Tea-riffic!

OH YES! Maybe this will make Berto (trueposer) post more.

Berto Boy, come and share your tea stories!

Okay now, question time, Owl: Have you ever had Rooibos or Mate? I'm not a fan of either but it seems some people like them.

This is a small part of the tea section in Carturesti, a bookstore in my town whose name would translate best as Bookarest, obviously a play on Bucharest. It has books, tea, tea accessories, a million kinds of sugar and bio jams and candy, and it also has a room that functions as a tea house. It has several branches (?) but the largest one is very close to my university. This is where I get my tea from. And sometimes I also get candied sugar, which looks like this:

Berto boy. Interesting.

No I definitely have not! What do they taste like? Are they from South Africa or did I look at the wrong thing?

I haven't tried any flowering teas, as of yet but I hear they're good.

I posted this in the health thread as well.

That store looks amazing Irina, and crystal sugar rocks on sticks is the best candy.

I actually love tea. My mom is obsessed with green tea. She thinks it is the cure for everything, and is convinced that she never gets sick because she drinks 5 cups a day. So I'm in the habit of drinking 2 or 3 cups of green tea every day. But I also drink Earl Grey, mint tea and some kind of raspberry tea. I'm not sure what it is.

I haven't had flowering tea either but it looks cool. Only loose leaf tea, that's the purest green tea I drink - not often enough, unfortunately, though I know it's great for your health. Like I said in your welcome thread, I'm a black tea person and will always pick that over green, but I do enjoy the occasional cup of flavoured green tea. What I have in the house now is peppermint green tea from Twinnings, jasmin green tea and loose leaf.

I'm a sucker for Earl Grey and Lipton makes one of the best cheap versions. Strangely enough, the tea I drank in England was worse than what I have here.

One time I had orange blossom oolong and it tasted heavenly but it was also quite expensive. How much is a pot of tea when you go out? Are there tea houses and places that only specialise in tea varieties? Do they serve it iced or hot? Cup of teapot? Do they give you milk, honey or sugar? What kind of sugar? EVERYTHING! I'm really curious, because it seems to me this tea fashion is more of an European trend. Your history of having a Starbucks on every street is much longer than ours.

That's how my grandmother is, tea in general cures everything. I probably drink more tea than water.
Do any of you put sugar and extras in your tea, or leave it plain?

Tea house called Infinitea. Not my favourite, but it has this awesome decor.

I leave most teas plain. I don't like sugar in my drinks. But I'll put a drop of lemon in green tea sometimes.

In theory, I can't have sugar but I do sweeten my tea. Sugar when I go out and fructose when I'm home. I only use honey with linden or camomile tea ad I only drink those when I've got a cold or need something to calm me down before going to bed.

I've drank a ridiculous number of those lipton green tea bottles over the last few years. Can't possibly be as good or healthy as making your own but I love them anyway.

Irina Marina wrote:

OwlFloatAway wrote:

I love these pictures. Are you supposed to stir your tea with those sugar sticks or just gnaw on them like fancy lollipops?

That's right, Steve, be a man!

I'm going to bed but tomorrow I'm posting pics of my tea mugs and stuff.

Ah well, I grew up in New England so, there was tea absolutely everywhere.Which was wonderful compared to my lack of tea abundance now. [For some reason every town we went there was offbeat magical tea stores sometimes incorporated with book stores.]

Maybe East Coasters are weird like that, but then Starbucks did pop up more and more, taking everyone into the warm coffee arms of it's block by block establishments. I've only been to one place, that one Happy Rainbows, that was strictly tea and herbal medicines and such things, and was served all kinds from hot in teapot, to cold in a pitcher with ice, without ice, in a small crystal bowl full of rose petals and flowers. Everything was available in the extras department, honey, milk, skim milk, soy, cream, sugar, artificial and pure cane. Most family owned coffee houses were mutually tea houses so they usually served hot tea in a big mug or iced tea in a disposable cup with a straw if you'd like. All kinds of tea, so you could get any kind I suppose, along with any possible way of presenting it to the drinker. [Traditional or not.]

It wasn't ever too expensive that I remember, surely cheaper than the coffee which was sometimes more popular. At the strictly tea places it was definitely cheaper, and more varieties were available.

