/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>19659231
Tea? More like pee
>*dabs*

Its almost time to make winter tea orders, time to grab a kilo or so of ripe to last through the cold season

>>19659281
>don't want to drink any of my oolong
>don't want any green tea
>I just want to consoom pu-erh
god, what is happening? am I discovering my true lesbian self?
I hope I'll get back to a more diverse tea phase soon, I should finish my other tea

>>19659312
Try blending it to make something interesting

>>19659312
>transbian
you will never be a real puerh lesbian

>>19659325
any ideas for blends? mostly for oolongs and japanese greens, that's what I have the most of

>>19659281
You mean hojichas and hoji-genmaichas, right? But, yes, also ripe because kaffeeinum.

Gonna get some hojicha powder this time. Anyone know if it will froth up like matcha? Can I use it to practice my whisking?

>>19659376
Just take an oolong and a green tea and smash them together. It could be interesting.

>>19659563
bancha + si ji chun oolong could be fun to try

Yunnan Sourcing produces so many teas in a year, how is anyone expected to keep up? What's the strategy? Just aim for good regions you like and maybe a few randos?
It's been a long time since I've ordered from there and I feel much more competent about my understanding of puerh, but it's still confounding. Like there will always be something to miss. That makes it a little more uncomfortable or maybe dissatisfying relative to say Farmer Leaf.

>>19659842
Farmer leaf is 100% better if you want a curated collection. YS is perfect if you know what you want and want to get a bunch of tea from one place. I don't have the problem of wanting to "keep up" since I think most of their teas look fairly uninteresting, I haven't been impressed by their moderately priced house puerhs for example (I haven't tried the nicer stuff). They have a ton of tea though, and if you're newer or want to bulk out your collection being able to buy fairly cheaply whatever sort of black, white, green, or oolong you're looking for is convenient. Farmer leaf gives you way less choice but everything he has is good.

>>19659312
I would probably switch to 90% roasted oolongs if i could afford to drink nince yancha all day.
That said nothing is quite as good as ripe puer and nice dark heicha in cold weather.
>>19659422
>Gonna get some hojicha powder this time
Goddamn that sounds good. I gotta try that, a nife roasty frothed up tea matcha style seems right up my alley.

>>19659842
I cannot keep up with yunnan sourcings huge amout of puer releases. Everytime i look at grabbin some i get overwhelmed and just buy from somewhere else. I had their 2016 or 2015 impression cake years ago and it was fine for a cheap daily drinker. I also ordered a purple tea from them that said it was smokey and it was full on hickory smoke kinda smokey, very unique weird tea, probably had ghetto ass processing. I love smokey stuff so i enjoyed it but most people probably would have hated that cake.
Anyways either get samples, which i find annoyingly expensive from YS or just pick some teas and see how it goes, look for reviews on the site or check out that tea discord that got mentioned a few threads back and see what people are buying and liking.
I have been drinking puer for years and i still don't feel lije i have a good idea of where YS house puer lands on the quality to value scale, most times people have tried it and posted about in these threads they have gotten ripes.

>>19659842
>What's the strategy?
Same as you would anywhere else. Grab some samples, maybe blind buy a cake the seems interesting, look at whats popular, skim the reviews, see if anyone online has recommendations, contact the owner if you are looking for something specific. You don't need to "keep up", that is a problem you created for yourself. Being a savvy customer is good but I don't think obsessively min-maxing tea recommendations makes sense with something as subjective and variable as tea. You need to actually try stuff for your self to find out what you think is "worth it" to you. As always the solution is to drink more tea. Don't let worrying about whether or not you you are drinking the "best" overshadow you enjoyment of tea.

If it helps a lot of YS's house brand productions are repeats made every year or every few years. If you liked a past years production then it is likely the current one is similar. Many of the other ones are kind of self explanatory (e.g. tree age+location+picking season+type of tea) and give about as much information as you could reasonably expect short of trying the tea yourself.

>been to a place where the tea was made for you and remember enjoying it
>everywhere else I order tea at they just give me a cup of hot water and a tea bag
Never had it be any good that way either. Also is bottled tea haram in /tea/? I'm not quite into brewing my own from the leaves yet but would like to start at some point since it'd help me cut down on my sugar consumption.

>is bottled tea haram
Not necessarily, but i haven't really found a good bottled tea and i don't think they are going to give you a good idea of what high quality, properly brewed tea tastes like.

>it'd help me cut down on my sugar consumption
Good idea, i started with tea bags and bottled tea so i could cut down on my soda consumption. Also carbonated water.

>>19660797
>>19660860

Anyone got a link to some good cheap tea towels on aliexpress?

>>19660797
If you can find tasty bottled tea go for it.
Drinking tea can be a great way to cut back on sugar consumption, there are lots of teas that are naturally quite sweet.

how do I get into tea?

>>19660959
Scroll up. Read pastebin. Post better questions.

>>19660969
all right
is this still valid?
https://www.seriouseats.com/tea-for-everyone

>>19660974
I skimmed it and it seems about right
You could grab one of the samplers from yunnan sourcing for instance:
https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/assorted-tea-samplers/products/first-steps-tea-sampler

>>19660974
yeah, seems like a good newbie guide
aside from that, pick a store and try a wide range of stuff

>>19660959
cut your dick off and embrace puerism

Finishing off this 2020 xiaguan Baolong Commune cake
Good stuff, super sweet, strong plum notes, intense sweet flavor, not particularly bitter.
For the $55 pice its at on King Tea Mall right now its an easy reccomendation for anyone that likes sweet plummy shengs

>>19660926
Probably unhelpful, but I don't care for the designs so I just bought the cheapest hand towels (they call them guest towels here).

>>19659231
having this spring zi qi gushu sheng sample that came with my king tea mall order right now and it tastes and smells unbelievably like pears, very sweet

is all sheng like this?

>>19661241
>is all sheng like this?
no, but it's not super rare for sheng with a few years on it to be sweet and fruity
a lot of sheng is bitter and astringent when it's young. some of the old and humidly stored stuff tastes like herbal medicine and beetroot. there is a big flavor spectrum

>>19661241
There is a decent amount of young sheng that has that kind of fuit flavor specturm, but not all of it by any means

Yo is this reseller any good?

https://manyworldstavern.com/collections/tea

>>19661409
>sells almost exclusively flavored tea
>also sells coffee
doesn't look promising. definitely seems like a place where you mostly pay for the aesthetics and not the tea itself

>>19661409
Probably you could get better for cheaper, but I doubt it’s undrinkable. I guess it’s up to you how much TTRPG packaging is worth.

>>19660959
>throw some herbs in hot water
>drink the water
>congrats, you're now a tea drinker

any tips on breaking apart really strongly compressed tea?

>>19661734
Put the cake on the ground and hit it with a sledge

just made myself some yunnan silver dragon tea and it's nice, the first few sips i had to get used to the flavour but i'm enjoying it a lot right now :-)

>>19661146
i've been interested in xiaguan lately, not having tried any of theirs, fullchea have some tuos that look pretty good

>>19662208
>Xiao Fa
>Te Ji young
>Te Ji with some age
Those will get you a baseline. All can be had for cheap. After that, choose an interesting cake or two. I love Xiaguan.

>>19662298
fullchea has the xiao fa and a 2014 te ji so i will chuck those on my upcoming order, thanks anon

>>19662298
what's the difference between te ji and jia ji?

>>19662646
The quality of leaves. Te Ji is special grade, jia ji is first grade. There's also second and third grades, their names escape me. In truth I've never had jia ji, but I have had something similar.
I wager they're fairly comparable.

