How To Begin?

Which, for anyone who hasn't and is interested, is at

I found it useful. :)

try this site also

In the US, both of those blends are typically ceylon & kenyan. A lot of people like ceylon orange pekoe, so you might try finding some reputable whole leaf ceylon and branching out from there.

You also might enjoy a russian caravan blend, which is often a little bit of everything, even some lapsang.

Personally I started out enjoying EGT and not so much EBT, but i found i did enjoy irish breakfast tea, which it turns out is typically an assam tea.

I went from there to broken leaf (not fannings) tea bags of ceylon black, and I enjoyed it, but didn't find anything special about tea until i bought a box of very good assam chai tea bags. That experience led me to throw away a large number of year old teabags and buy 12oz of loose assam tea. It's been a good experience.

It should have a fragrance. The strength or quality of that fragrance is not a 100% reliable method of determining age or quality of the tea, but it should probably smell like something.

Since you brought up aroma, I'm going to recommend the place I've been getting my loose assam teas from.

-- they have a hinky domain name, and *another hinky domain name for their customer service email, and the website layout is confusing - but the teas are tasted and graded according to aroma, appearance, body, and briskness, and have a picture of the tea itself alongside a picture of a white ceramic cup of brewed tea.

I really appreciated that, because it gave me some idea what i was supposed to expect from the tea, which allowed me to get a few different types and figure out what qualities i really like - instead of just shooting in the dark and hoping for a good cuppa.

They don't sell samplers, but they do sell 1oz samples of every tea they sell, most of the sample bags are $1 or $2, so it's not expensive to try a bunch of different types. Aside from about three different assam estates, they sell some darjeeling oolongs and some surprisingly expensive 'silver needle' type white teas.

Shipping costs are average - not really low, not really high. Customer service is exceptional.

I've got some of their samples, and it appears that an actual human being measured an ounce out of a chest, poured it into a foil bag, and scribbled the variety name on the label. The samples obviously haven't been sitting on the shelf.

I can personally vouch for the 'cream of assam' SFTGFOP - it's excellent. The 'morning glory' is a pretty alright breakfast tea, the 'golden golaghat' is a better breakfast tea - but it turns out i don't really like breakfast teas.

The 'Kama Black' is very interesting. Broad leaf, second flush, late summer harvest iirc. Rolled and fully fermented. Tastes like a very malty and somewhat fruity (tannic?) oolong, but it's best brewed at 212f for 5 minutes or even slightly longer - it doesn't seem to ever get bitter. And it's very reasonably priced. I plan to blend it with the breakfast teas I've got to give them some more flavor and body.

They sent me a free sample of their 'black florets' as well - which is basically a knot of oolong. Very fruity, steeped it three times. Good, but, I'm not really an oolong guy. And it's $97/lb.

A friend of mine ordered some of their darjeeling oolong, and likes it, but i haven't personally tried it.

I don't usually shill for any vendor, but the quality of service i got from these guys when i had an unexpected brewing experience was exceptionally responsive, and i felt they deserved a plug.

Start with decent examples (Upton, Specialteas, your local Chinese/Indian markets) of Ti Kuan Yin (oolong), Sencha (Japanese green), Keemun (Chinese Red/Black), Yunnan (Chinese Red/Black on the other side of the Red spectrum from Keemun), Darjeeling (Indian, Margaret's Hope 2nd Flushes are nice and not too price), and Longjing/Lung Ching (Chinese green). Throw in a Ceylon (which will remind you of commercial teas somewhat). The famous teas are famous for a reason and generally are a reasonable place to get started. Longjing's vary, but the more expensive and smaller can of Goldfish brand from the Chinese market is very close to the better grades from Specialteas both in price and quality. Get about 2 to 4 ounces of each of these (if you can't afford them all at once, start with Keemun, Longjing, and Ti Kuan Yin, and an Indian black (Darjeeling, Sikkim, Nilgiri). You want to eventually see how the Japanese greens differ from the Chinese greens; how the various oolongs compare (Tung Ting makes a nice second oolong); how the various reds (what are called blacks in the West) compare.

For Pu'ers, try one of the White Crane tuochas if you've got access to a Chinese market since they're cheap enough, but otherwise, I wouldn't recommend necessarily starting with them.

After you get a feel for the basic example teas, try higher grades of them and then try other teas like them.

The basic rule of thumb is the greener the wet leaves are after you've brewed tea, the cooler the water should be. The darker the spent tea, the hotter the temp you can use for brewing. A couple of red teas (Gold Tip Yunnan) seem to do better if the water is slightly off the boil.

An older Chinese acquaintence says that she drinks greens in the summer and reds in the winter. The reds and pu'ers seemed to have been developed to allow tea to be shipped long distances (and tea caravans might take over a year to arrive at their destinations); the greens (and whites) were what people drank up in a year or less from locally grown tea.

