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[bedlamsbard]

Signs that you may be Asian: your cure for "I feel like shit and the temperature has dropped thirty degrees, thanks a lot, New Orleans" is a mug of green tea and a cup of miso soup. Presumably I actually sound terrible too, since a guy in my Greek class brought it up with some concern. (I was sick right before break; I was actually fine all through break until today, since I don't function well on five hours of sleep, not much breakfast, and stifling failure. Anyway, the miso should help with one of those, although dear gods on Olympus, this is salty, I think I usually add more water.)

Yeah, I definitely do want to cut my hair -- it's down today, since I had it down last night and slept with it down, so it's actually dry for a change, which means I can notice that it's (a) really long and (b) kind of boring. No layers or anything. I'm trying to decide whether it would be weird to say that I want Grace Park's BSG hair, only slightly longer, or if that's too geeky. (The last time I cut my hair to look like a fictional character, I was in elementary school and I brought in a copy of one of the Nancy Drew books that had George on the cover. I'm also pretty sure that was the last time I had really short hair; I don't look good with really short hair.) I mean, it's not weird hair or anything.

Let me see if I can bang out a paragraph in the twenty minutes before I have to go class again.

Comments

[delfinnium]

Hahahah! When I was in NZ and there was winter, hot tea was definitely a YES NOW GIMME.

When I was in the US it was damn hard finding a nice teapot that could make jasmine tea that I was used to. Not that athome I had a lot of tea - tropical countries make the whole 'it is cold, have some hot soup!' irrelevant.

Though once winter hit hot tea and hot clear brothy-soups were definitely on my list.

[bedlamsbard]

Basically 90% of the liquids I consume at school are tea of one kind or another. I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT TEA. I nearly went crazy in England because I didn't have a kettle and it would cost too much to indulge my tea habit at every opportunity. (Which is basically what I do at school. Although I worked out that I actually can get hopped up on caffeine, even if it's tea and not coffee.)

[delfinnium]

Strange that in UK there is no kettle? Because I found that in the US there were no electric kettles to be had unless I paid a premium.But then I think you stayed in a hostel, right? That might be why.

I totally managed to get hopped up on caffiene from drinking green tea all day. >.< That was probably not the most productive of days at the time.

Now that I'm at home, though, I don't find the craving to drink tea as often as I had in the US, and I can actually get better quality tea here than there. Ah well.

[bedlamsbard]

We were in one of the residence halls/dorms/whatever. I was actually right across from the kitchen, and there was a kettle! ...but it disappeared, like, the second day there and never reappeared. We weren't supposed to use the kitchen for actual kitchen purposes anyway; I think they were afraid of the crazy Americans burning down the house.

I have figured out that I can only drink black tea before a certain hour of the day, and not too much of it. *sigh* Even green tea, though -- I switch to genmaicha (which has less caffeine than sencha) or herbal tea in the evenings.

When it comes to green tea, I'm a total tea snob -- my mother comes from the premiere tea-producing region in Japan, so it leads to high standards. :) My grandparents send tea sometimes.

[delfinnium]

Heh! When I was in NZ, they had this hot water boiler thing fixed to the wall. Anyon could come and get boiling hot water out of it, and it's connected to a water mains so it's not like it'd run out unless the entire hostel ran out. Damn convenient when you wanted to have hot water at all times, but if it's winter and you're in bed you don't wanna get out of your nice warm room to get to the hot water...

I used to be able to drink black teas. Then one day I drank earl grey tea at 8 in the morning and I was still jittery, heart-racing, couldn't sleep, couldn't concentrate till about 10pm.

Yeeeeah.

So no more black teas. I like genmaicha and matcha, though I was told that matcha is considered a cheap tea in Japan by a Japanese friend? Perhaps? Though in any case, I tend to drink Chinese teas more than Japanese teas (so my teas are not very green in the pot, even if they qualify as green.) like jasmine tea (nnnn so fragrant), dragon-well tea (very refreshing, and has a somewaht sweet aftertaste!).

[bedlamsbard]

OMG THAT WOULD BE THE BEST THING EVER.

I started seriously drinking black tea this summer in England, since that was what they had in the dining hall, so I picked up a taste for milky black tea. Man, I came back here and I just could not figure out why my hands would be shaking -- I thought it was because I wasn't eating enough. Then I figured out that it might be caffeine.

I need to buy more jasmine tea. I've been hit and miss with it before, not sure why. I like oolong, sometimes.

[delfinnium]

LOL I KNOW. FREE HOT WATER, ANY TIME.

Jasmine tea... well, it's pretty common where I am, so I am guessing the quality is a bit up and down. I'm not a tea connesiour, though I can taste some really good teas. Hell if I know how to judge where they're from would be good though! Because I know in China, some teas are serious expensive, but there are counterfiets too.

[bedlamsbard]

SO AWESOME.

I've had a couple of jasmine teas from two different companies, although there's a Vietnamese restaurant nearby that serves iced jasmine tea I like (I think it's just really strong, which is why it works for me). I went through a phase where I really liked it, and then...it started tasting weak and watery. *hands*

[delfinnium]

HEHE.

