I’ve had some much less smoky lapsang suchong before, and I like smoky flavors in tea like Russian Caravan. This one just tasted way over the top (to me). Can’t actually taste anything under the smoke. It’s just all smoke all the time.
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Dan Cong is so hard to brew, but when you make it good, man is it good.
I did get some of that crab leg tea, but I haven’t had occassion to drink any of it yet. Hoping to remedy that soon.
I have some simple, supermarket hojicha I bought because I came across the mention of “tea rice” and even though I’m a life-long rice enjoyer the thought of using brewed tea to cook rice in had never occurred to me.
I made the tea rice and it worked pretty well, but the main reason I’m writing this post is that I also steeped some of it cold and quite enjoyed it. It came out subtle, yet rather refreshing.
Does anyone have recommendations for tea styles/varieties that they enjoy brewed cold? (and I’m not talking about the “iced tea” that is really just a bottle full of sugar syrup, I mean just tea with ice and water)
…or perhaps, tea brewed hot but then chilled?
I really like Kukicha cold. The stems give it a lot of sweetness. It’s super refreshing.
Honestly, I sometimes make a big pot of tea in the morning, and refrigerate whatever I don’t drink and have it with dinner. I’ve found that jade oolongs like Ti Kuan Yin or Ali Shan chill extremely well, and so do Chinese black teas like Golden Monkey or Jin Jun Mei.
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It’s still in the 80s (F) here right now. I can’t wait for it to cool down enough to drink more hot tea.
I dropped coffee for awhile due to stomach issue. I tried to switch to green tea leaves but they’re also kind of irritating and also makes me pee a lot. I then tried matcha and it’s great! I never paid much attention when I had them before but now I’m hooked!! It gives me nice little caffeine hit and actually soothing for my stomach.
I absolutely want to keep it as simple and dumb as possible so I just got the basic cheapest pouch of Ito en matcha on amazon ($12 / 2oz/56g) and $10 whisk. I tried the whole ritual (warming bowl/whisk, precise weight and water temp, sifting, whisking with timer) vs. just simply dump water and whisk and fortunately, I don’t have palate to tell much difference. I still use scale to weight but my next step is just learn to eyeball the amount. It’s fun to use the whisk but doesn’t look like it’ll last long so I’ll get a cheap milk frother when it breaks… Maybe I’ll try forks lolol
Out of all the videos I watched, this trick (4th method from the video) of whisking a bit of room temp water first then whisk in the rest of hot water seems to make it pretty smooth. I even tried without sifting.
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I tried whisking with forks and it was terrible!! Lololol
Just popping in to say I’m drinking some Honey Orchid Dancong I got from Liquid Proust, brewed in my cast iron dragon teapot.
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@Chopemon let’s have a talk…
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it’s at a good place in the cost/quality intersection
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I like Genmaicha, but it’s basically a way to spruce up the lower grade, less desirable tea leaves with some toasted rice to make something more palatable. For the same price range you can get Kukicha or Gunpowder, which are green teas that are good on their own merits.
I certainly wouldn’t pay too much for a genmaicha, no.
Was in the wilderness for a while after the local Ten-Ren closed (owner retired good for them) but found a new place in Chinatown that seems pretty solid and more reasonable than the bourgeois pricing you get forced into at non-ethnic places. Good Dragon Well, good Maofeng. Will branch out eventually and see what’s good + less familiar. All I’m missing is some way to get Darjeeling without paying and arm and a leg I tell ya
I finally got around to trying this stuff!
The product I got does not appear to have any tea leaves in it, and is strictly the parasite (yum?).
The cold dry leaves smell rather musty, haylike, and have a faint funk that is slightly reminiscent of cannabis.
I decided to use my all-in-one cup-straiher combo with plum blossoms and a fancy handle.
It brewed up a very pale liquor with the same misty scents of hay and cannabis.
Despite appearances, it has a relatively strong body, with a sharp herbal character. It’s very reminiscent of tobacco. There is a mineral note to the finish that keeps the sharpness going. I definitely would not mistake this for tea, and don’t get much tea flavor from it, but it’s a nice low-or-no caffeine alternative.
I’ve read that some people find it to have a powerful laxative effect, which is part of why I kept putting off trying it. I will report back how that goes.
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A good Long Jing (Dragonwell) is a wonderful experience. If you can get some good prices on Chinese black teas from Yunnan or Fujian provinces, you’d be all set.
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of the major classics the one I’ve never had is Peaceful Monkey Leader
Barley tea is good cold yeah
Yeah, the one with the coconut gun can’t really be considered peaceful.
Hou Kui is pretty good, lighter and sweeter than Dragonwell, but those huge leaves can sometimes be cumbersome to stuff into an infuser, and they don’t really fit in a small gaiwan at all without breaking.