I'm drinking this very modest shui xian from a local tea shop, and I was reminded of something William (of Farmer Leaf) said in one of his recent videos: he set up a tea wholesale business with the intent of selling good quality tea to local shops, went around Europe and realized the demand for it was too low for him to turn a profit; many store owners were just not interested because they knew most of their customers didn't care about a high quality product, and the ones who were interested bought a few kilos that they had to actively promote, with little success still.
So now I'm wondering, is the local tea shop I bought this shui xian from a good quality shop, so to speak?
They sell oriental beauty for €560/kg, mi lan xiang for some €440/kg, and a huang mei gui labeled as da hong pao for some €400/kg.
The mi lan xiang is the only one among these I bought and it was really nothing special.
The shui xian I'm drinking was maybe €150/kg and it feels like it was oxidized and roasted way too much, their label says 30-40% oxidation but malty and slightly astringent notes reminiscent of less-than-high-grade black tea, and the charred taste from roasting is stronger than the floral stone fruit notes.
Then again, their highest quality bai mu dan was around €230/kg and it was good, their highest quality tie guan yin was maybe around €190/kg and that too was fairly good.
It's owned by this couple and every time I asked a question about one tea or other they could answer it, though their teas are hit and miss.

Anyway, this shui xian is a disappointment but my friend's friend from this >>21976737 pessimistic story is back from Shanghai with my mystery da hong pao, so soon enough I'll hopefully enjoy some good rock tea or at the very least have another funny story to tell you people.

>>21986120
what shop is it?
you often get mid overpriced stuff at local stores. but sometimes you luck out and get something good
very roasty and oxidized isn't necessarily bad for yancha. moreso traditional

>>21986370
It's La Teiera Eclettica (the eclectic teapot) in Milan, why?
>mid overpriced stuff at local stores
That's the going meme and there's obviously a markup with every physical store compared to buying directly online, but I've found many shops that sold tea at perfectly reasonable prices for their quality.
There was a stand at the central market in Valencia where I bought a great highly roasted tie guan yin and a great Earl Grey, there was a place in Friedrichshain (Berlin) I visited recently where I got a nice oriental beauty for a perfectly reasonable price and the owner of which really knew what he was talking about, and I even got decent tea at the Damman Freres store in Milan.
>very roasty and oxidized isn't necessarily bad for yancha
I've had good yancha from ali or taobao years ago and this doesn't hold a candle to it, the roast here is overpowering, and the oxidation is way too much for a supposedly mellow and floral and lightly fruity tea such as shui xian.

>>21986492
>the roast here is overpowering, and the oxidation is way too much for a supposedly mellow and floral and lightly fruity tea such as shui xian
It's just a different style. Might be low quality too. But there is good super high roast yancha too, it's the style that ages better.

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Recently I've been pretty curious about Japanese fermented teas like goishi cha (picrel.) I don't really know much about it, but what I have heard sounds pretty interesting. That said, I haven't really been able to find a good vendor for the stuff that delivers to the US, at least that's selling stuff for pretty crazy rates. Are there better options or is this just the kinda thing you need to shell out for?

>>21987299
Looks like dried seaweed

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>>21986042
Chinese black tea with dim sim

>>21987449
dneed feed

Warm enough day for tea over ice, noice

>>21987299
every time I see this stuff it's quite expensive
there is also another sour fermented tea from China. I don't remember the name, denong or something? it is even less available

Anyone here bought green tea from KTM?
I hear their cheap longjing is good value

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>>21986120
Here's the da hong pao from Shanghai, which turned out to be nothing other than zheng yan shui xian.
I'm slightly annoyed because I had specifically asked for rou gui in case the friend couldn't find da hong pao, but ofc I'm grateful that he took the time to go and look for it at all.
Also 120g of this cost me €25 and I definitely can't complain about that either.

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im drinking pu erh with tangerine-peel in it, the first steep is almost black as coffee :o)

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>>21987967
I followed the brewing suggestions on the packets, 7,5g for about 140ml of boiling water and the shortest steeping time I could manage.
It smells nutty like a rich roasted tea and somewhat fresh, with a weak note halfway between nutmeg and citrus.
The texture is barely viscous and the taste is of yellow flowers, nuts and little else, with the characteristic minerality of rock tea at the end.
I'll wait a few days and try steeping it in a few different ways before passing judgement, meanwhile here's a picture of the liquor.

