Slime Saint - Ch. 4 - Operation Friendship

[EchoGirl]

ganbare, maid-chan

hope slime!jelly can get a true friend at some point. or come across the original slime they met.

 

[Garrulous]

I see the Great Tea Wars have come to the comment section!
Anyways cute chapter. The Power of the Head Pat is a dangerous weapon that Ms. Slime needs to be careful not to abuse!

 

[nekoyuuki]

No, even if it's exactly as bitter as I expect it to be, or even less, bitter is still bitter. Being a supertaster doesn't help in that respect, sure, but getting the depth of the tea after that initial bitter shock is always a delight.

do you ever talk to humans in person?

 

[QueenNether]

If a window that you supposedly cleaned five times has enough dirt and grime on it for someone to take a layer of it off with their finger you should be fired

 

[DeaObliDex]

Wait that just made me realise, that also meant the maid's family have been telling her white lies about her tea. She got really lucky to make tea only after the saint had been replaced.

Imagine the og!villainess saint is not yet dead but alive.... oh boi she might seal her fate

 

[Flavihok]

Excelent. TY for translation as always!

 

[medicijai]

And thus begin the tale of the legendary maid, Erin, whom be the first who got blessed (got headpats) by Goddess Jelly.

Slime Jelly. the original Jelly was an evil b*tch

 

[Amariithynar]

There is a lot wrong with what you said here

Fermented teas while similar are vastly and appreciably different from one another due to how they are fermented, their preparation and storage, they do deserve categorization, especially Sheng and Shou puerh, since those are too very different things

White teas are their own thing entirely, it is often sun dried, and it has their own range of flavors ranging wet hay, stewed cherry and of course, nearly always honey (greens tend to be more vegetal, herbaceous or nutty, I've had tomatoey greens, piney greens, and greens that taste closest to any other type of veg)

also the way of preparing green and black teas varies vastly between the type that is being made, some times black teas are rolled like greens, sometimes greens aren't rolled.

That you call Oolong a sub category is plain ridiculous, people, especially in the west like to try and force oolong to fit between green and black as a middle point/ mixture. This is wrong, very wrong. Oolong is perhaps the type of tea with the MOST variations, whether through preparation or varietals used, though the two big ones are charcoal roasted and those which aren't, but that's just scratching the surface and oolong alone eclipses the forms of three types of tea, black, white, and green in the many, many ways it is made. It is not a sub category, at all, to be simple and concise. But suffice to say, they are not basically black tea, if you've ever had a cup of oolong, this would be obvious

Can't say anything about yellow tea, since it is hard to come by and I haven't had it since my favorite sellers don't keep much of it in stock

And this is even more outrageous? Young fermented tea is like green tea? No it isn't. The taste is entirely different, the way it is steeped and created is entirely different. And the claim that fermenting it hasn't changed it, is just plain nonsense. You WILL know if you got given a young Sheng Puerh rather than green tea, you will know if you've been given an aged sheng instead of green tea, and you will defiantly know if its shou, aged or not. But this claim seems to be a misunderstanding of terminology, so allow me to explain myself.

When I say Young Sheng, I mean Sheng which hasn't been aged as Puerh for long, this is the standard way of referring to it, everyone who is into puerh does it, its how it is marketed by the sellers, and the farmers who they get it from. Some people by cakes to age themselves, some only drink Puerh stored in certain regions, it is a whole thing. It is called Young for years after production and fermentation, Until its astringency mellows with age. You are however right about shou, it was made to basically speed run Puerh but not for time, it was to try and mimic the taste of Aged Sheng, which is at least seven years old by usual measures. Not to mention tea makers get experimental with the leaves they use to make both Sheng and Shou, it isn't just what is used for green tea, but generally and traditionally, that tends to be what is used

