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I believe I may have been influenced by the film Ip Man; if I recall, the titular character drank from his one handed using his thumb on the lid ring. Haven’t been able to do that with mine – either I get no flow, or it goes sideways.
I’ll remember when I come to visit China to use both hands 😀
M.
Found this on the Wikiped:
Factory numbers (fourth digit in recipe):Kunming Tea Factory
Lan Cang Tea Factory or Feng Qing Tea Factory
Pu’er Tea Factory (now Pu’er Tea group Co.Ltd )
Six Famous Tea Mountain Factory
unknown / not specified
Haiwan Tea Factory and Long Sheng Tea Factory
Does this mean there’s only 8 (9?) factories making Puerh in the entire country? Also, what’s with #7 being unknown? M.
Agreed; growing very distant from them myself.
I’m still in a phase where I make use of broken leaf loose teas. I find those chill alright overnight. Since they’re relatively inexpensive I’m willing to experiment, so I did this with ok results:
Get 500ml of water to 80C.Drop in large tea-ball with ~5g of leaves. Cover. (I did this in a measuring cup)When steeping is complete, funnel into a metal (or glass, I used metal) bottle.Chill overnight.
I filled a .75L bottle by rebrewing the same leaves and steeping longer. A fine cup of tea it was not, but it got me through class last week. I used Hime brand Genmaicha, which by its nature is sweet. Wasn’t particularly bitter or anything the next day. Not sure how this works with better leaves or longer time chilled, though.
I’m going to have to invest in one of those “Tiger” brand thermos’ that Leo has. Not found a US distributor that has an order form, but I haven’t dug too deep just yet.
M.
Oh! Here’s an example of the much prolific Arizona Tea:
“Nutrition” facts:https://caloriecount.about.com/calories-arizona-beverage-green-tea-i100153
Something like 25 ounces per can. That’s a lot of sugar.
M.
Thanks! Took me long enough – kept forgetting.
I’d also like to know how to prep tea for a thermos; I used to steep broken leaf bags in a BPA free PET blender bottle – didn’t work well in the long run.
M.
I forgot about this thread a bit!
Thanks for sharing Leo. I figured the closer to Ground Zero you get for tea, the more option’s there would be. I may have to import some of these, just to put them on the “Have Tried” list, though undoubtably I’ll acquire some of Taoti teas when I roll around to Hong Kong in the next few years (another thread on that incoming). I’ll admit the packaging is pretty attractive on those, but I can’t go judging a book by its cover (or tea by its wrapper).
That said, I don’t think they advertise tea brands here in the US. I don’t watch much TV though. I remember Brisk used to advertise with the same long-running commercial; a melting snowman in the summer heat reinvigorated by a cold can of Brisk (Brisk also being an adjective to describe low temperature, so a bit of a lame pun).
Agreed with ICE that nothing tastes like a cup of tea. Probably the worst offender is “Honest Tea” brand “Just Green Tea”. It’s one of those fair trade teas, comes in a glass bottle (not common here in the land of Old Bay anymore) and is utterly bitter. I’m going to assume they boil the green tea leaves for 10 or more minutes to make that tea. For ~1.25USD, it’s also one of the cheapest and pretty much the only completely unsweetened tea here. It has the interesting gastronomic quality of stimulating appetite. I buy one occasionally to remind myself why I don’t buy them more often – I’ll admit I originally liked the bitter.
I wonder what obsticles lie in making decent quality tea industrially. I’m guessing they just get huge quantites of machine picked leaves, probably from lowest bidder farms (which probably have poor quality control in the fields). Honest Tea probably gets their stock from India or Sri Lanka and that Japanese brand above probably imports leaves too. I ought to try and “can” up some cheap quality tea, let it sit a while and see what the result is. Will have to do the same with higher quality stuff.
I’ve wondered how well this all would keep, the finer brewings. I have considered making a steel travel bottle (c. 20oz) of tea the night before and taking that on trips. Will attemt and cross compare for everyone.
Thanks,
M.
Is the method in which you obtain your teas also a business secret? I remember you mentioned at one point that you make deals with specific farms. Or maybe I am misremembering?
M.Good point, pancakes. I’ve purchased a gaiwan that I intend to use for gongfu tea. In the mean time, I’m mugging it up with a tea ball or what I’ve come to call Ghettofu – using a covered mug and decanting through a strainer into another, gungfu style. Much improvement awaits!
Leo: I received my first TeaHong order today. That was some seriously well packed tea – I’m certainly keeping those tubes well after they’re empty!
I have attempted an infusion of the puerh. I blanched it twice, though probably not correctly – what I did was place it in a strainer and then pour boiling water over it. Fell apart on the second shot at this (flipped it over after the first). First “blanch” gave me a pale liquid, and the second a fairly red one. I then infused it (as above with the ghettofu style) for 45 seconds in boiling water to see what that got me – and it was pretty good! Going to finish this off and rebrew it with a proper 3 or 4 minute infusion.
Thanks!
M.
I have recently tried genmaicha, which is the very essence of “adding things” to tea. This was in particular Hime brand genmaicha, which had toasted brown rice, green tea and popped sorghum (in that order) listed on the ingredients.
Pretty generally, it tastes like popcorn. I can’t really detect any tea taste at all, for better or worse.
I think once I figure out how to pop rice without a stove I may try making some at home with lower grade tea that doesn’t quite cut it on its own. Given the appearance of the sorghum, that’s probably the source of the popcorn like taste; I think cutting it out would certainly change the taste.
I would also be willing to experiment with other traditionally eastern grains/seeds like millet and buckwheat. I’ve also pondered adding slivered almonds to my tea-ball for mid-grade hojicha I drink. If any almond taste infuses out they would complement well I figure.
Growing up we used to add something like 2 cups of sugar per gallon of tea. I guess that counts as adding something, though in my reflection I really think I was just taking something away 😉
M.
“Nutrition” facts: