How was 2018 for you?
Hi everyone! I haven’t posted on here in ages. I’ve been mostly buying my favs and drinking them down. For my spring buying frenzy of green teas, I ordered too much in 2018. My plan was to vacuum seal half of them in bags and refrigerate them. When I got around to opening them they just didn’t taste as good. I think I am better off buying in smaller quantities and just storing them as I normally do. For 2018 my tastes took a swing more for Japanese green teas and my taste buds suddenly was not happy with my old favs: Laoshan green or Nanjing Yu Hua Cha. My black teas expanded compared to what I had in 2017 and I tried out some new ones that I was happy with. Pu’erh was hardly on my list last year. I do enjoy sheng but I like a young sheng with strong apricot and creamy notes and wasn’t sure what to order. For me sample sizes of Pu-erh work best instead of a whole cake since I prefer it young. How did your tastes change in 2018?
Hey Ubacat! Welcome back! I’ve been wondering where all the long time Steepsterers have been. I guess my tea tastes have never really changed yet, though I’ve been drinking tea for about 15 years. I guess I just like what I like. But I’m very sad to hear your tastes have changed on the amazing Laoshan. That must be my favorite green.
Hi Tea-sipper! I am a bit sad about Laoshan green too. At first I thought it was the tea but I got both Verdant & YS and felt the same about both. I think Japanese kamairicha’s ruined me for the Chinese greens. I always seem to have a favourite for the year and all the kamairicha’s were the winners. It seems my taste buds are always changing so who knows what’s in store for 2019?
I’ve never tried kamairicha and I better not as I don’t want to lose my love for Laoshan! It could just be the harvests weren’t as good for Laoshan this year (I don’t think I had any from 2018- only the older harvests I’ve been drinking) So you’ll have to sample the Laoshan next year. :D
I highly recommend kamairicha as well. It’s Japanese green tea produced in the Chinese manner and IMO gives you the best of both worlds. The taste is similar in some ways to Laoshan tea…fruity and nutty, but not as heavy on the soybean notes.
I love both Chinese and Japanese green teas! To me, they are completely different animals and I like the variety. ❤
As for me, I just came back around to tea a few months ago, so it’s hard to say how my tastes have changed! I am slowly starting to appreciate straight teas more again, especially green oolong.
I’m hoping to drink more unflavored teas as time goes on.
Welcome back to Steepster! I had a similar experience last year with Laoshan tea. I ordered too much and thought I could get away with keeping them in cold storage but 7 months later, they don’t taste as fresh anymore. Green tea really is a lot like fresh produce, it has a short shelf life and best enjoyed near its harvest date. Incidentally, I appreciate how Japanese vendors package their green teas so they stay fresh no matter what time of the year you buy them.
I still like Laoshan tea though but I’m done with all of the experimental batches and other variants Verdant produces. I wasn’t impressed by any of them this year. Ditto for first flushes. I’ll just be buying smaller quantities of regular Laoshan tea from here on out.
Last year I finally started to get tired of green oolongs. I had a couple of excellent roasted Taiwanese oolongs that have led me explore the darker end of the oolong spectrum. Still like those nuclear greens, but don’t crave them as much anymore.
I’ve green tea samples of the past 7 years. Every year I keep a sample of the green tea I source. I keep them, so that I can compare the teas with the previous years. The oldest ones still look impressively green. When it’s stored completely sealed from the beginning in the freezer, green tea can last very very long. It has to be in the freezer though, not in the fridge.
That’s really interesting to know. I never thought to freeze green tea. I keep mine in the fridge at a spot just a few degrees above freezing point as I’ve heard this is how reputable Asian vendors keep their green tea fresh. Will try to freeze a small amount next time and see how that goes.
Hi LuckyMe! So you you didn’t have a good result with the refrigeration either. I thought it was the bags I stored them in. They appear silver but are a bit see through so some light was getting in. I have a glass door on the wine refrigerator too so that allowed more light in. However, if it didn’t work well for you either then I guess there’s not much use in trying it next year.
Hi Teasenz! I’ve heard of putting them in the freezer but thought the fridge was safer. I’ll give the freezer a try on a small amount next year.
Ubacat, I wouldn’t say refrigeration is useless but there’s a limit to how long green teas will remain fresh in there. 7 months in cold storage was probably too long. My green teas spend about 2-4 months in fridge on average and usually do fine.
