Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Use lots of creme and sugar.

I will never learn to appreciate wine. I have tried, and even taken a class. Now can tell difference between white and red if lights are on.

As for tea and coffee, that is another story: drink a variety of good brews and you will educate yourself.

How to Appreciate Tea:

1. Drink Pete's Major D. blend coffee as a religious observance for about 10 years. Do not wash your cup. Let a barrista rinse it with boiling water each time.

2. Read something by Jane Austen, or George Elliot (Stella Gibbons seems to work too, if you prefer moderns).

3. Drink the tea.

The effect is short-lived, but quite pronounced.

roll up a reefer the size of a roman candle..............

Have you tried Korean polygonatum tea? I've been looking for it here in Hyde Park, but with no luck! Maybe I'll have to go to Chicago's Koreatown to get it or something. Eh, not worth it since I'm almost on summer break. I learned about it from a Korean tenant-serf* who also taught me how to make Kimbap.

It's wonderfully subtle, soothing stuff.

I also drink genmai tea, referenced on the page you link to, and that I have in my dorm room. It's green tea with popcorn and barley. Also has a sorta mild, subtle flavor. It's like liquid popcorn, in a good way :^). My whole family drinks it.

*Working phrase. Our big gummint suburb has bans on rental or multifamily housing, and it's right next to Wash U. We had our garage/carraige house renovated, so we have a live-in student whom, since we're legally prohibited from charging rent, we charge in-kind services. This is essentially a reversion to feudalism, so my working phrase is tenant-serf.

Okay, I know, or think I know, a bit more about wine than tea, but some of this will be relevant:

1. The Brits know more than we do. Not the man-on-the-street Briton, whose taste in tea is, in my experience, as godawful as his cooking (though he knows how to brew the stuff), but the British writers are the ones to read. The wine writers come up through the trade and they know their stuff. Americans are terminally afflicted with the sales and marketing virus. It's Americans who have to rank everything on a hundred-point scale, who find it necessary to gush to prove their enthusiasm, and who'll hawk anything with a high price tag. (Diamond Creek being a prime example.) I have no idea whether this is true in the world of big-time tea tasting, but there's every reason to suspect it is.

2. You need book learning informed by actual tasting, and vice versa.

3. You also need proper tasting technique. Pour a small amount in the cup, with enough room to swirl it around to properly aerate it. Take several short sniffs, not one long one--most of your palate is actually in your sense of smell. Then take a reasonable mouthful, hold it, and draw air across it. Pay attention to how the sensations change with time, and where exactly in your mouth you experience them.

4. Taste two or three or more at a sitting, preferably "blind" (without knowing which is which beforehand).

5. Take notes. It's all but impossible to remember anything about taste for long. Just write down your impressions. Note color, clarity, aroma, taste, and the length of the aftertaste. With time you'll find your observations become meaningful.

6. Tasting language is poetic, but sometimes exact as well. Think how hard it would be to describe a hamburger to someone who's never eaten beef. Use your imagination, but also learn what words expert tasters use.

7. Tea is tannic, like young wine. Tannin numbs the tongue. So cleanse the palate with bread or biscuits or something between samples, and don't tire yourself out.

8. It's supposed to be fun, dammit.

Tea is more elegant to say -- in English, at least. And it doesn't have on it this old, well-worn, now nearly broing stigmata (?)of implying a proposition to opposite sex . And also it is infinitely better than de-cafenated (spell?).

Me? Oh, I began drinking tea after my body developed a reaction to coffee some time ago and I can't drink cofee now and so the alternative is tea.
:-)

Actually, if you go to the Peet's on 4th Street, they have a little booklet guide to the teas they sell (including a Lung Ching Dragon Well) with instructions on steeping time, etc. You can also check out Upton Tea Co. (online somewhere), which has steeping instructions. Without tea I could not survive graduate school.

