i have issues with spending money from my upbringing
every time my dad calls me he makes a point of asking how much money i’m spending
always do filtered water with tea or coffee. even when I can’t get filtered water I use water bottles or distilled water from a jug. it’s better than having stray minerals ruin the taste of your drink
I used to do the gallon jug refill thing at Cub foods
ive very quickly burned thru 50g of dragon well tea. does anyone have any recommendations for good entry level wuyi oolongs or sweet-tasting green teas? looking for like, specific vendors/harvests
Does tea… go bad? I neglected a whole bunch of (assorted quality) tea because it was in a cabinet I had to get a stool to get at and now I’m not sure what of it I should brew. I’m guessing the oil dries up and out for teas with more of them but if they were drier to start they’re okay.
my understanding is you should be storing tea in airtight containers, i put mine in the fridge if it’s adequately fancy. worst you could do is drink em, idk. they won’t kill you but they might taste a little flat
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airtight containers are good but don’t keep tea in the fridge unless it has volatile compounds in the blend
Refrigerating tea actually introduces moisture to the tea when you open it back up because the moisture from the air condenses on the cold leaves.
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Sniff it, if it smells like nothing it’ll probably taste like nothing. Beyond that tea doesn’t really go bad if it’s still dry. Foil-wrapped teabags last a decently long time.
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How much can staling tea be counteracted with longer steep times? The looseleaf I buy is definitely weaker on the back half of the rather large bags but I don’t feel like I’m losing anything by extending steep times by 50% or so; there’s definitely still a threshold where I bring in less pleasant minor tastes if I steep too long.
to Uji
ive bought some tazo green tea + spearmint
feelin heavy sleepy since i’ve been up about 12 hrs
gonna try out some oolongs. threw in some pu’erh cuz why not.
i’ve also bought a meat thermometer so i actually know what temperature my water is at.
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Oh, here’s a puerh tip. You can resteep it way more times than other teas. Puerhs lock away entire worlds of flavor past the second steeping
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Upped my ante re: tea gear, and added the largo & drip cube to my V60 range server #03.
Let’s see if i get tired of cleaning it after a while!
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cool Background Object From Thief: The Dark Project you’ve got there
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Grocery Store Gyokuro
- ~2m30s @ 150 degF
- 4, possibly 5 brass fashion spoonfuls (less than trad. for cool steep gyokuro)
Tasting Notes
- Not all the way dashi
- Gulped like water
- Cup has foods on it, there is a matching one with fishes
#goals
- Only some of the way dashi
- One time, brewed a lot of this for like 5-6min @140 and my review was “this is food now”
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White2Tea Snowflake Dancong Oolong
Prep: 95C, gongfu, 1 steep for 10 seconds (i was running out the door)
Notes:
- very sweet aroma, clean and sweet steep. like it a lot
White2Tea Dahongpao
Prep: 95C, gongfu, 10s 10s 15s
Notes:
- rinse very peppery aroma
- strong notes of tobacco, leather, something like that
- tastes poorly if pushed (i.e. if water is straight off boil) - becomes sort of harsh
- nice mellow woodsy-acid taste if treated lightly
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i’m caffeine sensitive and it worsens my anxiety 
so my tea consumption is necessarily less, which is a big ol bummer
does anybody have strong opinions about run of the mill english-style black teas (english breakfast, orange pekoe etc)?
i was a pg tips loyalist for years but it is weirdly hard to find in canada. it is really quite strange because canada in general is so much more anglophilic than the states, but in edmonton at least i think you can only get pg tips at specialty stores.
everything else just tastes weird to me, especially twinnings, but the most recent attempt was yorkshire tea which has proven to be OK