>>21987979
yeah shu puerh can brew up super dark

I wanna buy shincha again this year. Where should I get some? I know the tea starts to come out in early May. I've already tried out Yuuki-cha and O-cha.
Also, I've been rather busy, and I have not brewed tea in several months. I left some water at the bottom of my kettle (the kettle's lid has stayed on the whole time.) I am now seeing white mold on the edges of where the water is. Do I have to throw away my kettle, or am I able to sanitize it safely?

How do I learn to like puerh? All I really taste is a sort of fishy but not really fishy, pile-of-wet-leaves-in-the-fall flavor. I don't like it or see what the all the fuss about puerh is if it tastes like wet fish leaves in the autumn. Did I try a bad batch or something?

>>21988196
probably brewing too hot

>>21988191
Decent chance that's just limescale. Chuck a tablespoon of citric acid powder in the boiling water, should come off
If it is mould nothing stopping you from cleaning it like other kitchen tools just make sure it's rinsed thoroughly of any residues from cleaning products.

>>21988196
Sounds like a cheap shou, try raw puer, young raw especially will taste completely different from that. If you want to try a good shou, look for dayi 7572.
And the other guy doesn't seem to have a clue, I brew all of my puer with boiling water

>>21988250
Thanks. I'm not sure what kind of puerh it was or how it was brewed because I just got a cup of it from a tea shop to try after reading about it here and seeing how popular puerh has become amongst tea nerds.

>>21988261
That makes sense. But yeah there's a lot of variation within puer, so if you really want to try to get into in, try a bunch of different samples from some vendors in the rentry. A sampler from Yunnan Sourcing isn't a bad place to start.

>>21988233
I don't think it is, this time. It looks white and cotton-like.

>>21988266
That's kind of intimidating. I hate to ask to be spoonfed but do you or anyone else have a recommendation for a starting place as a complete puerh noob? I'm not a tea nerd like you guys but I'm not a complete teabag drinking scrub either. I drink loose leaf greens and blacks of all varieties for reference.

>>21988292
NA or Euro?
Some kind of affordable sample pack from a reputable teahouse is probably a good place to start with.
I personally started by going balls deep with a ~$60 order directly from Taiwan which got me about a kilo of decent factory tea, mostly ripe/shou. A sampler will perhaps offer you more variety so you can check out what's up.

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Saw this at Walmart. Thoughts?

>>21988292
https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/raw-pu-erh-tea-sampler/products/the-journey-is-the-destination-pu-erh-tea-sampler-set
I think this would be a decent and easy way to get a taste of the variety and start to find out what you like

>>21988449
They seem to be chamomile, butterfly pea for the blue gimmick, and some flavorings. Probably okay before bed but nothing special.

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>>21988449

>>21988449
If color is the main selling point then I don't think flavour was given much thought.

I must be getting old, I just drink cheap xiaguan and liubao all the time.

>>21988196
That's ripe / shu puerh, probably a low quality one. Good ones should be sweeter and not fishy
Most of the fuss is about sheng puerh though, the kind that looks like green tea when young but can be aged for decades into a darker profile

>>21988292
My favourite puerh stores are QuicheTeas and Farmerleaf. QuicheTeas has good prices and storage and is a great place to buy aged sheng and some ripe pu-erh (though they don't really offer samples). Farmerleaf specializes in young raw pu-erh and they do have samples.

>>21987299
O5 in Vancouver has some unique fermented teas. Gotten goishi cha and a koji fermented one there

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Bought some stuff from Sweetest Dew. Any anons tried them? I hear their white teas are good

Anyone ordering/ordered Spring greens this year? I skip it every year since my budget's limited, but I've always been interested. It'd be cool to read some tasting notes at least.

>>21988823
Zoomer here, I started with liubao and never got into puerh, still just drinking liubao

>>21988823
>>21988973
Based. Xiaguan's older factory stuff just hits differently, and liubao is a prime lounging/reading tea. Never change, anons.

