Currently atvm drinking: default house black milk tea from this bánh mì place down the street. I asked for no sugar and there is a bunch of sugar, it’s mostly sugar. Really, I visit because a guy talked to me about his/my Vespa the first time I went and they all seem nice. Daddy needs his medicine, Daddy was up all night because the dumb college football player boys upstairs were literally yelling at the top of their lungs until 3am, they are always yelling, I bet they are hype on scoring battle royale “frags”. I regret being nice to their daddy when he came to check the place out I let him look in our windows and chatted, the nerve.
Current fav in the stash:
I have been slowly metering it out because a mature gentleman can’t be just pissing away cash on straight drugs also I haven’t been working a 9-5 for the past couple years so maintaining a caffeine addiction is less desirable. It’s got some of that popcorn taste if you push it hard on the 2nd or 3rd steep before it starts to die off. Searching for those steamed veggie popcorn tastes. Maybe we’ll go wild and drink some of that later maybe my wife can drink the rest of this kool aid boba.
Anybody else into leaf soup? What you drinkin’ (how you livin’)?
I just bought Golden Monkey Yunnan Black Tea and Oriental Beauty Oolong tea from kuchatea.com. It’s been a while since I’ve splurged on some nice chinese or taiwanese tea so I’m looking forward to it. My go to tea that I buy locally is japanese sencha from the local japanese market or whatever darjeeling I can get at the grocery store.
I used to drink nice tea but now I just drink whatever garbage because I don’t actually have standards for most things. I just pretend too most of the time.
I drink tea pretty much constantly. I prefer classic straight-up unflavored teas most of the time, but now and then I can get pretty into a mildly flavored one if it’s really good.
I usually don’t order tea on the internet, so I end up pulling from whatever quality stuff is available in my area. This means I end up buying a lot of bougie overpriced white people versions of Asian teas, but you can get some quality stuff from those kinds of brands if you know what to buy.
I love to drink oolong tea at work because they’re great for resteeping. I like that the flavor of an oolong seems to evolve and change every time you resteep. Unlike green or black teas, it doesn’t taste like the tea is getting weaker, it tastes like the tea is changing form. I like that on long days I can reach the rare “3rd steep” territory, or even the virtually unknown “4th steep” wildlands.
Right now there’s a David’s Tea shop pretty close to my office, so I’ve been getting my oolongs there. They have a Tie Kwan Yin that’s pretty decent, but the thing that really took me by surprise was their Milk Oolong. I’d never had this variety of tea before, but it’s astonishing. It tastes very sweet and almost buttery and savory in a way that sounds gross in theory but in practice tastes fantastic, like no other tea I’ve ever had before.
The clerk at the shop told me it was unflavored tea, but the label they printed says it contains “natural flavouring”. Apparently Milk Oolong is also known as Jin Xuan, and some purveyors like to flavor other varieties of Oolong to create a cheaper artificial Jin Xuan. I’m really not clear on whether the one David’s sold me is legit, but I’m guessing it’s not.
Anyone have a hot tip on where I can get some real deal legit unflavored Jin Xuan?
The first bowl moistens my lips and throat; 一碗喉吻潤，
The second bowl breaks my loneliness; 二碗破孤悶，
The third bowl searches my barren entrails but to find 三碗搜枯腸，
Therein some five thousand scrolls; 惟有文字五千卷，
The fourth bowl raises a slight perspiration 四碗發輕汗，
And all life’s inequities pass out through my pores; 平生不平事盡向毛孔散，
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones; 五碗肌骨清，
The sixth bowl calls me to the immortals. 六碗通仙靈，
The seventh bowl could not be drunk, 七碗吃不得也，
only the breath of the cool wind raises in my sleeves. 唯覺兩腋習習清風生。
Where is Penglai Island, Yuchuanzi wishes to ride on this sweet breeze and go back. 蓬萊山﹐在何處，玉川子乘此清風欲歸去。
These Leafy Green people have become the US distributor for teas sourced/produced by this guy Huaying Chen, this being one. I’ve never tried it, but all his other teas I have have been solid. He sold me some Fu Shou Shan tins via email, thanks bro. I still have the empty cans and sniff them sometimes .
But like Jin Xuan and Qing Xin are the most popular Taiwan oolong varietals, tons of stuff out there. Taiwan Sourcing, run by the Yunnan Sourcing guy Scott Wilson, has kinda become my go-to in the past couple years. I’ve also bought stuff from Mountain Tea, but it’s been a couple years and some things were drinkable but uninspiring - good prices, typically, though.
I’ve had some of this doped up milk perfumed tea before, as well, and it is indeed crazy tasting, not a fan.
Thanks for the links, some intriguing stuff here! The one from Taiwan Sourcing looks great. Plus their page for it features a testimonial written from the point of view of an actual dog, hard to say no to that.
OK, apparently that Taiwan Sourcing site is selling vintage teas from the 70’s? That is weird as hell, and I’d definitely get one if they weren’t so expensive.
I’m going to order their Jin Xuan and the King of Qing Xin you recommended. Do you have any other recommendations from that site?
I remember this being good when I drank it in early-mid 2016
They’ve also still got the spring 2016 in-stock, spring harvests tends to be more punchy tasting. Also, typically I think received typical wisdom would say minimally processed high mountain stuff like this is best consumed as fresh as possible, tho perhaps not as crucial as say japanese greens, but who knows maybe the whole aging thing has seeped into that scene too.
one of the greatest things i’ve ever done was stay up all night drinking beer with some new friends, then we had the brilliant idea to try to climb a mountain at sunrise. we got lost on the mountain and ended up at this mysterious tea shack and drank tea until we felt exactly like this, it was a great time
I live in China and, somehow, I don’t drink tea regularly. One of my students gave me a cup of jasmine tea last night. It had herbal jelly in it which was quite nice. There’s a pu-er tea store nearby called Everlasting Pu-er, and I’m seriously considering becoming a pu-er snob. That stuff is strange and the culture of appreciation for it goes deep.
I’ve had Milk Oolong/Jin Xuan before and greatly enjoyed it. Almost bought some from Kucha but went with Oriental Beauty instead. I do love my Taiwanese Oolongs.
If you like the process of multiple steeps then you should definitely research Gongfu tea and maybe get an yixing teapot. They are tiny teapots that are tailor made for resteeping one batch of leaves for many small cups. Lovely.
I’m excited about the other tea sourcing options in this thread. I haven’t bought a lot of online tea and just went with Kucha because I’ve been to their shop in Boulder once.
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