Coffee cup and tea talk

[chuft]

Ok so what is up with that "Coffee Cup" reaction. I see you use it a lot. Is it a coffee? A cup of matcha green tea? I don't get the....reference.


(And no one else but BRBFBI will get the reference to the word reference.)

[BRBFBI]

Ok so what is up with that reaction. I see you use it a lot. Is it a coffee? A cup of matcha green tea? I don't get the....reference.

The choices for expressing yourself through the emoji reacts are pretty limited. The coffee cup reminds me of the Japanese symbol for onsen (hot springs bath) ♨️ which is synonymous with relaxation and general pleasant feelings. No, you weren't supposed to know that. I like having an idiosyncratic option that is open to interpretation. ♨ It's also my calling card, so nobody else is allowed use it! (jk)

(And no one else but BRBFBI will get the reference to the word reference.)

I'm asking myself whether that's a blessing or a curse. . .

[chuft]

I used to drink matcha every day but the microplastics thing has put me off my favorite brand (Ito En for traditional matcha or the genmaicha toasted rice kind which I like even more). Traditional Medicinals matcha has no plastics but it has become impossible to get now that people are onto it. So I am back to Bigelow black tea because they use no plastics anywhere in the bag, seal etc. but of course they have no matcha so I drink vanilla flavored ones or Earl Grey.









I have tried other matchas like Numi but I don't like them.

Don't care for the matcha powders either that stay in the cup, too bitter. I just want the brief dip you get from the tea bags which give the umami flavor.

[BRBFBI]

I used to drink matcha every day but the microplastics thing has put me off my favorite brand (Ito En for traditional matcha or the genmaicha toasted rice kind which I like even more). Traditional Medicinals matcha has no plastics but it has become impossible to get now that people are onto it. So I am back to Bigelow black tea because they use no plastics anywhere in the bag, seal etc. but of course they have no matcha so I drink vanilla flavored ones or Earl Grey.

Don't talk to me about Earl Grey.


I'm actually not a tea snob. I hardly know what I'm doing, but I do enjoy green (and other) tea.



[My pantry]

Microplastics is one of those topics that has become such an overwhelming buzzword recently that I've tuned it out. Terrible excuse, I know. It's something I need to do some more reading on, but there are some topics where I’m afraid what I'll find. I eat/drink a lotta stuff in plastic containers... You're saying there are plastics in some of the tea bags? How are you supposed to know which ones?

Those matcha in a bag are really just green tea with a little dusting of matcha. You probably get 1/50th the matcha powder of a normal serving from one of those, but you knew that. I have the whisk and everything and get the powder from the little tins (see the pink tin in the top picture). I'm a big coffee drinker, though, and you can only have so much caffeine a day so matcha usually loses out.

When you say "too bitter" I imagine steph's "no way, too messy." Can't seem to find the non edited version of that gif, though...

[possessor]

The "too messy' part is from Lazy Scouts if that helps

[BRBFBI]

Brotha, I know season 1 inside and out. Too lazy to make my own gif right now, though.

[possessor]

Scotty the scoutmaster would be proud

[possessor]

Ok so what is up with that reaction. I see you use it a lot. Is it a coffee? A cup of matcha green tea? I don't get the....reference.


(And no one else but BRBFBI will get the reference to the word reference.)

I personally think it has multiple meanings

One could be saying cheers then taking a sip like the grownups do with wine (which tastes disgusting by the way.)

Two : saying thanks?

[chuft]

Don't talk to me about Earl Grey.

Why not?

I'm actually not a tea snob. I hardly know what I'm doing, but I do enjoy green (and other) tea.

[My pantry]

Looks pretty fancy. Or at least pretty Japanese.

Microplastics is one of those topics that has become such an overwhelming buzzword recently that I've tuned it out. Terrible excuse, I know. It's something I need to do some more reading on, but there are some topics where I’m afraid what I'll find. I eat/drink a lotta stuff in plastic containers... You're saying there are plastics in some of the tea bags? How are you supposed to know which ones?

It's something of a research project, but bottom line is, almost all of them. If they don't use nylon in the bags, they use plastic in the adhesive to keep the bag closed or to attach the string. Bigelow doesn't. A few other brands don't. Some, like Ito En, lie about it - they use "plant derived plastics" that create "compostable bags" but PLA (plant derived plastics) are still plastics and behave as such in the body. They are also only compostable in industrial composting facilities. Even Bigelow's bags that come in certain products use plastic, but they are the 40-count products I believe and use pyramidal bags like Ito En.

Those matcha in a bag are really just green tea with a little dusting of matcha. You probably get 1/50th the matcha powder of a normal serving from one of those, but you knew that.

