Tea thread FAQ v1.0

Tea Q&A
By Non-Directional !LaserEWICA

Many of the same questions come up time and again in the tea threads. Hopefully this will answer some of them.


Q: Which type of tea would you recommend for a beginner?

A: The best type of teas for beginners seem to be ones which are difficult to overbrew and resistant to bitterness. I woud suggest unroasted ('green') kukicha or karigane for an introduction to Japanese tea, and one of the less expensive white teas like Bai Mu Dan for an introduction to Chinese tea. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from jumping in and trying whatever you like.



Q: Does anyone know if there's a difference as far as health benefits when it comes to choosing loose over bagged tea?

A: Loose tea is usually fresher and made from more potent parts of the plant. Tea bag tea is generally made of what is left over from the sorting process for loose leaf tea, and the lousy graded tea that wouldn't get sold anyway.



Q: What is milk oolong? Is it made with milk?

A: Milk oolong is considered an inexpensive 'daily' oolong in general. There are some merchants that actually add milk ingredients or artificial milk flavouring to it, but the real stuff has no dairy or artificial flavour. A reputable merchant would sell milk oolong 'au natural'. It isn't a flavoured tea, but simply a cultivar of tea that was selectively bred to produce a taste that is reminiscent of milk or cream.



Q: Are there any good teas with Sakura in them? Where can I get them?

A: Most places are just about sold out now. Sakura sencha has an extremely short window of a few weeks from sometime in mid-March to mid-April, when it's usually sold out.



Q: Where do you get your tea?

A: Personally, I get mine from Yuuki-Cha and 05 Tea. The latter will not be open to the public until probably sometime in the early summer, however.



Q: I've been reading about some nasty pesticides on popular brands in asia and the west.

A: The pesticide issue is very concerning, especially because I've actually bought and brewed one of those products on Greenpeace's test list (Ten Fu sells their tea through their subsidiaries in the West 'Ten Ren'). I don't think people need to stop consuming Chinese tea entirely, but you should be careful about where you buy your Chinese tea.

China could be the most polluted country in the world overall, but it's also one of the largest countries in the world by land mass, and safety in agriculture probably ultimately comes down to local farming conditions more than anything.

I don't think Chinese organic certifications are worth anything because, let's face it, there isn't much professional credibility for regulatory organizations in developing countries. Unless it has a European organic certification, which some of the better Chinese tea gardens actually do, it may be questionable. To make matters more complicated, even some teas that are grown without pesticides cannot get organic certifications because of run-off from neighbouring farms, which is particularly an issue in Taiwan.

The places I buy from get around this issue because they are small-scale farming operations, generally which are family-owned and operated. In the case of the Korean some of the Chinese tea I buy, it's considered 'micro-farming', essentially done on semi-wild tea plants on someone's rural property by a single farmer.

So in general, I would recommend tea from small-scale farms.



Q: Where do you guys keep your tea stored?

A: I use stainless steel canisters covered in wazome washi paper. They're not air-tight, but nothing really is unless it's actually sealed, but it's just about as close as you can get.

My favourite way to store tea is in its original packaging. If I can fit the packaging in a canister, I do it. I prefer buying tea sold in resealable bags for this reason. When you take tea out of its original packaging, whatever else you put it in will absorb some the tea's moisture, essential oils and fragrance -- not good. That's the stuff you want in your tea liquor, not sticking to the inside of a container or dispersing throughout the air. This is why if you can avoid taking it out of the packaging, your tea will stay fresher significantly longer.

Don't keep your tea in the fridge unless it's unopened. Avoid freezing tea. When you want to use some tea that has been refrigerated, leave it at room temperature for 24 hours first. Finally, keep tea away from strong smells, which the tea will readily absorb, particularly if it's unroasted.


Q: How does green tea differ from low oxidation oolong (almost green) ?

A: Green tea isn't oxidized at all. Oolong is a tea oxidized somewhere between (theoretically) 1% and 99%, with 100% being considered fermented and thus black tea.



Q: Yi Xing clay teapot, I can get one for about $280, is it worth it, and what kind of tea is it best used with ?

