Anyone a fan of lapsang tea? I just tried it for the first time and I must say that it is absolutely amazing. It is extremely reminiscent of latakia, and I am sure it would pair great together. The only other kind of tea I have enjoyed as much is earl’s grey. A cup of lapsang, along with some latakia based snuff and a pipeful of latakia, and nirvana would not be too far away. Amazing!
Didn’t he drill a hole in his head?
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@ Tom droll Tom, yer so bad (-;
Are you talking about blended Lapsang or straight lapsang? Some of the blends like peetes Russian caravan are not shabby. The straight Lapsang is a BEAST!! Musty wet pine fire camping taste seriously man straight Lap is the HEMAN tea of teas.
Lapsang souchong and Earl Grey are my favorite teas. Here is one of my easy-to-do snuff blends: place some lapsang souchong in a tea ball (or just use a tea bag, if you don’t use loose tea) and seal it in a jar with Toque Natural or any other pure tobacco snuff. Leave undisturbed for a few days minimum. Voila! Lapsang souchong snuff.
Love Chinese tea, hate Lapsang Souchong. It is reminiscent of Latakia because the same process is used to make both. I like smoking or snorting, just not drinking.
The lapsang I’ve had is by twinnings. I understand the process of latakia, very similar except that pine is not used for latakia. Mmm I love anything that smells or taste smoky. @Kjoerup, I am going to have to try that sometime.
I’m gonna have to get some of this.
@donjorge Pine is not used for Latakia? Although the exact composition of the smoking ingredients used for the process of Latakia making tend to be a guarded secret, it would be hard to imagine that coniferous wood was not responsible for at least a portion of the process given where it hails from.
Be warned Chirs, its like drinking smoke. I love tea, but I hate Lapsang. I can tolerate the Russian Caravan blends which are about 50/50 Lapsang and unflavored black tea. Even these I only use on occasion. Its really a love it or hate it kind of tea. On a related note, I had a German beer once that was smoke flavored. It was like drinkng bacon!
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get a good loose leaf lapsang…it is not all that lovely straight like that…pine camp fire…peetes coffee has a decent caravan that is not over smoked.
Well my understanding that different woods and sometimes herbs are used in latakia. Maybe pine is used in some latakia, I don’t know, I never figured that it did because none of the latakias I’ve had taste of pine. Xander, is right, it is one of those love or hate things. It is very heavily smoky in flavor. Peet’s coffee makes excellent coffee, I bet their teas are decent.
Latakia has Pine and Cypress. Cypress is most traditional, but Pine has been used due to lack of Cypress in Syria.
Since loose leaf tea is harder to find in town that rocking horse crap I turned to peetes a few years ago… They have a limited tea run it is a rare called Imperial Red… advice if you see it BUY it and at near 100 a pound it is soo worth it.
Do they have cypress in Cyprus?
@Xander: Rauchbier! My best friend said exactly the same thing: “It’s like drinking bacon!” He hates it.
Yep, Rauchbier. There’s a decent microbrewery in Baltimore that does mostly Geman styles. I had to try it once.
For those that didn’t know what I was referring to on my post, it was Lobsang Rampa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobsang\_Rampa
I often enjoy a pot of this tea while smoking a latakia blend in my pipe, and also with Dutch Windmill latakia snuff.