And I have drank enough black tea to drown small nations, unless it is over steeped or made in the English method (which by design will make it bitter, since using as little tea as is generally used in western brewing, to get any flavor you must steep it for awhile, and that in turn, allows more of the bitter chemicals to leech out into one brewing), bitterness is not the first note on the tongue. It depends on the tea what that is, some are much more predominantly sweet, some are what I'd call dry, and others have more roasted/ malty notes. But unless you're using broken leaves and or brewing it the british way, it will not have a bitter shock.
And Ignored that bit about not being guaranteed bitter, cause its wrong

No tea is guaranteed to be bitter, cept young shengs and that's a sliding scale. Broken, mulched leaves will be bitter, but no varietal or form of tea is bitter by nature besides it, so green tea, naturally, is not an exception to a rule that doesn't exist.

It really just seems you've googled most of this, cause of how much you focus on the production methods and how they're similar rather than what the tea actually is and your vast misunderstandings of the varieties of it, especially what young sheng was, but to be fair, that is the realm of gong fu nuts like myself, and just reading about Sheng and Shou wouldn't explain that and neither do most "What is puerh" blurbs that sites make to try and hawk what they claim is puerh to ignorant masses (I will burn harney and sons to the ground for what they sell as Puerh, that stuff had a mouthfeel of dust and a taste of sun baked seaweed and decayed sealife, it was an utter abomination, and I drink shous that taste like stewed oak wood!)

Green and white are close yes, but are much more different than they are similar

Oolong is so vast and varied its nearly ripped itself free from the rest of tea, its insane how varied oolong is.

You keep going on about the many different flavour notes that different categories and sub-categories can have like I've denied that these don't exist, but I have not, only stated that none of that determines what a tea's category is or is not, nor do these secondary flavour notes mean anything to the primary taste of bitterness derived from the tannins and catechins common to all tea. Preparation method is what determines the category of tea, and that is why I refer to preparation method, and the primary differences in preparation for each category and sub-category of tea, eg. the oxidation rate of oolong and the shorter, more frequent rolling and heating cycles being what differentiate it from black tea, and so on.

Just like how stouts differ from ales differ from lagers differ from pale ales differ from pilsners differ from porters and so on and so forth before even getting into the different regional styles of making each, yet you can still look at their production processes and see that there really are just lagers, ales, and lambics, in the end; everything is just some small variation in the process that changes it (and noticably to the tongue, certainly, with the myriad flavours such changes impart) but not anywhere near enough to say it is truly a separate category, because the production method doesn't differ that much at all, and the core hoppy bitterness is always there, though more or less depending on the exact method (eg. lambics are very low on the hops bitterness scale compared to ales and lagers, but it's still a strong consistent note throughout any lambic, let alone the other two).

This is why oolong is between green and black, as it is prepared primarily like a black tea is, just without full oxidation, as I mentioned; the flavour not being "between green and black" isn't a concern at all when it comes to categorization based off of production method. There could be as many different secondary flavour profiles it can be given as there are stars in the sky, but that doesn't matter. Similarly, for white teas, as I already explained before, they are basically processed as very light greens from that same base as black tea (ie sunlight and/or indoor wilting of the leaf before moving on to further processing according to sub-category).

This is the same concept that I apply to tea, coffee, and various other things that get needlessly subdivided, and no, I didn't get it or any of my information or opinions from "Harney and Sons"; your mention of them is actually the first time I've heard the name. Looking into them, not surprising I haven't, since they're American, located in New York, and not someone who I'd turn to for information about tea in the first place.