I don't know - I guess you'd keep the tea well though, right? Cause jasmine tea really starts to lose its flavour quickly when opened.

In Chinese restaurants though, when served tea, usually they don't refill the tealeaves, but just keep adding hot water. Of course by the end of the meal the tea gets kinda watery loooking and tasting but the point of the tea THEN is not to be all tea-like but to have something to wash your palate, and for you to drink while you sit around and chat and eat. :P

[bedlamsbard]

That might be it! That was before I had a fridge, so my tea was just out on my desk or in a drawer.

[delfinnium]

I know that you're supposed to keep tea in a air-tight, light-proof container, but I kept my GIANT BAG of jasmine tea in the cupboard, though I tried to keep it rubber-banded shut.

It still didn't taste quite as nice as when I first opened it, so I had to add more and more tea to the pot everytime.

I suppose the next best thing is a teacaddy? I bought some cute looking tea caddys or whatever you call it, those tea-container things - from Daiso when I was in Osaka last year, and then found that they had them in Singapore too. A little tea canister made of plastic, with a rubber stopper/lid, and then a nother lid on top which fits well enough to make a partial vacuum.

Seems to keep the dragon-well tea damn good. :D

[bedlamsbard]

My tea -- well, I have these metal tins from when I first bought them, with a double lid, so I put my loose-leaf in there and keep it in the fridge. If I have leftover tea in the original packaging, I put it in the freezer and transfer it to the tin when I run out. (My mother does it, so I do it too.)

[delfinnium]

Which is common in Japan, so I hear. :) We run through tea really quickly, here, because BIG FAMILY and a brew everyday, so a packet of green tea gets finished quickly.

Well.

Relatively quick.

I didn't put my tea in the fridge, but maybe I should have, to preserve the taste!

[bedlamsbard]

I've heard various opinions on whether or not you should keep tea in the fridge or freezer, but my mother does it and I've noticed that it tastes better when it's been kept there instead of in the pantry.

Also, I don't have a whole lot of room in my pantry; I already keep my bag tea there and can't fit more tins in.

[delfinnium]

Hmm I do know that it really depends on the fridge though. if the fridge is crappy, old and full of smells, it'd really get into your tea quickly. Plus, there is the fact that the cold might be able to affect the taste of tea.

On the other hand, maybe because you're in New Orleans, it being almost tropical there, it gets damper outside of the fridge? i've lived most of my life in a tropical country, so I don't know about the taste in general, since we'd never kept tea in the fridge.

[bedlamsbard]

Hmm, yeah. But I've kept my tea in the same tins in both the cupboards and the fridge, and the taste noticeably degrades in the cupboard and not in the fridge/freezer.

Today I got a box of tea in the mail, so I'll have to figure out where to put that!

[delfinnium]

well yay!

:D

Tea in the mail! What tea is it?

[bedlamsbard]

A bunch of different things from Adagio Teas! The Raja Sampler, the Shanghai Sampler, the English Breakfast, and the Masala Chai.

[delfinnium]

wow it sounds awesome. :)

I like chai - it's incredibly rich, and I have to boil it on the pan. :D

[bedlamsbard]

They also sent me a free packet of chestnut tea, which I just tried and, yeah, that really doesn't work for me. (The smell/aftertaste is too sweet and rich in a way that makes me slightly nauseous.)

The other brand of masala chai I like is Rishi, which is what I have now, but my grocery store has been out for a while so I'm trying Adagio's. I only just figured out how to do it on the stovetop, and OM NOM NOM. *hearts*

[delfinnium]

Awww chestnut.

I like ginger tea, but only if i'm sick! I'm not sure if it counts as 'tea', since tea should include tea-leaves somewhere...

I have NO idea what brand of chai I drank, but it was decaf chai, so yay! I've read somewhere that 'authentic' chai is made using black tea and spices you PICK YOURSELF but I am not that hardcore. :P

but boiling it on the stove top, so much better than letting it steep.

[bedlamsbard]

I've never had ginger tea (I guess technically it's an tisane), just because I never have ginger in the house when I'm sick, heh.

I've seen a lot of recipes for homemade chai, which I'm sure I'll try sometime, but I don't really feel up to the hassle of buying individual spices and making my own mix when there are perfectly good ones I like and can buy.

I'm kind of sad that I figured out how to make my own chai lattes, because now I have no excuse to go to Starbucks and spend money since I can do it myself. But on the other hand, I feel SO BADASS. On the third hand, so, so hopped up on caffeine, since the instructions I have call for two tablespoons of chai to a cup of water and a cup of milk.

[delfinnium]

oh my god two TABLESPOONS.

I drank so much dragon-well tea today - just kept adding hot water over and over to the tealeaves till the water went from a deep gold to a pale yellow and now I feel.

Bubbly. sort of.

WEIRD.

[bedlamsbard]

I KNOW RIGHT. Maybe next time I'll try it with just one tablespoon and see how much that affects the taste. (It's a cup of milk, a cup of water, and two tablespoons of chai blend, brought to boiled and simmered for five minutes, then the heat turned off and three tablespoons of sugar stirred in. Made of noms, but SO CAFFEINATED.)