Some do better in the fridge than others. Kamairicha for one seems to age rather nicely.
Hi everyone, I’m new around here. 2018 was the start of me drinking a cup of black tea (or coffee!) with milk daily. 2019 seems to now be my year of ordering way too much tea to try lol I was about to start a spreadsheet to keep track of my least and most favorite tea but then thought to look for a website to do it for me and found Steepster.
This year I want to learn to enjoy tea straight instead of always going for the milk first thing :)
You’re making me crave some new tea, especially mentioning apricot and cream flavors.
I do use an Excel spreadsheet. I found it better than Steepster. Over time some of my reviews would disappear and other reviews I just couldn’t find in Steepster. Now I have a column in Excel to leave a simple few words review so I know if I need to buy it again. When I finish the teas I move them to a different sheet within the same file and hi-light the ones I want to order again.
I got very out of the habit of drinking tea in 2018, and definitely out of the habit of checking Steepster. I’m glad I at least stopped buying stupid amounts of tea (not that I completely avoided tea-buying lol) but 2019 is my year to start drinking. up. my. stash. Hopefully. :)
I am also new around here, but 2018 was very good for me in terms of appreciation of tea. I started to explore sheng pu erhs more and started trying small vessels and even shorter steepings than I had before. I really liked it, to the point where it made sense to get some smaller brewing vessels. And to try more types of tea that way!
I also finally took the time to visit Red Blossom Tea Company (I live in San Francisco; it should have not taken this long) and found some really fantastic oolongs. I am planning to explore more roasted and aged oolongs, as the ones I have gotten have been fantastic.
Expensive.
I went from spending $50 per year to <$500 in three months starting in October.
But it was all worth it; I’ve discovered so many wonderful teas and learned so much. Plus, now I’m set for at least the next six months. :)
I had 165 teas in my cabinet in 2015. I enjoyed trying lots of different teas then but it was just too stressful with that many teas. Now I found my optimum number is 30-60 teas even though early spring I will probably go a lot lower than 30 as I finish up most of my greens.
@Ubacat wow! I can’t even imagine being in the 100s. I am probably around 40 or so, and even that is a bit overwhelming – but it’s nice to have a variety. I’m away on holiday right now and I thought 7 would be enough for me, but alas… I had to find a couple more. Plus I have a YS shipment awaiting me at my next stop, so that will be nice.
Good to see you, Ubacat!
The past two years I had completely lost my mind with tea purchases, so 2018 was a year that I forced myself to keep further massive purchases at bay. That said, I went well over the top more than once.
For the past two years, I have been both tracking tea purchases and tea consumption as well as reviewing, so this is new. The purchases massively overwhelm consumption, so adjustments need to be made there.
Mostly my tea thing in 2018 was black and, mostly green, oolong, both flavoured and straight, with a few months of lapsing into green, again both flavoured and straight. Now I am back to mostly black, but the past few days, I have been sipping only white, both flavoured and straight.
I only switched from coffee to tea in 2015, so I am relatively new to exploration and honing my tastes, but I am seeing a remarkable difference already.
Hi Evol Ving Ness! Nice to see you too. I love hearing about how everyone’s journey is evolving (that pun just slipped out). I am also surprised with myself. Just when I think I’ve got my favourite teas pegged down, I feel different when I try the new spring teas.
I keep an Excel report of all my tea purchases even going so far as to do random counts throughout the year and making notes of how much I drink (in grams a day). From there I calculate how much I can drink in a month and figure out if I have too much or too little tea. LOL
@BrewWhatThouWilt, the tea acquisition instinct is hard to curb. I have more tea than I can shake a stick at and I’m still thinking about future purchases. 2018 was expensive for me too.
I can only imagine what it’s like once one has really sunk their teeth in lol. I’m already noticing the little tea purchasing mind games…
“Well… the prices are going to rise around March, so it only makes sense to make a few huge orders beforehand.”
Once those shipments come in, I’m going to TRY to lay off for a while.
Yep, the mind games never end. I’ve been trying to justify re-subscribing to the Eco-Cha tea club before their prices go up next month, even as tea spills out of my cupboard onto the floor.
Haha – I almost subscribed too, but thankfully I’m not in too deep to talk myself out of things like that yet. ;) It was very tempting though… Taiwanese oolongs were among my first great tea loves.
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