>>19662712
>In truth I've never had jia ji, but I have had something similar.
I haven't either and ive gone through quite a few tuos. The price difference has always been to small for me to go for the cheaper jia ji over the t ji

Do group-buys still happen outside of Discord? What was the last tea you acquired that way?

>>19663143
>Do group-buys still happen outside of Discord?
Not that I am aware of. I am not even sure they are common on Discord (I don't use it). I believe Liquid Proust used to do some on his Discord channel.

>>19663143
Group buys don't seem all that common these days, i have never actually done one

Sorry anons I've been busy again. I'm gonna have some black balls real soon, hatize in particular. I also tried brutal, very nice.

Has anyone tried any of the newer slightly premium xiaguan tuos like the golden list or recent gold ribbon? I wonder if they are drinkable these days without a decade of age

>>19663886
I cant say from experience but my hunch would be that most of the blended xiaguan tuos really are better with some age. The chopped up younger plantation material that often goes into those tends to be pretty rough from young. However, I have heard some speculation that modern xiaguan tuochas are often a bit softer and more drinkable when young than some of the old school ones. On the other hand, I would expect that the fancy single region or other premium tuos are probably perfectly fine young

>>19663787
Pretty good its a very smooth tea. Redhead was more bold in comparison. Going to compare it to rectrix now.

Peak Vulture is a nice way to kick off a long weekend. I find it better now than when I did after it arrived, although given its release date, I doubt the wo dui was done in 2023 as well. It's probably a year or two old. Delicious.

will these poison me?

Anyone else make a big loose tea blend for health purposes? I want all of the cancer fighting compounds, so I've got a big glass jar with many kinds of black tea, green tea, oolong, stinging nettle. Rooibos imparts a kind of sickly sweet taste so I only do that one separately occasionally.

>>19665658
the blend tastes great as well of course

>>19665658
This is why I bully people who start talking about the health benefits of tea.
>Why yes I love tea. My go to drink? Why of course I drink a pile of slop of literally everything mixed together including things that aren't even tea.
Actual mentally ill behavior.

>>19665672
Who hurt you? It tastes good and have documented health benefits.

>>19665675
>>19665672
Oh I just realized you're trying to be a /mu/ snob but about tea. So you're either a tranny or a walking parody

>>19665658
i started doing it not long ago with the little dregs of tea i haven't got a use for. not for some health benefit though it's just for fun.

>>19665675
>Who hurt you?
Your abysmal taste
>It tastes good
It cannot.
>and have documented health benefits
It does not.

first cold brewed sencha over night, i like a hot cup but this cold version is so refreshing and easy to do

>>19665615
Looks trustworthy enough

>>19665658
God i hate fags like you that buy too much into the health benefits of tea and various herbs. I often meet people who would rather mix hundreds of herbs or buy all kinds of powders rather than visit a fucking doctor. My neighbour keeps forcing himself to drink green tea bags from the supermarket because he is 100% sure he will lose weight that way.

>>19665821
>>19665679
Type "meta study green tea" into google and keep staying mad soda swilling trannies. I will keep drinking my delicious green, oolong, black tea blend. MMMmmhmmm ohh that hits the spot

>>19665883
The chart you linked shows no effect, by the way. Maybe it's affecting your eyesight.
>Overall, findings from epidemiological studies yielded inconsistent results for the effect of green tea consumption on cancer risk, despite some indications of a beneficial effect of green tea on a few site‐specific cancers. In addition, the majority of included studies were carried out in Asian populations characterised by high intakes of green tea, thus limiting the generalisability of the findings to other populations. Therefore, the epidemiological evidence appears to be still inadequate to support a beneficial effect of green tea on cancer risk. In addition, the possibility that high consumption of green tea extracts may have adverse effects should be taken into careful consideration.
From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059963/
Largest and most recent meta-analysis I could find. There is no evidence that green tea prevents cancer. You are drinking disgusting voodoo swill, probably because you can't cope with your own mortality. You need God or a therapist, I don't really care which. This is the tea enthusiast thread, not the new age health trend bullshit thread. I personally don't really care what you do but it's important that any impressionable people reading this understand that you're gay and retarded.

>>19665678
Although I will mention that this is fine. As you drink more tea you'll start to understand that all experiences are valuable in some way, and trying new things is good in and of itself. The idiocy is here
>Anyone else make a big loose tea blend for health purposes? I want all of the cancer fighting compounds

>>19665945
>it's not real because western people don't drink much green tea therefore "limiting the generalisability "

Actually the data is good on many types of cancers
> An inverse association between green tea and liver cancer risk is supported by recent meta-analyses [53,54,55] (nature.com)

Let's not forget that tea snobs ITT are obese western weaboos who dress up in kimonos to make "tea ceremony" with rotten "cakes". You're at the final stage before transitioning just as the bronies were 10 years ago. Please limit your advice giving to mangas and bathtub hormones.

>>19665958
So the intellectual alternative is to prepare a cauldron in which we should throw all the cancer fighting plants? Maybe dance around it while chanting quotes from scientific studies?

>>19665958
>Let's not forget that tea snobs ITT are obese western weaboos who dress up in kimonos to make "tea ceremony" with rotten "cakes". You're at the final stage before transitioning just as the bronies were 10 years ago. Please limit your advice giving to mangas and bathtub hormones.
Yep, that's us, doesn't really seem like the kind of place you'd want to hang out huh? Enjoy your nettles.

Tfw he's just ripping open twinnings bags and mixing them

gonna have to buy more of this Tanyang shit sometime, it's one of the best black teas I've had, very intense and flavorful. interesting leaves too, they're very small for black tea

>>19666039
>favorful
no it isn't
>interesting leaves
no they aren't
>very small for black tea
nope try again
>best black teas I've had
fail big time

I bought some chai from an Indian food truck and it came in one of these clay matkas. Could I use it for other teas or should I stick to chai?

>Jimmy Buffett is dead
Tea for this feel?

>>19666289
comfy ripe

>>19666279
cool cups. depends on the clay and creation process. if it's low-fired the taste of the spices may linger. idk how these are made, best to just wash them and try with some other teas to see for yourself

>>19666289
https://exoticotequila.com/recipes/ice-tea-quila/

>>19665615
That looks reasonably good quality. I bet its decent.

oh god the puer lesbians are getting riled up again

>>19666039
This is from one of thode eastern euro shops right? What did you think of the liubao?

this is all ya need honestly
cup gaiwan thermos
beer mat from pubs for the drips

>>19666279
that's fucking awesome wtf, they use clay cups as takeaway cups?

>>19666393
Yeah it's a Polish store
I've only had a few Liu bao, but this one is nice. Balanced between younger chocolate tones and a bit of beetroot, with a nice clean sweet aftertaste. Clearly higher grade than the stemmy stuff I've had before.

>>19666426
>Balanced between younger chocolate tones and a bit of beetroot
Yeah im generally really happy whith how thr ccnnp/doutei factory does their factory ageing, they some of them get pretty beaty but the cleanser ones still have that nice mellow storage effect without getting musty.

:^)

gm anons im gonna drink some puerh havent decided on what yet.
and to recap so far about the red teas
new redhead was a bit dodge get the older one
hatize was very good casual tea very smooth dont really need to think at all when im brewing.
rectrix had a bit more going on, it was smooth but also had some maltyness.
i dont think hatize would make a good aging candidate since its already very mellow, hatize maybe take that with salt though since i dont know a lot about aged dianhong.

>>19666667
So close, yet so far :(

>>19666660
It's got them asian characterers on it that's gonna be some good tea for tea ceremony

Curing cancer one jar at a time.

>>19666739
Not to this extreme but does nobody else realize that unlike coffee, tea has heavy metal that have been proven to give you cancer?

>>19666693
time to hang myself
>>19666666

life isnt fair

>>19666745
I think I need to pour some mate into it to balance out the bennies.

