I've been exploring the world of tea for about 5 years and have tried just over 200 teas of nearly all tea types. There is one tea that I've consistently gone back to since I have discovered it. It is a sheng puer from Yunnan Sourcing. I have an interesting relationship with this tea. I have never thought of this tea as wildly complex or as an experience. Instead, it has balance with just the right amount of intrigue to work as a daily drinker. I'm always happy to drink this tea.
So growing up we’ve always had pueer at dim sum. However my parents always brought their own. When I moved out, I went to David’s tea or something like that. And bought some pueer for myself. Brought back to my parents and asked them what was wrong with it hahah. Turns out I’ve been drinking 20+ year old tea. Didn’t realize I was a tea snob
Not sure if this counts but matcha is my absolute favorite tea. My partner recently visited Japan and brought back multiple seasonal/Japan exclusives and I could multiple cups every day.
Been meaning to start trying some looseleaf teas though is yunnan sourcing a good place to just try out random quality teas?
Do you have a source/website of matcha that you would recommend? I have only tried matcha a couple times, of varying quality.
Yunnan Sourcing has low-to-mid price options and seems to have a reliable enough quality. They do have many types and styles available as samples, so I would recommend them for random sampling.
Ippodo is my current personal favorite. Prior to bringing it back straight from Japan, I just purchased it off Amazon. Ippodo also has their own website. They can be a bit expensive but I like ummon-no-mukashi ($51 for 40g on Amazon) for drinking it plain (usucha, unsweetened) and then for matcha lattes I like ikuyo (I'll typically get the 100g bag just because I drink a ton of it, also around $50).
Japanese green: Gyokuro Gancho
Chinese green: Long Jing XI Hu and Taiping Hou Kui
Flavoured loose leaf: Harney and Sons Paris, Earl Grey
Bagged Flavoured tea: Twinnings Lady Grey, Yorkshire Tea Malty Biscuit
Bagged black: Yorkshire gold, Pg tips,
Unsmoked lapsang souchong. The smoked variety is tea that tastes like liquid smoke, which is great, but if you drink it unsmoked, it's like a smooth, malty cocoa.
Depends on what I'm eating/doing, but my preferences swing between English Breakfast in the mornings or as an after-dinner tea and Golden Oolong for general drinking or with meals.
Indeed it is! I think with Harney & Sons, unfortunately, for me they're either completely hit or completely miss. But they have some real gems hidden in there, Black Needle being one of them 🥰
My other recs from H&S are the Japanese Whiskey (I loooove barrel-aged & smokey teas), and the dark horse, East Frisian.
Now, with the East Frisian, I honestly couldn't recommend it on its own, but I found it works SO well as a sort of "salt" to bring out the flavor of the "steak" of your preferred black tea 🤤☕