The tea FAQ is here:

TeaHomeUS:

has good tea. They also sell sample amounts of tea. I like their Jasmine, Osmanthus, and Aa Li Shan tea.

Since Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Prince of Wales, etc., all depend on the base tea(s) and any flavorings, I would prefer that you start with the basics.

For example: Earl Grey is usually made of (1) China black w/ bergamot, (2) Ceylon w/ bergamot, (3) a blend of several teas w/ bergamot, etc. The only ingredient reliably in common is the oil of bergamot and the amount of that may vary widely.

I've only had English Breakfast made of Ceylon, but adagio.com describes theirs as Keemun.

The classic Irish Breakfast is a blend of Assams, but I recently saw it as Assam w/ Ceylon.

Twinings makes Prince of Wales with Keemun and oolong/wu long while another lists Assam, Lucky Dragon (a hyson), and gunpowder w/ larkspur. The only common ingredient that I've found amongst the Prince of Wales that I've seen has been black currant.

So, what am I suggesting? I'm suggesting that you first acquaint yourself with the basic teas because by doing so, you'll have a better idea of which grades and estates to explore and what blends to pursue.

For black teas: Assam, Ceylon, China black/China Congou/red tea, Darjeeling dubbed "the champagne of tea," Keemun dubbed "the burgundy of tea," Kenya, Lapsang Souchong, Nilgiri, and Yunnan.

For oolong/wu long: Pouchong, Tie Guan Yin/Ti Kuan Yin/Iron Goddess of Mercy, Tung Ting. (I'm extremely weak in this area so others will have to provide more.)

For Chinese greens: Chun Mee/Precious Eyebrows, gunpowder - there are various gunpowders (FWIW, black tea also comes as gunpowder), Hyson, Lung Ching/Long Jing/Dragon's Well/Dragonwell dubbed "the cream of tea," Pi Lo Chun/Green Snail Spring.

For Japanese greens: Bancha, Genmaicha (sencha w/ puffed rice), Sencha. (Another area in which I'm weak.)

For white teas: Pai Mu Tan/Bai Mu Dan/White Peony, Mutan, Shou Mei/Sowmee, Snow Buds, Yin Zhen/Yin Chen/Silver Needles/Peony White Needles.

Then, there's pu-erh .

And, the jasmines.

And, the flavored teas as well as the blends.

And, chai.

How about tisanes? Chamomile, honeybush, lapacho/pao d'archo, lemon grass, lemon verbena, peppermint, rooibos, spearmint, yerba mate, and all those fruit teas?

Different strokes for different folks. I suggest that you start at the standard starting point for each type of tea, work up/down/more/less from there, and discover what suits you the best. After all, they're your taste buds and it's your money that you're spending on tea. When it's his tea, he may, and most certainly will, do as he likes, but you don't need to conform to anybody's preference but your own.

I hope what I listed above helps.

Knowledge deepens enjoyment and that's part of the fun of it.

I suggest that you get a notebook or a small journal in which to record your journey. There are so many teas from so many retailers.

You're welcome.

:D

Yes, the aroma of dry tea leaves is wonderful, IMO.

These appear to be all Formosa/Taiwanese teas. If someone is trying to learn about teas, a more general beginning might be more useful, with trials of teas from various major tea growing areas -- not just China or Formosa or India, as good as all of them can be.

If someone is trying to learn what basic teas taste like, scented teas aren't particularly useful.

My sister gave me a yuppie company's white tea with persimmon. It's not going to teach anyone anything about white teas as the persimmon overwhelms the tea (white tea probably isn't going to work with any scents given its fragility but the company probably put the persimmon in to keep people from complaining about how the tea was stale because it didn't have much taste or odor).

White teas can be very nice, but they aren't even in there with green teas on being something close to a familiar tea for most Western tea drinkers, and they're fairly subtle.

Are you the science fiction writer?

You want me to ignore this question, lie, or stop using the other name?

Thanks for the info and additional site! I bought the tea at Dobra Tea House - Vermont, not Prague.

Thank you all for being so generous with your advice and suggestions!!

This grouped "thank you" isn't lack of interest in individual thanks, but based in not wanting to bore you all to tears, and fear that those with a dial-up connection would really be cursing!

I've copied and printed your posts, and am going from catalog to website, pulling together my order lists. The UPS driver will be thrilled that all these packages shouldn't weigh too much!!

And thanks, Bluesea, for the journal suggestion - at some point that would have dawned on me, but now I can do it from the beginning, rather than wishing I had done so.

Again, thank you all!!

Resa

You're welcome. I wish I had started mine from the get-go .

Something that I was thinking about after I got off last night -

If you sample a tea, fiddling around with amount/time/temp, and decide that it's "okay" but not something you'd repurchase, I suggest that you get other samples from different prices/grades/estates/etc. because the slight change might move you from a "been-there, done-that " to a "must reorder!"