But, I've been living in Ohio for that past while, in the Midwest, and most the people I come across don't drink much tea, they're more coffee driven. Which seems odd to me, maybe it's just the part of Ohio I'm in, and I'm used to more tea to coffee equal-ness. [If that makes any sense.] I haven't come across any special tea houses the past couple years I've been out. I've rarely have the opportunity to order real non-Starbucks tea, not that I buy Starbucks anyway but that would be my only option. Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough. I need another to go travel mug, I lost my old one to the ghosts that steal all my non-important daily necessities.

labelleza wrote:

I've drank a ridiculous number of those lipton green tea bottles over the last few years. Can't possibly be as good or healthy as making your own but I love them anyway.

Irina Marina wrote:

OwlFloatAway wrote:

I love these pictures. Are you supposed to stir your tea with those sugar sticks or just gnaw on them like fancy lollipops?

Both if you please.

labelleza wrote:

I've drank a ridiculous number of those lipton green tea bottles over the last few years. Can't possibly be as good or healthy as making your own but I love them anyway.

Irina Marina wrote:

I love these pictures. Are you supposed to stir your tea with those sugar sticks or just gnaw on them like fancy lollipops?

Yes, you stir your tea with them. I don't, cause they lose their shape. I use them as lollipops and if I really wanna sweeten my tea with candied sugar, I use one that doesn't look so fancy, it's just misshapen cubes or something.

Plain is better, I've found.
Sweet tea dreams, Irina.

Finally someone made the tea thread. I made a coffee thread a while back because I love coffee but I also love tea. My favorites growing up were fresh yerba buena(mint) tea or canela(cinnamon) tea. I love jasmine, green tea, and black teas. Recently I've been hanging out at this tea house chain called TenRen

http://www.tenren.com

They have quite a good selection of different teas in which they add many different things to. This one has boba and milk added to it.

My favorite so far is the peppermint milk tea but I've tried their a few others. The only other one that stands out to me right now is the lavender milk tea I ordered that had sprigs of lavender in it which caught me off guard but it was also very good.

At home we have chamomile which isn't my favorite because my grandma used to make me drink and eat the flowers when i was little. We also have a ginger tea which I love cuz of the spiciness, I can't drink it often for that reason though. I usually prefer my teas piping hot but for cold teas I prefer if they are sun brewed. My dad would make tea like that on our back porch all the time. Depending on the tea I like it either really strong, watered down, with lemon, sugar, or honey.

I usually order tea when we go for sushi or to a Chinese restaurant.

I want to have a tea party now but an Asian style one not a Victorian frufru one.

We have some Japanese style tea pots that we haven't used. I'll try to post pics of them later.

Those flowering tea things look weird as hell. Are you supposed to drink them or are they just for decoration? Who would drink a flower?? maybe a bee.

Also I forgot one of my favorite things in the whole world is Thai Iced tea

My mind totally slipped on bubble tea! How wondrous.
I'm jealous of all you who have wonderful tea houses. I MUST find one now.
Lavender always makes me smile. I love having pieces of plants/flowers in my tea. Odd.

An Asian style tea party would be amazing. I had an East-Western class in High School and one session we had a lady from a real Asian tea house preform a traditional tea ceremony. It was fascinatingly specific, but so gracefully lovely.

"Flowering tea or blooming tea (Chinese: 香片, 工艺茶, or 开花茶) consist each of a bundle of dried tea leaves wrapped around one or more dried flowers.[1] These are made by binding tea leaves and flowers together into a bulb and are then set to dry.[1] When steeped, the bundle expands and unfurls in a process that emulates a blooming flower,[2] while the flowers inside emerge as the centerpiece.[3] Typically they are sourced from the Yunnan province of China.[4] Flowers commonly used in flowering teas include globe amaranth, chrysanthemum, jasmine, lily, hibiscus, and osmanthus.[2]
It remains uncertain whether flowering tea was developed in the 1980s or was a much older invention of China.[2][5]
Flowering tea is generally served in containers made of glass, or other transparent material, so that the flowering effect can be seen. The bundles can usually be reused two or three times without the tea becoming bitter.[5]" Thanks wikipedia. For a longer definition that basically says the same thing in more proper detail you can go here : bloomingteawholesale.com/teainfo.html

So it's not necessarily just a flower but a bundle of leaves and flowers to bloom like a flower when water is added.