Here's the thing. I don't like plain green tea. Never have. The Ito En Traditional used to have enough matcha in there to give it a nice umami flavor. And you only dip the bag for 30 seconds. They're very convenient. But they started cheaping out on the matcha powder and they're less flavorful than before. Price also went way up, that taught me not to do Subscribe and Save on Amazon, one month the price doubled and they didn't tell me, good thing I was reviewing the order and was able to cancel. I've read the ones sold in Japan are different now than the ones exported to the US but I don't know if that's true. Even if it is, it doesn't do me much good. The Genmaicha toasted rice ones actually taste much better to me now than the watered down Traditionals. But that plastic....plastic is in a lot of things but not typically in things you heat and soak in very hot water and then drink. Tea bags may be uniquely bad in that respect.

Ito En's approach seems to be to use PLAs and use words like "compostable" to make it sound like they're not plastic, but they are. So I'm not holding my breath for them to fix it.

I have the whisk and everything and get the powder from the little tins (see the pink tin in the top picture). I'm a big coffee drinker, though, and you can only have so much caffeine a day so matcha usually loses out.

I have a whisk and some powder too but it stays in the cup and makes it bitter unlike the bags where there isn't a lot of plant matter left in there. Even the bags can get bitter if you leave them in too long. The instructions say 30 seconds. Coffee is so bitter to me I can't even stand the way it smells. Never tasted it except perhaps by accident in some other product as a flavoring, but I go out of my way to avoid coffee flavored anything.


The Traditional Medicinals genmaicha is quite tasty and has no plastics but as I say, good luck finding any. I think a lot of Ito En people have switched to Traditional Medicinals and the supply dried up.

When you say "too bitter" I imagine steph's "no way, too messy." Can't seem to find the non edited version of that gif, though...

There was a ytmnd from the end of Lazy Scouts that had her looking at some object she was holding, then shrugging and throwing it over her shoulder. I've always liked that gif but I don't think I have it.

[BRBFBI]

I personally think it has multiple meanings

One could be saying cheers then taking a sip like the grownups do with wine (which tastes disgusting by the way.)

You weren't supposed to know about that. Every time one of us adults make a good post we pm each other a wine emoji.

Why not?

I meant to say don't talk to me about Bigelow. (These new react options are great). Always thought they were the budget option, but if they don't use plastic that's a worth something. Earl Grey is alright, but for black teas I like Darjeeling.

Here's the thing. I don't like plain green tea. Never have. The Ito En Traditional used to have enough matcha in there to give it a nice umami flavor.

I'm confused by this. First off, I think you're using umami wrong. Second off, matcha is just green tea that is grown in a specific way and prepared differently. It's still green tea, and if you don't like plain matcha or green tea I don't understand how the two together do anything for you. I wonder if the matcha bags are just the closest you've come to really good green tea which you actually do like.

And you only dip the bag for 30 seconds. They're very convenient. But they started cheaping out on the matcha powder and they're less flavorful than before. Price also went way up, that taught me not to do Subscribe and Save on Amazon, one month the price doubled and they didn't tell me, good thing I was reviewing the order and was able to cancel. I've read the ones sold in Japan are different now than the ones exported to the US but I don't know if that's true. Even if it is, it doesn't do me much good. The Genmaicha toasted rice ones actually taste much better to me now than the watered down Traditionals.

I like genmaicha. And houjicha which also has toasted rice. The origin of the toasted rice thing was with peasants who would add toasted rice to flavor their watered down tea. I am very surprised you use Amazon at all, much less the subscribe and save. You definitely seem like someone who would be opposed to Amazon on principle. I bet you're going to tell me the pandemic changed that for you.

But that plastic....plastic is in a lot of things but not typically in things you heat and soak in very hot water and then drink. Tea bags may be uniquely bad in that respect.

This is embarrassing, but I eat single serve microwave sticky rice out of white plastic containers. The recommended cooking method is to peel the plastic lid back 1/2 inch and microwave 90 seconds.

I have a whisk and some powder too but it stays in the cup and makes it bitter unlike the bags where there isn't a lot of plant matter left in there. Even the bags can get bitter if you leave them in too long. The instructions say 30 seconds. Coffee is so bitter to me I can't even stand the way it smells. Never tasted it except perhaps by accident in some other product as a flavoring, but I go out of my way to avoid coffee flavored anything.

I'm sure you know matcha is traditionally a ceremonial drink in Japan, but did you know the traditional way to consume it is to have the little sweet (basically a sugar cube) that is served with it immediately before drinking? It tempers the bitterness a lot. You've never had coffee? I know people who don't drink it, but to never have tried it? I think you should have your citizenship revoked. Can't be an American without coffee.

Okay, maybe Possessor was right [edit: about this thread needing to be split]. . .

