So lately I've caught an interet in tea. Not earl grey or whatever, but pure, Chinese, green tea. And so I wondered if someone else shares my interest.

Topics to discuss:
Favorite tea/tea sort (white, green, yellow, oolong, black, pu-erh)
Teaware you're using
Brew times

Right now my favorite is a pi lo chun I got from the UK a few days ago. The Swedish tea stores suck. I'm brewing it in a gaiwan I got yesterday. I'm considering getting a Kyusu for my sencha tea.


(also I said Chinese, but of course I mean Japanese and Indian tea as well.

How do you steep your pi lo chun?

I've never had gaiwan brewed tea before, does it live up to the hype?

2 minutes in a little more than 70°C. Other than that I just follow the gong fu guys.
I don't have anything to compare the gaiwan to. I used to brew (very carefully) in a pot, with surprisingly good results. I'm happy with it, though.

I like a lot of teas. Silver Needle white tea, darker oolong teas, houjicha, lapsang souchong (smoky mmm), higher quality black teas, puerh I still need to try more of. I like this 1995 puerh that the shop I buy from has a lot. It's loose puerh though. so far I haven't found a puerh cake that enjoy as much as that.

http://imgur.com/aoZexfB Wuyi Rock tea showing my teaware as well. Cup and gaiwan I bought from Amazon, the little pitcher thing I found at a tea store. It's good to have when sharing tea, to use as a fair-cup. Otherwise, pouring into 2 cups from a gaiwan is going to result in uneven flavor.

I use an electric kettle with temperature setting, but I don't time my brews. I go by color and taste. I like to brew black teas at closer to 195 or even 190 than 212 or 200, to get less of the bitterness/tannins.

I like my gaiwan for convenience. It's easier than a tea ball but also let's the tea expand more. So it's easier and 'better'!

edit: I forgot to mention I tried darjeeling tea for the first time. First flush was what the lady at the store recommended to compare other darjeelings to, when I run out I'll try a different one. I get a very noticeable tea high from it for some reason. I think that 1995 puerh was the other tea that gave a consistent high. It's enjoyable.

I stayed away from silver needles and first flush darjeeling because of high price and inability to buy small amounts of it. Never heard of hojicha, but I love steamed (Japanese) tea. I haven't gyokuro yet though.
I have some really high quality lapsang. Haven't figured out how to steep it yet. How do you make yours? Do you make black tea in your gaiwan?


Also, do you go out of your way to get eco tea and do you feel like it affects the flavour?

i'm not into chinese teas as much as black teas
i've also never found much of a taste difference in using proper kettles or a pot on the stove
when i steep black teas i usually go 200-220F, the more bitter the better
my go-to is international breakfast and earl gray is just such an easy to come by, but it's not as good as it's vanilla counterpart
i just got my friend into hot tea drinking and he picked up something called mystic dragon, it's a fantastic green tea

getting eco tea is like grabbing the 5th best papertowel
it does the job but honestly it's not tea

just looked up what a gaiwan was and that sounds super neat
have you guys really found a noticeable difference in using it?

I actually bought my silver needle online from Mandala tea. http://shopmandalatea.com/white-tea/...dle-white.html The price isn't so bad, and it seems to be pretty high quality. Idk if you've ever seen it in person, but the leaves are a little bit fuzzy and they feel really soft like silk. The taste is really refreshing, it kind of reminded me of aloe vera just a bit. The silver needle at my local shop didn't look as good as the one I got online, so if I order more it'll be from there.

I don't think my lapsang is very high quality, it was like $3 an ounce or less iirc. I like how it tastes though, and it makes me want to buy a higher quality one. I brew all my tea in my gaiwan. I think that one I use a higher temperature than my higher quality black teas. Closer to the 212 you're 'supposed' to brew black tea at.



I don't know what you mean by eco tea. So far I've ordered all my tea from Mandala or nm tea co(the local store). I only recently got into tea though. One day something possessed me to get into tea so I went to the tea store here and just picked a bunch of stuff based on smell. I ended up getting mostly blends and have a ton of blends that I don't like all too much now. Finally I realized tea is tea and not 5 parts mint/lemongrass/jasmine/cardamom/fruit herbals to one part actual tea, and I buy only pure tea now save for a few like plum oolong.

Yeah blends are mostly crap. I got two that are nice. The reason I asked about ecological tea is because I suspect my Darjeeling tea is pumped with toxins. Something about the tea made me avoid it for a long time.

5-20€/hg is the price I usually buy tea at. I always buy the lowest amount possible (it's more worth getting a small amount of high quality tea than a high amount of low quality tea). My lapsang was about 60€/hg so I was really stretching it.

Wow that's expensive lapsang. That's like $17 an ounce. I only got that 1995 puerh once because it's $10 an ounce. I usually stick to $6 or below per ounce.

I forgot to mention, I use a scale to measure out 3 grams of tea when I make tea. It keeps things consistent from tea to tea.

That's a smart thing to do. I never even measure my tea.
Dunno how you got first flush darjeeling for 20$/hg, the ones I saw in UK were like 36£, and in Sweden it's 40€.