The tea thread

[Eilonwy]

Recently introduced to Buddhas Tears.

Also known as Jasmine Dragon Pearl green tea. This delicate tea is made from the highly prized young tea bud and its first two leaves. The tiny, exotic tea is hand rolled into small pearls and mixed with fresh jasmine flowers.

 

[miss fortune]

I live near an international grocery store (yay for living in the immigrant part of town!) and buy both loose leaf jasmine and lapsang souchong (smoked tea) there... both are delicious. I make jasmine iced tea pretty frequently

also love black currant tea, but for some reason it's hard to find around here so I gave up and ordered about 6 boxes of it online!

 

[BadOctopus]

I bought this tea for my best friend and her husband when I went to Canada, and apparently I got them addicted to it.

And you can only get it in Canada. Some friend I am.

 

[spirilis]

I wanted to try buying tea direct-from-China, since I've bought electronics parts, a solar panel and some LED strips via aliexpress.com before ... I figure why not? Half the world's tea comes from China anyway, should be able to find plenty of high-quality tea on a Chinese/international commerce website.

Knowing Yunnan Province is the birthplace of tea, I wanted to start there first--I found one called "Dian Hong" (which just means "black tea from yunnan province" according to this book I'm reading; like saying "French Wine"...) but I figured what the hey. There are probably dozens of different teas I could try from there. So I chose one which had rolled leaves sort've like gunpowder green tea (but was listed as a black/red tea).

Took over a month to get here but it was a nice surprise.

(that was the 2nd infusion)

Has an aroma like prunes or dates, very nice. Vaguely reminds me of oolong teas I've had in the past. Definitely bears the color and finish of a black tea though.

 

[sprinkles]

I made fresh mint tea just now. I grow my own mint and I have a lot of sprigs from maintenance pruning right now. Mint grows like crazy if left alone.

 

[spirilis]

I made fresh mint tea just now. I grow my own mint and I have a lot of sprigs from maintenance pruning right now. Mint grows like crazy if left alone.

I have always wanted to do that! What variety/cultivar?

 

[sprinkles]

I have always wanted to do that! What variety/cultivar?

Just regular old spearmint.

If you grow it be prepared for it to go everywhere. You'll probably need a good sized plant or two to make tea anyway though. I recommend growing it in pots because the roots can be incredibly pervasive if grown in the ground (it could possibly come up in neighbors yards and everywhere)

Grow it in a pot in a place where it can get plenty of sun.

Edit:
Mint is also easy to propagate too. Basically taking a healthy cutting and taking the leaves off the cut end and sticking it in some dirt and watering it will make a new plant which will grow very fast once started.

 

[INTP]

Basically taking a healthy cutting and taking the leaves off the cut end and sticking it in some dirt and watering it will make a new plant which will grow very fast once started.

Wouldnt it be better to first grow the roots till they are like 5cm(2inch) long in water before planting the cutting, or is mint really that easy? At least with some other "herbs" just putting the cuttings in dirt and keeping them wet will fail very often, and its recommended to grow the roots before planting. And ofc the roots need dark place for them to grow, so this is what i have done: take a plastic cup that doesent let light through it and place aluminium folium on it, make hole just large enough for the cutting to go through it. Also because roots need oxygenated water, i have also placed a small straw next to the cutting which i blow some air through, naturally using something like that air bubbler thing used in fish tanks would be better, but i think its bit too much for some mint cutting and other herbs can grow roots without it, so..
Also, you dont need to cut all the leaves out, its not recommended for at least other herbs. Basically the deal with the leaves is that they require energy(and not enough energy is available from a stick with no roots, so the cutting might die easily if you leave the leaves on it), but they also give energy that the plant needs to grow well. What i have done with this unnamed other herb and what i have seen others do is to leave one or two(if the top ones are really small) set of leaves that are cut in half, it stops them from growing too much for the plant to die, but also give enough energy for the plant it needs to grow roots and new leaves after it has grown roots.

 

[sprinkles]

Wouldnt it be better to first grow the roots till they are like 5cm(2inch) long in water before planting the cutting, or is mint really that easy? At least with some other "herbs" just putting the cuttings in dirt and keeping them wet will fail very often, and its recommended to grow the roots before planting. And ofc the roots need dark place for them to grow, so this is what i have done: take a plastic cup that doesent let light through it and place aluminium folium on it, make hole just large enough for the cutting to go through it. Also because roots need oxygenated water, i have also placed a small straw next to the cutting which i blow some air through, naturally using something like that air bubbler thing used in fish tanks would be better, but i think its bit too much for some mint cutting and other herbs can grow roots without it, so..
Also, you dont need to cut all the leaves out, its not recommended for at least other herbs. Basically the deal with the leaves is that they require energy(and not enough energy is available from a stick with no roots, so the cutting might die easily if you leave the leaves on it), but they also give energy that the plant needs to grow well. What i have done with this unnamed other herb and what i have seen others do is to leave one or two(if the top ones are really small) set of leaves that are cut in half, it stops them from growing too much for the plant to die, but also give enough energy for the plant it needs to grow roots and new leaves after it has grown roots.

Mint really is that easy. It propagates naturally via creepers along the ground and under the ground so it roots very easily.

I didn't mean take all the leaves off. I mean take the leaves off the part which is going into the soil. Of course the part above the soil needs enough leaves. I like to put at least a leaf node or two in the soil because I believe it helps root more.

Edit:
Of course you can get a lot more involved with this but this does work (provided it is warm enough and all that)

 

[spirilis]

Mint really is that easy. It propagates naturally via creepers along the ground and under the ground so it roots very easily.

I didn't mean take all the leaves off. I mean take the leaves off the part which is going into the soil. Of course the part above the soil needs enough leaves. I like to put at least a leaf node or two in the soil because I believe it helps root more.