Most teas have tannic acid, and it's the death of tea. Always get the tea(bags) out of the tea quickly. Don't try to get too much tea out of your tea.
The other "teas" fruit and herb concoctions can be wrung out.
I drink about 48 - 60 ounces of variouis teas every evening. A nightly flush, starting always with green teas.
I mix and match, including mixing different types. If it's daytime, I might mix 50/50 with caffeine-laden Mountain Dew pop.

I drink a lot of coffee while the sun shines, so the caffeine in the tea is not noticable.

I look for understanding with my tea: what it is, how good is it for me, and the modernity of it all that has me drinking organic white tea ( the first growth green tea), aiding my body, soothing my mind in Middle America.

This is a green tea right? For starters you'll need to get the preparation right - and you'll need a Chinese clay teapot to do so, which you will have to use solely for making green tea. You need to prepare the pot, by getting some cheap green tea leaves and stewing them in that a number of times. At that point you'll be able to make and taste perfect green tea (at least that's what the bloke at Borough Market told me, I'm not an expert).

You can get delicious Twinings Darjeeling tea at your supermarket, and it's ridiculously cheap. Milk and sugar. This will give you an idea of what tea ought to taste like.

Also, I've heard that you should put milk in green tea, something to do with stomach cancer if you don't.

oooh, hop across the bridge and head to imperial tea court in chinatown, one of the two master class tea establishments on the west coast. (the other is in portland.) compare and contrast, and ask them what to do with your catch, they'll know best. it's a very worthwhile trip.

http://www.imperialtea.com/index.asp

first and foremost- find out how your tea is supposed to be prepared. the british tend to scald all the taste out of their tea, while the chinese shoot for the minimum temperature that brings out the flavor and aroma of the tea. each tea has a ritual to its preparation, often this ritual is fine tuned to bringing out the most in the tea. also, there's often a teapot associated with each type of tea. it's more worth it than you might think to specialize one teapot or gaiwan to a tea. if you don't want to go that far (i'm on a budget myself) you can dedicate a piece if tea paraphernalia to each type- ie i have only one gaiwan, for white tea only. and like wine it's all about your nose. one woman recommended that we draw air in our purse-lipped mouths in a noisy way while we still have the tea floating around on our tongues. it sounded silly, but worked like a charm.

some pictures demonstrating the smelling and tasting from that particular day:
http://www.fromthepines.net/BlackTeaPot/imagepages/image276.html

tea, like wine, is one of those experiences that seems to have a sameness at first. Then, with a little bit of investment the reward suddenly and quickly leaves the effort behind.

Go to Far Leaves on College Ave across the street from the Elmwood Theater. They even do gong fu tea!

(And they're just a few shopfronts from Trattoria La Siciliana, which is absolutely not to be missed. Cash only, though; be prepared.)

You have a very special green tea there. It might be worth practising with Japanese SenCha (Or Korean Green) which is lovely in the mornings at work, especially after a ham sandwich! These subtle teas refresh the palate, cut through animal fats in food, and are great after alcohol the night before.

"How can I educate my tea-drinking palate so that I can feel justified in drinking this stuff?"

Stop it. Just stop it. There are lots of good reasons to educate one's palate, one's eye, one's whatever (the imagination just gallops along), but feeling justified isn't one of them. Big silly lefty.

http://www.fineteas.com/teafacttasting.htm,
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine_drink/tea/dragon-well-tea.htm.htm and http://www.nobleharbor.com/tea/teagreen.html had some useful general theory, including "Smaller flat leaves will show more body than larger twisted leaves, which take longer to steep."

http://www.tenren.com/ordrag.html has very specific steeping instructions for Dragon Well tea. It is probably worth it to follow them very specifically, at least once. They recommend a covered glass or ceramic cup for steeping rather than a pot, so you can appreciate the leaves and the bright green color.

http://www.lamyx.com/tealegend.html says of Dragonwell tea: "The dried leaves are flat and smooth but when it is infused it opens up and one can see that the leaf consists almost entirely of intact buds. The tea is considered to have a cooling effect and is served during the summer and in hot weather. When the tea is steeped, the leaves float with the bud pointing straight up, resembling a pointed spear. This is called Qiqiang, meaning "flagged spear."

