/tea/

Information and resources for tea enthusiasts, from beginners to connoisseurs.

  1. Info for Beginners
  2. Where to Buy Tea
    1. USA
    2. UK
    3. EU
    4. Canada
    5. China
    6. Hong Kong
    7. Taiwan
    8. Japan
    9. Thailand
    10. Vietnam
    11. Malaysia
    12. India
    13. Australia
    14. Buying Tea from Taobao
      1. How to Find a Specific Puer Tea on Taobao
      2. Taobao Guides and Resources
      3. Translator Plugins
      4. Official Taobao/Tmall Storefronts
      5. Other Taobao / Tmall Stores
  3. Want to Buy a Clay Teapot?
    1. Chinese
    2. Japanese
    3. Other Teaware
  4. Subscription Services
  5. FAQ
    1. Gongfu
    2. Western
    3. Japanese Tea Brewing Chart
      1. Western Style Brewing
      2. Gongfu Style Brewing
      3. "Grandpa Style" Brewing
      4. Tea Concentrate (Kazakhstan Style)
      5. Matcha
      6. Mate
  6. Blogs/YouTube
  7. Tea Books
  8. Tea Videos
  9. Credits

Info for Beginners

Where to Buy Tea

Places to avoid: Teavana (over-perfumed, expensive, poor quality), Starbucks (same issue), any place that sells lots of flavored tea that isn't French.

Visit your local tea shop!

USA

UK

EU

Canada

China

Hong Kong

Shops in HK that nobody has tried yet:

Taiwan

Japan

Thailand

Vietnam

Malaysia

India

Australia

Anon wrote a browser extension to show the price of tea in grams. It works for several popular vendors.

Buying Tea from Taobao

Taobao is a Chinese amalgamation of Amazon and eBay; most vendors don't ship internationally. Luckily, there are tons of buying agents that will act as middlemen and ship your stuff. The Taobao general on /cgl/ has info for selecting buying agents, and I will try to collect some here as people offer feedback. Buying from Taobao can save you a ton of money, but due to shipping costs and agent fees, it's best for larger orders. Look at feedback and reviews for each shop you consider buying from, as Taobao is also filled with fakes and low-quality products. For the paranoid, it is easy to buy only from the official storefronts of various tea brands, though their prices tend to be a bit higher than third-party dealers.

How to Find a Specific Puer Tea on Taobao

  1. Go to babelcarp.org, enter the English name of the tea factory, and copy the Chinese characters for the company's name.
  2. Go to www.puercn.com and enter the Chinese characters you just copied. Look for the listing of that factory's productions by year. Select the year you are interested in and find the specific tea you want. Turn off translation and copy the Chinese characters for the name of that specific tea.
  3. Enter these characters into Taobao along with the year of production if it's not part of the title.

Taobao Guides and Resources

Translator Plugins

Official Taobao/Tmall Storefronts

Other Taobao / Tmall Stores

Want to Buy a Clay Teapot?

Chinese

New Pots

Old Teapots

Japanese

Info about clay pots in the FAQ section.

Other Teaware

Subscription Services

FAQ

How to make tea

Gongfu

TEA TYPE TEMPERATURE AMOUNT (g per 100 ml) 1st INFUSION (seconds) ADD TIME PER SUBSEQUENT INFUSION (seconds)
White 85°C / 185°F 3.5 to 4 20 10
Green 80°C / 175°F 3 to 3.5 15 3
Yellow 85°C / 185°F 3.5 to 4 15 5
Oolong (strip) 99°C / 210°F 4.5 to 5 20 5
Oolong (ball) 99°C / 210°F 6 to 6.5 25 5
Black 95°C / 205°F 4 to 4.5 10-15 5
Puer (raw) 95°C / 205°F 5 10 3-5
Puer (ripe) 99°C / 210°F 5 10 5

