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Tea (1999)

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Re: Tea (1999)

#31

Post by jarvist »

subnaught wrote: post #14

This is absolutely incorrect. The best thing you can do to enhance your tea-drinking experience is to buy good tea, and good tea is invariably brewed off the boil, usually somewhere between 170-200F, depending on the tea.[0] Higher temperatures will extract too much tannin at the expense of aromatics. The British generally drink shit tea and then add milk to it, which is why they can get away with brewing it at 212F.…

The guide explicitly says to use Earl Grey, which is a bergamot oil infused Assam. Both of these loose-leafed teas, as well as typical British loose-leaf blends such as English Breakfast, are brewed at 100 C, and taste awful (bitter and slightly mealy in the mouth) when brewed at a lower temperature.

A cheap blended tea such as you'd find in a tea bag of PG Tips are much better at brewing (in seconds!) from non-boiling water.

Re: Tea (1999)

#32

Post by strayptr »

peterwwillis wrote: post #3
nosuchthing wrote: post #2

"A Nice Cup of Tea", by George Orwell (1946) [ http://pastebin.com/g3FSzqPv ] If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several ofthe most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as…

....Thanks for the content, but could you put this in a pastebin, or link to a source?

I prefer that they posted it as an HN comment. Scrolling isn't difficult, and mobile users rarely click on links. I probably wouldn't have read it if it was in a pastebin or linked to a source.

Re: Tea (1999)

#33

Post by vacri »

subnaught wrote: post #14

This is absolutely incorrect. The best thing you can do to enhance your tea-drinking experience is to buy good tea, and good tea is invariably brewed off the boil, usually somewhere between 170-200F, depending on the tea.[0] Higher temperatures will extract too much tannin at the expense of aromatics. The British generally drink shit tea and then add milk to it, which is why they can get away with brewing it at 212F.…

"only 300 years experience". Such pretension.

And particularly on HN, it is odd that the 'plucky newcomer' is considered worse in quality by simple years-of-seniority. Isn't this site all about how the plucky newcomers come in and show the old dogs new tricks?

Re: Tea (1999)

#34

Post by nikdaheratik »

There are as many ways of brewing good tea as there are of good coffee (maybe more). I've read this before and it is a good jumping off point for typical English black tea in a teabag. Less good for other types (like green, oolong, or herbal) which should be boiled at a lower temp for most and likely steeped longer, though for some herbals, you just try it out to taste as far as temperature and steeping goes.

For teapot and loose leaf, there are a number of other things to consider like whether the pot is cold/lukewarm and how to handle the leaves, etc.

Equally important: most off-brand teas in the U.S. are low quality. Lipton in America != Lipton in England/Australia. Also, (as someone mentioned) Earl Grey is actually on the milder end of black teas and may not be a good starter compared to typical Breakfast/Afternoon type teas. In short, Green tea is more aromatic, Black tea has a stronger flavor with a nice finish in the better blends. Earl Grey is more in the middle along with "Gunpowder Green".

Re: Tea (1999)

#35

Post by alberte »

deepnet wrote: post #24

Tea provides much of the alertness of coffee and a sort of well-rounded relaxation unlike the beam like focus and occasional jitters from coffee - consuming both is best for a highly productive day.

Due to L-Theanine they say http://www.worldoftea.org/caffeine-and-l-theanine/ it relaxes you and mellows out the caffeine

Re: Tea (1999)

#36

Post by throwaway_jflk »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #4

We need better sieves. Tea-balls are awful, and the vast majority of tea sieves are these tiny little mesh buckets that affix to the top of the kettle, meaning they only even touch the water if the kettle is completely filled. Then, to boot, they are so woefully undersized (probably for the sake of making them easy to fit into the pot) that the tea leaves barely have any place to bloom. The result is a very weak tast…

Strain it through your teeth.

Re: Tea (1999)

#37

Post by bootload »

JasonCEC wrote: post #30

On the off-hand chance that anyone here is super obsessed with tea, I'm the founder and director emeritus of The Tea Institute at Penn State[1], and blog here: [2]. I now run a flavor profiling and quality intelligence company based off my research in the Institute. [1] http://sites.psu.edu/teainstitute/ [2] http://cultofquality.com/

Jason, this write-up on AI and Tea rocks. Radiocarbon dating Tea to check authenticity? [0] Have these techniques been applied to wine?

[0] "Projects in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on Tea" ~ http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2015/05/projects-in-m...

Re: Tea (1999)

#38

Post by DrScump »

For those of you in the Bay Area, do a tasting at Teance in Berkeley. Quality and presentation are both exceptional.

Tastings are organized into flights, e.g. a flight of black teas, or oolongs, or greens and whites.

http://www.teance.com/

Re: Tea (1999)

#39

Post by JasonCEC »

bootload wrote: post #37
JasonCEC wrote: post #30

On the off-hand chance that anyone here is super obsessed with tea, I'm the founder and director emeritus of The Tea Institute at Penn State[1], and blog here: [2]. I now run a flavor profiling and quality intelligence company based off my research in the Institute. [1] http://sites.psu.edu/teainstitute/ [2] http://cultofquality.com/

Jason, this write-up on AI and Tea rocks. Radiocarbon dating Tea to check authenticity? [0] Have these techniques been applied to wine? [0] "Projects in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on Tea" ~ http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2015/05/projects-in-m...

Hey Peter,

Thanks!

Radio Carbon dating is used for authenticating rare vintages of wine[0], but it's a minor test for the most part.

In modern wine collecting, almost all of the fakes are focused around a few _Gran Cru_ lots of small vineyards, like chateau lafite or Petrus.

It's actually not that hard to find wine from the 60's through 70's (or earlier. Counterfeiters use real lesser wine from the right time period, and forge the label and bottle - assuming they can't find an empty bottle from the actual production run! These wines easily sells for upwards of ~$10,000 to 3 - 4 x that.

So radio carbon dating is only marginally useful in wine; you need to use stable isotope ecology to see if the vintage matches the right terroir[1].

To make it even harder, most of the top vintages of French wine illegally imported grapes from neighboring regions to increase their complexity and overall flavor - this was a known but secret practice for about ~100 years, and since the French AOC[2] cracked down on it, there are concerns that modern wine lacking this complexity from blending will not age as well over ~20+ years.

I hope this information is helpful!

[0] http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/201...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contr%C3...

Re: Tea (1999)

#40

Post by ablation »

peterwwillis wrote: post #8

In fact the truth of the matter is that most English people don't know how to make tea any more either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants. When you're using water that's 212 degrees, and measuring by teaspoon rather than weight, and suggesting porcelain will hold the heat the longest…

So angry about tea.
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