Too Much Coffee

Can anyone recommend a great book (or books) on tea? I particularly need lots of info about the growing, processing and preparation of China teas.

Thanks!

Hmmmmm, looks like we have a troll on board!

"The Way of Tea" by Master Lam Kam Chuen.

Please, don't hit me,but I love tea as well.
Not as much as coffee of course.

I think if we really could be honest most people (aside from Dom, who has some kind of problem) here would have to admit that they like good tea, too. People who are willing to go to near-lunatic efforts to make anything, like coffee, tend to value good food and other good drinks, including tea. I generally drink my first cup of coffee when I get up and then drink tea with breakfast. Personally, however, tea made from bags is on the level of inst*nt coffee.

bruceb wrote:I think if we really could be honest most people (aside from Dom, who has some kind of problem) here would have to admit that they like good tea, too. People who are willing to go to near-lunatic efforts to make anything, like coffee, tend to value good food and other good drinks, including tea. I generally drink my first cup of coffee when I get up and then drink tea with breakfast. Personally, however, tea made from bags is on the level of inst*nt coffee.

I normally find that I am in full agreement with your posts Bruce (oddly this is especially the case when you are disagreeing with an earlier post of mine ) but I have to say this is an exception. I do agree with the general sentiment but take great exception to some of the comments as follows:

"People who are willing to go to near-lunatic efforts to make anything, like coffee…"

I can not believe that you said that. Near-lunatic…. NEAR-LUNATIC…. I find it insulting that anyone would suggest that I would go to near-lunatic efforts to make my coffee. There is absolutely, positively, definitely nothing near about it.


"…tea made from bags is on the level of inst*nt coffee."

Who drinks tea made from bags?:? I thought it was made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant.

I've often thought that it's funny how I go to great lengths to drink only coffee from the highest eschelons of quality, but am totally content, and thoroughly enjoy, drinking a cup of Tetley tea from a teabag.

I guess it's the way that this method of preparation is so ingrained in just about every Briton's upbringing that there's something comforting about it. Must be a similar thing with moka pot high robusta coffee in mainland Europe. I totally appreciate fine tea, I get it, and you can't beat a visit to Teasmith in Spitalfields but I still love the crap stuff.

Makes no sense to me either now I think about it!

I'm a bit like Bomb in that a teabag is fine, though there are only certain teas that I rate and I would rather have loose leaf. I think the difference between instant coffee and the real thing is greater than that between loose and bagged tea. I actually prefer tea to coffee, in part because you can get a half decent tea from most places, but only a minority serve even remotely acceptable coffee

bruceb wrote:I think if we really could be honest most people (aside from Dom, who has some kind of problem)

Just the one?
As for being near-lunatic... Mark lives quite a long way away these days

Tea... I've tried quite a few (when they are forced on me), largely loose leaf stuff and I've yet to find one I would actually enjoy drinking (there's probably about 20 different types here in the house at the moment), it just doesn't seem to agree with my palate. I don't like it when people talk in definitive terms about not liking something (like all the people who "hate coffee because it tastes bitter and they would know because they have tried the really good stuff, like Nescafé Costa Fortune"), so I'll keep on trying it when people want to convince me... but given the choice, I avoid it like the plague As for the herbal stuff, might as well drink warm ribena

I like warm Ribena

^ +1