As for fermented teas: You are partially correct here in that I Googled it to refresh my memory and because I was not immediately familiar with the term "Sheng", as puerh is not often sold here without just being referred to as a loose leaf generic "Puerh", and it has been about a decade since I last had any, to boot (I prefer greens mostly due to lack of bitterness, but there are a few nice loose leaf blacks imported locally that I partake of regularly, too, and I stay the hell away from the mass-produced bagged garbage with their paltry volumes of tea per sachet, too). My assumption about your use of "young Sheng" came from my aforementioned categorization by method (in other words, the fact that after the tea has been processed and prepared for but has not actually been fermented it can be sold as "Sheng", and the post-fermented variety years later is still just sold as "Sheng", thus reading "young Sheng" to me reads as the processed-but-not-fermented variety; like how milk could be technically called "young yogurt" after inoculation with the live cultures that will ferment it, but before it actually ferments) and the fact that I saw several people in blogs and forum posts referring to getting a "young Sheng" made from between a few days to a few weeks prior in the year their posts were made, and mentioning that it was intended to be left to ferment for awhile afterwards but they were trying it out now as well, did not dispel but rather reinforced that assumption. I did not, however, Google most of what I have said in general.

Again, all black teas are intrinsically bitter because of their tannins and catechins, which provide the primary flavour profile of any black tea (assuming not overbrewed to reach the point of astringency from drawing out too much tannin/catechins, as previously stated by both of us). Variety from there, be it in those slight changes to production from the core method, or a change in cultivar, and so on, only affects the secondary flavours that give it complexity beyond the bitter tannins and catechins.

do you ever talk to humans in person?

Yes, plenty, both at work and more casually outside of it. What relevance does that have with bitter things being bitter, even if one is used to the bitterness?

EDIT: Forgot a word.

 

[Carn109]

Friend get

 

[Mah_Buddy_Keith]

What about a handsome gelatinous cube?

How scandalous!

 

[Satsuki-Nada]

Good for the cuties

 

[ARoyalidiot]

You keep going on about the many different flavour notes that different categories and sub-categories can have like I've denied that these don't exist, but I have not, only stated that none of that determines what a tea's category is or is not, nor do these secondary flavour notes mean anything to the primary taste of bitterness derived from the tannins and catechins common to all tea. Preparation method is what determines the category of tea, and that is why I refer to preparation method, and the primary differences in preparation for each category and sub-category of tea, eg. the oxidation rate of oolong and the shorter, more frequent rolling and heating cycles being what differentiate it from black tea, and so on.

Just like how stouts differ from ales differ from lagers differ from pale ales differ from pilsners differ from porters and so on and so forth before even getting into the different regional styles of making each, yet you can still look at their production processes and see that there really are just lagers, ales, and lambics, in the end; everything is just some small variation in the process that changes it (and noticably to the tongue, certainly, with the myriad flavours such changes impart) but not anywhere near enough to say it is truly a separate category, because the production method doesn't differ that much at all, and the core hoppy bitterness is always there, though more or less depending on the exact method (eg. lambics are very low on the hops bitterness scale compared to ales and lagers, but it's still a strong consistent note throughout any lambic, let alone the other two).

This is why oolong is between green and black, as it is prepared primarily like a black tea is, just without full oxidation, as I mentioned; the flavour not being "between green and black" isn't a concern at all when it comes to categorization based off of production method. There could be as many different secondary flavour profiles it can be given as there are stars in the sky, but that doesn't matter. Similarly, for white teas, as I already explained before, they are basically processed as very light greens from that same base as black tea (ie sunlight and/or indoor wilting of the leaf before moving on to further processing according to sub-category).

This is the same concept that I apply to tea, coffee, and various other things that get needlessly subdivided, and no, I didn't get it or any of my information or opinions from "Harney and Sons"; your mention of them is actually the first time I've heard the name. Looking into them, not surprising I haven't, since they're American, located in New York, and not someone who I'd turn to for information about tea in the first place.

