Best time for a cup of tea?

[chenyswhite]

When is the best time to drink green tea, before or after meals?

Which type of tea will you drink most of time?

[abcdefg]

Quote

When is the best time to drink green tea, before or after meals?

 

Best to drink green tea when you have some food in your stomach. Late morning and early afternoon.

[Alex_Hart]

I generally have a hearty breakfast and bring a bottle of green or wulong to drink throughout the day - this bottle has a lot of tea leaves and gets refilled five or six times with hot water before lunch. After lunch, I go home and take a nap. When I wake up, I pick a tea based on my mood and do two or three brews before studying, then drink as I study until dinner time. If it's really hot, I usually drink green tea, but otherwise prefer pu'er or red tea.

[abcdefg]

Red tea 红茶 is traditionally said to "help the stomach" 养胃。So it is usually suggested after a large meal. Pu'er is good then too, especially a ripe Pu'er 熟普洱。

 

I drink one tea for a day or two, then change it up so as not to get in a rut. After all, variety is the spice of life.

 

Do you have some personal tea preferences, @chenyswhite?

[lips]

 

6 hours ago, Alex_Hart said:

bring a bottle of green or wulong to drink throughout the da

The last time I was in Hangzhou, many people carried a bottle (non-insulated) of green tea, probably 龙井, with them all day.

[Alex_Hart]

20 minutes ago, lips said:

The last time I was in Hangzhou, many people carried a bottle (non-insulated) of green tea, probably 龙井, with them all day.

They still do, and yes it's almost certainly Longjing! Walk into virtually any store here and you will see the workers carrying around everything ranging from plastic cups to mason jars full of Longjing, whether they're florists or construction workers lugging stones. I sometimes teach at a school and the office is four or five desks pushed together with about a dozen different mugs full of tea (one for each teacher). They actually have a rather large tea shelf where you can go pick your tea with perhaps twelve to fourteen different boxes of tea. I was rather surprised the first time I went up to the shelf and found all of the boxes were Longjing. Go to the hospital and you'll be in line behind several older fellows carrying the ubiquitous greenish plastic bottles on a rope which they hang from their wrists, and walking into the doctor's office will show you several covered mugs of Longjing (to be quickly sipped between patients so as to avoid having others cough on it!).
 

My tea bottle is generally full of a cheaper Longjing (I save the nicer ones to drink at home), though like abcd I throw a Wulong in once in awhile to change it up. While it started off in autumn as something I did just to enjoy, I found it was relatively close to required in winter. Hangzhou winters hover between 0 and 8 Celsius and are very moist. While this doesn't sound cold (and it isn't - my college town was regularly at -20), there is no heating or the like here so you'll find yourself in a classroom trying to write with only a warm bottle of tea to keep you going. In autumn, it rains heavily everyday and the green tea helps to cut through the moist feeling you get in such a humid environment. Now that summer is here, the air is extremely 闷 and it suits green tea even more. 

[艾墨本]

@Alex_Hart, @abcdefg, the tea gods of these forums. Story has it that if you place an empty mug at an altar below their portraits, it will be filled with tea leaves in the morning. Altars are best placed in the shade of a tea tree along with offerings of fresh spring water.

 

I love reading all the both of you have to say about tea.

[abcdefg]

Haha! I am honored, @Ben and I will do my best to fill your mug with Pu'er! I'll bet that Alex_Hart can probably be persuaded to sometimes fill it with Longjing too.

 

But, actually, I would be remiss not to remind one and all that Yu Lu 陆羽 was the real tea god, the Sage of Tea, and he was born in Hubei, year 733. Studied in a rugged mountain monastery for six years with gifted masters. After doing original research and writing it up as a monumental tome, he spent his latter years drinking tea and writing poetry in the company of like-minded friends.

 

 

 

[Alex_Hart]

3 hours ago, abcdefg said:

But, actually, I would be remiss not to remind one and all that Yu Lu 陆羽 was the real tea god, the Sage of Tea, and he was born in Hubei, year 733. Studied in a rugged mountain monastery for six years with gifted masters. After doing original research and writing it up as a monumental tome, he spent his latter years drinking tea and writing poetry in the company of like-minded friends.

 

Spoken like a true tea god!

 

Thank you, but I'll have to apologize 艾墨本. I don't even count as a tea novice yet. I only started caring about tea in the past year after moving to Hangzhou, and largely thanks to abc's posts, which inspired me to plunk down that first 100 yuan (seemed like a fortune at the time) for some Longjing. It's getting worse now because he's making me want to go travel to places where they grow the tea. I will be joining you at his altar! 

[abcdefg]

On 6/29/2017 at 9:27 PM, BenHarris said:

I really like green tea, it has a toning effect.

 

I like green tea too. Just curious, what do you mean by a "toning effect?"

 

Welcome to the forum.

[YordLama]

I live in Hangzhou too. What's the best way to brew 龙井? I just stuck some in a teapot and made it English style, but it was a bit strong. Maybe I need to put less tea in?

[abcdefg]

9 hours ago, YordLama said:

What's the best way to brew 龙井? I just stuck some in a teapot and made it English style, but it was a bit strong. Maybe I need to put less tea in?