>>21988972
I ordered the fancy da fang green, will share notes when it gets here >>21988899
I might also buy some greens from thetea.pl. their sanxia bi luo chun was really good.

Also, KingTeaMall had some cheap 2026 greens already, could be worth a try

>>21988973
I feel like liu bao can often be better and more interesting than ripe puerh

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>>21987299
I've got some picrel. I'll post an update when I try it. I will say though, that in my experience, whilst Japanese teas can be very good, they are never as good value for money as Chinese.

>>21988994
Cool picks, I'll keep an eye out for notes. I haven't had long jing in a while, but I think I have some left. Guess I know what I'll sip this morning.
>Kingteamall
KTM would be awesome if the flat shipping rates weren't so brutal compared to competitors (alongside the usual 2kg limit). How are their greens typically anyway? Maybe exchange rates and shipping costs would be better for Japanese offerings in these times.

>>21989024
>How are their greens typically anyway
idk, mostly unexplored territory but some guy said their cheap long jing is good value

>>21989024
I got one of the higher grade long jings from KTM last year, it was the A++++ one. Good quality, but I think it's likely the A+++ one is good also, I'm trying that next time.
From the pic the A+ one looks noticeably lower grade, but it might be pretty good. Though I've had similar grade which doesn't have the characteristic long jing taste, in which case you might as well just go for the awazon bi luo chun

>>21988250
u don't have a clue bitch

>>21989891
bad qi energy

>>21990041
buddy you wanna compare qi? i'm the goku of chi
you brew too hot, all the good volatiles boil off fast. and you're left with fishy oily taste.

>>21989016
why blend? i thought single origin was more valued. is it for consistency post harvest by the roaster?

May random generator told me to drink the Awazon Melon today. Had a good time with it.

>>21988826
What's the black puerh that tastes and smells like a stable? The green ones are alright

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>>21975160
Fuck, I just found out they're closing their physical store next week, while buying some today.
I want to be able to sniff tea and ask about tea. They've become too successful and are moving to online only with pickup in the industry part of town. But no walk in fun.

>>21990429
Sad, I guess that's just the reality of things. It's probably not even success (they could always rent an extra warehouse while keeping the store), I'm guessing their physical store just gave way too little revenue to justify keeping it. Physical stores are very expensive compared to online ones so if it's just a handful of autists coming in once every few weeks, it's just economically hard to keep it up

Such is the state of things I guess

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>>21990464
They've had it for at least the ten years I've lived here. The explanation was at least they've grown too big. Maybe a diplomatic answer but still. They do seem successful.
Bought some cheapish tea. Genmaicha is just nice. Haven't had houjicha so that will be interesting.
Might go back one last time next week. Fill up on Ming Joan Hong Shui, which was a very nice oolong. And maybe get some kind of pu'er cake

>>21990481
>The explanation was at least they've grown too big.
That makes no sense on its own, if you're too profitable and want to scale up you can start renting a warehouse while also keeping the store.
Closing the store only makes sense if you're basically growing entirely off of online sales and so you want to buy a really big warehouse and stop wasting money on a small but expensive storefront. It's a cost-cutting measure any way you look at it. So what they're probably saying is "we've grown too big to ship all our online orders from the small shop, so we're moving to a warehouse - AND, also, most of the shop's business was online anyway so once we have a warehouse we won't have any need for the shop anymore".

>>21990496
>if you're basically growing entirely off of online sales
They are. There's only like 50 000 people living here. They could have literally every tea drinker in the region as a customer already.
So a combination of both online sales vastly outscaling the store and a small customer base. It makes sense if they want to shift over to completely online.
Looked it up and the physical store has existed for 18 years. Which is frankly plenty with how the world looks now.

>>21990501
The counterpoint I guess is that a town of 50,000 people can't have rent be that high. They probably could've kept it if they wanted to, it's not like they're a high street shop in a major capital with insanely overpriced real estate.
But oh well, business needs and all that. Can't blame them for prioritising wanting to keep more of their money rather than keeping a couple dozen local autists happy.