets isn't it, feels a bit like cheating. Might as well just stick a fizzy flying saucer in the mug.

What herbal teas do you like? How long do you leave the bag in to brew? I like to give it at least 5 minutes. No milk, no sweetener. I'm not a twat.

Also is green tea any good? It always looks like thin arse water to me, almost boring enough to be a vapour. Happy to have my mind changed.

[bgmnts]

I just thought of a nice lapsang souchong hitting my tastebuds and my spirit leapt out of my mouth, grasping at imaginary tea leaves.

Smokey tea is the only tea.

Its hard to look past mint/peppermint or rooibos tea as far as herbal goes, chamomile is a bit crap for me.

[Brian Freeze]

Earl grey rooibos tickles my fanny. Quite like fennel too.

Edit: those are the only ones I drink from the two dozen or many more we have cluttering up the first shelf above the kettle. Shouldnt complain really as I have more bikes than arses.

[chveik]

Also is green tea any good? It always looks like thin arse water to me, almost boring enough to be a vapour. Happy to have my mind changed.

gunpowder is ace

[bgmnts]

Gunpowder is the shit!

[Thursday]

Green tea with ginger is nice, good to have in the morning at work when you're anxious from the coffee you've already had but also really tired from not getting enough sleep because you're stressed and worried about the day ahead.

[Bazooka]

I never drank hot drinks my entire life until I moved to South Korea in 2011 where I got hooked on herbal, mainly green, and living in China there are just so many varieties, some really barky root stuff but you acquire a taste. Since I gave up booze end of last year, I drink a lot, you can't get shit like fennel or berry stuff easily in Asia, Asda do a nice liquorice and peppermint one.

Edit: My teenage self is in another dimension laughing at my post, what the fuck happened to future me,quit booze and drinking fucking flowers and dirt.

[flotemysost]

drinking fucking flowers and dirt.

LOLed.

Sheffield-based Batch Tea Company do some really nice fancy loose teas, I've had the Phoenix Mountain Black and the Kama Sutra Chai.

Sometimes I'll have a chai but that's just like sweets isn't it

This one definitely is sweet but the cardamom spiciness is the dominant flavour, although I've not tried the pan brewing method recommended on their website.

Something nice about using a tea strainer, less faff than making coffee with a moka pot but still a comforting sort of ritual. I don't think I have enough friends to justify getting a teapot.

[chveik]

I don't think I have enough friends to justify getting a teapot.

nonsense

[flotemysost]

^ Heh.

I remember lusting after this handsome Bodum number in the Lidl WIGIG[nb]When It's Gone, It's Gone[/nb] aisle a while back but it seemed like a bit of an extravagance:



Back to herbal teas, I only realised quite recently that green tea, despite being good for you, still has a shitload of caffeine in it. I tried switching from coffee to green tea a while ago (didn't last) and remember thinking 'hmm that's weird, I'm not getting headaches or fatigue or anything', ah yes that would be because I'm still pounding the psychoactive stimulants. As you were.

Anyone a fan of matcha? It probably gets unfairly associated with sickly artificially flavoured stuff (Oreos, Frappuccinos), or those '10 Foods That Will CURE CANCER' lists that New Age health freak types always share on social media, but I quite like the subtly smoky powdery taste.

[Chedney Honks]

Without repeating previous threads, needless to say, tea is one of the best things humans have made.

The important things to consider are brewing at the right temperature for the variety of tea, the right duration and the quality of the tea. Get these right and you will realise that you've opened an amazing can of worms (tea).

If you brew almost any tea with boiling water, you will fuck it to some degree. Even black tea or Darjeeling should really be brewed at 90/95 degrees. The issue for 99% of people is that without a kettle where you can set the temperature, you need to use a thermometer.

