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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 7, 2021 0:07:31 GMT
Anyone else here enjoy drinking tea enough to discuss favorite ones?
I'm quite fond of floral or peachy oolongs and flavored black teas. Specially keen on lavender early grey or rose flavored black teas. I love thr extra smokey Taiwanese version of lapsang souchong, but my favorite company has been out some time.
I like various jasmine's too. Sometimes some herbal teas.
Never could get into most green teas as they taste like fancy microwave steamer bag water from frozen vegetables to me. But to each their own. As an exception I do like golden genmaicha which smells like popcorn to me.
I'd be interested to hear any recommendations if anyone has. At the moment I need to lay off the black tea to my chagrin for digestive reasons.
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Post by Mare on Aug 7, 2021 18:26:58 GMT
Oh, yay! I can talk teas even if I can't seem to drink them, anymore. My favorite has been black tea since I was a child. My dad had the dreaded Lipton dehydrated tea, but it was still black tea...I made it for him a lot and put teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar in my own iced tea. The best thing about it was it was instant tea. No waiting! My mom bought Constant Comment, which was too orangey for me. I primarily am an iced tea drinker, all year long. Over the years, I have tried Green Tea (tastes like the lawn) and White Tea, which is really good. Harney and Sons Teas were my favorites for at least ten years. Their black tea- Paris-was my favorite. First sip in the morning is an ahhh moment. Another favorite is Fruits D'Alsace- a flavored black tea...plum, apricot, cherries, lovely! I have tried other flavored black teas-Capri (Fig and Lemon, very nice for Summer) and Florence (Chocolate Hazelnut, but I could never taste that-it was just a nice tea.) The only white tea from Harney and Sons I've had is Heirloom Bartlett White...pear flavored white, but not on their website, anymore. When I was in Kansas for my uncle's funeral services, my cousins said they had been planning to go to the Midwest Tea Festival of 2016 and were disappointed because they thought they needed to stay with my mom and I as they were hosting us. My head went up and I did a whip pan back to where they were quietly talking, and said TEA FESTIVAL? When? May I go? Then, we all pepped up and the cousins started talking about their favorite local Tea Shop. They hoped that Shang would be there, and so he was! His website Shang Tea is a nice place to browse...one of my cousins sent me a Sample Pack of their teas and I tried most of them. They are bulkier than most dried teas, loosly packed and you can use the leaves more than one pass through. (Which really means follow the directions of amount to use and water temp if you can, and prepare to add water if the first cup is pretty strong, because I found it is-I was really getting caffeine jitters. If you like milder flavor, you can experiment with amounts of leaves to use until you figure it out.) My favorites here are White Peony King and Honeysuckle White oh, man it is so good! A few years ago, my friend Linda took me to a Tea House in Pasadena for a Tea and Chocolate Pairing (She got a Groupon for it so a pretty good deal.) I'd never done that before. It was lots of fun and we had some sandwiches prior to the tasting. One of the teas was Silver Needle Tea and if they'd had some in stock, I would have purchased it then and there. Tea...yeah, good stuff.
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 7, 2021 18:39:47 GMT
Cool a number of these I share as similar taste in tea. I've had a number of companies offerings but the past few years had switched over to nearly exclusively Harney's as they had/have so much I like. I haven't had too many white teas, but I did enjoy those I've tried. With respect to silver needle, there's a silver needle jasmine from them I like. Their jasmine teas I brew at 1 tsp per 2 cups as I find them too strong otherwise for me, but otherwise I usually do 1 tsp per 1 cup water for their teas. That pear one sounds good, shame no longer made. I cant drink the black teas or at least not supposed to but I hope they get their Smoke back in stock which is the super in your face smokey Tawaianese version of lapsang. Their rose flavored black tea I love and find the aroma and taste really relaxing, similar to their Victorian London Fog (lavender earl grey), but again black teas I need to currently abstain from. Ditto on loving the Paris blend. I got the black currant one too and I like it but Paris more. Their is a white tea called African Antlers that only rarely I have but it's pretty good sorta peachy. I cant have actual stone fruit or apples or any sorbitol containing fruit so no real peaches for me so peachy tea is a top favorite. I like their supreme pearl jasmine and other floral forward like a number of their oolongs like Wenshan Baozong and Li Shan. The Champion Dancong and Mi Lan are favorite peachy ones. I tried their honeysuckle flowers which is interesting but not a favorite though not bad either. A bit too green for me but occassionally may revisit. The honey Bush herbal I like. Also the Venetian tiramisu hojicha based one. The 2020 and 2022 Chinese Lunar New Year were fantastic (seasame coconut dessert) but black teas.