Drinking premium Dayi atm in honour of Martin Luther king day. 7 grams.

>>19666803
That doesn't even taste good

>>19666828
U don’t even know which one, cuh

>>19667057
Cope harder. They don't taste good.

Which of the following countries do you think makes better green tea?

India
Indonesia
Kenya
Sri Lanka
Turkey

>>19667063
Sri Lanka

>>19667063
>>19667067
They all produce terrible tea. You have revealed yourselves to be novices.

How cheap should I go for a gaiwan if I'm new to making tea? I've been finding a lot of ones that are around $50 (which usually seem to come with cups too) but it would be nice if I could go cheaper without getting something that would end up being shitty.

>>19667074
$250 is the lower end, below that and the tea will taste terrible.

>>19667074
Under $20 and over 100ml. You can spend as much as you want on a gaiwan/pot after you drop and break something like this.
https://purplecloudteahouse.com/collections/gaiwans/products/shuangxian-gaiwan-150ml

>>19667076
I have $400 dollar one but with blind taste tests against my $250ish one, I can barely pick them out.

>>19667057
They actually do.

>>19666745
Cocoa and coffee both contain lead and cadmium in amounts comparable to tea. All heavy metals in foodstuffs generally come from the environment in which they are grown and processed (soil, air/wind etc.). To what extent they can cause harm is theoretically known, but in practice doesn't explain lack of symptoms in populations who consume these contaminated foodstuffs heavily.

>>19667074
Don't spend too much for a gaiwan until you know what kind you like. I have several gaiwan but i still use the cheapest one the most, since the other ones have a shitty design that burns my fingers.

>>19667074
Buy a plain porcelain one for less than $20 and grab a second one to use as a cup or spare. I own 100's dollars of tea and I still use my $10 gaiwan that I bought when I started. A gaiwan need not be expensive to be effective. The main reason to buy a more expensive one is looks, they don't necessarily work any better.

Why do we call it tea if they call it cha? I thought tea was the Chinese name for it

>>19667074
7-15 dollars and exactly 100ml (to the lid, not the rim) if your brewing alone

>>19667799
weird language fuckery and the Dutch
funnily enough, the countries that discovered tea via the Silk Road tend to use something derived from "cha", like the Russian "chay"

>>19667810
>>19667799
Yes, funnily enough, both are just as Chinese, just different parts of China pronounce it differently.

>>19667063
If i had to pick one i would probably go for sri lanka or Indonesia

>>19667074
Plane white porcelain from aliexpress, 100-120ml
$10-$20

>>19667063
Japan

>>19667913
Truth

Drinking some of the farmer leaf bangewi small treas this morning and im getting some hits of pink bubblegum in the finish

>>19667924
young raws can have some odd candy notes like that. I get some kind of candy out of the Fa Zhan He too sometimes

>>19665615
reporting back on this, am still alive and like >19666365 expected its decent, nothing spectacular but conveniently packaged.
probably gonna use it for thermos brewing dropping half a pack into it.

>>19666416
my man

>>19668225
nice gaiwan, do you drink from the pitcher?

>>19668229
nah, dinky lil cup just out of shot.

>>19668221
where did you get this?

Anyone ever get a strange taste from their clay teapot? I picked up an old clay pot at a vintage store earlier this year. Washed it and seasoned it in black tea. There was a weird white film on it that I used a tooth brush to buff out. Used it a few times and noticed a few things - 1) my tea is zapped of flavor in this thing. Just so mild and ambiguous; and 2) there is an odd smell that emanates from the bottom of the pot, mostly when it is heated, but if I leave a little bit of leaves and tea in there overnight they get permeated with this smell.

Is this the fabled posionous 'yixing' I've heard about?

>>19668395
Cleay teapots can definitely mute flavor some, usually the muting effect gets less with use. No idea about the smell, sounds weird, i would probably soak it in a dilute bleach solution to try and get the smell out.
Post pics of the teapot i might be able to tell you more

>>19668268
it was a gift, ten fu teas has a website but idk if it has this sample pack

>>19665615
https://pastebin.com/HHesBE36
tl;dr no

>>19667113
>can't pick out the $250 gaiwan from the $400 one
hopeless tastelet, I have three gaiwan, costing $557, $559 and $599,95 and I can pick them all apart even when a different tea is prepared in each one
>>19667076
more like $450, you might as well steep it in the cup otherwise

Tea Hong has some discounts for the upcoming mid-autumn festival, I might buy some hancha and some houkui until I wait for the winter harvest of dong ding, it's been too long since I've had any and I deserve treating myself to it.
Currently drinking some ya xi xiang from the spring 2021 harvest that I bought in mid-summer 2021 and then had to leave at home for the better part of two years while I was away, and I should get around to fixing one of my teapots' lid so I can go back to steeping the teas I use that pot for.
Anyway lads, I hope the week treated you well, take care, enjoy yourselves and have a good week-end.

>>19667924
>>19667952
I have an Mengku Rongshi sheng from 2011 that anon said had blue raspberry candy notes. In my head that's a gas station slushie flavor, but I think it's an accurate assessment. It isn't the most pronounced flavor, but it's definitely there.
Sometimes I wonder if it isn't just suggestion and I'm gullible, but every time I brew it up I'm certain that it's blue raspberry.

i want to make a ktm order but i dont have more space in my pumidor :(

>>19668613
Make another pumidor :^)

>>19667799
>>19667810
It's only tea if it's called "tea" and has asian characters on the packaging. We call it tea ceremony for a reason. I feel sorry for you.

>>19668616
maybe...
also i hate the plastic pumidors so ive been using metal cookie boxes instead but they are so small you can only get around 2-3 cakes and a smaller 200g cake/brick in each one so i would need so many boveda packs for them then. wish it was easy to find square metal containers that would be nice

>>19668876
I hear you there. However, I think it's worthwhile getting over a disdain for plastic coolers for pumidors. They eventually work their new plastic odors out, just takes some diligence and time. Metal might be fine, but it won't resist temperature and humidity changes as well. Having a nice cooler pumidor somewhere is really pleasant. It will encourage you to grow your collection and hold on to teas for the long term.

>>19668876
>>19669231
Plastic pumidors is also authentic to the total china tea ceremony experience when us western tea senseis want to partake in real culture

>>19668876
Just get thr cambro food storage bins, those are about as close to food safe plastic as you can get. I guess there are also those fermentation safe plastic buckets from homebrewing supply type places if those are inert enough to make pickles or kimchi in they should be fine for storing tea.

>>19668608
Now try the bo jun and tell me it doesn't taste like black forest cake.

>>19669463
Damn i wish i could spare $400 to grab one of the kilo bricks of that stuff. Pure luxury ripe

>>19668608
I have a different mengku rongshi cake from around that time that has a distinct green apple flavor. Not my favorite cake from them but i find the brand really impressive overall

Do you need a particular breed of cat to make special tea ceremony cake or can you just raid your average litterbox? I've started to ferment some of fluffy's poopies in a little box with authentic chinese mountain dragon tea leaves, hopefully it will be a good cake for sensei to enjoy.

>>19669716
You need a 貍花貓 or it'll end up with weak cha-qi.

>go to swing by kuura since I'm in town
>their shopfront is closed and they're online only right now
Ah...

>>19668876
>I hate the plastic pumidors
I know of a company that makes fancy airtight stainless steel tins with silicone gaskets. They looked really nice but were expensive so I never bought any. I think it was $80 or so for a tin that would hold 5-6 full size puerh cakes. Not cost effective for a large collection but they could work well for a small one. I don't remember the name right off but If you are interested I can dig up the link.