Western

TEA TYPE TEMPERATURE AMOUNT (g per 100 ml) 1st BREW (minutes) 2nd BREW (minutes)
White 85°C / 185°F 1-2 3 6
Green 75°C / 170°F 1-2 3 6
Yellow 85°C / 185°F 1-2 3 6
Oolong 100°C / 210°F 1-2 3-4 6-8
Black 100°C / 210°F 1-1.5 3 6
Puer (raw) 90°C / 195°F 1.5 2-3 4-6
Puer (ripe) 100°C / 210°F 1.5-2 7 12

Japanese Tea Brewing Chart

GREEN TEA VARIETY TEMPERATURE BREW RATIO (g per oz/30ml) 1st INFUSION (min) 2nd INFUSION (min) 3rd+ INFUSION (min)
Light-Steamed (asamushi) 175°F (80°C) 0.6 1 ½ 0.5 1 ½
Medium Steamed (chuumushi) 175°F (80°C) 0.6 1 0.5 1 ½
Medium-Deep Steamed 175°F (80°C) 0.6 1 0.5 1 ½
Deep Steamed (fukamushi) 165°F (74°C) 0.5 0.75-1 0.5 1 ½
Kabusecha 175°F (80°C) 0.6 1 0.5 1 ½
Gyokuro 155°F (68°C) 1.0 2 0.5 1 ½
Houjicha, Genmaicha 175°F (80°C) 0.6 1 ½ 0.5 1 ½

1. Get a scale
Scales are useful for measuring amounts of tea, as their density varies widely. A rolled oolong, for example, is much denser than a silver needle tea (not to mention silver needle would be quite hard to measure with a spoon).

2. Get a kettle
A Japanese water boiler works too. Don't microwave your tea (hard to judge temperature, heats unevenly). A stovetop kettle or electric kettle are both fine; it's mostly up to preference.

3. Temperature
Different tea types require specific temperatures to bring out their best qualities and to avoid their bad ones. Green teas, for example, generally do not handle boiling water well as they will scorch. Other teas (e.g., black tea) may be too faint if you brew them too cool (besides intentional cold brewing). Raw puerh is mostly up to preference, and many start at one end of the spectrum and work their way up or down until they find what temperature the specific puerh shines at.
You don't necessarily need a thermometer, although it is helpful. You can eyeball it (roiling boil, steaming but not boiling, no steam, etc.), use a water boiler or electric kettle with built-in temperature settings, etc. However, a thermometer is useful when you're newer to tea, as you can more closely follow others' instructions and adjust to preference.

4. Timing & Quantity
Most teas become bitter with oversteeping and extremely faint when understeeped. There are two main ways of preparing tea: one is gongfu (traditional Chinese method) and the other, much more common one, is the Western way (see ISO3103).

Western Style Brewing

  1. Heat water in a pot or kettle.
  2. Add some hot water to your teapot or mug to preheat it. Dump the water out after a few seconds.
  3. Add the appropriate amount of tea to your tea infuser. Place the tea infuser inside your teapot or mug.
  4. When the water reaches the desired temperature, pour it over the tea infuser into your mug or teapot. This will allow the water to circulate through the leaves.
  5. Time your tea. Once the time is up, dunk the infuser a couple of times to circulate the water. Remove the infuser and set it aside for a second infusion, which most leaves should be able to handle.

Gongfu Style Brewing

Gongfu style brewing is often done in a gaiwan (a lidded cup) or a small teapot. Common sizes of these brewing vessels range from 75ml to 150ml.

  1. Add some hot water to your gaiwan or teapot to preheat it. Dump the water out after a few seconds.
  2. Place leaves in your gaiwan or small teapot.
  3. Add water at the correct temperature for the type of tea you are brewing.
  4. The first couple of infusions usually take around 5–30 seconds, depending on the type of tea and your preferences. Tightly rolled or compressed teas may need longer first steeps as the leaves take time to open up.
  5. With puer and oolong (or any other tea that looks a bit dirty), you should do an initial 10-20 second brew and discard the liquid. This helps remove any dust or debris left over from processing.
  6. Pour into a mug, teacup, or other vessel.
  7. You will need to experiment with different infusion times for each tea, as the speed at which the leaves brew can vary dramatically depending on processing.

