@amerika
Well, I don't think it's going to be everyone's favourite at a party, but it's interesting. Here that part of flavour that sets Pu'er apart from just strong black tea amplifies the flavour in lemongrass that is hardly distinguishable when it's lemongrass alone.
It's not bad either, but people usually go for something traditionally fruity with Pu'er — I often use tangerine or orange peel myself. I've definitely drank weirder combinations, like tea with spices!

@amerika The company I get tea from has a wide range of these mixes and they had one called "Eternal Love" or something like that and they had that on discount so I got some. I come home, brew it and wow — instead of being sweet, it's bitter-ish and spicy and I was like: "Whoah, the person who designs these definitely knows his trade and has a sense of humour" 😂

@m0xee

Oftentimes it's not a question of weird but whether ingredients work together. With that kind of harmony, even the weird can work, although obviously not all combinations!

Tea at your house must be fun.

@amerika It is! I do like messing with herbs and spices, I think everyone who enjoys cooking does.
You're right, working together is the key, to be honest, I was tempted adding basil to the yesterday's mix, I do enjoy adding it to tea as of recent, it's an essential cooking ingredient for things like tomato and cheese salad and even strawberry lemonade, but adding it to tea is new to me. In the end I decided against it — once you add too many ingredients it's easy to mess up.

@m0xee

I used to accidentally make Oregano tea on a regular basis when I confused the Oregano container with the Mint one. It was not as bad as one might have thought.

@amerika @m0xee i drink 'greek mountain tea' regularly, which has oregano in it, alongside ironwort (the primary component) and various other herbs

@errante @m0xee

Oregano is pretty magic stuff anyway. Basil too. I like sneaking the latter into various recipes and it seems people feel more comfortable after they have consumed some.

Maybe I will try smoking it.

@amerika @m0xee if you can ever find greek mountain tea (i have bags of it from greece when i visited), i'd reccomend it a lot

@errante @m0xee

I know where to try:

https://www.greekfestival.org/

@amerika @m0xee i learned to cook dolmadakias a while back, on the same trip :)

@amerika Ha-ha-ha-ha! I think I should try oregano tea, in food I can barely smell it (probably something individual like some people can smell asparagus, some can't), but with tea it might be different.
I have a fun story like that too — a friend of mine gave me a can of thyme to put into tea, it's called «чай с чабрецом» — pretty popular in Russia, but I don't like tea with that, it's pretty strong, kills all other flavours. So this can was sitting in the kitchen drawer for a year or so.

@amerika Then I grew a habit of using thymus for cooking meat, soups and other stuff, problem is, in Russian when thyme is used in different contexts, even for cooking, it's called differently — «тимьян». But eventually my suspicions started growing and I decided to check out that can and was like: "Damn, but it's the same herb, who the f decided to use two very different names?!" 🤣

@m0xee

Thyme... another powerful spice. In powdered form, it goes really well in spicy food, like that great Jamaican jerk chicken that was trendy in the late 1990s.

My guess is that the difference in names refers to powdered versus whole ("sifted"), but that is an artifact of how things are sold here.

We used to have a great Russian teahouse -- now replaced by Vietnamese and Mexicans -- that had all sorts of far-out concoctions for teas.

@m0xee

Personally, I think the samovar needs to make a comeback.

We also had an Italian coffee shop that specialized in basically coffee-flavored crack in a small amount of hot water.

@amerika
> samovar needs to make a comeback
That's an amazing idea! Never was a tradition in my family, I can barely remember using one in early childhood. No, of course we've had an electric one in the city, but it's hardly the real thing — basically, just an electric kettle.
I think I've seen real one in the storage room of my friend's country house — if we go there this summer, I'll try resurrecting it, it would be a great experience!