>>19670286
I decided to dig the company names up anyways.
https://www.onyxcontainers.com/22-airtight
https://freshstor.com/

Seems like the most 5-6 sized onyx containers (23 or 26 cm) can be had for $50-60. You can probably fit a whole tong in the 30cm one.

>>19670371
Kek those are marketed for storing weed, i thought of those as soon as you mentioned stainless steel tins with gaskets. They would work fine for puer but the size could be bigger. I wonder if you can find Chinese knockoffs somewhere.
I did find some all steel foodstorage bins on aliexprese but they either weren't cheap or looked pretty thin

>>19670371
>Seems like the most 5-6 sized onyx containers...
Seems like the most relevant 5-6 cake sized onyx containers..
I really need to proof reads more.

>>19670501
>Kek those are marketed for storing weed,
The onyx containers ones seem to be marketed for food. They make food containers as well. I kind of suspect the freshstor ones are rebranded and possibly made in the same place. The freshstor tins have boveda pack holders in the lid but it is probably more space efficient to just cram the pack on the side so you can fit another cake in.

>>19670501
If it's a metal container, it doesn't really matter if it's thick or thin. Either way it's going to conduct and be really reactive to the air temp. I don't think it's a good idea unless you only ever plan to have a very small number of cakes that you burn through quickly.

>>19670520
>it doesn't really matter if it's thick or thin
Being airtight does matter though. A lot of cheap tins and plastic bins are not.
>and be really reactive to the air temp
Not meaningfully worse than Mylar bags or plastic bins. Insulation is nice but is not always necessary. You can stick it in a cooler/fridge if you really want.
>unless you only ever plan to have a very small number of cakes
I remember hearing about someone using one of them to store the cakes they were currently drinking as a quick access container.

I mostly just mentioned them as plastic free alternative that is airtight. Honestly, I think the biggest problem with them is the price. They don't make financial sense for a large collection unless you have deep pockets and only drink top shelf tea. However I could se myself grabbing one or two of them at some point.

My mr. fluffy poopycakes are fermenting just right, I can see steam coming off it. This will be the best golden dragon mountain cake ever for sensei's tea ceremony

>>19668409
Here she is bro. I got the stamp underneath it too. Have no info on it, other than that it came from an antique/vintage store.

>>19670654
And here is the bottom. It's like a bamboo motif pot. You can see some of the dark marks on it. Makes me think the clay is just bad clay.

so whats the deal with lavender? smells and tastes like shit to me honestly
but is there something in this that makes you sleepy or is it just mom lore because some people find the smell relaxing?

>>19670654
Its hard to say, but a clay teapot shouldn't be giving off a weird smell, so it's possible it has some nasty smell soaked into it or it could be made out of some weird clay that is funky.
Its a very common design and there are pots of all levels of quality that look like that.
Im not a yixing expert but your pot looks like its actually made out of clay and not brown mud slurry. I would maybe try cleaning it more aggressively and see if that helps. You can really soak them in a dilute bleach solution as long as you use pure bleech that isint thickend or has any scent added to it. You can also soak it in dilute distilled white vinegar or very carefully simmer in in a pot on the stove (the bubbles you make the pot rattle against whatever you are simmering it in so you have to be very careful to keep it from boiling hard)
After a deep cleaning it will probably mute the flavor of the teas the first several times you brew in it but once you season it that should diminish.
Can i get a picture of the inside of the lid if you don't mind?

>>19670671
If you want a relaxing tea for nighttime just brew chamomile, no point in drinking lavender if you think it tastes bad.

>>19670783
You know how some people can't eat mint ice cream because it reminds them of toothpaste?
This feels like drinking Bath water
But also there is an oregano quality to it

>>19670897
Yeah i don't like how lavender tastes as tea either it's definitely off tasting. You could try to cover it up with a stronger flavor like liquorice root or something but its easier to just get a big bag of chamomile and brew that, it has a much more mild flavor and it mixes better with the flavors of other herbs

I broke the lid on my $90 teapot

>>19671409
Imagine trying to be a tea snob. You deserve the wall just like the OF spammers

>>19670654
post pics of the inside of it

>>19660860
>>19660797
Teas Tea is probably the best I've had, fancy subbrand of Itoen. Itoens Sencha and Oolon canned shots are also ok, but both are not as good as actual tea. but they aren't bad.

>>19670671
I like to sniff but don't like the tea
Valerian does have sleep aid properties but it smells and tastes like barnyard hay

>>19671572
Yeah valerian is pretty nasty

>>19671409
Pour one out for dead homies

someone give me the discord link

>>19671912
fuck off there is no discord

>>19671958
don't lie to me

>>19672574
Discord is the worst thing that can happen to a general, which are already kind of shitty and antithetical to board culture. All it brings is attention seeking tripfags and thread shitters, which you can see above that already exist without it. It brings drama, faggotry, trannies, and absolutely zero benefit that the general doesn't already provide. If you want a discord, go find one that exists around a retailer like Liquid Proust or Farmer Leaf. /tea/ is the beginning and end of this deliberately anonymous community.

Fuck off. There. Is. No. Discord.

>>19671756
Some BODY once told me the /tea/world was gonna roll me.

>>19672816

>>19671409
Sweet, new fairness pitcher.

Anon was talking about touring the 07 Dayi recipes they spammed out. I've been checking prices of those cakes and I think they're waaay overpriced for what they are. KTM has a 0772 for over $100. No way is it worth that. If you have some deep pockets and nothing else interesting left to explore, maybe get some samples, but I think there are other things you should tour instead.

>>19673481
They used to be kinda cheap, i agree i wouldn't bother at $100. I think the few that collectors actually liked got snapped up. If i still could find them at $40-$50 id consider it.

For people who have ordered the sample size from Red Blossom, about how many ounces/grams do you get for that generally? I watched their video and it just says "one serving", which isn't very helpful. Their tasting kits give you 1 ounce of each tea in the kit but they don't explain how many ounces a sample is. I imagine it's less than one ounce but what counts as a "serving" when brewed in a gaiwan seems to vary quite a bit depending on where you look.

Friend of mine asked for recommendations for some black tea (regular kind, not puer), anyone here had any standout black tea?

>>19670781
Here's the inside of the lid with another vague stamping. I'll give it a better bath next weekend and see if that clears it up. Really wish I could describe the smell. It's industrial, kind of unnatural. Not unpleasant in a 'oh wow smell like a shart' but in a 'i shouldn't consume this' kind of way.

>>19659231
I can definitely taste the difference between good and not as good ripe.

>>19674223
And this is the inside proper. Kinda rough, but I found this not always to indicate quality exactly.

>>19674232
2018 premium Dayi vs phoenix princess ripe.

>>19674237
Yeah i would look into trying to give it an aggressive cleaning and see if that helps. It's not fancy but it doesn't really have any of the telltale red flags that would make me wary, it seems to be relatively honest about itself, at least in my amateur opinion.
I hope you can get the smell out

>>19674157
I love taiwanese shan cha. it's pricey though

>>19674237
>>19674223
looks like it could be fake to me, lid stamp should not be weak like that and there should be tool markings on the bottom of the pot like picrel, theres some other stuff you can look for too, would recommend this guys videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09H9TSg5BWk

>>19673481
isn't 07 pu-erh usually supposed to be sub-par? I know you can get some 06 Dayi stuff on Awazon for cheaper

>>19674097
dunno about that specific company but samples can often be an ounce or so. but a "single serving" would turn out somewhere like 5 to 8 grams i guess.

>>19671409
dammit anon, that's rough
if only they invented some sort of material designed to make things stick together that you could use to fix your lid, and the japanes had a specific practice of using it to give a new life to broken things using said material with gold powder...
well, I guess science is just not there yet

>>19675207
How easy is kintsugi? I keep saving my broken ceramics to try but I'm chicken...