"Grandpa Style" Brewing

The idea is to put leaves in a large mug and continue to fill it with water, never removing the leaves from the cup. This means the leaves will always be steeping. For this reason, it is best to avoid teas that get bitter easily.

  1. Add some hot water to your mug or cup to preheat it. Dump the water out after a few seconds.
  2. Add leaves to your mug; 3-4 grams in a 10oz mug is a good starting point.
  3. Add boiling water.
  4. Once you have drunk 1/2 to 2/3 of the liquid, refill with boiling water.

Tea Concentrate (Kazakhstan Style)

  1. Bring 500ml of water to a simmer on the stove.
  2. Add 4 spoonfuls of tea and simmer for 30 minutes to an hour (or longer if desired) to create your concentrated tea.
  3. To prepare for drinking, bring some water to a boil.
  4. Add the tea concentrate to your mug or cup of choice and top it off with hot water.
  5. You can adjust the strength to your preference by using more or less of the tea concentrate in your cup.

Matcha

Materials required: Matcha whisk, some kind of bowl or cup, sifter or wide mesh strainer for removing lumps from matcha before brewing.

Usucha (Thin Matcha)

  1. Sift 2g of matcha into a matcha bowl or other vessel.
  2. Add 60ml to 100ml of hot water (80°C).
  3. Whisk vigorously for 15 seconds using a matcha whisk.

Koicha (Thick Matcha)

  1. Sift 4g of matcha into a matcha bowl or other vessel.
  2. Add 30ml to 60ml of hot water (80°C).
  3. Mix slowly with a whisk for 15 seconds using a matcha whisk.

Mate

  1. Fill about half of the gourd (or a mug) with yerba mate.
  2. Heat some water to a temperature between 65°C to 80°C (150°F to 175°F). You don’t have to be very accurate with the temperature; just don’t heat the water until it boils (or if you do, let it cool down a little). You can pour the water into a thermos to maintain its temperature.
  3. Cover the gourd with your palm and invert it about 180° (to a horizontal position) and tap on the bottom. This will bring the fine particles to the top and leave the larger ones at the bottom to act as a natural filter. Then revert the gourd back gently. There should now be a heap of mate on one side of the gourd and a small “pit” on the other side.
  4. Next, pour a bit of cold water on the heap of yerba mate to moisten it. The cold water will help preserve the integrity of the mate.
  5. Put the filter end of the bombilla (filter straw) in the pit and pour hot water into the pit in the gourd to fill it about halfway. The top of the heap should still remain dry.
  6. Sip the yerba mate tea through the straw and drink until there is no more tea in the gourd. Continue by pouring hot water again into the pit in the gourd.
    • You want the heap to remain in place so that the mate infuses slowly, so fill the gourd carefully.
    • Try to avoid touching the bombilla during the process. Stirring can clog the bombilla and can also cause the mate to brew too fast.

New to tea, what should I try?

A little bit of everything.
Go to a vendor in your region (or any other decent place with samples) and try some greens, oolongs, blacks, whites, etc. (Sencha, tie guan yin, moonlight white, etc.—pick some that interest you). Get some 15g samples. Try them. If you like one, explore that subvariety more; learn what you do and don't like, then try to get some better quality (Yunnan Sourcing, What-Cha, etc.).
What-Cha also has an intro sampler with a little bit of everything, which may make it easier. https://www.fullchea-tea.com/c/different-tea-0371 also offers several tea samplers, including a large 35-tea offering and several specific sets for green tea, black tea, puer, etc.

But tea bags are so cheap!

Yes, and they contain the lowest quality tea possible (the layman's translation for the technical term for the content of tea bags is "dust"). But loose-leaf tea can be fairly cheap unless you buy organic Japanese top-quality first flush (picked during the first harvest season of the year, aka in spring, usually the most expensive and highest quality) single-estate, small-field green tea grown on a bushido-law-observing farm by the 23rd generation of samurai farmers.
Twinings' bagged tea costs around €60/kg here, and for the same price, you can get a mid-quality Chinese oolong from eBay or organic genmaicha from one of the websites listed at the top. Those two can be re-steeped, so even if you bought good-quality Taiwanese oolong for €180/kg, you could steep it (at least) three times. While effectively costing you as much as Twinings' bagged tea, it would be considered much better by most.
You can still find cheaper tea bags at the corner store when they're on sale, and that will likely cost you less money but still taste like bagged tea.
If you like bagged tea enough, though, nobody's going to stop you from buying it and enjoying it.

