Newbie: I love tea but do not know where to start with ordering

I drink alot of tea and want to order some good tea but am overwhelmed by the choices. I am looking a Upton Tea's catalog and see hundreds of teas to choose. I really like Irish Breakfast tea and want to try a fine version of it. Should I just get an expensive Assam? Is there a Chinese equivalent? Are the Ceylons and Darjeelings going to be considerably different? I want to try a Darjeeling sampler but just wondered if anyone had suggestions. I am afraid to order a really expensive one and not like it. Like the pu-erhs that I have tried (too musky). Or am I pretty safe to go by price and see what appeals. Any tips on where to start. Is there a different catalog that has better or cheaper choices. I drink green and oolong but I want to start with the darker because there are so many different oolongs in so many different styles (I have had ones that were mostly green and others that tasted like a cup of Lipton). On the other hand I am looking for a green recommendation if someone has a good one. I am in San Diego and by chance would appreciate any brick and mortar places to try also. Any recommendations welcomed. Thank you! Allen

Specail teas .com may be better for first tries because they have smaller but high quality selection. Buy samples. Expensive assams can be really great. I don't like irish breakfast myself, though. Keemun and Yunnan are great first tries. Some good Oolong is well worth a try. Greens and whites have some very good choices, too.. I'm not a big fan of ceylon teas but some expensive ceylons are great.

Try searching alltheweb.com for 'we review teas'. They review teas. :-).

HTH,

- Andrei

Dear Allen:

Welcome to rec.food.drink.tea. You are in the right place for new suggestion. I agree with Andrie suggestion-start with Yunnan and Keemun. I want to add if price is not a matter then go for Uptontea's China Yunnan Imperial(ZY86) and China Keemun Mao Feng(ZK98). About Darjeeing you can try Upton's Makaibari FTGFOP1 first flush(TD42). I prefer not to drink 2nd flush because Darjeeling is a delicate tea with flowery notes. So lighter 1st flush taste better. For Assam 2nd flush better because more strong. I am not a big Assam tea fan because i drink fresh bangladesh CTC black tea which is same as Assam.

About green tea ,I also agree with Debbie- try another company name-www.imperialtea.com. Aga> > I drink alot of tea and want to order some good tea but am overwhelmed

Imperial Tea Court (aka imperialtea.com) is a good source of teas--if you have a bottomless pocket book. However, I am inclined to think that it is too expensive and too narrowly-focused for a Newbie. Any tea inexpensive enough for a newbie on that site could probably be found cheaper elswhere. Also, it specializes in Chinese teas, where a newbie needs a wide selection of teas of all types from all sorts of places. Specialteas.com or uptontea.com would probably be better (the former especially for greens, the latter more towards blacks, though I hear their Lu An Melon Seeds China green is good this year).

A little bit more expensive, but

might also be good. Their website is a mite primitive, but their tea is usually good, and they have a wide selection. Their "mihon can" is an amazingly good container, and the second-smallest is perfect for 1oz of tea. Storage of tea samples is important, especially to a newbie, for whom the .5-1oz samples might last a long time. Do not buy the dirt-cheap grades (the really cheap dragonwell I got from them was hideous), but a Newbie needn't waste money on very-rare teas they haven't yet gotten a taste for. Find a lower-middle path at first, and take a slow, easy course up from there.

Look at

(We Reveiw teas), especially the "Newbie Help" section. It has much advice I wish I had had.

Get a variety of teas. Don't assume you'll like black because you've drunk it all your life. Get at least two greens (both Chinese and Japanese), and don't forget Oolongs--Try a Ti Kwan Yin (Chinese) and a Formosa Jade (Taiwan). Upton also sells lots of highly fermented "formosa Oolongs" which might be good, but don't buy anything less than "fancy" (forget Holy Mountain's Oolong "choice", too). A white wouldn't hurt, and various blacks (covering the basics).

Oh, I ought to warn you--don't get any of Upton's sampler sets. The tins are loose-lidded and worthless, and the sets often feature atypical teas for that category (a first-flush Darjeeling that tastes like a second-flush?!).

Specialteas's samplers might be better, but I am inclined against sampler sets. Just get some samples, and read the "We Review Teas" newbie section.

Here's an interesting question: should a newbie try a pu-erh? I did, and was soon hooked. However, I am a bizzare person, and one who has spent much of his youth hanging out on a farm (and the cow pastures therewith). I don't know. Upton's $5 basic loose pu-erh is a good investment--it won't go bad, so you can try and try again, let it rest a while, and retry, until you like it or forget about it. Another idea is to buy 1/4 a cake of aged pu-erh cake off

(Fun Alliance *will* sell you 1/4 a cake, unusually among vendors). That's about $7.8, but it's better pu-erh, and maybe more conducive to the inexperienced. All prices on that site include shipping from Hong Kong, so it'll take a while. Just three more weeks of age on that little cake.

Many, many happy infusions to you,

ZBL

Thanks so much for your suggestions...I'll let you know how it goes! Allen