Why did you make the jump to loose leaf tea?

When I receive one set of teaware from a Chinese friend and she show me the process of brewing a cup of tea. It really interesting.

Needed to drop the soda, started with tea bags, then found a package of Matcha Genmaicha at the asian market and tried it. So.. hooked!

Started off with bagged tea and read somewhere that bagged tea is just ‘shavings’ not the full leaf. And a family friend got me into it.

I grew up before teabags were invented. When they hit the market mother reckoned it was factory sweepings in them. I moved from cut leaf Ceylon tea to Twinings Keemun, Lapsang Souchong and Oolong in 1969. then in 1975 started buying off the shelf in Chinese supermarkets. Only just starting to really explore better teas now.

Growing up, my family drank Lipton iced (still do). I hated the taste. As a teen I discovered Bigelow Constant Comment and Earl Grey. Became addicted. Later, as an adult, I added Twinnings, Ahmad, and Stash to my growing collection. I had tea stuffed everywhere – almost all in bags. The few exceptions were some Twinings blends and Ahmad Green Tea with Earl Grey. I used a smallish tea ball and it was a hassle. Bags were just easier.

By this time in my life I discovered this amazing thing called the internet. Started looking for more options for bagged tea. Found Steepster. Became very frustrated at all this talk about loose leaf, and the lack of discussion (and respect) for bags – they had brought me this far – much further than any one else I personally knew at the time.

One day TeaVivre came to Steepster and offered a bunch of loose leaf samples. Why yes please. I was blown away. I thought I had tea problems before. They just got multiplied ten-fold. The depth and variety of taste that I experienced could not be found in a bag. Then there was the visual side – there is nothing exciting about watching bagged tea. Loose leaf is often amazing visually – The color, the shapes, the beautiful dance of the leaf.

This was followed by the temporary need to buy tea gadgets. That didn’t last long. I quickly settled on a favorite vessel for steeping (a French Press) and have not felt much need for change. I have a table full of options if I ever change my mind.

I have recently made efforts towards bring my addiction under control by letting the massive stash dwindle down. Then I hope to just stock a few move me at the moment – yeah, I know, good luck with that.

You are are a few steps further down the path than me then

I was a coffee drinker who walked into a Dobra tea shop on a whim one winter afternoon because it looked warm and inviting. The aesthetic and mood of the place seem to jive with me immediately, and the Librarian in me was in awe of the large wall of wooden drawers full of tea behind the counter that reminded me of card catalogs. I’d been exposed to some tea (black and green) in bags over the years, and was aware of the some aspects of tea philosophy / tradition through my involvement with Chinese martial arts, but I’d never taken the plunge into loose leaf.

I ordered some green ( I actually don’t remember which one! Maybe long jing or iiu an gua pian?) and they brought it over and briefly explained how to prepare it. I was instantly blown away by the experience. It was like I had discovered something entirely new, and was now home.

I kinda liken the experience to when I first heard music I’d loved and listed to for years through good headphones or properly setup quality hifi audio-equipment…..like whole new worlds were opened up. Sounds I never even knew existed, instruments jumped out clear and rich, but melded with the whole just the same.

The rest is history :)

I cannot remember how it is that we started to get into tea, but I do remember is that my sister (who used to be the one to prepare the tea before I took over this year) would use the teaball. One day she later read somewhere that tea was better loose leave, and so we started doing that~. In addition, she got lazy to use the teaball, so it relieved her out of that arduous job.

I used to drink a lot of coffee, then I think Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht mentioned Adagio tea on Diggnation one time. Or Adagio sponsored an episode… I forget. But Adagio was my first entry into loose-leaf tea. I tried a lot of them and enjoyed them, and kept going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. Fast-forward many years, and now my wife and I own an online tea shop!

My parents took a trip to Britain when I was in high school in tho 90s and were turned onto loose Typhoo and brought some back with a Brown Betty teapot. This was the beginning. Shortly after my mom sent for a catalog for a tea company in a gourmet magazine. There was no looking back from there.