41–45 of 45 posts
My Chinese co-worker introduced me to Iron Goddess of Mercy oolong tea, and it is incredible. Most of Orwell's points are still relevant, but the water is cooler and milk is not used. I realized that even nice tea bags like Twinings are basically floor sweepings compared to quality whole leaves.
Orwell is silly. You want your tea strong? Certainly. You want your tea pure, tasting like tea? Definitely. You want your tea bitter? ... While I can appreciate that for anyone who has to deal with the exigencies of war and rationing there is no real alternative, really good tea , made from the better parts of the tea plant, is not bitter even when exceptionally strong. It does, however, taste wonderfully of tea. Try…
I find the same with coffee and beer: notions of "acquired taste", "bitter", etc are the consequence of bad product or production; like tea, good coffee & beer isn't bitter.
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It seems, at least according to one double blind study[1], that there's not actually a noticeable difference in taste. [1]: http://tomstafford.staff.shef.ac.uk/teatastetest/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea "David Salsburg[5] reports that a colleague of Fisher, H. Fairfield Smith, revealed that in the test, the woman got all eight cups correct.[6] The chance of someone who just guesses getting all correct, assuming she guesses that four had the tea put in first and four the milk, would be only 1 in 70 (the combinations of 8 taken 4 at a time)."
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I find the same with coffee and beer: notions of "acquired taste", "bitter", etc are the consequence of bad product or production; like tea, good coffee & beer isn't bitter.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that beer shouldn't be bitter. Hops are added early in the boiling of the wort in order to impart bitterness. You can skip this step, but the beer will be sickly sweet with no balance. All of course contingent on the other ingredients, steps, and desired style of beer.