Edit:
Of course you can get a lot more involved with this but this does work (provided it is warm enough and all that)

I have heard mint grows insane. My wife used a planter for some mojito mint last year, but it was mixed with a bunch of other random stuff. I wouldn't mind getting a hell of a crop going this year in multiple planters... (she's the gardener so I'll have her do it :-D)

I must say, that Chinese tea I bought recently ... I think those "curled" leaves compress the tea together so you're getting a higher dose than you think. Two spoonfuls of leaves with 16oz water brewed multiple times for ~4-6 cups of tea ... and my brain was spooled up like a damned flywheel all day LONG. It's like having too much coffee, but without the jitters. Still a tad uncomfortable though.

 

[sprinkles]

I have heard mint grows insane. My wife used a planter for some mojito mint last year, but it was mixed with a bunch of other random stuff. I wouldn't mind getting a hell of a crop going this year in multiple planters... (she's the gardener so I'll have her do it :-D)

I must say, that Chinese tea I bought recently ... I think those "curled" leaves compress the tea together so you're getting a higher dose than you think. Two spoonfuls of leaves with 16oz water brewed multiple times for ~4-6 cups of tea ... and my brain was spooled up like a damned flywheel all day LONG. It's like having too much coffee, but without the jitters. Still a tad uncomfortable though.

Mint does grow insane. It's rhizomatus which means that it has runners with nodes in them that can grow whole new plants. In fact if you put two kinds of mint even close together they can hybrid with each other. Often what can happen in the ground is you get a long runner from a mother plant which goes under ground a long distance and throws up sprouts above ground. That's mainly how mint spreads - you could cut this runner into sections and each one will be its own clone plant. This is actually the primary way to grow mint because mint from seeds doesn't actually do as well as mint as a cutting from an established parent.

You can root mint cuttings in a glass of water (some people prefer that way) but soil does work too - preferably after spring begins.

 

[spirilis]

Had an impulse buy at a mall this weekend ... Teavana's teas are quite frankly overpriced IMO, but I indulged in one. "Monkey-picked Oolong":
(Monkey Picked Oolong Tea | Teavana)

A light oolong, reminds me more of green tea than black. Absolutely no milk appropriate here. Sort've like green tea but with an almost sharp perfume-like tone in its aroma.

The legend of the "monkey picked" tea is an old one from China talking about some of the highly "desirable" leaves from tea bushes high in the cliffs of Wuyi Shan, so difficult to reach that legend has it monkeys were trained to climb up there and pick 'em.

Perhaps, behind the bucolic illustrations of monkeys scampering through the tea trees selecting the finest leaf and passing it to the tea workers below, is a veiled commentary on the fact that these tribute teas were "out of reach" of most people in more ways than one. Or perhaps it was an easy joke on the naive Europeans back in the eighteenth century.

 

[spirilis]

Ran out of my Dian Hong tea today. Almost shed a tear.

Next acquisition to devour after my Monkey-Picked Oolong: Dahongpao oolong tea, charcoal bake, original technology Da Hong Pao Tea. Big red robe Chinese Tea-in Oolong Tea from Food on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group

I vaguely recall something about the "Red Robe" tea in that book I've been reading.

 

[Amethyst]

I'm getting real fancy with my tea. I bought this this weekend.

Uji Gyokuro

I'll try it tomorrow morning. It'll be worth having to get up at 5 am anyway.

 

[Null]

This lemon cake tea was basically everything I've been drinking for the past days. It's so delicious! Might buy the other two flavours - apple pie and blueberry muffin - tomorrow.

I've also been drinking a lot of green tea with lemon recently to get my metabolism going a bit.

 

[Chrysanthea]

Favourite Overall Tea: Something about Ginger Tea just... arouses my tongue in the most pleasurable of ways. Another plus for this lovely herb is how it affects your digestive health, but honestly I just care about the warm and tingly feelings it provides my mouth~
Favourite (Drug Alternative) Tea: I have a very fond love for tea made with (Red Vein) Kratom leaves!~ It's much healthier than Hydrocodone, yet displays all of the same sedative effects, also providing some mental/physical stimulation to keep you going through the day! A very calm energy that helps immensely with enduring through school, work, or unnecessarily tedious social situations. But thank God I have a coffee press to filter out all the leaves or else I'd be vomiting all over the floor. Just juice a few lemons and add a bit of honey, and it'll taste good enough to keep down! I am fully aware of its addictive properties however, but I rarely use this substance any more than once a week, so ts'all good!

 

[Sunflower_Moon]

I tend to like almost all kinds of tea - I've been drinking it since before I was five years old because of my grandmother (she's from England). But if I have to choose, I like the loose leaf teas the best or the type that comes in a ball and blooms in the pot when you add the hot water. The flavor with those seems much more fresh, flavorful, and it doesn't taste as stale and processed like the teas from teabags in the grocery store. However, I do like some of those sometimes as well, such as a raspberry or apple cinnamon flavored tea. My favorite of all is white tea and chai.

 

[prplchknz]

drinking green tea with blueberry, pomegranate, and acai i feel like its gonna give me excellent pee, so if you need urine for i don't know what i'll pee in a cup for you. i'm being half serious, half joking, mostly because i don't think anyone here would give me there adress, and if they would they'd be too polite to ask for pee which actually i'm not sure the ethics on asking for pee over the internet.

 

[prplchknz]

this tea and honey (it has to be that honey or brand and type) is amazing together actually that honey is some of the best honey i've ever had (now i feel like trump, fuck, but no it really is, oh god i'm making it worse, shutting up now)

p.s. [MENTION=1180]miss fortune[/MENTION] got me that tea

 

[Taibreah]

Haha, this tea thread is too fancy for me. I just like iced tea, black or green.