My favorite tea is Lapsong Souchong. It's like liquid smoke. Similar palate-education technique to single-malt Scotch. I couldn't stand to smell it at first, much less drink it, but one day years later I was desperate for tea, and it tasted good.

The Longjing tea you have sounds like it also has a unique taste, and the preparation is difficult, and the harvesting time is only two weeks per year. And it looks like they've had some advertising help recently. So it's not necessarily "better," just different, although it does seem like they spend extra time with this stuff. (note: I wouldn't believe the health effects claimed for this stuff. I heard green teas really rot your teeth - super low pH)

If you have large quantities, and it's that good, find someone who knows what they're talking about and have them over for lunch, quick. Tea leaves are best fresh, I think? If it's in season, the best local tea room must have a tasting.

And one thing I've noticed with wine, coffee, stereo systems and food: use the good stuff exclusively (and correctly) for a week to a month.
(Maybe also check out samples of other good stuff, so you can see the range of differences you're looking for - like in wines you'd try a Chardonnay vs. a Sauvignon Blanc and a Riesling if you think all white wines taste alike) Then go back to what you're used to. You'll see the light if there is light to be seen.

Let us all know how it turns out, I might see if some of this stuff's available next time I make a tea run!

Go to www.uptontea.com and try some of the various sampler sets (lots of good tea info there). Read the posts on rec.food.drink.tea. Track down the "Good Eats" episode where Alton Brown demonstrates how to make a perfect cup. Or just guzzle a gallon or so of Lipton Green everyday like I do.

Anyone out there drink Pu-Erh tea?

It's supposed to be the most widely taken tea in Asia. Pu-erh is a black tea that's been fermented for a number of months. It takes on a wonderful red color (as opposed to brown) and has a very unique flavor. There is little to no "bite" aftertaste that one normally associates with a black tea. I enjoy it hot, of course, but the Southern Gentleman in me had to try it cold with some sugar. On a hot day, it's absolute bliss.

Mmm...cold pu-erh with sugar...

If I may . . . .For longjing, basically, you put a few leaves in a pot, pour water that has boiled and then cooled 5-10 degrees F, let it steep for a few minutes and then fill your cup. I'm no water snob, but the chlorine in tap water will overwhelm the real taste.

How many leaves? Start with a very few, 5-10 for a medium size mug worth of water, and each time try more to see what you get and what you like. It's really hard to say because there are so many grades of longjing -- tea shops in HK have 12-16 -- that it really depends on just what you have.

Few minutes for steeping? try 3-4, and see. It takes practice. As with sencha -- the most similar thing -- you want to get freshness (like fresh-cut grass a friend says) without bitterness. Some people insist to steep it once and throw the water out, and then steep it again before drinking.

The quick way, too, is just a few leaves, no more than your fingers (again depends on quality) in a nice tea mug with a cover, less-than-boiling water, that you can sip while blogging, and refill from a hot water pot.

Just never steep too much too long.

Eats with longjing? Longjing taste is a bit delicate (nothing to do with black tea). So its good enough alone. But Chinese often pair such teas with some sweet-salty seeds; Japanese like their sweets like mung-bean paste cakes etc(not a fan myself). Something mildly sweet and not spicy or oily.

I agree with kharris. The end result of educating your palate is that you can no longer enjoy the perfectly fine, and relatively cheap, common or garden version of whatever it is you have learned to be discerning about.

Where's the benefit in that?

Hey, don't knock Boone's Farm!

To be honest, to someone lucky enough to be brought up on decent claret, the difference between Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon and Boone's Farm Strawberry Ripple is not as great as you think.

Brad DeLong writes:
>
> Kind of like feeding Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon to
> someone used to Boone's Farm Strawberry Ripple.