 

Brew it directly in a tall clear glass, the same one from which you will be drinking. Have it plain, without milk or sugar.

 

Don't use a teapot at all. After rinsing the glass with hot water and pouring it out, fill it one third to one half with water that is hot but not boiling. Sprinkle Longjing tea leaves on top of the water. Use enough to cover the water in approximately on layer. Then fill the glass with more hot water, up to the two thirds or three fourths level.

 

Add  more hot water when you have drunk it down to about one third. You can do that 3 or 4 times before the tea loses its flavor. Use good quality water for best results, not water that has a strong flavor of its own.

 

For more on Longjing tea and how to brew it, see here: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/54141-西湖龙井茶-west-lake-dragon-well-tea/#comment-415472

 

For more on other types of Chinese tea, see here (This is an index article): https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/54133-tea-articles-a-users-guide/

[eion_padraig]

When foreigners who have just come to China who I help out with advice say things like, "wow, you really know about China", I say "not really... you should read some of the people's posts on this Chinese language learning forum I like to read. There's this one American guy who lives in Yunnan much of the year...."

When abcdefg decides to compile his cooking recommendations into a book, I'm going to be promoting it to everyone I know. The posts are great, but I'm convinced it could sell as a e-book.

It's nice to see guys in training like Alex-Hart too.

When foreigners who have just come to China who I help out with advice say things like, "wow, you really know about China", I say "not really... you should read some of the people's posts on this Chinese language learning forum I like to read. There's this one American guy who lives in Yunnan much of the year...."

When abcdefg decides to compile his cooking recommendations into a book, I'm going to be promoting it to everyone I know. The posts are great, but I'm convinced it could sell as a e-book.

It's nice to see guys in training like Alex-Hart too.

[YordLama]

Wont a glass crack from the hot water? Should I find a perspex one? :o

[YordLama]

Anyway thanks for the information. I'll try it out. I'm guessing my weird G20 boxset longjing I got from work isn't that fantastic though.

[abcdefg]

Thanks for your kind words @eion_padraig.

 

4 hours ago, YordLama said:

Wont a glass crack from the hot water? Should I find a perspex one? :o

 

No, the hot water won't crack your glass. No special material needed. The water should be hot, but not boiling. This isn't for the safety of the glass, but it is in order to get the best flavor from the tea. If the water is too hot, it "kills" the tea and makes it kind of sour and bitter.

 

4 hours ago, YordLama said:

I'm guessing my weird G20 boxset longjing I got from work isn't that fantastic though.

 

Who knows, it might be great tea.Does the box have any information as to its origin? The best Longjing is from West Lake. In Chinese, that would be 西湖龙井。If you take a photo of some of it spread out on a white plate both before and after brewing, I might be able to tell you a little about its quality. To post photos, use the tools in the bottom left part of the reply box, where it says "choose files."

[YordLama]

Yes it's 西湖龙井 and the make is 顶峰茶业 or ‘Crest Tea Industry' in English. I don't have the box any more sorry. I can't seem to get the picture uploading to work. Maybe because I'm don't have enough posts yet?

[YordLama]

 

[Minotaur]

沏茶当用紫砂壶。

[abcdefg]

OK, you did it, @YordLama! Posting photos is not intuitive after the last forum update. In order to make them a little smaller, so that they load more easily, double click on the photo and select either 200 or 300 as the size. Viewers can still click on them to enlarge.

 

Let me show you what I mean by posting pictures of some very nice Longjing that I received as a gift last month.

 

 

 

Both of these are Longjing, picked in early spring of this year, but the one on the right, marked B, turned out to be my favorite. Notice how the leaves are mostly intact, not broken pieces. Also notice how the color is fairly uniform, instead of some leaves being very dark and others being very light. These appearance factors speak to how it was picked and how it was handled during the pan-frying stage 杀青。

 

Here's how it looked in my glass. After combining the water and the tea, don't stir it up with a spoon. Just give it a minute or two to settle. The leaves will do a characteristic "dance," moving gently from the top to the bottom.  When about half the leaves sink to the bottom, the tea is ready to drink. Some people like to gently swirl the glass with two hands to speed the process. But don't actually shake it; just give it a little nudge.

 

 

 

And here's a look at a few of the tea leaves after brewing was finished, before I discarded them. They are mostly one small, tender leaf and one bud. Some complexes were one bud and two tender leaves, but never three or four.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your dry leaves. by contrast, had more broken bits. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but usually denotes tea that was not of the highest grade. It can still taste very good and be perfectly adequate for daily drinking even though it won't win any gold medals.

 

Your wet leaves seem to be mostly one bud and one leaf, which is good. Can't say any more about that, except to note that fragments are also present. In truth, my tea had some fragments too, I just selected pretty leaves which were intact for the photograph.

 

Hope you enjoy your good tea. Drink it frequently and use it all up, because Longjing is type of tea that doesn't last past the year it was picked. Won't be much good next year or the year after that. You are fortunate to live in Hangzhou, where you have easy access to more as you need it.

 

And Welcome to the Forum! There are quite a few folks here who enjoy a good cup of tea.