u/Gaidax

Local vendor imported \"premium\" Alishan GABA, Western style 330ml, 95c, 2:30m second steep.

I recently posted impressions of DTH "Nonpareil" Alishan GABA: DTH "Nonpareil" Alishan GABA impressions : r/tea and I have now opportunity to try out another Alishan GABA tea product from another local vendor that imports from TW.

And I have to say, VERY disappointing, especially because this local vendor has the gall to ask MORE for it than the other one. Guess the word "premium" they put there was worth the markup.

No need to be expert here - broken leaves, no buds or buds+leaves to be seen, smaller leaves, higher oxidation clearly.

The taste for the second steep (Western 330ml, 2:30m, 95c) is passable at most, not the worst GABA I had, but definitely nowhere near the previous I tried. It seems harsher, but at least it's not sour like I had with the worst GABA I ever drank.

So yeah, example of poor quality tea right here. Not everything "Alishan" is anywhere close to good, I guess.

Dong Nan Mei Ren - second steep, 5g, 90c, 3:30m, Western style 330ml

New tea I just got from local store, imported from Vietnam.

Dong Nan Mei Ren - a Vietnam version of Eastern Beauty. Local store price is 31 USD/50g, I do not know their markup, but I bet it's at least 2x of the original.

Right off the bat opening the packet, and putting it into preheated teapot you get hit by a strong flower smell (feels close to roses), citrus - berries.

First steep at 90c, Western style 330ml felt pretty strong and quite sweet already, maybe I'll drop to 85c next test.

Second steep, 90c, definitely some citrus notes in there, sweet feeling tea. Two minutes or so after you take a few sips, the sweetness seems to return in your mouth.

The leaves themselves are very small, probably 1/3 size of what I'd see in typical Taiwan oolongs. They are not broken, full leaves, but small. I do not know if it's good or bad for this kind of tea.

Hello. I am trying to understand how to brew typical Oolongs Western style.

I prefer to work while sipping on tea, and I can't really make proper tea sessions at work, but I can reheat water kettle and do multiple steeps using a teapot that has free floating leaves in it.

Oolongs I usually drink are high grade, expensive but still commodity ones (think $300/kg for the "workhorse" teas or $300/200g for an occasional treat Oriental Beauty one) from CN/TW online shops.

Example of what I do:

330ml, teapot with free floating leaves, full drain between steeps, 3-4 steeps.

• Da Hong Pao - 4.5g, 100c, rinse 5s, 2:00 -> 3:00 -> 4:30 -> 5:30
• Alishan GABA - 5g, 100c, rinse 20s, 2:00 -> 2:30 -> 3:30 -> 5:00
• Dong Ding - 5g, 95c, rinse 5s, 2:30 -> 3:30 -> 5:00
• Oriental Beauty - 4g, 85c, no rinse, 2:30 -> 3:30 -> 5:00

My concern is that I might be oversteeping and not even realizing it. It's difficult to find Western style recipes, because everyone and their mothers brews Gongfu.

3rd steep, Western Style 330ml/7g.

The package label.

I am a tea novice and I'm only learning. I was looking for GABA tea and I tried a few options, this is the first one of those I got from the CN reseller.

I went for Dragon Tea House, due to colleague recommendation, I understand it's an economy reseller in China, nothing special.

I tried a few options for Western brewing at 330ml with 4.5g, 9g and 7g. For 4 steeps. IMO at 7g, 3rd steep (2:30) is the best balanced cup out of all I tried and that's what's in the picture.

It's definitely having sweetness to it, but it took 3 steeps to actually get hit with it. 2nd steep was a bit too strong (2:00 at 4.5g/9g/7g trials) and not as sweet, but 3rd one really hit it.

Looking at that cup and leaves, what are your thoughts? IMHO, it did deliver what's claimed on the label, but it is $250/1kg so I don't know if I've overpaid there or it's a decent deal? They don't really specify anything about cultivar or actual source, so it has me wondering what is it and how good the deal actually was?

Thoughts?

I have LG's 39GX950B for almost a week now, and it was a non-stop struggle for me trying to get its color saturation "right".

I tried many various combination of monitor/driver/calibration settings, icc profiles, ColorControl, Nvidia Control Panel, what not and I simply could not land anything satisfactory as far as colors went. I even tried that all with LG's AI Scene Optimization on, out of sheer desperation.

That is until I watched Monitors Unboxed review of this monitor and the reviewer dropped a golden tip there: try out Personalized Picture mode!

And I have to say - that mode actually gave me the closest to great result so far, to the point I just will keep running that and not look back.

It has a trade off of turning off LG's DAS mode, which supposed to give you ultra-low latency, but it just does not seem to matter any, or at least anything perceptible for me - well worth finally having good color saturation.

Now, of course such things are personal taste, but IMO - Personalized Picture mode + (optionally) Black Stabilizer at 45 instead of 50 is the play.