[possessor]

I'm always right.
"And don't you forget it." -Robbie

[chuft]

I think Bigelow is the only mainstream supermarket tea that does not use plastic. Other brands include Traditional Medicinals, Pukka, and Numi. The TM genmaicha with matcha is good but impossible to find. The Numi genmaicha with matcha was wretched. I still have most of it unconsumed laying around. I haven't tried Pukka yet but read bad things about it. The Numi is apparently made with Chinese teas, not Japanese, incidentally.


As for matcha

2. Umami: savory, oceanic notes


Another indicator of high quality matcha is a pronounced umami flavor. Umami is a rich, savory flavor also found in foods like bone broth and miso soup. When present in matcha, this umami flavor is also sometimes described as oceanic, similar to seaweed.

The shading process that matcha tea plants undergo contributes to their umami flavor. These plants are shaded for up to three weeks prior to harvest, which increases the chlorophyll levels in the plants and produces a rich, savory flavor. It also increases the levels of caffeine and l-theanine. Kabusecha and Gyokuro are two other prominent examples of shade-grown Japanese loose leaf green tea.

https://artfultea.com/blogs/tea-wisd...cha-taste-like



This meaty flavor (tastes like MSG) is what makes me like it. I have read genmaicha is a "poor man's matcha" but I like the toasted rice flavor, and the Ito En genmaicha has matcha added as well. It is particularly tasty.


Actually could you do me a favor? This link is in stock, but it is in Japanese. Does it say Ito En? I can't tell if they are mashing the words together in the page title to sell a knock-off, because it is in Japanese and I can't read the box (except for the English parts they put on, weirdly).

https://www.amazon.com/Itoen-Genmaic.../dp/B004OV7LEE


This is the one I would normally get, but it is out of stock.


https://www.amazon.com/Premium-Japan.../dp/B0C34F84RT


Is the Japanese language one a fake meant to dupe unsuspecting Americans? Or does it say "Ito En" on it?



Amazon actually sells a lot of matcha powders but I have no clue if they are any good or not. Nobody on the /tea sub recommends them, but those people seem like some serious tea snobs and Amazon haters as well. They are always recommending sites that are storefronts for particular growing operations.



I was shopping online today for Japanese tea, figuring maybe I could get some sencha and some matcha and make my own tea using a strainer, with sencha and a little matcha powder thrown in, using an extra fine tea strainer that will fit in my mug.






Weirdly, loose tea seems significantly more expensive than bagged tea, when I would have expected the opposite. I guess it is more premium. And there is no guarantee I would like the more expensive stuff, given that I hate bitterness and it seems associated with the premium green teas. The number of (expensive) buying options was paralyzing. And I cannot tell how many cups I would get from "50g" or whatever, it is hard to get a sense of whether something is outrageously priced or not, compared to bagged tea when you know the cost per bag.

Do you have particular senchas and matchas that you recommend from an online site? Or do you just buy from Asian grocery stores?

I think I am going to just order more of the Ito En, but each time, cut the bag open and pour the contents out into this little strainer I am ordering, and steep that, cutting the plastics out of the equation. I just hope cleaning it is not too much of a pain in the rear.


Reminds me of my craft beer hobby. I dislike having much hops in a beer at all, and I began encountering all these weirdos who like IPAs and Russian Imperial Stouts with gigantic amounts of hops that would make any beverage taste poisonous. American beers are absurdly hoppy compared to the same styles in the UK or Europe.


This beer has a bitterness rating of 120 international bitterness units. And they charge a fortune for it as a result. A typical lager has 10 IBU. Why do I mention that beer? I have visited that brewery and eaten in their restaurant.


I am a "supertaster" and generally dislike vegetables because of the overpowering bitterness of their alkaloids. Alkaloids are plant insecticides, that is why they have them. Nicotine, caffeine, atropine, scopolamine etc. are there to kill plant-eating bugs by poisoning them. That is why bitterness tastes like poison. I doubt you could get the average animal to eat something bitter. From what I hear, hops tastes like soap to some other people, and to a third group, bitterness tastes good. Maybe in my next life I will drink a high bitterness drink and have the sensation that the bitterness-lovers are experiencing. Until then, no coffee or IPA's please.



I did not know about the sugar cube thing but that makes sense, kind of like absinthe, also notoriously bitter and traditionally poured over a special spoon with holes in it and a sugar cube on top.






I find this too much of a bother and just buy the good kind with sugar already in it. 124 proof.





But I hate sweet tea, find it absolutely nauseating, so the idea of putting sugar in tea....I'd definitely go for something less bitter in the first place. Here in the South you have to order "unsweet iced tea" if you want iced tea without sugar. And both my girlfriend and I agree there are few things worse than taking a sip of an iced tea, especially a refill (which often catches you by surprise), and finding it is sweetened. Ugh!