As for fermented teas: You are partially correct here in that I Googled it to refresh my memory and because I was not immediately familiar with the term "Sheng", as puerh is not often sold here without just being referred to as a loose leaf generic "Puerh", and it has been about a decade since I last had any, to boot (I prefer greens mostly due to lack of bitterness, but there are a few nice loose leaf blacks imported locally that I partake of regularly, too, and I stay the hell away from the mass-produced bagged garbage with their paltry volumes of tea per sachet, too). My assumption about your use of "young Sheng" came from my aforementioned categorization by method (in other words, the fact that after the tea has been processed and prepared for but has not actually been fermented it can be sold as "Sheng", and the post-fermented variety years later is still just sold as "Sheng", thus reading "young Sheng" to me reads as the processed-but-not-fermented variety; like how milk could be technically called "young yogurt" after inoculation with the live cultures that will ferment it, but before it actually ferments) and the fact that I saw several people in blogs and forum posts referring to getting a "young Sheng" made from between a few days to a few weeks prior in the year their posts were made, and mentioning that it was intended to be left to ferment for awhile afterwards but they were trying it out now as well, did not dispel but rather reinforced that assumption. I did not, however, Google most of what I have said in general.

Again, all black teas are intrinsically bitter because of their tannins and catechins, which provide the primary flavour profile of any black tea (assuming not overbrewed to reach the point of astringency from drawing out too much tannin/catechins, as previously stated by both of us). Variety from there, be it in those slight changes to production from the core method, or a change in cultivar, and so on, only affects the secondary flavours that give it complexity beyond the bitter tannins and catechins.


Yes, plenty, both at work and more casually outside of it. What relevance does that have with bitter things being bitter, even if one is used to the bitterness?

EDIT: Forgot a

Yeah. This convices me you just googled all of all of this. Since everything you've said the last two replies is the kind of stuff you find in the first few search results

Have a nice day,

 

[ARoyalidiot]

I see the Great Tea Wars have come to the comment section!
Anyways cute chapter. The Power of the Head Pat is a dangerous weapon that Ms. Slime needs to be careful not to abuse!

There's actually a book called the tea war. Haven't read it, since its about the business side of tea history and industry, which isn't nearly as interesting as how this one regional oolong that's grown in one village or whatever got its weird sounding name. Now that needs a book written about it, why oolong has wacky ass names

 

[nekoyuuki]

Yes, plenty, both at work and more casually outside of it. What relevance does that have with bitter things being bitter, even if one is used to the bitterness?

What relevance does anything you have said relate to "people don't announce their tea is bitter unless it's out of the ordinary bitter?"

 

[Amariithynar]

What relevance does anything you have said relate to "people don't announce their tea is bitter unless it's out of the ordinary bitter?"

Nothing, because that wasn't what was said.

Yeah, people who are used to black tea only describe it as bitter if it is more bitter than they expect from a properly prepared cup.

This is. And this is what I responded to.

Yeah. This convices me you just googled all of all of this. Since everything you've said the last two replies is the kind of stuff you find in the first few search results

Have a nice day,

Proved your handle right, at least.

 

[ARoyalidiot]

Proved your handle right, at least.

Yes, that's the point. But you're a pot calling the kettle black

 

[nekoyuuki]

Nothing, because that wasn't what was said.

How do you not understand this? Is it just some kind of need to be pedantic, even if you are off on a tangent? Do you not understand legitimately, or is it some sort of narcissistic vindictiveness? Do you honestly believe people are asserting there are no bitter compounds in properly prepared tea and you are correcting or educating them, or do you just not care?

 

[Mah_Buddy_Keith]

Yes, that's the point. But you're a pot calling the kettle black

More like screaming the N-word at cookware.

 

[MathMols]

What about a handsome gelatinous cube?

If the handsome gelatinous cube is not male then sure

 

[Amariithynar]

How do you not understand this? Is it just some kind of need to be pedantic, even if you are off on a tangent? Do you not understand legitimately, or is it some sort of narcissistic vindictiveness? Do you honestly believe people are asserting there are no bitter compounds in properly prepared tea and you are correcting or educating them, or do you just not care?

Considering that that's EXACTLY what aroyalidiot was saying, multiple times over, yes, there was at least one person asserting that tea is not bitter up front as the primary flavour profile, before secondary flavour characteristics hit the tongue, that I was correcting. How do you not understand that?