>>19675213
it requires a degree of dexterity and perfectionism if you want to do it well, like pic related, and it takes a lot of time because you can only join a few pieces a time unless everything fits together perfectly, which is astronomically unlikely
if you don't care about doing it all too well instead, like the lid I posted, you only need a bit of dexterity and patience
no reason to be chicken about it though, buy some sandpaper (not for ceramic) and epoxy resin or lacquer and try it out, if you end up liking it you can buy gold powder and whatnot later

>>19675234
NTA, but where do you get the stuff that's food safe? That'd be my main concern. Also, I'm assuming this is only worth doing as a cool project because the supplies and time probably end up costing more than a new pot would, unless we're talking fancy and/or one of a kind ceramics?

>>19675213
me too man, i've also not been having the easiest time finding anything concidered foodsafe where i am located.
>>19675234
>>19675260
also does resin hold up well the heat?

>>19675260
>food safe
this has never been a concern
epoxy resin (what I use), same as most glues, is close to inert when dry, it doesn't dissolve in water, it's hard enough not to get scraped away or scratched during normal use and produce dust that ends up in your tea, and it's perfectly stable between ~-40 and ~180°C
even if the glue was toxic though the amounts that might end up in your tea as a result of whatever would most certainly not be high enough to be a cause for health concerns after it's dried up
even if we're talking about bowls you'll eat in, if the job's done well enough the glue won't produce a bump inside the bowl, so it won't get scraped even if you use metal cutlery unless you really make an effort to scrape it
gold is inert to anything that's inside the human body as well
>the supplies and time might end up costing more than a new pot
the supplies are cheap enough, you only need a tiny bit of glue to fix a pot, and the gold doesn't need to be pure, nor does it actually need to be gold, you can just as well buy powdered brass or synthetic stuff with a nice, shiny golden color
the biggest investment is in terms of time
fixing up the lid that I posted the picture of required about 1h of work between sanding, cleaning and gluing, plus about 36h for the glue to dry, and I still need to sand the excess glue on the top side away, but it only broke into 5 pieces
the chawan I posted was broken into 20 to 26 pieces and would have required 4 to 8h of my work to put back together, plus at least 48h to dry, and was likely sanded and lacquered again on top of the patchwork, so it's definitely not a good investment if you only care about getting a usable pot/bowl back
then again, the philosophy behind kintsugi is more about making old, broken things usable again and giving them a new charm in the process, so in my opinion the fact that you made it yourself is more important that doing it that well

>>19675426
I know epoxy resin. I've used it to fix up my guitar. Pretty sure no company making it would tell its consumers it's food safe, even if it's just corporate liability bullshit. Still, I'd be more comfortable using something that's safe even in the worst case scenario of me fucking every possible thing up, because shit happens. I wonder what they used in the pre-industrial era, even if it's probably too expensive now.

>>19675483
>I wonder what they used in the pre-industrial era
i was just checking this out of curiosity, it seems they used a particular lacquer refined from poison oak sap which is pretty cool.

>>19675493
Yeah, I looked it up too. Doesn't seem any safer, DESU. Cool thing to know, though.

>>19675420
epoxy resin handles boiling water heat perfectly fine, the issue is that if you use it to put something with a relatively high coefficient of thermal expansion the resin will be gradually weakened and the joints will break apart
ceramic expands very scarcely between a normal range of use temperatures, say -20 and +105°C at most, so it's a good candidate for kintsugi, but even the high fired clay teapots used for green teas, and the low-fired teapots more so, expand and contract a lot (relative to dry epoxy resin), so I imagine such a job could withstand a year or so of regular use at best before falling apart
with a lid this is less of a concern because the heat transfer between the water and the lid is not nearly as much as between the water and the teapot, but still, depending on the glue quality and the work quality (how clean the clay was before applying glue, how much glue was applied between the pieces...) it might last for a long time or just for a year, though as you can see from the picture above I believe fixing a lid is worth the time, especially if the teapot's good quality and you want the lid to match
>>19675483
>me fucking every possible thing up
you'd literally have to drink the fixative for that amount of glue to possibly be a cause for concern, and I doubt you could find a glue as good as that that ANYONE will sell as food safe, despite everything I wrote at the beginning of my earlier post
natural lacquer in general is dried tree resin, for a fun project you might cut up a small pine or other conifer, collect the sap, thin it with the purest turpentine you can find and use that as glue, but it will be a much worse adhesive than even cheap epoxy glue, and as testament to that I've never come across historical accounts of pots fixed with kintsugi, just cups and plates

>>19675526
I'm probably not going through the effort for something that won't last that long. Maybe if I break a lid like you did, I'll give it a go. Only broke a cup so far and that's long gone.

The whole wabi-sabi thing is kind of the opposite of the aesthetic I went with as most of my teaware is white porcelain of simple elegant design so as to highlight the teas. I might actually use epoxy to make a wall hanger out of whatever breaks next.

Thanks for the YOUs, anon. Learned a lot.

Dis nigga drinking glue.

>>19674157
Black Gold Biluochun is perpetually the most popular tea in Yunnan Sourcing, for good reason. The Mao Feng black tea is also really good (I got it a few weeks ago and thought it was just alright but it turns out I was just getting ill, it’s actually quite amazing). The Pure Gold Jin Jun Mei is good but relatively expensive compared to previous two options. All of these are from Yunnan Sourcing, which is probably the best place to get Chinese black tea for a beginner.

>>19675614
anytime

>>19674157
Give him some hojicha; he'll probably like that better anyway.

i read on wikipedia there's a number of japanese and korean and thai heicha out there, including some stuff that's pickled with lactic acid bacteria which sounds crazy. does anyone have a source for this kind of thing? any non-chinese heicha will do me.

>>19676822
the japanese stuff is not that hard to find. it's really expensive though

If this dong ding is not good Taiwan is a province of the People's Republic of China that only started having ambitions of separation because of mental illness induced grandeur of a splinter of the KMT and that will soon be re-taken under the wise wing of the Party.

>Be me
>Find nice looking Japanese ceramic teapot at thrift store
>Not super fancy but looks functional
>Examine it it closer
>It is not chipped at all!
>Doesn't say "made in japan" on the bottom, only Japanese characters, its not export ware
>Get excited
>Buy it
>Take it home and start to clean it
>Notice the strainer is made of plastic
>Get disappointed
>Why Japanese have to do this to me?
>Why?

I did not pay much so I am not really that upset but I would have preferred it if it did not have plastic. I may try to pull out the strainer and replace it with a metal one but it is probably not worth the effort for a cheap teapot. On the more positive side I manged to grab a tasteful looking vintage Japanese export ware tea set with a teapot and 6 cups. Its actually a Japanese style set with a kyusu and not a ocidental style set which is uncommon for export ware. Impressively only one of the cups is chipped, the rest of the set is flawless. I have had to turn down so many pieces of teaware due to being chipped.

>>19676950
You can probably replace it with a steel strainer without too much trouble depending on what the exact design of the strainer is. Lots of shops on ebay sell precut sections of stainless stell mesh if its one of those simple insert filters

>>19676894
Please post your thoughts on the cheap baked for seasons, i keep thinking about buying a fat order of that as my daily drinker oolong

>>19676826
>the japanese stuff is not that hard to find.
You can buy it online pretty easily these days but it is really obscure, even in Japan. It is mostly made buy a few very small producers. I believe some types of Japanese heicha got pretty close to being lost at some point because they basically only existed as a local tradition.

