Tea, Yerba Mate, or... what do you steep?

[gusstrand]

I'll lead this off by saying I love coffee, but it hates me. I have to be very careful with my intake of the stuff.

About 10 years ago when I was trying to stop drinking so much coffee, a Chilean friend who's wife worked for me told me I had to "try the mate..." and gave me a gourd and bombilla... That was the start of a long affair with the South American relative of the holly bush known as Yerba Mate (literally, "herb of the cup.")

I can honestly say I prefer a good, properly prepared Yerba Mate over coffee now, although I have foregone my old gourd for a more practical mate of hollowed wood covered in metal. I have several, but my favorite bombilla (think of a straw tith a filter on the end...) is one another friend picked up in Buenos Aires that has an Argentine flag motif.)

There is plenty of history, legend and process around the Yerba Mate. The best site for it used to be soygaucho.com, but that site is long dead in an English version. guayaki.com is likely the best info place these days, and a decent brand of product as well.

While I love the process, sometimes I just steep it in a mesh clamshell in a coffee cup... but only if I'm in a hurry. Like Tea, part of the enjoyment and benefit of the beverage is in the process, the often near-religious steps it takes to create your drink. I prefer my raw Yerba to be better quality these days, but still have a kilo of what I would call "typical person" grade with stem pieces and whatnot in it that I picked up a couple years ago before it became yuppie-Whole-Foods-Market-chic to brew this stuff.

So... I also drink more traditional green and black teas... often loose leaf in various forms, depending on my mood and whatnot. We had a "serious" tea retailer here for a few years that had some incredible custom loose blends.

When I used to travel a lot to India, the melding of local teas and what I would call "British traditions" was always cool, and a traditional tea time at 2pm was a nice expectation in long days of meetings... and of course outside of work the many local variants of masala chai were always great.

Recently I have become fascinated with Pu-erh tea. I have little experience with it outside of a few toucha I picked up at a local tea store, but my experience with those "single serving size" Pu-erh has been good. Someday I'll find a good ripe cake or two, but I need to learn more first.

...and I'm not above an occasional bag of Twinings or even Celestial Seasonings... (actually really like Celestial Seasonings Morning Thunder...)

So...

What do you brew? Any Pu-erh tea or yerba mate drinkers here? Anyone that can enlighten me on Pu-erh or traditional tea ceremonies in your part of the world?

I'll get some water heating up...

[ryan]

l like simple black tea. I usually buy the cheap stuff, but have had access to green, black and jasmine tea from China when a close family member lived there. Maybe the versatility of black tea is what gets me (e.g. good hot, cold, with or without sugar, honey, mint, lemon, etc.). I also like it with whiskey...But I digress. Black tea is what's in my cup if it's not coffee.

[Doctor]

A big mug of Assam , semi skimmed milk,a touch of golden sugar ,taken at least 3 times a day .
also a fan of some caribean tea a ginger and sorrell mix ,drunk hot or chilled refreshing and no caffeine.
Gus know where you are with the caffeine bit, many years ago I managed a resturant with bottomless filter coffe pots ,was addicted and on days off would suffer withdrawl symptoms including wicked headaches!
A coffee shared with wife and son on a saturday morning whilst vegtable and fruit shopping on a street market is my only cup of coffee most weeks .