Every year I see people asking for recommendations for tea, teaware, books, etc. Here is an easy recommendation list of TEA for people who may not know much about tea, but want to get the hardcore tea lover in their life something that they'll definitely enjoy. These are not definitive rankings of the BEST of each category, but rather awesome things that I highly recommend from personal experience. Note that because these are recommendations from personal experience/preference I am highly biased towards gongfu style brewing (I will recommend one more westernish style teapot though...) and shou puerh because that's what cheap little me just enjoys. :) In later posts I'll do other types of things tea lovers would like and a list of my favorite tea shops as well.
- Tea (in no particular order and they all taste fantastic in my experience):
- Nepalese Black: (Nepal is still recovering from the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, also they have some fantastic teas)
- Chinese Ripe Puerh:
- 2012 Nannuo Shan Shou / Ripe Puerh
- 2015 Yunnan Sourcing "Year of the Goat" Ripe Pu-erh tea cake of Menghai
- 2009 Menghai "Hong Yun" Ripe Pu-erh Mini tea cake
- 2008 Menghai Hong Yun Ripe mini cake (the first good cake of puerh I ever bought, still holds a tender place in my heart and the 09 version is also great)
- 2012 Menghai "7572 201" Ripe Pu-erh tea cake
- 2011 Jing Mai Old Tree Ripe Pu Erh (So freaking good!)
- 2016 Brown Sugar
- Basics Ripe Puer tea sample set
- Chinese Raw Puerh:
- 2005 Changtai "Yun Pu Zhi Dian / Top of the Clouds" Sheng
- "Planet Jingmai" Ancient Tree Single Serving 8 Gram Sheng
- 2015 Pin Raw Puer Tea
- The Basics Raw Puer tea sample set
- Tea Terroir Raw Puer Sample Set
- What is Puerh? Three Tea Educational Tasting Set *Also Contains a RIPE sample
- Taiwanese Black:
- Taiwanese Oolong:
- Chinese Oolong:
- Kenyan Black:
- Rundu Black (Normally I get this from Phoenix Tea in person as I live relatively nearby and their website is currently being repaired. However it's such a fantastic tea that I couldn't leave it out despite not having an easy link for you, so I highly recommend either calling them or emailing them to order some!)
Remember, puerh and aged oolongs can last a long time, but the unroasted oolongs and blacks I've recommended here should not be expected to last for a year or however long without getting a bit unpleasantly bitter and losing flavor. Therefore, do not get any tea lover a ton of them. Personally, I don't really like having more than 300g at a time of tea that I expect to be sitting around for more than three months. I'd recommend you keep any gifts of those teas to 10-50g. That also eliminates the need to get a courtesy tea tin for your tea loving loved one. However especially for puerh, more is more. :P They can take their time drinking them.