>>19676822
>, including some stuff that's pickled with lactic acid bacteria which sounds crazy. does anyone have a source for this kind of thing? any non-chinese heicha will do me.
A few of the japan vendors in the pastebin offer those teas. Ive been interested in them for ages but haven't gotten around to trying them.
https://yunomi.life/collections/japanese-dark-tea

>>19676956
>on what the exact design of the strainer is.
It is a built in "ball" strainer at the base of the tea spout. I don't think it is intended to be removable. I should be able to get it out but it would probably not be possible with out damaging the strainer. I am sure it works well for fine Japinese tea but I really wish the had used a metal or ceramic or instead.

>>19677006
Eh if you feel like digging into it you can buy these lttle filter inserts they use for clay teapots.
The little metal staple thig inserts into the spot and just holds the filter in place with tension

>>19676988
the awabancha then i think, pretty interesting although it probably is gonna taste like any other lactic acid ferment
will bookmark for some future payday where i'm feeling cocky

>>19677061
There is also some weird korean dark teas, i very rarley see them pop up, liquid prost had some a few months ago but i don't see it on his site now. Also there is a Japanese farmer making basically ripe puer or something heavily inspired by it, i forget what his name is but you jan find it if you search Japanese puer or something like that

>>19677060
>Chinese tea pot strainer
Good idea, but probably too small.

Turns out the plastic bit came out pretty easy. It was bent and fit into a grove in the ceramic. Thankfully they did not glue it in place. I may just grab a basket strainer if I can find one that fits well. Not elegant but functional. I could also try to make my own replacement strainer if I can hunt down some fine food grade staleness mesh.

>>19677091
Oh yeah if it uses that slot system you can just slide a piece of stainless mesh in there pretty easily. Or a basket style strainer in the top works too.

>>19676973
>heicha got pretty close to being lost at some point
The likelihood of this happening to this and a sizable number of other styles of tea is close to 100% and that makes me very sad.
This type of realization has struck me with music, too. There's something about it that somewhat depresses me. I wish there was an obvious way to preserve information indefinitely.
It's a dumb thing to get emotional about but for me it's a hard pill to swallow.

Getting hyped for winter. What are the best seasonal foods/drinks?

i haven't had any tea for 22 hours and i have an awful headache. I thought caffeine withdrawal took longer to kick in? Doesn't caffeine have a ridiculous half life in the body of 12 hours or something?

>>19677871
If you have chinese friends or coworkers causality mention that you love mooncakes and they will pawn off all the ones their relatives sent them on you.

>>19677957
this seems like a good one, could see them going well with some kind of smoked tea.

>>19677871
Its not really seasonal but i just made banana bread and im convinced it will go pretty well with raw puer.
For something more seasonal gingersnaps go great with a steing black tea

i have no idea what the fuck i'm doing with japanese tea. what's a nice one to get?
https://yunomi.life/collections/japanese-shincha-green-tea

>>19678698
honestly as odd as it may sound I don't really see that much difference in quality between japanese greens, as long as they're fresh. I even enjoy the super cheap bancha I bought some time ago

>>19678728
interesting, thanks. i'll just pick the one with the coolest packet then

>>19678698
>what's a since one to get
gyokuro
>what are the differences
those are (very) similar tear grown in different parts of Japan, you can look the differences up easily, some will be a tad more citrusy and floral, some will be a tad more sweet and nutty

>>19678769
one difference that does matter for sencha is the steaming time. fukamushi is going to be really cloudy and thicc

yellow flakes from FL for the afternoon
a while ago i described this as really sweet, it is sweet but i think my cup must've gotten contaminated with something because it was ridiculous and it didn't occur again after that session.
anyway, it is nice in the gaiwan but i think grandpa style is best, it brings out the sweetness and softness. there's just a little vegetal pepperiness which is quite nice.
if you're making an FL order some time soon i think you should chuck a cake of this on, it's cheap (10c/gram) and enjoyable for casual drinking. did anyone pick up the jingmai ripe?

>>19679043
Almost picked these Yellow Flakes up because the cart counter showed I was below 30$ and they looked interesting. Alas, the counter corrected itself upon checkout so I said "another time". Good to know my hunch about them was right.

>did anyone pick up the jingmai ripe?

I have a sample in my order. I'll post what I think of it, but I've only drank like five different ripes total so far, so it probably won't mean much.

>>19678776
NTA, could you recommend me a good nutty one?

Any idea what kind of puerh this is, /tea/? It was a gift from some chinese neighbors. Never tried puerh but I've always wanted to.

I got a sample pack from yunnan sourcing like two years ago but one thing led to another and I never really tried them properly. I finally got a gaiwan recently and gave a couple of them a taste and....
Iunno, the shous I tried tasted like diluted black tea and the sheng was just green tea but with a big emphasis on bitter.
A couple of the teas were left unopened in the original package, but weather's been a bit crazy around here and I just kept them in cupboards inside the plastic bag they came with.
I followed the pastebin's general directions (or at least didn't stray from them too hard), and my water's hardness shouldn't be a problem (I filter my water using a standard filter). I also made sure to brew the same lump several times. For reference, the chunks declump usually around the third brew but not fully.
I'd like to assume that I'm doing something wrong, any pointers? Did all the samples somehow become stale or something?

>>19678698
Did you try any of their greens at all before? It's quite different to typical green tea. If you didn't, overthinking it will just fry you out. Pick a couple at random, peek at the descriptions of the tea and maybe you'll know what to expect.

>>19679398
Looks like an aged raw, maybe 10 or 15 years. Definitely a blend.
Puerh has a huge gamut of quality. It's hard to know what it might be or where it came from or how valuable it is. It is very nice to be gifted a whole cake though. Brew some up and report back.

>>19679398
does the wrapper have some design or text on it?

>>19679410
>Iunno, the shous I tried tasted like diluted black tea
if this is the case, then you should definitely brew them stronger. they should be really dark and thick. definitely not like a weak black tea.

raws can be tricky to get right too, experiment a bit. the fresh ones are usually green teaish indeed, but should usually have some nice fruitiness or something else going on besides being bitter

>>19679481
>they should be really dark and thick
So far the way I brewed it was doing the inital cup warming, then I brew a throwaway steep for like 30 seconds. Looking at the pastebin now I somehow mixed up the timing with japanese greens and brewed them at like 30 seconds plus 10 more for each steep, but the color of the tea usually turns out about the same transparency as a bagged tea, yellow/brownish but visible through and through.
Now looking at the pastebin again, I'm seeing that the instructions ask for 1 gram per 100 ml. The fuck was I doing, I guess it's because of that that the tea doesn't really open up all the way properly? I'm terminally retarded, I'll do some proper experimenting tomorrow.

>>19679410
It's possible their conditions over the last two years have flattened out the flavor or otherwise produced undesirable qualities. Even in their original packaging, two years is a pretty long duration.

>>19679410
I thought I didn't like sheng much at first, but a combo of letting it rest in humidity and improving my brewing technique changed my mind. It takes a little practice I think.
Give it a quick wash (water in and out with no wait) and throw that brew, then brew using relaxed breaths (about 5 sec) as your timer, start with two breaths. Adjust timing to taste as you go along.
I like 7-8g in my gaiwan and relatively quick steeps. After some practice you'll get the hang of it and just be able to eyeball everything.

>>19679473
just this faint red stamp
>>19679459
Gave it a 10 second rinse and improvised a gaiwan style brew, went with 15 seconds for the first infusion. Water was a few minutes off the boil.
Brewed up a pale gold, bit of a savory/salty thing in the nose, maybe a bare hint of smokiness. Taste was light and similar to how it smelled. There were some slight deeper/danker notes going on but nothing I could pick out individually.
I didn't like it and couldn't get through the second infusion. I'll give it another go tomorrow though, I've got like 300 grams of the stuff.

