Okay I can't deny that this completely works

The short brew time you described reminds me of it. Pour the water over the tea the first time, sip and spit to get the powdery bitter stuff out; pour the water again, drink, repeat.

Drink it with hot water, it´s maté. Drink it with ice water, it´s tereré (unique to Paraguay, and amazingly refreshing). Throw in some mint leaves and it´s amazing.

89th

Yerba Mate is a good energy drink, too.

jon-nyc

I had it in Argentina a bunch of times. I remember when I first saw it I thought people were passing around a bong.

Rainman

There are million-dollar ideas being presented here!

Look out, Starbucks!

89th

Starbucks only cares when they are billion dollar ideas, lol

Aqua Letifer

@Optimistic said in Okay I can't deny that this completely works:

Aqua, have you tried maté?

The short brew time you described reminds me of it. Pour the water over the tea the first time, sip and spit to get the powdery bitter stuff out; pour the water again, drink, repeat.

Drink it with hot water, it´s maté. Drink it with ice water, it´s tereré (unique to Paraguay, and amazingly refreshing). Throw in some mint leaves and it´s amazing.

You know it. I don't have a gourd or a... spoon... straw... thingy, though.

taiwan_girl

@Aqua-Letifer That is similar to the way we make back home. We pour the water into the pot with tea. Put the lid on, and then pour the hot water on the outside of the pot. When it all evaporates (which is quite quickly), the first batch of tea is poured out into your cup. This "batch" is just used to warm the cup, and then it is poured out.

Repeat. Add water to the pot. Put the lid on. Pour the hot water on the outside of the pot and when it evaporates, pour into your cup to drink.

Aqua Letifer

@taiwan_girl Going to show my ignorance here: The pouring of the water onto the pot and waiting for it to evaporate: is that with a particular kind of clay pot? That's what my boss did in Oz, which I thought was always a little weird, but the pot material was also different. And is it purely done as a timing thing, and to pre-heat the utensils?

jon-nyc

My son has a mate gourd. He bought it in Buenos Aires in December.

Aqua Letifer

@jon-nyc said in Okay I can't deny that this completely works:

My son has a mate gourd. He bought it in Buenos Aires in December.

...Does he use it for bong hits?

Seriously though ( @Optimistic too): is there any difference in the outcome of the maté with a gourd vs. without? I would guess no but I've never tried.

taiwan_girl

@Aqua-Letifer said in Okay I can't deny that this completely works:

@taiwan_girl Going to show my ignorance here: The pouring of the water onto the pot and waiting for it to evaporate: is that with a particular kind of clay pot? That's what my boss did in Oz, which I thought was always a little weird, but the pot material was also different. And is it purely done as a timing thing, and to pre-heat the utensils?

ummmm, I am going to show my ignorance too. I am not sure. We always let my father do it, and that was the way he did it. We always use clay pots - not sure if it was a special clay or not. LOL

But yes, it was a timing to tell when the tea was brewed. As you mention in your first posting, it is quite quick, only a few seconds.

jon-nyc

He didn’t even try it. Just thought they looked cool.

Rainman

You guys keep saying how easy it all is. Sounds pretty complicated to me.

So, if you are going out to dinner somewhere, where would you go to get "authentic" tea like you are talking about? I never go to Starbucks, but is that a place that makes this easy/complicated tea?

Asking for a friend, of course.

Aqua Letifer

@Rainman said in Okay I can't deny that this completely works:

You guys keep saying how easy it all is. Sounds pretty complicated to me.

So, if you are going out to dinner somewhere, where would you go to get "authentic" tea like you are talking about? I never go to Starbucks, but is that a place that makes this easy/complicated tea?

Asking for a friend, of course.

It really isn't complicated; it's just fundamentally different from the tea bag method, both in terms of process and the social component: it really makes the most sense to do this method when drinking several cups, especially with somebody, or you're gonna be wasting your money on tea you barely used. You don't just pour hot water into a cup and go, you drink several in one sitting, preferably with other people, so the tea doesn't go to waste. And, each brew's better than the one before, so making just the first cup makes no sense. But it is faster than a tea bag on a per-cup basis, and and far less messy.

As for restaurants, I dunno, I guess it really depends. If they use tea bags, fuggedaboutit. If they do the thing where they keep the tea leaves in the water, unless they're using a very specific kind, they're faking fancy and ruining the tea anyway.

Starbucks tea is crap. They don't get especially good tea—how could they? Every Starbucks sells the same products, and they're everywhere. So to move that kind of volume they go with the mass-produced stuff with slightly fancy marketing. It's slightly chunkier tea dust, not whole leaf. They also buy tea that comes in the pyramid bags, but they suck. They're still a bag, so the brewing process is ass, and a lot of those bags are made out of plastic. So your tea tastes like plastic. Third, they use boiling water or very near boiling water, so the tea is scorched.

Making it the way I described above is easier, less messy, much better-tasting, and much cheaper than Starbucks (yarly). You don't need fancy ass tea to do this, good whole leaf stuff is actually pretty cheap. I get a month's worth for about 10, 15 bucks. That's like 3 to 7 Starbucks runs.

Just to piss D'Oh off I'll record the process I did today and show you.

The New Coffee Room

Okay I can't deny that this completely works