I'm still trying to get over the chestnut tea before I move on to something new today, although I started out with milky earl grey on my way to class (I was running so, so late this morning. And gods know I love my tea tumbler, because I didn't actually get to drink said tea until an hour after I'd made it, and it was still hot).

[delfinnium]

I used to use the teabag, but I think a teabag's worth is 2 tablespoons right? I use decaf, so I don't actually DIE at night, because dear lord, I am the dead with caffeine, but somehow two tablespoons seems a lot anyway.

By tea-tumbler, do you mean just a thermos? Like vacum thermos? I used to have one of those, insulated mugs, except never really kept things hot, though it kept things warm. The lid was annoying to drink through.

[bedlamsbard]

A teabag's worth can't be two tablespoons, the volume doesn't look like. I mean...I'd think it would be a teaspoon. Maybe...okay, I'm going to google this. It looks like the average is 2 grams of tea per teabag.

This is the tea tumbler I have, and it actually will keep tea hot for an hour or more. (Which is really all I need.)

[delfinnium]

I'm bad at estimating volumes I guess??

You're right, two tablespoons is probably way too huge for a teabag.

Maybe you should use a teabag's worth and see? When I brewed it,it'd be a huge mug's worth of half-milk, half water.

[bedlamsbard]

Am not sure what a teabag's worth is. (why is this info so hard to find? *bewildered*)

A cup of water and a cup of milk gets me enough for my small teapot, so about a mug and a half.

[delfinnium]

well 2 grams seems like it'd be in the levels of teaspoons, not tablespoons.

So I am guessing that it's probably 3/4 tablespoon, or less? 1 tablespoon seems a bit generous still.

mmm teapots. My tiny teapot makes a nice teacup's worth of tea, at a time, so I just keep topping itup with hot water. :D

[bedlamsbard]

I have three teapots here: one small blue one that's the top part of a single-service tea set (it's a terrible teapot, weirdly constructed), a small red one that makes just shy of two mugs, and a big red one that makes eight cups. Which I can actually drink, but it doesn't tend to stay hot long enough unless I'm mainlining tea. Which I do, sometimes, but. I would like one in between the red ones. *sigh*

[delfinnium]

Single service tea-set? So it's like, one teapot for a cup? Or something?

I'd like a big teapot, but then 8 cups is a bit much. Maybe one that makes 2, 3 cups is good enough.

[bedlamsbard]

Like this -- a teapot that can stack on top of a matching tea cup.

Eight cups is a lot. (Actually, I think it might be six cups, but whatever, it's a lot.) I drink a lot of tea, so two cups sometimes cups up short for me.

[delfinnium]

That teaservice LOOKS cute. But it's also the sort of thing that looks to me comes from a non-tea-drinking culture? That teapot looks like it'd fall over more easily, has irritating crevices to wash.

Uh.

[bedlamsbard]

It's the same as any other tea pot, it just comes in a set. They used them at a couple of the teashops I went to in England.

[delfinnium]

huh. okay.

[bedlamsbard]

I mean, the one I have is crap, but it's not because it's unstable, it's because it's (a) too small (b) the handle is constructed in such a way that you can't hold it without having your knuckles right against the side of the teapot and that it conducts heat really well (c) the spout drips like a demon and won't pour in an arc (d) the lid is loose. So there's that.

[delfinnium]

strangely enough, they say that its holes are too big for looseleaf tea.

.... O_O

Are they using teapowder?

[bedlamsbard]

*hands* I don't even know. Some smaller tea leaves do get through, but it's not that big a deal, that happens even when you're steeping tea in a mug.

[delfinnium]

unless by looseleaf tea they mean something like lipton's looseleaf yellow label?

That tea IS basically powder, and it needs a bodum plunger thingy to make sure most of it doesn't end up in the drink.

But still.

When I had a metal teapot , my strainer was exactly like that one, and my jasmine tea was perfeclty fine. *bemused*

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah, it's no worse than any other strainer; I used to use it exclusively before I finally bought a strainer. People are snobs, what can I say.

[delfinnium]

Well i know that in the tea-drinking world, adding sugar to green teas is ABSOLUTE blasphemy. And apparently Lipton tea is considered the absolute dregs of shitty tea bits. So I wouldn't know.

one of my teapots needs a teastrainer - I know that there is all that talk about how tea leaves shouldn't be put in a strainer so they can UNFURL and all that, but getting a strainer to put over my teacup is irritating, because I like having more than one cup of tea at a time. :|

[bedlamsbard]

I hate adding anything to green tea, agh. *shudders*

I have a strainer to put over my teacup, though it doesn't have very many holes, so I have to pour very slowly. *eyeroll* I don't mind, though. Or I just ignore the strainer and pour straight into the cup.

[delfinnium]

Heh. :P sometimes I want a light sweet drink. so sugar! into tea!

Other times I can't abide anything in my tea so.

Apparently people eat tealeaves for their health. And Roughage. So it's not a big deal.

Also, that teapot sounds horrid. :|

[bedlamsbard]

The teapot is terrible. I only use it if my other two teapots are out of commission for some reason and I specifically want a teapot, not a mug. (My options, I have many. I have several different strainers, too.)