The Next Next Step for Tea Drinking

Hey Y'all,

I've been drinking tea for a few years now, and I love the variety. I love the culture. I just love tea. But as knowledgeable as I think I am (at least to my tea-ignorant friends and family), I'm really only getting started. I actually used to work part time in a non-Teavana tea shop. They sell great loose tea, but it's really only sorted at a basic level (i.e. "pu erh" as opposed to "2011 bla bla bla pu erh ####").

How did you transition from drinking "just tea" to being a discerning tea drinker with an eye for all of these details including the year, where it comes from, classification, etc.? Where does a not-quite-newbie start?

A couple of good places to start is the SOTD sticky in The Cafe forum, which may well be the longest running, continually active tea thread on the web. For detailed analysis of pu'er, there may be nothing better than The Half Dipper, by one of our members (Hobbesoxon, who, despite being awarded the coveted B&B title of CAMF, hasn't spent nearly enough time here recently).

Are you specifically interested in puer, or was that just one you mentioned as an example? There's lots of different types ... you probably know that from your earlier job ... such as oolong, white, yellow, green, Darjeeling, on and on ... each one of which will have its own breakdown into specific producers, regions, types, years, &c.

A sampler pack or two may be the way to go: http://www.jas-etea.com/tea-sample-packs/

Here are some blog articles on pu-erh: http://fineteafocus.blogspot.com/20...-you-screw-up-brew-of.html#uds-search-results.

Enjoy!

Best regards,
Stephen
www.JAS-eTea.com
www.facebook.com/JASeTea

Thanks everyone! I used pu-erh as an example to be sure, but I am of course interested in learning about other types as well as pu-erh. With my former job, we certainly had varieties of each type, but it wasn't until I started doing some research a while back that I realized there was such a thing as raw pu-erh, if that tells you anything. I've sampled a few different pu-erhs, but I am intrigued as to how one gets involved in the first place, as from the look of it it seems that pu-erh seems to be more difficult to "get into," at least to the extent that you all seem to be! I may know the difference between a raw and a ripe, but I have no idea where to go from there. How did you get into pu-erhs?

I got interested pu-erh and other teas primarily from reading about other people's experiences on this site. Which lead more investigation and experimentation.

I grew up drinking loads of ice tea, and occasionally drank green tea or some other mystery hot tea when dining out. It was good, but a limited experience in comparison.