Oh shit I completely fucking forgot about matcha. Matcha is the shit you guys. I got a fancy-ass bowl to make it in and everything. And, yes, it tastes good in latte form, which is usually the enemy of green tea but I guess because it's powdered it's fine?
Matcha also mixes into batters and frostings really well. Green tea cake turns out to be pretty delicious! 8)
This is my go-to place for fancy tea (pinging @witchknights because hey here's a nice option if you're ever in Porto Alegre). They're actually a Spanish chain shop which for some reason has only ONE shop outside of Europe and for some dumb reason it's in my town! My favorite is Earl Grey Crème, which is Earl Grey with a sweet vanilla-y milk scent and smells like pure happiness and tastes like amazing deliciousness and I drink SO MUCH OF IT, ALL THE TIME. I also love Twinings Earl Grey and Lady Grey, and their delicious Lemon and Ginger tea. Celestial Seasonings is also pretty good (my fave being Sleepytime)
i think a lot of stuff that goes on with food and drinks can be explained by "who the fuck knows, really". I wanna try making a super easy matcha ice cream recipe i saw a while ago because i really liked the stuff i got.
@Mercury Wise words B) Not exactly on topic, but @a tiny mushroom (who also adores tea) introduced me to Ochikeron's youtube channel. If you search it for 'green tea' she's got a bunch of simple and tasty matcha-related ingredients.
@wixbloom i'll be in Porto Alegre mid-september for my moms birthday and i am so forcing her to take me there.
@witchknights Do, it's fucking paradise in that place. The salespeople are always really nice and know A TON about tea and can nerd out on it for hours, and not only does it have a tantalizing amount of options, the store is also pretty enough to belong in a Ghibli movie.
Twinings Lady Grey is surprisingly good for bagged stuff of that price. Also I am super jealous about this store and people being near it because that sounds awesome. ALL I HAVE IS MY MISERY AND MY GENMAICHA.
Okay I have a wild rose in my back yard that is covered in rose hips. Someone needs to suggest to me other tea ingredients to try with it. (yeah, I know they can be used by themselves but I want to try out different things and experiment). (Alternatively, suggest things to add to my future tea garden.)
Rose hip and mint are stuff I like together! Also lemon balm or lemongrass with pretty much anything. Marigold can be pretty good, though mostly as an accent. I also had some strawberry and thyme tea in Russia that I liked way more than expected: I think thyme definitely needs to be paired with something, though.
Rose hips and hibiscus. Or rose hips, hibiscus, and mint. (I will always fondly remember a hibiscus and mint drink I tried one summer... so good.)
Lavender to! Either for lavender syrup or tea. Also look into different varieties of it, I found out the hard way that French Lavender is too delicate and fussy for Swamp but the Mediterranean stuff does just dandy.
Not sure if it'll be the same, but http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/blend.html?blend=89631 (one of the things I like about Adagio is that someone will have usually tried to clone something delicious they found elsewhere)
Looking at it, it seems like it'll work! (I keep going through them and seeing so many good teas, argh! I wanna buy them all.)
Don't think the Mediterranean stuff will do good in my area (USDA zone 5b, snow and winter temps easily drop into the negatives for several days). I'm going to try the English strain and cross my fingers.
thanks! I might try the coldbrew thing with the coffee my parents usually buy since it's fine in a normal coffee machine but it turns out way acidic and gross in the french press and when I'm alone I don't need ten cups of coffee a day lol. Since I do like me some good iced coffee I do think this might be up my alley! we have a citrus thyme on the balcony that tastes just fine without anything but a bit of honey to taste, but I guess I also like a good strong thyme note and the lemon-y accent is just a plus arghs I am so frustrated that I cannot buy a lot of commercial fruit teas because roiboos makes my entire mouth itchy :( I ahve to double check all the teas I wanna buy because its in a lot of reddish colored teablends and blegh. That said I really like turkish apple tea :3 do you guys mix blends at home? I kinda maybe wanna try some ideas I have for a nice rich christmas-y apple tea, but I'm not sure on how to go about the finetuning part. should I go and make bags with different mixes and see which measurements I like best? idk I've never done this before OuO"
It'd say experiment with single batch loose leaf first while keeping notes and then you can bag it in larger quantities when you get the ratios to taste right (that's what I'm gonna do anyway!)
Coldbrew coffee is pretty simple to make! You get your ground coffee, put it in room-temperature water, and let it steep for a long period of time, usually at least 24 hours. You can keep it chilled or at room temperature, it'll be ready a bit sooner if you keep it at room temperature but then you'll have to chill it before drinking it. Strain out the grounds when the coffee is as strong as you'd like, and you're done! It makes a more concentrated, less-acidic coffee and can sometimes bring out different notes from the beans than hot-brewing methods do. Edit: Whoops, someone already covered this! How did I miss that? Well anyways there's my two cents all the same. I'm familiar with that use of the word but in my experience that's a really outdated use of 'infusion', which has expanded through usage. I've only met a few people who use the 'must be boiling' definition, most of which were age 40+ chefs and one of which was a chemist. At this point, again in my experience, 'infusion' is generally used when the results are liquid (such as 'infused alchohol') whereas maceration is used when the results are solid ('macerated strawberries'). Ah, language. Such a lovely mess.
I learned this shit for an alchemy character so it's not very surprising I am basically playing language police 100 years late but it annoys me so badly, like if i was more confident in the tisms-self-dx I'd say sperg-rage. I am trying very hard to not be a dick about there being two types of infusion with technically different names because idk if the difference exists in english and what the correct translation is but there is difference between pouring boiling water over something (Infus) and bringing water + thing to a boil (Dekokt) and I'll shut up now and play with my alchemy chest :P I wonder how chocolate mint coffee tastes. like with cocoa and mint being in the coldbrew. i hope it tastes like after eight and not like balls but I'm scared to try lol