"Flowering tea or blooming tea (Chinese: 香片, 工艺茶, or 开花茶) consist each of a bundle of dried tea leaves wrapped around one or more dried flowers.[1] These are made by binding tea leaves and flowers together into a bulb and are then set to dry.[1] When steeped, the bundle expands and unfurls in a process that emulates a blooming flower,[2] while the flowers inside emerge as the centerpiece.[3] Typically they are sourced from the Yunnan province of China.[4] Flowers commonly used in flowering teas include globe amaranth, chrysanthemum, jasmine, lily, hibiscus, and osmanthus.[2]
It remains uncertain whether flowering tea was developed in the 1980s or was a much older invention of China.[2][5]
Flowering tea is generally served in containers made of glass, or other transparent material, so that the flowering effect can be seen. The bundles can usually be reused two or three times without the tea becoming bitter.[5]" Thanks wikipedia. For a longer definition that basically says the same thing in more proper detail you can go here : bloomingteawholesale.com/teainfo.html

So it's not necessarily just a flower but a bundle of leaves and flowers to bloom like a flower when water is added.

Also hummingbirds drink flowers too.

There's also some Chinese tea house that my mom went too where they served chrysanthemum tea with the whole flower in it. She said it was really good. She's also been telling me she's gonna take me there too but yeah never have time.

I DRINK THIS THREAD. I DRINK IT ALL UP.

(what the hell is up with the "Berto (trueposer)" bit though???)

yeah that confused me too, the Berto(trueposer) thing.

So he was trolling us with an alt account the whole time?!!?! I'm flabbergasted!

"SO WHO WAS HE?"

certainly not trueposer. for realies guys.

but other identities will be gladly fielded with accurate guesses acknowledged.

Tourist_Information... TruePoser... they have most of the same letters. I'm going to give her half credit on that one.

Clever drinking. I have no idea who this 'he' is that's ruffling everyone's feathers so.

that irina mahappyhooker got me confused with another cultie

i thought we were besties!

also, hi, i'm berto

Hummingbirds indeed. I want to have a sushi rolling party so bad. I heard it's fun.
Your mom sounds amusing, but terribly busy. Hopefully you can go to that Chinese tea house, the chrysanthemum sounds absolutely gorgeous. I wonder if you could take photos with out being considered rude in places like that?

no idea. he popped around while i was on hiatus. haven't spoken to him.

mostly disappointed that irina confused me with anyone else

aw well. we're in the same boat with the mysterious poser.

I'm sure it wasn't bad intentions.

i'd like to think not, but you can never tell with these romanians.

three-quarters of them are criminals.

hard fact of life.

meh life is in fact hard.
what can ya do.

float away. to touristy places.

the other quarter are hothothothothothothothothot

'hard' fact of life.

Also, hi berto

chris with the winning zinger!!

hiya mate!

i'm filled with touristy information about the woods.
ironically, i hate touristy spots too.

Trees are the best. Good place to drink green tea.

Tea cups and accessories are almost as entertaining as tea itself.

I love tea. my favorites are lemon rooibos, chai, black, and...okay I like all of the teas. my grandma has this beautiful tea set from her wedding that she's promised to me.

also, one of my favorite things about my ex boyfriend was that every time I stayed at his house, he'd make me a little cup of tea before bed.

my favorite place to get tea is this little place on the bike trail near campus called the tea room. this is it.

I would love to sit down/curl up with culties and drink tea and talk about books and science and flowers and clever things.

BERTO OH MY GOD!

It was past my bedtime and I was super tired! Jesus, I'm so sorry. At least if it was someone more.. interesting. A million times sorry. I'm not culting late at night anymore.

Anyway, Cammie, that's a lovely place!

And Mae, you have a nice name and it reminds me of the famous Mae West sofa by Salvador Dali.

I like Earl Grey Tea, with a little milk and one sugar.

Sometimes just plain old gumboot tea goes down a treat too.

Bubble tea seems odd to me.

I always find herbal fruity teas smell way way way better than they taste.

Peppermint green tea is ok. But I think just plain green tea is yuck, even if it is good for you. I'll drink it with Yum Cha though.

I love bubble/boba tea. Just the name makes me smile. It's also the only kind of tea that's really popular around here. It's everywhere and it's usually shitty but when it's good, it's pretty fucking good.

audreythirteen wrote:

We have some Japanese style tea pots that we haven't used. I'll try to post pics of them later.

Do it do it do it!