A: My experiences with Yixing (pronounced something like 'yee-sching') haven't been very good. It's made of clay, and it actually smells like the clay I remember from kindergarden. Some people swear by them, but the tea I've had from them always seems 'off', tasting and smelling strange. Pic related, it's the Yixing I own.



Q: What do you do with the leaves after you've used them? Do you have some kind of compost? Eat them? Throw them out?

A: I toss them. Generally, the only kind of leaves people eat are gyokuro. Personally, I'd rather not eat them. 'Spent' leaves are either bitter or smell something like boiled spinach. Since the nutrients have already been extracted from them by repeated hot water infusion, I see no reason to eat them.



Q: I'm looking to order a new one. Any recommendations? What are the important points of a teapot?

A: Depends what you're looking to brew. In general, I'd recommend glazed teaware. Different types of clay and clay quality issues can affect the taste. Better to just skip that issue entirely and buy glazed.

I like to brew all of my tea in Japanese and Korean teaware. I am not a fan of Yixing and while I love the aesthetic of gaiwan, I usually wind up scalding myself trying to brew with them.The teaware I would recommend to beginners would be the Korean 'infuser mugs', which are basically lidded cups with an infuser layer you can remove between steeps.

tl;dr Buy a kyusu or Korean infuser mug.



Q: Where are the most agreed-upon high quality places for buying pots/cups/sets?

A: There isn't really any consensus on where to buy the best teaware. I can recommend some of the places I've bought from. For more reasonable teaware, I'd try Yuuki-cha for Japanese teaware or Hankook Tea for their infuser mugs. Hibki-An has some more expensive stuff, but they also have less expensive stuff as well. Zencha is excellent if you like Hagi that doesn't look like a museum piece dug out of a cave.



Q: What's everyone's favorite kind of Oolong? Mine's Phoenix.

A: I used to like Phoenix like you, but then I took some Dong Ding to the palette.

The problem with Phoenix oolong is that the Phoenix that is exported out of China is heavily over-roasted. It smells wonderful, especially the more upscale ones like Song Zhong, but they just don't taste as good as they smell. Hopefully one day the trend will change, probably when Phoenix oolong becomes more popular in the West and there's a demand for better quality product.



Q: Where can I buy quality teas online?

A: For Japanese, I would suggest Yuuki-cha and Den's Tea. The quality of Yuuki-cha is a little better than Den's, and it's organic, but Den's ships from California, whereas Yuuki-cha is based in Japan.

For Chinese tea, I still have not found a place whose quality I feel confident in recommending. There are a lot of vendors of awful Chinese tea out there.

For Korean tea, I would recommend either Hankook or a new shop that will be opening in May, 05 Tea (http://www.o5tea.com/). The latter will stock Chinese tea in addition to Korean.

In general, I recommend tea hobbyists avoid retail chains for buying tea. Their product is generally old, heavily oxidized due to poor storage (giant canisters that are opened many times a day for customers) and generally not great to start with. Buy your tea online or from a reputable local independent.



Q: Why do tea elitists often seem to look down on infused teas with dried fruits and other things in them?

A: (prepare your body for my wall of text)

I've been thinking about this a little more, and I think I can give a better answer now than before.

In Asia, tea generally has things added to it to mask low-quality. This is why some teas are powder-coated with matcha or even just sencha. Even sakura sencha, something that people are drinking at this time of the year (Spring 2012), is generally made with lower-quality sencha or even karigane, which are stems removed during the sorting process for sencha.

So perhaps this way of thinking has filtered into Western tea drinking as well, and from what I have experienced of Western flavoured teas, typically from mall store tea chains, is that they are indeed lower quality Asian teas, and the things they add to them -- bits of fruit, flowers, chocolate, etc -- are at least somewhat effective in masking the low quality of the tea. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that if most Western tea stores did not sell flavoured tea, they would never be able to stay in business, because no one would want to drink their tea, which is generally old.

To make things even more complicated, Westerners (Occidentals?) have different consumer preferences than Orientals. I think Oriental customers tend to look for what is 'pure', whereas Westerners tend to look for what is exotic and seems sophisticated. In a very simple, unadorned way, white people like to be able to say they had a raspberry matcha latte.



Q: What tea should I drink if I want to experience the feeling of a classy little Touhou?

