u/mecolema

Even when I’m gentle, I often break the leaves into dust when preparing puer. This causes problems, because the tea gets bitter too quickly when steeping in my gaiwan. Is there a better way to do this? I suppose I could just buy “loose” puer to avoid the problem.

I was reading a tea book today (“The Story of Tea”) and the authors claimed that shou puerh was a more approachable tea while sheng was more interesting and adventurous but also an acquired taste. Is that really true? I’ve had both shou and sheng puerh and I personally feel that some of the most adventurous flavors (like wet cave, mold, etc.) come from the shou puerh.

The authors seemed to be skeptical of shou and implied that sheng was the choice of “serious” tea drinkers. I do understand that sheng is more traditional while shou is a very recent invention, so “purists” presumably lean toward the former category.

I’ve been told that Louis Armstrong’s January 16, 1959 performance of Tiger Rag in Sweden is great. Does anyone know where I can find a full recording? Allegedly it’s in “Louis Armstrong in Scandinavia Volume 4,” but that album isn’t available on Apple Music or other places I’ve looked.

When I was little, my dad brought back some hojicha from Japan. It was and remains the best hojicha I’ve ever had, but I can’t find anything like it these days. What I remember most is that it had whole leaves (or at least, very large pieces of leaf) that were flat. Most hojicha I find today is low-grade twig tea, or at best it’s leaves that are very broken. Any idea what kind of hojicha I might have had, or where I can find some again?