Blending Teas

I often will blend two teaspoons of some black tea, and one teaspoon of lapsang souchong, to make Russian Caravan. This is in a six-cup teapot.

Ian

I often make an "English Breakfast" style blend with equal parts of Assam, Keemun and Ceylon. Brings back memories of my first trip to England when I was 23 - the B&Bs were ?1.50 a night, and served all the "EB" you could drink. Piping hot, with milk and sugar. Ahh, those were the days...

Regards, Dean

Years ago, a friend of mine used to make what she called 'war in a teacup'. Whenever she had only a little Twinings English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast left (get it? yes, it's a silly joke), she'd blend them together. It was a decent strong brew.

Lots of teas come about because people blend them. If it works for you, do it. That's how new tea flavors come about.

Ok, well more to the point: are there any blends that are 'no-nos?' Are there teas that don't combine well? Just wondering if there are any ground rules. Like mixing black and green.

I have had the two types of pu'er sheng and shu blended together at a shop once. Wasn't too bad.

Hell, if you like it, do it. It's your tea and your tastes. Just don't blend like 200 dollar Wulong with a cheap scented Mou Li Hua (Jasmine tea) and you'll be fine. heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

you'll have to experiment. but i've seen excellent white/black, green/black tea blends. personally, i try to blend teas from the same country, like keemuns and yunnans or assams and nilgiris. but i violate that rule whenever i see fit, like in some stronger breakfast blends which may contain african, india and chinese blacks.

try herbs as well. but avoid flavoring oils. just my personal input.

-gary

Posted through TeaTalk -

I've some great experiences both at adagio.com and at psteas.com using both of their tea blending engines. You really have to experiment.

Sometimes, when I am drinking an assam tea, to sweeten it up, I will add some juice. Not orange juice or those thick juices, but juices from langers or those watered down stuff. Kind of like what ocean spray does with their tea and juice lines.

Overall, I think it's all about personal preference. One thing to note though is if you blend across different tea types to play around with the steeping time, or if you have the patience, to brew each type separately and then mix.

-mike

It seems to me that black & green would be wasteful since greens (& whites) may be infused at least 3x, but blacks only once.

Bluesea wrote: > It seems to me that black & green would be wasteful since greens (& whites)

Is that true.. IPOTs instructions for the Assam I bought from them indicates to try multiple steepings. I did, and it seemed ok.

Oho! Evidently not since they said to try multiples - at least for Assam, that is.