>>19679520
The pastebin says 5g/100 mL for ripe. I usually do 7-8 g, because i like it dark and strong, and i don't really bother with time, i go by colour. In my experience, it is impossible to fuck up brewing ripe.

>>19679530
>rest in humidity
I'm pretty sure this is more important than most puerh intro material suggests.
>>19679559
Well good on you for trying it at least! Given your description of the color, I'm either wrong about the age or perhaps you didn't use quite enough material. I would expect something like that to brew up more orangeish, maybe even into red depending on how it was stored. Additionally, compressed tea doesn't give off the best stuff until at least the third infusion. I don't think you got a fair shake as to what that tea has to offer. It's great that you have a whole cake to revisit later.
If you're still interested, I recommend trying something this general knows well, and circling back to your gift another time. Mystery tea probably is never a good idea for a first time sheng puerh drinker.

>>19679577
Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely play around with the brew. I was also surprised at how light the color turned out. I'd love to try something more well-known but I haven't really looked into the availability of the more popular stuff in my country. I'd just prefer the possibility of getting something locally instead of buying from a store in the pastebin.

>>19679398
>>19679559
White label cakes are extremely common in the domestic market, they get wrapped and branded later by a retailer. If the interior of that cake has the same leaf size as the exterior, and it's not just a facing of larger leaves, the material at least looks to be of decent quality.
>maybe a bare hint of smokiness
Most cakes from this era were unfortunately not stored properly, aging properly is quite difficult and they're generally kept in small quantities in people's homes, where they tend to pick up strange flavors and smells, most often smoke from indoor cooking or heating fires. If you didn't like it, I'd do a 30s rinse right off the boil, then do fairly short back to back brews. Otherwise just leave it around and let it air out a bit.

>>19679572
Turns out I just misread the chart, yeah I did the amount correct.
I'll try doing a 30 second initial brew and then a second steep and wait until its practically opaque if for no other reason than to see how it'll taste oversteeped

>>19679612
many people like their ripe brewed strong as fuck, because it doesn't really get bitter, just thicker and more coffee / chocolate-like. I think too strong is definitely better than too weak for ripe

>>19679612
I think it's better if you make the first brew longer than the second one. During the first brew the leaves hydrate and the chunk opens up, which takes a while (but this time really, really depends on the tea; i have a Bulang ripe that becomes opaque almost immediately while a Mengku ripe which can hardly become very dark) after which there is a point when the leaves just explode and release their flavour (that is why my second brew is shorter). But this is just my observation.

>>19679692
this. I usually go like "quick rinse, then at least one minute for the first brew, then only a few seconds for the second one"
works fine for ripe. going by color is good too, once you know your preference. often it should be darker than black tea though, more like coffee

>>19679593
Smokeyness in puer is usually from the processing and not some farmer storing tea cakes over his fireplace situation.

>>19659231
Tea? More like concentrated plant toxins.

>>19679786
There's a very clear improper storage taste that is common in cakes from that era, it's even more likely with an unlabeled cake since that means it never made it to a retailer (at least not a big retailer). Charring or overroasting or burning of puer during shaqing tastes different.

>>19679964
i think i saw farmerleaf discussing something like this, he mentioned until recently a lot of those little villages didn't have proper houses or infrastructure or anything so the tea did not store well

>>19680016
Yeah, this is still true in areas like Laos and Burma, I wouldn't be surprised if it came up in relation to that, I'm pretty sure he went to one of those places to teach them how to make tea. I don't think it happens anymore in Yunnan though, demand for puerh is consistent enough to drive people to store it properly, retailers and wholesalers won't buy it if it's smoky.

>>19679593
>maybe a bare hint of smokiness
>Most cakes from this era were unfortunately not stored properly
A lot of us consider that smokiness and rustic charm a benefit and not a con. Most puerh is not stored in squeaky clean climate controlled buildings. Puerh storage really is not that difficult.

>and they're generally kept in small quantities in people's homes
I doubt it. Most small farmers would not have the space to store much tea. At most the maocha they made would stay with them for a little while while until they can sell it to a factory.

>>19680122
but you guys said I needed to have a special pumidor storage container for tea with conrolled humidity

>>19680182
and a basic pumidor is neither complicated nor difficult.

>>19680182
In the right climate you can just keep puer unwrapped on a shelf (assuming you don't burn scented candles or have other strong smells) unfortunately nowhere in the US/Canada/Europe has that climate

First experience/reaction to puerh?

>>19681455
First time i tried puerh i saw it being shilled on some videos by that brittish guy that makes all the videos shilling puer and they other teas he sells, i think it was a random YouTube algorithm suggestion. I went to a local teashop that was actually pretty decent and ordered a pot of a 5-6 year old sheng, i think they had two on the menu and that one sounder better. It was great, really enjoyed it, it was very sweet and not too bitter prety great introduction imo. I went to buy a cake as i was leaving and accidentally bought a 100g three cranes liubao tuo instead, which was actually really good several years later when i came around to liubao but was very frustrating at the time.
The first time i tried ripe on the other hand was from some herbalist shop that had some random teas from i think mountain rose herbs, they had a jar of those little mini ripe tuos and i got a few, i distinctly remember it smelling like fish and i don't think i managed to drink more then a few sips.

>>19675207
would you look at this
a thing ot beauty
>>19676963
will do, probably in two or three weeks when it comes in

>>19679255
I could not, I'm not very familiar with sencha options, but again, it's easy enough to look up, just type the name of the specific tea, like "sayama sencha" into a search engine and read a few of the results and you'll get a sense of the terroir's characteristics
for the qualities of specific teas on sale online read the product's descriptions, if there's no description it means the seller doesn't know what they're selling and you're better off buying from someone else since the wholesaler might be selling anything to the reseller, the reseller wouldn't be able to tell and you might be getting a lower quality tea than you're paying for

>>19679255
I hear the Yutaka Midori from o-cha is nutty. I have a bag, but haven't opened it yet

i hate having to deal with pumidors and still having the teas deteriorate in taste over time, theres so many puers i want to stockpile on but cant because they wont age well here

>>19682095
Consider it an exercise in impermanence

Any Slavic anons here? Have you ever drunk pure zavarka?

>>19682382
I've had tea from a samovar, but not the concentrated stuff

>>19682207
Lmao

Thoughts on the aesthetic direction of YS in the current year?

>>19677457
>I wish there was an obvious way to preserve information indefinitely.
>It's a dumb thing to get emotional about but for me it's a hard pill to swallow.
I can relate to the feeling. The world unironically needs more passionate autists to preserve information. It is scary how even on the internet where the data is already digitized and relatively easy to index how much useful information is lost or unsearchable. A lot of the modern internet is hostile to searching and archiving in ways the old web not.
On a very loosely related tangent I originally wanted to go into a relatively niche academic field but decided against it both because I wanted more career flexibility and because I did not want to deal with the modern academic world. When inquiring about paid internship opportunities at my regional premier university to get a feel for academia I got the strong impression that they did not want white males unless you were either a wealthy legacy student or had a perfect GPA. They actually went out of their way to list every common demographic except white males as "preferred applicants" for most positions. How very inclusive. The experience deeply soured my opinion of the whole institution. I still kind of wonder if I should have pushed though and given it a shot both because it was a personal passion and because I suspect the field is slowly dying out due to a lack of fresh blood. I fear a lot of expertise will be lost when the grey beards finally retire and there will not be anyone left to replace them.

>>19682942
a lot of them are kind of stupid but could be worse
a few of the artworks are alright though

>>19659231
How hard would it be to learn to throw a delicate teacup like that?

