How This Site Works
How This Site Works
Here are a list of things you should know about this site:
1. When I review a tea, I may talk about the properties of certain ingredients that are used, the color and fragrance of the tea, and the length of steeping time that I would recommend - the main things I discuss, however, are the quality and the taste. I also sometimes recommend certain foods that might go well with certain teas, or I might suggest that a certain tea would taste nice if it were iced and/or sweetened, et cetera.
2. This is a tea review site, yes, but I review different teas differently. For green teas, genmai teas, and jasmine teas, I will only write reviews of the brands which are my personal favorites and which I would recommend to others. For herbal teas, however, I review the entire selection of herbal teas a particular brand offers even if I might not enjoy all the selections (for instance, I review nine different kinds of herbal teas by Stash Tea, but I only really enjoy drinking five out of those nine blends). Maybe in the future when I have more reviews I'll change this format, but for now I review every herbal tea a brand has to offer.
3. I have a definite preference for green tea, genmai tea, and herbal teas. I do like some darker, stronger teas that are higher in caffeine (I must admit that I love a good, strong oolong tea, and Earl Grey is good too), but I usually only like them when I'm in really cold weather, and even then I'd much rather have green tea or genmai tea. Jasmine tea and houji tea are the strongest teas that I drink regularly, and so you'll find that this site is rather lacking in reviews of the darker, stronger teas. I'm quite willing to drink cups and cups of various herbal teas from brands I don't really care for so that I can properly review them for this site, but dark teas are too strong and overpowering and caffeinated for me to be able to go through a whole bunch of brands and varieties just for review purposes. Don't get me wrong - I will be reviewing the darker, stronger teas, but definitely at nowhere near the same pace as for the lighter teas.
4. It is important that you read my Guidelines for Good Tea-Making, not necessarily because you have to follow my rules to make good tea or else, but because you should know and understand the guidelines I follow in making my tea, since the ways I make my teas affect how they taste (and therefore, will also affect the reviews I write for each tea, which is the whole point of this site to begin with).
5. Aside from the brands of herbal teas I review here, my favorite teas come mostly from Asian grocery stores, usually Japanese and/or Korean stores. I realize that such stores will be hard for you to find if you don't live in or near an ethnically diverse area or a major city, and I apologize cause I know that many of the teas I recommend in my reviews will be hard for many people to find, let alone get a hold of. They are quite worth it, though, and if you seriously wish to track them down and try them yourself, I highly recommend that you search online for info on Asian grocery stores (there are even some online stores now) and related resources. Best of luck with that; also, I intend to compile a list of links for this site that would help people find good teas, so keep an eye out for that as well.
6. Lastly, it is important to keep in mind while you read my reviews that I am not a tea-ologist or some supertaster who can tell the difference between a tea that was brewed from chamomile flowers that were picked in Australia as opposed to one brewed from flowers picked in Algeria, nor do I wish to portray myself as one. The reviews merely reflect my personal taste and opinion, and just because you might really like a tea I dislike does not mean that I automatically dislike you for disagreeing with me (nor should it work the other way around). If I do dislike you, it will be for entirely different reasons. *rofl* XD No, all joking aside, what I'm trying to say is to not take this site too too seriously. I made this site not to spread the Gospel of Tea like a GLTS* should, but so that I could show everyone, from the jaded tea connoisseur to the novice who knows nothing about tea except that it's the twentieth letter of the alphabet, why I like teas so much, and what teas I think they might like if they're interested. Anyway, that's enough out of me. Enjoy the site!
(* GLTS stands for "Good Little Tea Snob," not for "Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered Socialists" ...though that sounds pretty cool too... XD)