How tea became my passion.

 Mild Introduction: 

First blog post. Before you start reading (if anyone reads at all), just a note don’t expect anything overly refined. Informally, and potentially boring, but you will judge. 

Now how did it all start? 

Tea. Tea ... tea, tea, tea. I never thought it would be a word I would write about on the internet, it never crossed my mind, and I never even thought that the vast majority of my free (and busy) time would revolve around tea. But still here I am, writing about tea, filling my tea drawers, and successfully spending most of my money on, tea ... and beer but we won't talk about that today. Honestly, I don’t even know how this started, but I’ll do my best to remember. 

Far back in 2016 (or there somewhere, I have no idea) 

Ah yes, 2016, first grade of high school, my brain is still at the level of a child(let’s face it it’s still at that level), I think I know everything and I have one specific obsession, England. I don't mean the history of England, or the geography of English... But the British accent. I don’t know why, I adored the British accent. And given that I was 15 years old and like any 15-year-old who lived on YouTube, and on the internet in English, I dreamed of living in England. As we know the English and black tea with milk go hand in hand, so I started drinking black tea with milk. 

*Although this was not my first encounter with tea, I drank herbal teas as a child, because we are Europeans after all. When a stomach ache or a cold is killing you, chamomile or green tea is the first thing we reach for * 

First steps. 

 I find out about black tea with milk, and of course, as soon as I can I go to a supermarket. In front of the tea shelf, and I choose the tea that has the most beautiful packaging(marketing really sells let me tell you that). I agreed with myself that Ahmad Earl Gray looks the most convincing, albeit the most expensive. Next was hot water, teabag in water, 5 minutes, take out, milk inside, too much milk, spill everywhere, and enjoy. Not really. Bitter. A teaspoon of sugar, enjoy. It's better now. So now I'm sitting at my desk typing on the keyboard and Googling... "How to make the best english tea." : "How much milk do I put in english tea?" : "Best black tea". A search of this kind led me to a YouTube video that talked about black tea in loose leaf kind, and said that teabags, are for shit. So the other day I go to a store, buy black loose leaf tea, throw in hot water, 5 minutes, strain, pour, milk, sugar, and drink. Not bad, even better than teabags, not A LOT better, but still better. 

The Rabbit Hole.

So I drink my new tea, sitting down and watching the YouTube guy spitting on teabags and now I come across several more types of tea ... Black, Green, White, Yellow, Oolong, Puer, so many. The following flow of thought occurs: What the hell is Ooolong and Puer? So let's move on to Google: "What is oolong tea": "What is puer tea": "Where to buy oolong?" Which of course took me to my local teahouse. I go inside, it smells nice, "Do you have oolong tea?", "We have, how many grams?", "50g", "40 kunas please" ... PLEASE? PLEASE NO. 40. KUNAS. Calm down, Lucas. Maybe it's worth it. The classic brewing procedure follows (...) And  this really is even better, and it's really worth the money .. Little did i know that that was one of the cheapest teas I would buy in the near future. And so I go deeper and deeper, Google, YouTube, Reddit ... I read and learn everything and anything. Then I find out about the gong fu method of brewing tea. Back in the teahouse, "Do You have a set for gong fu," the saleswoman replies to me: "Set for Glong, what?", "Set for tea?", "Aha, aha, we have, here's this one for 500 kunas". 500. KUNA. SET. FOR. TEA! "Thank you goodbye". So I improvised for a while without a set and was quite satisfied. As I continued reading about teas, I became interested in the technical details of tea: What country it is from, what province, what type of tea it is, how it is processed, etc ... Of course, the local teahouse did not offer any of this information. It offered the most common subtypes of all teas and 100 types of the same tea with different aromas, really all possible: Rose, cinnamon, flower a, flower b and so on and so far. The next logical step was to turn to the most popular web tea stores. I so started spending bigger amounts of money. 

End of Beginning, Beginning of a new beginning. 

 And so, from the web store, to the web store, I came across a cheap gong fu set, I bought it. From forum to forum,studied and researched. Until I realized that tea is what interests me, and that tea is what I want to do ... 

That tea is my passion. 

Yes, yes sounds funny and poetic, I know, I know but still, instead of blood I have tea through my body,  so poetry is justified.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My experience with Citrus Puer

INTRODUCTION. 4 days ago I was thinking of writing a blog post about Citrus Puer Tea. But I was too lazy and told myself I’d do it the following day. And here I am 4 days later ... writing about it. But with a completely different approach. Namely, when I first thought about writing this blog post, I wanted to say that this tea did not really delight me, and that the aroma was  too citrusy and not something I would reach for every day. That day I prepared the tea the  gong fu way and drank it in a hurry. The next day when I revisited it to “establish my new knowledge,” it truly surprised me.  WHAT AM I WRITING ABOUT AT ALL? Citrus Puer Tea is Puer tea that after fermentation is left to age in the peel of a tangerine (or an orange depending on the type). While preparing this tea, you could also tear off a couple of pieces of dried tangerine peel and soak it together with the tea leaves. This tea has a strong citrusy aroma that perfectly complements the taste of Puer tea.   THEN WHAT IS
Read more

Good VS. Bad Chinese Sencha

Image
  INTRODUCTION.  About 2 years ago, I got tea from a family friend. 250g Chinese Sencha. I tried it and wasn’t too thrilled, but since I didn’t have any previous experience with sencha, I knew I had to compare it to sencha from a specialized teashop. Without further ado we go to what you came for, Analysis.  If you are to lazy to read but are interested, skip to the Conclusion!  TEA SPECIFICATIONS.  Before we get started with the technical aspects a little introduction. Both teas are Chinese Sencha. Cheaper tea we will call Tea 1, and more expensive of course Tea 69 (I'm kidding, it will be Tea 2 not to confuse you) To give you the specifications of each:  Tea 1:  Type: Sencha  Country: China  Province: Unknown  Price: $1.31 USD / 100g(3.5oz)   TEA 1. Tea 2:   Type: Sencha  Country: China  Province: Zhejiang  Price: $11.26 USD / 100g(3.5oz)   TEA 2 How I brewed the tea:   Water temperature: 75°C (167 °F) Amount of tea: 3g  Amount of water: 150g  Steeping time: 3 min    Method of e
Read more