toshi's recent activity

  1. Comment on Tips for becoming a tea person in ~food

    toshi
    Link Parent
    If you're into coffee to the extent of making your own water then I think gong-fu is definitely going to be of interest to you. I recommend the following course: Look up a couple gong-fu tutorial...

    If you're into coffee to the extent of making your own water then I think gong-fu is definitely going to be of interest to you. I recommend the following course:

    • Look up a couple gong-fu tutorial videos or articles. The very short version is: brew large amounts of leaves for short durations many times. It's a leisurely process where you enjoy the changing experience of the tea as it develops from brew to brew. It's not unusual to keep going for many rounds, though the longevity of a brew will differ by variety and quality. People don't tend to be as scientific with it as they are with coffee, but it's not unheard of to track your results.
    • Acquire a variety of teas, of course. If you live in a major city with a Chinese population, you may have some Chinese tea shops where you should be able to buy small amounts of a wide variety of teas. I rarely go but I've heard that some will let you sample teas in store (paid, I believe), so this could be a good introductory option to ask about. If in-person isn't an option for you, then online stores will hopefully sell sampler sets. Yunnan Sourcing (background note: Yunnan is a major tea-producing province in China) was recommended in another comment. I think they're terrific value but you need to order a bunch to stomach the high international shipping costs (and perhaps tariffs are a factor if you're American?) so maybe there are other online options worth looking at for smaller volumes. If you're American, Yunnan Sourcing has an American distribution site https://yunnansourcing.us/ worth considering for smaller volumes in addition to their main Chinese site https://yunnansourcing.com/.
      • If you're picking teas a la carte and want to experience the whole Chinese tea gamut, I would suggest that the must-try varieties are oolong, puerh, and white teas. Black teas (sometimes called red teas) and green teas are great too but you likely have an idea of what these taste like based on past experience. Oolong you may have drank before too but it's easy drinking and there's a lot of variety in that family of tea so you may as well pick up a couple different types. The fermented production process of puerh tea makes it a challenging acquisition for new drinkers, but it has a huge range of flavour profiles (and prices 👀) and is rated highly by aficionados, so I recommend trying at least one each of sheng and shou puerh. White tea is easy drinking, it's a complex flavour that is very different from black and green teas. Quality wise I think you should prioritize white > sheng > shou > oolong for $/gram for the best experience. Diminishing returns of course apply, and anything more than $1/gram is pretty rich stuff by my broke standards; you'd be doing great to spend half of that imo. But I think nice tea is cheaper than nice coffee almost anywhere; I'd totally be into coffee snobbery too if not for the cost.
    • Gear wise you likely already have everything you need to try this out. The essentials are: a brewing vessel such as a filtered teapot or a basket strainer that will separate the loose leaf from the liquor. Your variable temperature kettle. A food scale or other way to measure both the amount of tea leaves and the amount of water; it should be at least gram-precise, ideally. Things like the fancy tea tray, yixing teapots, tea pets etc. are of course pleasant to have but not at all necessary to get a feel for if you'll enjoy gong-fu cha. The only important thing you might end up needing to get is a tea pick to break apart tea that is packaged as compacted cakes or bricks, as is typical for puerh and some white teas. An awl from the hardware store works just as well, I've heard, but you might be able to get away with a robust knife or whatever pointy implements you have lying around.
    2 votes

  2. Comment on Tips for becoming a tea person in ~food

    toshi
    Link Parent
    I can't handle the hot liquor that goes with brewing in a bombilla, so I just brew it in a normal filtered teapot or brewing basket like any other loose leaf tea. I found that gong-fu style...

    I can't handle the hot liquor that goes with brewing in a bombilla, so I just brew it in a normal filtered teapot or brewing basket like any other loose leaf tea. I found that gong-fu style brewing parameters work well enough. 5 grams at 95C for about 20 seconds or so for the initial infusion, bumping up 5-10 seconds for successive infusions.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Tips for becoming a tea person in ~food

    toshi
    Link
    Tea snob here with the hot takes. You want to check out gong-fu cha, and more broadly Asian tea cultures over the British tea culture that prevails in the Anglosphere. China cultivated tea for...

    Tea snob here with the hot takes. You want to check out gong-fu cha, and more broadly Asian tea cultures over the British tea culture that prevails in the Anglosphere. China cultivated tea for millennia; tea is a widely varied affair there with a huge gamut of varieties. Britain was introduced to it a few centuries ago as an import that would have hung off the musty ass of a horse for months through sun and rain while it would have crossed the silk road. It's no surprise that they're only into black (i.e. the most oxidized) tea varietals that they then have to add cream and sugar to to make palatable. And screw the haters, measure your tea. I'll measure my tea, water volume, water temperature (definitely get yourself a variable temperature electric kettle), brew durations and brew numbers. It all helps refine and improve the experience.