Does all tea come from the same plant?

No, but it's all from very similar plants, all of the Camellia sinensis species.
For centuries, people have selected, crossed, and cloned different bushes to get tastier leaves and bigger bushes. Different varieties of bushes are found in different regions (for example, the variety that yields da hong pao is found in the Wuyi Mountains in the Fujian province of China, while the variety that yields sencha is found in almost all of Japan, but not in China or India). These different varieties of bushes are called "cultivars," short for cultivated varieties, which means they were selectively cultivated (by humans) into slightly different varieties of the same species of plant.
Different varieties of Camellia sinensis are also found in different climates. When, for example, tea was exported to India, the bushes changed slightly to adapt to the different weather and heat conditions; from that originated the Camellia sinensis var. assamica variant, where "variety" is the technical term to refer to slightly different variants of the plant that naturally occur(red) in different places.

Raw puerh? Ripe puerh?

Raw puerh is lightly fermented, steamed, and (generally) pressed into cakes, bricks, or other shapes. Then it is aged. The fermentation process continues as it ages, developing a more complex flavor over time.
New raw puerh can taste very vegetal, a little bitter, or overly smoky, but these flavors generally mellow with time.

Ripe puerh is wet-pile fermented in a process that takes 25-50 days. It tastes much "darker," with flavors of chocolate, leather, nuts, and loam. Sometimes it smells a bit fishy. It is easy on the stomach and is a popular tea for mornings.

I want to get into puerh; what should I try?

  • https://teadb.org/puerh-for-beginners/
    White2Tea has both a raw sampler and a ripe sampler to show the differences and let you experiment a bit. It has worldwide free shipping.
    Yunnan Sourcing also offers several puer samplers.
    Avoid puerh from random eBay shops and Asian markets. There is a lot of very low-quality and fake puerh on the market, so it's best to stick to the listed vendors until you know what you are doing.

What if I want to try something from somewhere like White2Tea or Yunnan Sourcing but I'm not sure if it will be good?

Look it up on Steepster. It's not guaranteed, and you shouldn't pay attention to the scores. Someone may have rated the tea low because it had notes of licorice or apple and they dislike those things as a matter of preference. It doesn't mean the tea is bad; it just means it wasn't for them. Read what they say and decide why they rated it low, and if the reasons are ones you'd agree with.

How should I store tea?

Normal tea: In airtight tins, away from light, heat, humidity, smells, and temperature fluctuations. In a tin inside a cabinet, in a glass jar in a cupboard, etc., are fine. Tea absorbs smells very easily, so make sure the container is SEALED and do not store two types of tea together or anywhere near strong smells of any type.

Puerh: The easiest way to store puer is to put it in a plastic bag in a cabinet or on a shelf away from direct sunlight at room temperature in a place without dramatic temperature swings between day and night. Puerh, like any tea, picks up smells easily, so avoid storing it near anything with a strong scent. For longer-term storage, you want to keep the moisture level in the cake above 45% and below 65%, give or take. There are a few ways to accomplish this. One of the easiest is carefully wrapping the tea in several layers of plastic wrap; this will help maintain humidity in dry climates, but it is annoying if you want to access that particular tea regularly. Another popular method is storing the tea in some kind of plastic container or cooler; you can add some Boveda 58% humidity packs to keep the tea from drying out. This method leaves the tea more accessible if you are going to be drinking it regularly.

What if I become obsessed with water quality?

Make your own mineral blends for your water.

I just bought a clay teapot; how do I get it ready to use?

How to carefully awaken a vintage pot:

More info about choosing clay teapots:

What do I need to know about unglazed or raw clay teapots?

