freecia

+1. Peets has a pretty nice selection of Jasmine.

I'm probably way too picky about my tea so I always pack a lot of tea bags when I travel (for convenience, at home is loose tea). Because I'd rather run out of clean clothes before I run out of tea.

I count myself lucky to have a TenRen Tea shop nearby. Their tea turnover is high so I don't usually run into stale tea like some shops found in the mall. Who else asks to smell the tea bin before purchasing ?

CDTraveler

Always.

Interesting how smell and taste don't always correlate. A high grown Ceylon often smells like fresh lawn clippings in the bin but both smell and taste mutate into something completely different in the pot. Hard to describe the taste, but it no longer smells like I just mowed the lawn.

GRALISTAIR

English Breakfast - or PG Tips if in England. With milk -AN ABSOLUTE MUST.

Edit - I generally bring teabags back from the UK when I make a trip.

gfunkdave

I can't have caffeine after about 3pm, or I won't sleep that night. But it's a requirement in the morning!

LabCat

A great thing about many teas (loose leaf) is that they can be steeped more than once. Because caffeine is water-soluble, most of the caffeine is gone after the first steep, so subsequent steeps are virtually free of caffeine. So go ahead and have some re-steeped tea after 3pm and have a restful night sleep too!

LapLap

Pu-erh is particularly good for this. A good quality pu-erh can be steeped 10 times or more. So long as you are taking the initial cups early in the day you can keep drinking it way past your 3pm deadline.
Worth investing in, seems expensive but the re-steeping qualities make it very economical. Also, unlike with other high grade loose teas - which take concentration and experience to get right consistently - pu-erh is relatively idiot proof, over steeping and using the wrong temperature rarely makes the brew (and subsequent re-brews) unpalatable.

Also, you get what you pay for, a low quality pu-erh can be rank, a good one... Hard to describe, like the scent of a old leather chair whilst having a fine cigar (and I am not a smoker).

Otherwise, plenty of low grade Japanese teas that are low in caffeine - levels of caffeine in bancha can be very low. I don't go for artificially de-caffeinated options but from the range of natural caffeine free beverages/tisanes I would recommend Barley tea (called mugi cha in Japan) or an infusion from dried mulberry leaves which tastes very similar to some green teas. There's also buckwheat tea and roasted black soy bean tea, both of which can be excellent.

stut

Ah yes, good point. I have (most of) a wheel of pu'er green tea at home, and the leaves just keep going and going. I actually find a cafetiere works rather well to keep them going - I never did master the technique of drinking tea with the leaves still floating in.

JWEMTX

My favorite is Kaufland-brand Rooibos Vanilla (I bought boxes of it before we left Germany at 1euro per box)

missydarlin

Which flavor?

LapLap

I should try that myself.
If I'm not using a gaiwan then we have some Japanese tea pots with meshes that stop leaves going into the spout (gaiwan is easier to clean).
Only tea I ever drank with the leaves still present was a particular kind of gyokuro which was rolled in a way so that it form bunched cloud like formations in the cup. Since the water used was very cool (no more than 55C) and the quality of the leaves was high it was possible to rebrew it a few times just by topping up the cup with water. Like pu-erh it was one of the few fine teas I could make for myself at work without ruining it (so long as I had a thermometer). Can't get hold of that gyokuro anymore

breakankles

I love tea. I drink it hot no matter the season of the year. I actually need to get back to drinking more loose leaf.

Anyhow, I'm finally trying some Numi samples I got a while back, which are pretty decent. I had the Chocolate Pu-erh and Lemon Mate today. I also have a few samples from their savory tea line...Carrot Curry, Spinach Chive and Broccoli Cilantro.

LabCat

I've always used about 65C water for gyokuro, per the recommendations of the tea seller. Did you use 55C just for that particular rolled variety, or is that your standard temp for gyokuro? Regardless, out of pure curiosity now I'll try 55C on the one gyokuro I have and see how that changes the profile.

Bummer you can't get that one any longer. It sounds beautiful.

LapLap

There's a standard rule of thumb that the higher the quality of gyokuro the lower the temperature needed to steep it, but it really isn't as cut and dry or as simple as that. Nevertheless, some of the best gyokuro I've tried was brewed with water that seemed barely above blood temperature (pre-warmed cups are important) but I don't buy this sort of tea for home - frankly, my brewing techniques aren't good enough, I've wasted enough good tea in the past through incompetence so prefer to leave it to dedicated tea enthusiasts and enjoy their expertise whenever I can.

I would definitely play around with the gyokuro you have, try infusing it at 5C lower than you're used to next time, and perhaps go lower still the time after.

With sencha - which I take many more liberties with and experiment with far more - brewing at a lower temperature than the recommended can have dramatic results (so can changing the water you use - Volvic rather than Evian if you want to try it with mineral water).

I took to sun teas and cold brewing quite late on but that's another way to get different (sometimes surprising) results from teas you already have or are familiar with. It can also give a new lease of life to some forgotten leaves that are past their best, dried tea leaves that might taste stale and "off" when brewed with the correct hot water temperature might recover some of their pre-over-oxidised glory when left to brew overnight in cold water.

I am with you about flavoured teas (why bother when the tastes inherent within good teas can range from the flesh that clings to peach stones to cinnamon to muscatel to nutty biscuits) but there are a few I enjoy on occasion, one of the best I've tried is a tea flavoured with osmanthus. I mention this because a good jasmine tea can be beautiful, and very refreshing, when cold brewed - even in sparking water (drop a couple of teaspoons into a bottle of Perrier and invert the bottle once or twice over a 12 or 24 hour periods, then pour through a sieve)

SanDer

I got some amazing peaty, smoking sexy LS from The Spice and Tea Exchange in Charleston, SC (whodathunkit?). I love single estate blacks and golden assams, but that was dang nice. For you folks out there who like peaty, single malt Scotch, this will put the starch back in your shirt in the morning.
Cheers.

carls888

I love tea, but do drink an espresso every morning.

Since last being in Singapore and Thailand I have fallen in love with TWG teas.

OMG . They are the best.

I purchased alot of tea to bring back home and I hope I don't run out until we go back again...