Thread: Tea anyone ??!!

Today is a green tea day. A nice "West Lake Long Jing" (Dragon Well).

~Gary

There's a tea thread here? Awesome!

I made some homemade chai. It's the greatest thing on a cold, snowy day like today.


I used some looseleaf Kenyan Tinderet tea, and for spices, I ground up some cardamoms, cloves, fennel, and fenugreek seeds in a mortar and pestle.

An IMO Organic Certified "Jiangxi" Wild Grown green tea.

Originally Posted by Senomaros

There's a tea thread here? Awesome!

I made some homemade chai. It's the greatest thing on a cold, snowy day like today.


I used some looseleaf Kenyan Tinderet tea, and for spices, I ground up some cardamoms, cloves, fennel, and fenugreek seeds in a mortar and pestle.

That looks to be quite tasty.

Originally Posted by PHANTZM

That looks to be quite tasty.

Thanks! I thought it was quite tasty. Easy to make too (if you have a mortar and pestle). If you want to try making it, this is what I did:

1) Added 2 cups of water to a pot, and turned the heat to max. (By cups, I don't mean the measurement; I took that white cup from the picture, filled it up twice with water, and dumped it in the pot,)

2) Took 2 whole cloves, ~1/4 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds, and ~1/3 teaspoon of fennel seeds (I eyeball the fennel and fenugreek), ground them up with the mortar and pestle, and added them to the pot immediately.

3) When the water started boiling, added ~1 teaspoon of looseleaf tea and boiled for a few minutes.
(Note 1: generally, I use Assam tea, but in this case, I had a little bit of Kenyan Tinderet that I wanted to finish off.)

4) After a couple minutes of boiling, I added 4 cardamoms (ground whole with the mortar and pestle), and some milk until it reached the colour in the photos, and turned the heat down to medium/medium-high.
(Note 2: Don't leave it unattended at this stage! It's really easy for it to boil over onto the stove and make a huge mess once the milk is added.)

5) Boiled for a couple more minutes, and done!
(Note 3: If you have extra chai in the pot, cover it with a lid. If exposed to air, it forms a skin on the surface that's somewhat unpleasant looking and can be annoying to strain off.)

A note about spice quantity: I tend to be quite formulaic about this. Usually, I have the number of cups of water I throw in = n, and add n+1 cardamoms and n+1 cloves to the pot. In this case, I tried something different and added n cloves and n+2 cardamoms. There's no hard rules, though; play around and see what you like. Try different spice combos too. Ginger and cardamom is quite tasty too. Cinnamon, clove, and nutmed is another good combo. Chai is particularly fun to experiment with!

Today's tea is a handmade "Xin Yang Mo Jian" (Hairy Tips). It's a bit bitter (though not overly bitter) and I only steeped it for half the time recommended.

Although my job is keeping me from my daily tea routine, I came across this article on tea today. Its a good read on buying tea.

Where to Buy Amazing Tea Online | Serious Eats

Damn I have to go to work.Read the first paragraph and already agreed with a lot of it. Feedback later.......and now I want some Oolong Eeeergh !

Originally Posted by PHANTZM

Today's tea is a handmade "Xin Yang Mo Jian" (Hairy Tips). It's a bit bitter (though not overly bitter) and I only steeped it for half the time recommend

At what temperature did you steep it? Usually if my tea is bitter, i find a cooler temperature helps a lot. Most of my green teas i steep at around 70-80c, oolongs just a little above. I find temperature to be vital to bitterness, more so than steeping time.

Had a cup of this Nepalese black tea I get from this Canadian chain - Don't judge me! 8( - called David's Tea.


It's wonderfully earthy and has a hint of sweetness to it. Probably my favourite straight black tea.