"Sweet" and "unsweet" sound almost identical in a loud crowded restaurant, you'd think they'd come up with another word for one of the two, to avoid confusion when taking orders.


Most people I know who like coffee, will admit it smells a lot better than it tastes, and I hate the smell....

This is embarrassing, but I eat single serve microwave sticky rice out of white plastic containers. The recommended cooking method is to peel the plastic lid back 1/2 inch and microwave 90 seconds.

I'm sure you're getting some microplastics from that, but it still is not the same as submerging plastic in boiling water and then drinking every drop of the water. A cup of tea has been found to have billions of particles of microplastics.

[chuft]

Also I have nothing against Amazon, I have used them from the beginning, when they were just for books. Malls killed Main Street, and Walmart and the internet killed malls, and Amazon is just the best at being an internet store. If I didn't shop there I'd have to go to Walmart and I hate going in there. The one-day and sometimes same-day delivery from Amazon is really handy when you need something.

Last time I tried to patronize a brick and mortar, to buy a food cup for my birds, I was told they didn't carry it in the store and I would have to order it online from their site. Sheesh!

I do get stuff from Lowe's though on occasion. I use other internet stores for things, especially games, which are usually expensive on Amazon compared to the game discounters. I would patronize the local game store if I played games there, but I don't.

It always amazes me how poor the sites are of major retailers like Walmart and CVS and Walgreens. Just terrible. And yes from 2020 onward Amazon has saved me a lot of potential virus exposures. Amazon has a really really good site if you know how to use it. (Hint: not everything for sale is findable through the Amazon search engine. I've bought things there that only showed up via Google search.) Their site is an incredible resource for information even if you plan to buy the item someplace else.

[BRBFBI]

This feels like a joke. I finally thought I had you on something - a sure shot - and I was still wrong.

I would never think to describe matcha as umami. I read more about it and I still can't relate any of my experiences drinking matcha to umami. I didn't know supertaste was a thing, but I think I have the opposite of that. I don't care about food in the way a lot of people I know do. It helps me stay skinny, so whatever. You have a legitimate excuse to not like coffee. It is disturbing that people can perceive the world so differently.


Yes, that box says Ito En in Japanese. I wish I could be more helpful with tea advice, but I was being quite serious when I said I don't know what I'm doing. Most of the teas in my picture I got the last time I was in Japan at a place recommended by my pen pal. I'm sure any tea produced in Japan is of good quality, and that you get what you pay for.


I drink alcohol very occasionally. It's a drug, and there is a time and place where a that may be fun but there are many costs. I have no hobbiest interest in alcohol.

[possessor]

the title says coffee talk too heh?

okay coffee is bitter and overrated. there.

[BRBFBI]

the title says coffee talk too heh?

And alcohol talk, apparently. Technically you started that 🍷

okay coffee is bitter and overrated. there.

I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was at least 16, and then it was only on Sundays and about half coffee half flavored sweet cream. I bet you’d like it if you tried it like that.

[possessor]

And alcohol talk, apparently. Technically you started that 🍷

I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was at least 16, and then it was only on Sundays and about half coffee half flavored sweet cream. I bet you’d like it if you tried it like that.

yeah I take the blame for that

as for the coffee I've only tried it plain. I would like to try it with taste but the first experience was so traumatizing and bitter I can't heal from it and its too risky



(no it's not)

[chuft]

This feels like a joke.

Geez dude didn't know we were locked in a struggle to prove each other wrong. In any case if you didn't taste it, you didn't taste it. No shame in that. You don't want my sense of taste. If someone puts a slice of tomato on an Italian sub that I order, and then removes it, I can still taste the disgusting taste of tomato from even the slightest bit of juice from it that remains. And half the time my sense of taste doesn't work very well, started around 2009, noticed it with beer actually. The first bottle or two from a 6 pack would taste great, then later in the week another bottle from the same pack would taste lame or even bad. It wasn't the beer, it was me. Sometimes I have to pour salt on a curry to even taste anything. At times cheese can taste very savory and rich, other times the same cheese tastes like cardboard. Don't know what it is but my sense of taste comes and goes. And I find a lot of things to be disgusting.

I lost the ability to smell my favorite Christmas spiced tea (Sip and Be Merry by Republic of Tea) a few years ago. If I smell a can of it now all I smell is the aluminum of the can. Others in my office can smell the cardamom, caramel, etc. so I know it's not the tea. I suspect I had an undiagnosed covid infection although tests for it were always negative. Sometimes I smell unpleasant things that are not there. It's always an adventure.

[chuft]

By the way thanks for the translation, I went ahead and ordered that, along with the Traditional green tea and matcha, and that little strainer. Should arrive tomorrow.

[BRBFBI]

For once the react is truly appropriate.