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 7, 2021 18:44:38 GMT
Tea and chocolate pairing sounds so fun. If I could eat chocolate I would. I had once tea and various things like scones but not enough to be a proper afternoon tea. I'd love to do that at some point. I did have a buddy come over a few years ago for a tea tasting party and made tons of small batches of different tea and various nibbles. That was fun. Sadly can't really drink to be able to do the other part of the pairing which was lots of cocktails. I remember he brought a bottle of Galliano at my request as he asked what to bring and I always wanted to try it. Not bad. And good for more than just Harvey Wallbangers. Like a Golden Cadillac and some other ones.
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Post by donavan on Aug 7, 2021 19:20:59 GMT
PG tips Decaf
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Post by Introvertigroo on Aug 8, 2021 0:36:08 GMT
I'm on Team Robin.
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Post by Terra Incognita on Aug 15, 2021 0:03:16 GMT
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 17, 2021 4:49:15 GMT
I want one of those.
Milky oolong is nice too.
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Post by donavan on Aug 17, 2021 8:30:03 GMT
I've just discovered you can get viagra tea bags, they stop your biscuits going soft.
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Post by Introvertigroo on Aug 17, 2021 10:40:45 GMT
Viagra tea bags wouldn't work here--we already have hard water.
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 17, 2021 19:13:37 GMT
I've just discovered you can get viagra tea bags, they stop your biscuits going soft. Not a fan of soggy biscuit? I like a good cream tea.
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 19, 2021 3:38:41 GMT
Harney's Supreme Pearl Jasmine is really nice. It's better balanced to my taste on the jasmine flavor. I like STRONG flavored but their "regular" dragon pearl jasmine which I like can sometimes be a bit too much even for me so this one that's a bit more jasmine mellow is just right.
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Post by Mare on Aug 19, 2021 3:43:53 GMT
I bought the Pearl Green Jasmine Harney's Tea for my son at that Tea Show I said I attended with my cousins. I don't know (or don't remember, to be truthful) if he liked it or not.
Earl Grey of any kind has too much bergamot for me. There must not be much at all in Harney's Paris...I love that and I found out it has bergamot when I was looking at the Harney's site the other day.
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 19, 2021 3:57:28 GMT
I agree. I am surprised to learn bergamot is in Parie which I really like. There I'd another tea that I think maybe based on Earl Grey, not my favorite but still worth having sometimes. Sally's Secret and it's a rose flavored Earl Grey. Not as strong as the rose black tea. That said I think the bergamot is fairly present. Indo not detect any in the lavender easel grey which they call Victorian London Fog. If it's there is milder. I've that one but even though the lavender is clear I tend to add an extra half to tsp of lavender per 2 tsp tea to make it extra so. Love my lavender flavor.
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Post by bluedemon25 on Aug 19, 2021 21:48:59 GMT
Harney apparently quite recently added a bunch of new teas under their "new arrivals". I understand some appeared before but were out of stock and some are indeed first time appearances. Even though I'm probably not supposed to have black tea, I couldn't help get ones that have flavor described as passion fruit. Although their actual fruit flavor for passion fruit was not enjoyable to me as it felt to astringent rather than the real thing, but I think these will be different. They also had a new white tea (well a few but one of interest to me) king of bail mudan , and some new floral oolongs. So I had to order them of course. www.harney.com/collections/new-arrivals
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