Yixing pots aren't magical, they're tools. Good ones can absolutely transform your tea, making it rounder, smoother, and more complex. Bad ones will just mute everything and waste your money. Here's what actually matters:

Forget the romantic crap. It's about the clay:

  1. Don't buy cheap. If you're spending under $100, just get a nice gaiwan. Seriously. The clay in cheap pots is usually low-density garbage, often mixed with crap you don't want to drink from. It'll make your tea taste worse, not better. A real pot from decent clay starts around $150 and goes up fast.
  2. Where to look: For vintage, hunt for "green label" (Factory 1) or genuine Qing stuff. For modern, you want "traditionally processed" clay from a known studio. If that's out of your league, a fine-grained modern pot is your next best shot. The goal is to avoid the junk that floods eBay and Etsy.

Stop overthinking it:

  1. The "one tea, one pot" myth is mostly nonsense. A good pot will make good tea, period. Just rinse it with boiling water when you're done. If you have to "season" a pot for weeks before it stops muting your tea, you bought a bad pot. The only exception? Maybe keep a dedicated pot for funky aged shou or heavy roast oolongs, but that's for geeks who've been doing this for years.
  2. "Lid fit" is a scam. Every pot made in the last 30 years has a tight lid. It's the easiest thing to get right. Even amazing antique pots often have wobbly lids. Ignore sellers who drone on about this.

How not to get ripped off:

  1. Ask first, buy later. The tea community is your best weapon. Found a pot you like? Take clear pictures—especially of the clay texture—and post them on TeaChat or the CommuniTEA Discord. Chances are someone has bought from that seller or owns a similar pot. This will save you from spending $300 on a pretty paperweight.
  2. Modern = you're paying for the artist. Antique = you're paying for provenance. A modern pot over $200 is about the craftsman's reputation. An actual antique (ROC or older) will cost you thousands and requires serious expertise to verify. Assume everything is fake until proven otherwise.

The practical stuff everyone forgets:

  1. Size matters, but not how you think.
    • Tiny pots (<100ml) look cool but lose heat instantly. They're frustrating for anything that needs heat.
    • The sweet spot for most tea is 150-200ml. It holds heat well and gives leaves room to unpack.
    • Think about your leaves. Don't buy a tiny pot if you drink big, fluffy oolongs. You'll just cram them in and break them.
  2. The pour is everything. A slow-dripping pot will oversteep your tea while you sit there waiting. Test the pour if you can, or ask the seller about it. A good pot should empty fast and clean.
  3. Buy a pot you'll actually use. The best clay in the world means nothing if the handle feels wrong, the spout drips, or it's just annoying to clean. Your pot should be a workhorse, not a museum piece. If it doesn't feel good in your hand, walk away.

Blogs/YouTube

  • TeaDB: Good content, chill; two guys drinking tea and talking about it. Their website also has a ton of resources on brewing and articles on different types of tea. They respond really quickly to comments and questions, both on the website and on their FB.
  • Marshaln: Extremely interesting, puer-focused but talks a bit about everything. A lot of the other sources quote him often.
  • Akira Hojo: Owner of Hojo Co., has a degree in agricultural chemistry and one in food science & nutrition. Has a bit of broken English but knows a lot about tea. Writes about particular teas or about the characteristics of a family of teas or about agriculture, or sometimes about more technical stuff.
  • Don Mei's blog / ChinaLife's YT: There is quite some shilling and memeing involved, but their content is good, especially for beginners getting into gongfu.
  • 2Dog: Owner of White2Tea, puer-focused, has some funny stories and nice pics, a lot of insight on sourcing and the making of puer. His Snapchat is pure gold.
  • The Jade Leaf: This guy is a potter in Taiwan and has some nice teaware. He also sources tea, a bit on the expensive side, but his blog is interesting nonetheless.
  • Farmer Leaf: Runs a small puerh-focused business. He has some excellent videos showing tea processing and explaining the tea-making process. His video about fake tea is a must-watch for puer drinkers.

Tea Books

Tea Videos

Credits

Old owner - Unknown (Not a username)
New / Current owner - Clara

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Pub: 30 Jan 2024 20:43 UTC

Edit: 21 Sep 2025 16:04 UTC

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