Thread: Tea anyone ??!!

now as for the persian/middle eastern part, we have to add the hookah so you can enjoy some cardamom tea with a nice hookah session.

I mean technically its just another pipe is all, and if done right, it will last a good while

I'll be honest though, I would prefer my own pipe ...somethin about that communal hand to mouth thing. Cardomom tea...oh yeah.

Black tea,scrambled eggs,beef sausage,some nice antipasto salad and bread w/butter n lemon rasberry jam from one of the residents where I work. Have a great day guys!

Boy does that breakfast look good!

That photo is making me hungry.

I have my own hookah, its a wonderful thing to sit and watch a movie, smoke some good shisha and drink tea.

Hopefully this won't take too long. I had a little matcha experimentation for the grand opening of my 2013 Uji matcha Tori.

This matcha can be made as either usucha or koicha but, not having had koicha before, that's what I was aiming to prepare. I was kind of watching the clock and forgot to take certain pictures but I got the most important ones:




Out comes my gear—the same as always but with a chasen for koicha.




In goes a lot of matcha—three to four scoops—followed by 40ml of water (just over 1oz).




Whiskey whisk. But not the brisk whisking for usucha; we don't froth this. Koicha requires a slow, mixing, kneading action to mix the tea into a nice paste...sort of. It should be the consistency of reasonably runny paint. It might not look thick enough when you make it, but you can sure tell when you drink it.




So, the moment of truth...

Koicha is certainly an acquired taste. It's very full-on and I think it's really about appreciation of the tea, rather than pure enjoyment. Definitely bitter. Very marine-like, probably like you might imagine drinking mushed up kelp to taste. I'd almost call it cloying, but that seems too negative.

You really taste the tea for what it is, here, and I also think that it's best drunk when you can really take your time over it, instead of 25 minutes before you need to leave the house.

I don't think it's horrible at all but nor would I choose it as an everyday drink—that's best left to usucha. Don't get me wrong, however, I'm looking forward to trying it again, now. I really want to try and identify what flavours come through.

Note: As is traditional, anyway, it's a good idea to eat something sweet as an accompaniment.


As you may have noticed, I often compare a new tea to others I've had previously. Not having drank koicha before, I had no reference with which to compare this new matcha. Obviously I went and made some usucha, too!




Usucha whisk.




Not so much tea.




Whisked beautifully into a lovely pale green froth. The flavours were fantastic! The packet of sakimidori I was drinking could often be a bit bitter and usually that's normal but this...this Tori matcha had no bitterness; I mean like none at all. Perfectly smooth and really fresh-tasting.

You have to consider that for a matcha that can also make koicha, this must be of the highest usucha-grade tea so I suppose it should be pretty good.

Unfortunately, it left me with the dilemma of whether to make more koicha with it or just use it for its wonderful usucha. I do have one other packet of koicha-grade matcha but I also have a ton (read: 20g) of usucha-grade tea, so...I dunno...

Anywho, lastly, despite matcha allegedly being slow-release on the caffeine front, even a can of Red Bull doesn't make me feel as wired as I did after all that tea! The koicha definitely has a hidden kick!

Man you have accidentally drank your croox!!

That scoop looks like it would make a terrific snurdle. Are they in Asian supermarkets?

Mm...you can get them on Amazon.

I'm sure if you went to some kind of Japanese store or a speciality tea shop, perhaps, they might sell them.

This is reason #1 of Why We Don't Keep Chromium Oxide In Our Tea Cupboards. However, you may wish to debate whether drinking chromium oxide will taste better or not.

EDIT: I have 100g of chromium oxide—I'd be happy to host tasting sessions!