The other more significant issue is the miscomprehension that tea is tea, boil it, brew it strong and drink your tea. That's why a lot of people think 'green tea' is bitter dishwater or 'tasteless'. Without getting scientific or a total ponce about it, if you nuke it, the bitterness will dominate and mask any other flavours. There are also absolutely loads and loads of varieties, all from the same exact plant, but picked and processed at different times in a wide variety of ways, giving an immense variety of flavours with which no other product can compare. It's like a combination of wine and whiskey in terms of the cultivation, processing and production.

I would recommend:

Dragonwell (Longjing) - 70/80 degrees - Tastes nutty, grassy, sesame, very refreshing, comforting, satisfying little bite at the very end. Easy drinking, very moreish. Really prized and gets well expensive at the top end but perfectly possible to get good stuff without spending much.



Iron Buddha Oolong (Tieguanyin) - 80/85 degrees - Buttery mineral orchid aroma, literally impossible to describe but the kind of thing you could make just to smell it for half an hour. Taste is soft, vegetal, floral, buttery, but very quenching. The leaves look amazing as they unfurl. The smell in the teapot once you've poured the tea is unreal.



Silver Needle (Baihao Yinzhen) - 60/70 degrees - Very soft, melon and sesame, incredibly comforting smell and flavour, almost got that sake soft warmth to it. You do need to get some decent stuff with this or it can be too thin and subtle. I love the downy leaves.



Pu'er (or Pu Erh) - You can brew this at 100 degrees usually - It's impossible to summarise what is basically a massive subset of tea which you could spend a lifetime exploring. Long story short, it's fermented tea (usually) packed into cakes and aged. You then break a bit off and brew it up to a dozen times, depending on the quality. Very broadly, it's earthy, rich, comforting, very unlike anything you'd expect from 'green tea', it can be like red wine, mushrooms, soil, but there's something fundamental to it that's impossible to describe as anything other than Pu'er. It's the kind of thing that once you go down the rabbit hole, you could sack off every other drink full stop. I went through a serious phase and absolutely adored it, and I actually miss it, writing this now has got me opening a shit load of tabs looking for cakes (beeng/bing). I'm really looking forward to falling in love again.

[tao of wub]

British style tea with milk is a horror to me.  Reminds me of filthy stained cups and milk of questionable age and texture, in the fag reeking works canteens of my teens. 

Black tea on the other hand is great bunch of lads.

Kusmi has some nice Russian blends, but the postage cost always puts me off!  You get a discount if you spend loads.

https://www.kusmitea.com/int/our-teas-and-herbal-teas/our-selection/russian-teas

I want to try their Earl Grey Intense

https://www.kusmitea.com/int/earl-grey-intense-EGIN2.html?v=EGIN2125

Price wise they are similar to Batch I suppose, more expensive than tea from a company like Tea Pigs, but then Tea Pigs are owned by Tata Global Beverage, who sound like they would licence the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.[nb]More seriously, Tata are more than a little dubious ethically and I try never to buy their products[/nb]

[Head Gardener]

takes the misery out of making tea

[Bazooka]

Round the back of the bike sheds sniffing Jasmine.

[Bernice]

As someone making a fist of teatotaling after years of being a drunken fuck up, I'm currently in the habit of caning boiled up overbrewed rooibos while I vape myself into a fit of anxiety. Which is to say, thanks for this thread, I reckon I might get proper into this tea lark and take it seriously as a pursuit. The nerdy hobbyist threads are the best things on this site.

[Chedney Honks]

Bernice,

Booze hounds swear by this one mad trick!

Pu-erh tea.

As above, one of the greatest, most unique things on Earth.

Get yourself an Ingenuitea:



Get yourself some Pu-erh tea, either loose leaf:

https://www.theteamakers.co.uk/yunnan-puerh.html

Or you can get the little tuocha cakes which you can brew a dozen times, drink little half cups, and taste the difference as they open up.

https://www.theteamakers.co.uk/puerh-tuocha-mini-cakes.html

If you like whisky or wine, something full of flavour, this is the stuff. I stopped boozing for about eighteen months without really trying to, just wanted to drink that tea.

[Bernice]

My man, you are the man. Payday tomorrow, I'm buying a shit load of tea and that funny cup. Let's do it.