A: Depends which Touhou. Black tea if Remilia, cheap Japanese genmaicha if Reimu (genmaicha was once associated with hard times), expensive sencha/gyokuro if Yuyuko, Chinese tea if Meiling, etc.



Q: I've loved tea for awhile, but I just recently (in the past year or so) began drinking loose tea. So far, I only have my local Asian market and grocery store for teas, but I'd like to begin ordering online from better vendors.

A: You probably won't be able to go back to grocery store tea once you taste tea that was grown the same year as you're drinking it. To that end, if I were you, I'd either look for the first-flush tea a few places are offering already, or wait for everyone to offer it. This is the best time to the year to get into tea because it's harvest time and everything that isn't fermented or aged is the best it's ever going to be right now.



Q: What's the best "multi-purpose" teapot for a beginner? I read earlier in the thread someone recommended kyusu for tea, but from what I've read, different teapots bring out different things in different teas. Which one is a good "starter"?

A: Get something glazed inside. With glazed teaware, you can just wash it thoroughly with (a very tiny amount of) soap and water when you want to switch to another type of tea. There are any number of types of ware that are glazed... kyusu, gaiwan, Korean mug, pick whatever you like.



Q: (in response to the previous question) I'd get a simple, ceramic (or glass) western style one with an infuser basket. In my experience the finer mesh style infusers are easier to clean than the metal ones with holes (idk tea seems to stick to it more than the gold mesh style).

A: Infuser baskets have their up and downsides. Tea cozies would not be a concern for anyone except infuser-basket pot users anyway, since the tea would only be in the pot for the duration of brewing.

One of the biggest problems with infuser basket pots is that they're generally too big for 'Asian' tea. The drinking volume for each pot you brew of it is generally between 150-300ml, which is much smaller than the average Western 2L teapot. The idea with Asian tea is that you're brewing a small amount many times, rather than once or twice. With infuser baskets, they often do not reach all the way down to the bottom, and because you wouldn't be filling the pot all the way, most of the leaf wouldn't even be in contact with the water. Unless you're brewing tea for 10+ people, it probably wouldn't work out very well.



Q: What does an $80 teapot do that justifies it being so much more expensive?

A: Depending on the type of clay, it might potentially make the tea taste better. Usually it's just aesthetics you're paying for... or the 'designer brand', as price tends to be associated with prestige. There are Japanese potters who have been granted the status 'National Living Treasures' by the Japanese government, and their cheapest kyusu cost hundreds of dollars. But I think there's a lot of charm in a simple red clay kyusu. That one was probably made with artificial pigment though, so I doubt it will make your tea taste better.



Q: What about English tea?

A: English tea is really just blends of Indian and Chinese black tea. The better quality ones, particularly Irish breakfast teas, are blended with more Chinese tea (Keemun) than Indian.



Q: What's the best way to brew green tea? (This was a question I missed in the thread -- sorry Anon!)

A:My general parameter for green tea is 5 grams of tea, 250-300ml of tap water boiled to a strong boil for about 30 seconds and let cool to 176 degrees (80 C), brewed for 1 minute. Subsequent infusions are for quicker and hotter. This is just a general suggestion though. 176 degrees with ruin some green teas, which must be brewed cooler. Some green teas will be weak with that low of a ratio of tea:water, as there are some teas out there that perform well at 1g/30ml water. Until you feel comfortable experimenting on your own, it would probably be best to follow the vendor's brewing guidelines, or if none are available, e-mail them and ask.



Q: What should I begin with, since my favorite teas belong to oolong and black? Is there a specific type of clay that's better for oolong or black teas?

A: For oolong and black, Zisha clay is supposed to be good. The trouble is, unless you have many hundreds of dollars to spend, you'll never get a real Zisha. If I recall correctly, true Zisha clay has been tapped out at the source, making Zisha produced now knockoffs. You would have to buy a pot from the 90's, 80's and even further back to get the real thing. Again, buying glazed teaware will let you skip this part of the tea puzzle. You will also be able to skip the 'one pot for each tea' issue too.

I separate my green tea by Chinese and Japanese, principally because pots that are used for Japanese green tea tend to take on a distinctly sencha-like smell that would ruin Chinese green brewed in it.