>>19682942
Generally very positive. Honestly I think YS has the best wrappers on average. The cute ones, the simple ones, the radicool ones, the weeb ones. Fuck it, they're all good. Being fan produced too is also a big PR win. Very on key with Western expectations.

>>19683329
i didn't know they're made by fans, that bumps them up a few notches.

>>19682942
Funnily enough I was looking at that same cake online just the other day. The art is quite striking but I think I would prefer it in a comic or something instead of on my tea.

Overall, I think he should tone the art down just a bit. Just because you can cheaply print in full color these days does not mean you always should. That said I generally prefer it to the hipster head shop style that some of the other western puerh vendors use. YS also has art in multiple styles so most people will probably find at least some they like. In any case you should should not buy the tea for the wrapper. As a note YS typically holds a yearly wrapper art contest and gives out gift cards for any designs he uses. A good amount of his wrappers come from there. If we have any talented drawfags here you could try to win some free tea.

>>19683400
Here are the winners of the recent art contests
https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/2023-design-contest-winning-entries
https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/2022-design-contest-winning-entries
https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/2021-design-contest-winning-entries
https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/2020-design-contest-winning-entries

Also as far as full color illustrations go picrel is probably my favorite YS wrapper. If he had offered it on a t shirt I would have considered buying it.

For me its ugly overdesigned Chinese brand wrappers

>>19683975
The design is really not that bad but the color scheme does kind of make it look like it should come with a pair 3d glasses.

>>19681455
It was from my second order at Adagio, 2017 I believe. I am naturally curious about worlds I know nothing about. Tea certainly fit that category in a very satisfying way. Their Pu Erh Poe and Pu Erh Dante (named after authors of "dark" works, I guess?) were very strange to me. Every other tea I had from them and else where were fruity, rich, or green, vegetal, malty. Typical of bulk commodity tea blends, I suppose. But sipping on puerh with zero knowledge of what it really is was a little shocking.
Here's what I wrote about it back then, one of the first teas I ever reviewed.
>Strange flavor. Smells not great, tastes good. Very robust, smoky. I enjoy cutting Earl Gray Bravo [with it]
Years passed, I got the fever you might say. By the time I picked up 7542 and 7572 cakes and some samplers from YS, I knew I was hooked. I wish I could remember what pointed me in the direction of a place like YS. Might have been a fluke since nobody was my puerh sherpa.
Curiosity turned into interest. Interest into hobby. Hobby into passion. Now soon I'm hoping to turn it into a business and share the love with others.

>>19683975
this looks better than the ones i see on white2tea

>>19683975
looks better than the ones i see on white2tea

>>19683373
Yeah imo it makes their email newsletter worthwhile, seeing the winners declared that is. Towards end of the lunar year Scott starts soliciting for wrapper art, generally in the motif of the upcoming lunar year. Winners get a sizable coupon for the store, which I think encourages artists to have at least a minimal understanding of what exactly they're designing for. I'd be pumped to see anon's designs make it on a cake. Bet your ass I'd buy a cake.
>>19683400
I will agree there's room for more subtlety, but what can you do. It's Western marketing.
>>19683975
There's a great appeal to these, too. Fortunately, there's room for all of the above.

>>19683432
I can't help but notice your picrel, this 2020 design entry honorable mention, was from Anon when usually they are not anonymous. I don't suppose that might be a friend of the thread?

>>19683021
Sorry to hear about your experience. A friend was in a similar situation for mortuary school that really soured his position on academia as well. He did end up following his unorthodox passion and has been very successful and actually popular. I hope you don't let a passion die on the vine.
Since only the last few years, I've taken it upon myself to start collecting, indexing, and archiving things I think are important to the uncertain future. Even if these things are just personally interesting to me. Tea things included. I'm still searching for what I can. I'm also somewhat handy at poking my nose places where maybe it doesn't belong and lifting things.
I've been kicking around the idea of putting together a fatass /tea/ torrent containing what I've put together and sharing. If I do something like that, it's probably still a ways off. Sounds like a cozy winter project.

>>19684097
>I hope you don't let a passion die on the vine.
Thanks, I will try to rekindle it. It kind of got kicked onto the back burner after I changed academic tracks. I ended up choosing to go into healthcare. Hopefully I should soon be making good money (so I can buy all the tea) but the schooling has sucked a lot out of me and yet I still feel woefully under qualified. To tie this back into /tea/ I picked up "serious" tea drinking as a hobby partially because I wanted something low commitment to do while I was burned out by school. I long had a passing interest in tea but perhaps I would never have ended up really "getting into it" or finding my way here to /tea/ were it not for my change in career path. Funny how things work out like. So many possibilities.
>the idea of putting together a fatass /tea/ torrent
Sounds like a cool protect. I would love to see it if you do. I know there are PDFs for a number of good tea books floating around. I have actually been considering putting together a semi-comprehensive tea vendor database and maybe a beginners guide to tea vendors myself. Both of which would also be a ways off if they were to happen. Heck maybe I will even try to enter the YS art contest next year if find some inspiration. I am not an artist by any stretch but the bar for an honorable mention seems attainably low with some patience.

anyone here use willowbark tea for pain relief? i was wondering if its possible to cold brew and receive benefits from the bark

>>19684349
Isint that just a really roundabout way of taking asprin?

damn im really craving some yiwu puer, why does that shit have to be so damn expensive

any recommendations from TuochaTea?

>>19684902
Haiwan ripes are always a popular choice in this thread.

White2tea has the skull jade teapot in stock! They'll be gone in an hour probably. I FOMOed hard last time so I picked one up. I refuse to feel bad about it.

>>19685532
can't say I like that skull on top personally, but tastes differ

>>19685566
I'm a fan of memento mori vibes. It has an unusual interpretation in China. Skulls and such, even in an obvious fictitious or artistic manner, are considered crass or vulgar. It makes an article like it a little more unorthodox, special.
I definitely respect the aesthetic preference aversion to it though.

>>19685597
And yet it’s being sold to westerners who spam skulls everywhere.

>>19685597
that's an interesting point

Eveytime i look at w2t and think, oh that cake sounds okay for the price, i remember they are 200g cakes and click out of the store

I went to a Nepalese restaurant and tried this. The guy (actually from Nepal) warned me that it wasn’t for most people but I wanted to try authentic foreign food and went for it.
Tasted like milk with salt in it. I think it made me sick. But I drank two cups of it and smiled and it made the guy happy

>>19685923
Did it also taste like coins?

>>19685932
If I cleaned off a coin and put it in my mouth and poured warm milk into it that would be the flavor.

>>19685597
It doesn't come off as memento mori to me, honestly. It's just too in your face for that - I feel like it's meant to come off as cool most of all; more reminiscent of US biker culture use. If it were painted on the outside of the ceramic in baroque style, though...

Any of these new / back in stock blacks from W2T worth getting? I've only tried Daily Jinjunmei.

>>19685947
While doing a double piece sign and saying "onii chan, daisuke"

>>19685952
>It's just too in your face for that
it reminded me of my roommate from many years ago who used to wear leather jackets and flame boots, he would've loved it.

>>19685910
Thanks for sharing.

What’s the consensus?

>>19686142
looks beyond cursed

>>19686142
The tea is supposed to be powered, not the plastic!

i used to be able to sleep super well after an hour long gongfu session right before bed but after i learnt about how much caffiene was in tea i could no longer sleep at all after drinking tea late.. funny how the brain works like that

>>19686321
Just drink more tea and you will get used to it agin. If your gongfu session at like 9pm is your third of the day you should be fine

>>19676963
If you (you) me tomorrow I'll remember to open up mine and tell you how it is

Tea

Tea drawer

>>19659231
NEW
>>19686639
>>19686639
>>19686639

>>19686640
already??

>>19686666
Yeah, it's time