    P.S. There are other caffeinated beverages too you might like to consider for coffee alternatives besides tea. I also enjoy yerba mate. It brews like a tea but is not made from the leaves of camellia sinensis and thereby, like other herbal infusions, is not a tea.

    8 votes

  4. Comment on Porter Robinson's angelangelangelangelangel.com (seizure warning) in ~design

    toshi
    Link
    OP might already know, but this is a tie-in to Robinson’s alter-ego/side project Virtual Self. They released one fantastic EP under the name in 2017 (wtf?? I would have sworn it was like a year...

    OP might already know, but this is a tie-in to Robinson’s alter-ego/side project Virtual Self. They released one fantastic EP under the name in 2017 (wtf?? I would have sworn it was like a year ago) that was full of this quasi-ARG techno aesthetic; I love that shit, myself. I was excited for a moment that this website meant we were getting a new Virtual Self release but it seems this website was around in 2017.

    Unrelated trivia, Porter Robinson and popular YouTuber Nick Robinson are brothers

    9 votes

  5. Comment on What "one-hit wonder" do you think has a discography worth exploring? in ~music

    toshi
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    I think it’s tragic that Bobby McFerrin is only really known for Don’t Worry Be Happy. The accent is a silly affectation, he has an incredible body of more serious work that have earned him 10...

    I think it’s tragic that Bobby McFerrin is only really known for Don’t Worry Be Happy. The accent is a silly affectation, he has an incredible body of more serious work that have earned him 10 Grammys and universal praise.

    https://youtu.be/nDBvSDUMCJQ
    https://youtu.be/_o2RS8WfcbY
    https://youtu.be/WNY0e_hCgOI

    7 votes

  6. Comment on How do you shave? in ~life.men

    toshi
    Link
    My routine might be controversial, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this. I’ll take a cartridge (I import Gillette Guard from India - just a simple single razor blade with no gross aloe vera...

    My routine might be controversial, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this. I’ll take a cartridge (I import Gillette Guard from India - just a simple single razor blade with no gross aloe vera strip) or a DE razor and just shave with it dry. No shaving cream, no rinsing of the face after, nothing. No water is involved at any step of the process, I don’t like the sensation of getting wet. I don’t find shaving dry like this any more irritating than using shaving creams and the like, and the cleanup is super easy. The hairs fall right off the blade. The process is obviously faster than the normal routine, and blades seem to last forever. Since my face is dry I can just hold the cartridge in my fingers instead of attaching it to the handle, which I find gives me better control.

    To trim my goatee I’ll use a small comb as a guard and hack at the excess with a cartridge. I used to use a naked DE blade but I kept getting small cuts in my fingers holding it.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Harmony in ~music

    toshi
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    Sing! Day of song - Bobby McFerrin - Improvisation - A large crowd provides accompaniment for one of the finest vocal masters of popular music. Jacob Collier Harmonises The Audience [Toronto] -...

    Sing! Day of song - Bobby McFerrin - Improvisation - A large crowd provides accompaniment for one of the finest vocal masters of popular music.
    Jacob Collier Harmonises The Audience [Toronto] - Collier takes this idea further by harmonizing the crowd in 3 parts. Simple, but large scale and spontaneous.
    Jacob Collier - Moon River - 4725 part harmony /hyp
    Lizzy McAlpine: Tiny Desk Concert - The backing band here, Tiny Habits, has some of the tightest harmonies I've ever heard in popular music. Lots more available on Youtube etc.
    Choral - Solo accordion, but lush chords and amazing gravitas. The ultimate track of a superb album.
    Ryuichi Sakamoto - "andata" (from "async") - Another instrumental track, gravitas out the nose here.
    MICROTONAL TETRIS - Magical harmonies and modulations that you may not have experienced before.
    Vicentino: Madonna il poco dolce - Speaking of microtonal music, Vicentino's microtonal works may be of interest if you like Renaissance music.

    Try these on for size, I'm curious which ones align with your request.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on What is a simple tech tip that changed how you use your computer or other devices in a significant way? in ~tech

    toshi
    Link
    On Youtube, Shift + > speeds up a video (and Shift + < will slow it back down). With a little practice it becomes easy to follow along with many videos at 2x speed. A UCLA study shows that...

    On Youtube, Shift + > speeds up a video (and Shift + < will slow it back down). With a little practice it becomes easy to follow along with many videos at 2x speed. A UCLA study shows that information retention can stay high even at high playback speeds. This can save an incredible amount of time. I like it so much that I've installed a browser plugin to be able to watch videos at speeds beyond 2x.

    4 votes