Not to be too pedantic about it, but I think you mean "Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill". Seriously, that's what the wine is called.
And you really should not have needed an academic from Central Missouri to point out this glaring error.

1. Get some 220 wet sandpaper.
2. Gently sand away tastebuds - use lots of water. Rinse frequently with scotch or hydrogen peroxide. (I'd got with the scotch)
3. When tastebuds grow back, your palate will be virginal and will easily appreciate the subtleties of your new tea
or
you won't be able to taste a damn thing. Forever.

One or the other.

Besides the Lung Ching (which is a very nice daily drink) order yourself a sampler pack from someplaces like specialteas.com, that includes some ti kwan yin, yunnan black and -- if you can find it -- some "big red robe" oolong from mount wuyi in fujian province. The latter is for special occasions only, and will, if properly brewed, blow you away ...

Well first, be sure and use water from thawed snow that you've kept in a glazed jar 3 years... :) (like "Adamantina" in Hong Lou Meng)

I think drinking bad or mediocre green tea (such as you might get at a Chinese supermarket in the US) might be helpful in starting to appreciate good tea. All the Chinese people I know use the cup-with-lid brewing method and reuse the leaves a couple of times. If you use a white cup you can have the full aesthetic experience of seeing the whole leaves with tips.

I used to turn my nose up at this stuff called tea too. Then along came someone I took a shine to that couldn't stand even the smell of coffee. Adjustments were made. I learned to like it --the sub-4 minute steep and all that. I learned that tea didn't have to be bitter or met with large doses of milk, sugar, honey, ...anything.
It was good for me I'm sure in the long run (--I can now run the marathon in 26 hours if suitably provoked.) but for the short run, for the 'absolutely keep awake for the next 15 minutes', I need my coffee --dark, no sugar no milk/sugar.

Julian: Have you tried Korean polygonatum tea? I've been looking for it here in Hyde Park, but with no luck! Maybe I'll have to go to Chicago's Koreatown to get it or something. Eh, not worth it since I'm almost on summer break. I learned about it from a Korean tenant-serf* who also taught me how to make Kimbap.

Okay, so what is this tea called in Korean? I am suspecting I've had it, but don't know what it's called in English. :-)

If you're really desperate, I can beg my mom for some and schlep some your way, assuming it's not something like Mad Expensive Elite insam (ginseng). :-)

Long Ching tea is a light (green) oolong tea. Cream and sugar are definitely no-nos.

One thing about expensive tea is that any fool can tell the difference - if you were to buy a cheap brand and this stuff, then brew them together, you would know the differnce without looking. It's not like wine - more like whiskey. Any fool can tell the difference in quality between a 100 year old single malt scotch and a $10 bottle of rotgut, but the same is not true of wine. Tea, fortunately, is in the former category.

A bitter oolong may not be your 'cup of tea' though. You do need the clay pot (I assume you bought one), and the proper brewing method. If you need pointers, just post and I'll tell you what to do...

Good tea is like good wine. Only ignorant snobs worry about "appreciating" it. True connoisseurs simply drink and enjoy. (However, preparing a good cup of tea is a learned skill)

Datadawg: I don't believe longjing, or Lung Ching if you prefer wade giles, is an oolong tea. It's a green tea, non-fermented, while oolong is partially fermented and black tea (red tea, the chinese call it) is full fermented.

Otherly, agree that Pu-erh ('bo-lay' in Cantonese) is incredible .. . but there's so many good teas.

And then there's Strawberry hill with sprite on ice in the park all one summer afternoon . ..

I am Chinese and my father goes through a lot of Longjing (go with me on this Pinyin thing) tea in his time. I prefer the Wulong (black dragon) tea from Taiwan, stronger body, more fun to drink as gong fu cha, and loads of caffeine.

Unfortunately, the Chinese being what they are, they'd give a big shot Economist from Berkeley (incidentally, in my experience one of 5 US schools most Chinese have heard of, the others being MIT, Harvard, Yale, and University of Chicago) something expensive but rather insipid like lungjing.

