I have been drinking loose leaf for about a year and I buy in the cheaper half of the range. I have now tried a couple of expensive ones and honestly I could tell they were different, but I could not tell they were…
Glass teapot, a fairly robust Assam, water straight off the boil, five minutes. It is perfectly clear when I pour the first cup and looks milky by the third, maybe ten minutes later. Two completely different black teas…
Bought a young sheng cake on a recommendation and it is aggressive: bitter, drying, and it gives me a strange hollow feeling if I drink it before lunch. Everyone says it mellows with age. Are we talking one year, ten,…
It has been in the original foil pouch with a bag clip, on the shelf directly above the kettle, which I suspect is most of the answer. Still, I want to know the realistic window even when stored properly. I drink about…
Two coffees a day currently and the afternoon one is wrecking my sleep. I brew gongfu style, so a session is around 4g of leaf and six or seven short infusions over an hour, which is a lot of water and I have no idea…
I have been drinking the same roasted oolong for two months, 5g in a 120ml gaiwan, water just off the boil, short steeps. I moved flat and bought a new kettle at the same time, and now it tastes thin and slightly…
Japanese sencha, 4g to 250ml. The first steep at 75C for 60 seconds is lovely. The second steep at the same temperature comes out sharp and drying whether I go 30 seconds or 90. Straining faster does not seem to matter.…
120ml gaiwan, 6g of a mid grade shou puerh, flash rinse and short steeps. Infusions one to three are great, four is thin, five is water. Everyone talks about ten plus infusions. Am I over extracting early, using too…
I drink two or three sessions a day and share a kitchen with three other people, so everything lives in a box on a shelf and comes out and goes back. Budget is about $40 total. I mostly drink oolong and some black tea.…