You can follow other people's instructions on the fancy ways to do this, but here's my observation.

My father drinks his out of a small zhisha (purple sand, most of them have a reddish or dark purple cast) tea pot. There must be a Berkeley or SF store that stocks them. Do not buy off the internet, you need to look at it and make sure that it is well made. Get a good one that holds about a cup of water, a small and well fitting lid that won't leak water when you tilt it, and looks and feels good. Rinse it with boiling water when you get home. Throw in a pinch of tea (and experiment with strength, but note that green tea will never get very strong) and pour in near boiling temperature water, let sit for a couple minutes, and start sipping from the sprout. When the tea is gone, refill, when the taste is gone, just add more fresh tea leaves. Clean out the pot every couple days by dumping the contents and rinse with water, DO NOT USE DETERGENT!

This method gets rid of the tea leave in teeth problem and the pot doubles as a hand warmer. The pot is also stable enough that spills are rarely a problem. It does make you look funny.

Here's what most Mainland Chinese people who gets their grubby hands on Longjing. Just take a pinch or two, dump in a glass or ceramic cup, fill with hot water, let cool down slightly, and drink til gone (green tea can be drunk at room temperature), refill with hot water and repeat for 1-3 times until the flavor is gone...

I am Chinese and my father goes through a lot of Longjing (go with me on this Pinyin thing) tea in his time. I prefer the Wulong (black dragon) tea from Taiwan, stronger body, more fun to drink as gong fu cha, and loads of caffeine.

Unfortunately, the Chinese being what they are, they'd give a big shot Economist from Berkeley (incidentally, in my experience one of 5 US schools most Chinese have heard of, the others being MIT, Harvard, Yale, and University of Chicago) something expensive but rather insipid like lungjing.

You can follow other people's instructions on the fancy ways to do this, but here's my observation.

My father drinks his out of a small zhisha (purple sand, most of them have a reddish or dark purple cast) tea pot. There must be a Berkeley or SF store that stocks them. Do not buy off the internet, you need to look at it and make sure that it is well made. Get a good one that holds about a cup of water, a small and well fitting lid that won't leak water when you tilt it, and looks and feels good. Rinse it with boiling water when you get home. Throw in a pinch of tea (and experiment with strength, but note that green tea will never get very strong) and pour in near boiling temperature water, let sit for a couple minutes, and start sipping from the sprout. When the tea is gone, refill, when the taste is gone, just add more fresh tea leaves. Clean out the pot every couple days by dumping the contents and rinse with water, DO NOT USE DETERGENT!

This method gets rid of the tea leave in teeth problem and the pot doubles as a hand warmer. The pot is also stable enough that spills are rarely a problem. It does make you look funny.

Here's what most Mainland Chinese people who gets their grubby hands on Longjing. Just take a pinch or two, dump in a glass or ceramic cup, fill with hot water, let cool down slightly, and drink til gone (green tea can be drunk at room temperature), refill with hot water and repeat for 1-3 times until the flavor is gone...

I charge for this kind of advice. Rates available on request.

Hey, don't knock the Boone's! That is some good drinkin'!

Just drink it: within a year your prostrate
will disappear.

It is not possible. You might as give up trying to educate people about tea.

But the positive side of this is that I would gladly take your surplus tea, and make sure they don't go to waste. Really. I don't mind at all. No trouble.

My advice: go to Celadon, on Solano. There's a large selection of tea, mostly from east Asia, and there's a tasting bar. I think the owner sees her mission as educating people's palates about east Asian teas; she's very happy to talk to people about the tea they're tasing. I think it's exactly what you're looking for.

Paulo's directions are the same way that they serve LongJing in teahouses in Hangzhou where it's made. The most important thing about drinking Green tea is that the water should not be too hot and that the leaves need to be able to unold freely in the water so never use a tea ball.

If you want to do it the chinese way just let the tea leaves float freely in the water and chew on them as you sip your tea.