Digital Gee

I've been thinking about "getting into" tea for some time now. I do like coffee and drink about a pot a day, but I'm drawn toward tea - and know very little about it.

Presently, the only tea I drink is iced tea and have finally begun using loose leaves rather than tea bags. I was gifted an infuser/pitcher a while back, and you can make ice tea overnight in the fridge without having to boil any water. Pretty cool gadget.

Today I paid a casual visit to a store called Teavana. Cool shop, but a bit overwhelming. Dozens of teapots and sets, from cast iron to bone china to ceramic to glass. And then, of course innumerable varieties of teas to choose from.

I think I might enjoy some of the ritual that can be associated with tea, as well. It could be a nice way of slowing down, now and then, and just relaxing. Coffee never does that for me, and although I do grind my beans, I don't take the time to use a French press, for example. When I want coffee, I want it NOW!

But an evening cup of tea sounds so relaxing!

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone on the forum is a tea aficionado, and could share some tips on getting started. Feels like there's this whole new world out there to explore (kind of like learning about wine), and I would love to hear suggestions, recommendations, etc. about either the tool end of the deal (what kind of teapot), or the actual tea end of the deal.

At the moment, I don't know an Earl Gray from a jasmine tea, a fruity tea from a spicy tea. Of course I know they taste different, duh.

Your thoughts, tea drinkers?

Artkansas 

My favorite is regular green tea. Light clear and compliments food. It's also rumored to be healthy.

miss kenton

I only drink it while I'm watching Downton Abbey, however, I come from a long line of British tea drinkers. There are certain rules I have learned from my family for making the perfect cup of tea.
1) A kettle, not a pot,must be filled with COLD water.
2) The water must be BOILED, not just heated. (Americans are notorious for simply heating the water,causing that dreadful white foam to appear on the tea)
3) While the water is being heated, the teapot should be warmed by filling it with hot water, which of course will be dumped when the tea water has been brought to a boil.
4) The tea tastes best when served in a bone china teacup, not a thick mug.
5) When serving tea to guests, before assuming you should pour the tea, you should ask, "Shall I play mother?"

Velo Fellow

I had an old first sergeant who was old fashioned tough. Used to absorb the recoil of an M-1 Garand with his chin. Anyway, he drank tea (loose leaves in a tea ball) but insisted on drinking only out of a china cup (plain, no painted flowers of course) claiming the standard mess issue crockery cups were like drinking out of a toilet bowl, and the plastic cups stamped "US" polluted the tea.

Mobile 155

Did you notice the price on that Tea? Well a little bit does go a long way. I had to cut back on coffee so I went with herbal tea. It is harder to find long leaf tea but we have a organinc store close by and can pick some up now and then. You will need an infuser of some kind unless you order from a place like Revolution tea. You know there used to be a big tea and coffee store in south San Diego but I can't remember the street it was on. My special tea is the White blends but I am not old school. I use an electric kettle that boils the water and then shuts off.

Sixty Fiver

I was raised by a Scottish grandmother who stressed to me at an early age that there were things that just had to be done when you made tea... my grandfather only drank a single cup of coffee in the morning after grinding the beans and drank tea the rest of the day.

The pot must be pre-warmed.
The water for the tea must be boiling.
For her the tea had to steep for 5 minutes under a cozy.
She preferred PG Tips as a daily tea... it is nothing fancy but is good quality black tea.

This is really important if you take milk in your tea... one should never use cream as it is too heavy.

You put the milk in a glass or china cup FIRST and add a few drops of hot tea to warm the milk before you fill the cup as if you add milk to hot tea, it scalds the milk, and gives it an off taste. Some people have questioned this until they have tried it both ways and the difference in the finished tea is very noticeable when it loses that scalded milk taste.

Favourite teas are Oolong which has a delightful flavour and finish, black and green teas, and good quality chai is a staple here... you can make this at home with the right spices and there are some small tea shops that make excellent pre-spiced chai, which means tea, so saying "chai tea" is redundant.

Different types of tea require slightly different brewing temperatures and brewing time... many herbal teas require more steeping to extract the flavours.

My wife cannot consume much caffiene so we also brew a lot of roobios/ rooibosch (Afrikaans = "red bush") tea which comes in many varieties including ones that has indian chai spices... vanilla bean is also a great addition to roobios which has become an immensely popular beverage which originated in Southern Africa.

In South America the most popular brew is Yerba Mate which is also very popular worldwide... it is a little higher in caffeine than many teas and is prepared with hot, but not boiling water as this makes the drink bitter. It has some very beneficial health effects and I know a number of South Americans who consume this like many consume coffee.

Mate is better for you than coffee which contains carcinogens while teas contain beneficial anti oxidants that can prevent many illnesses, especially green teas.

And like my grandmother, I always have PG Tips on hand.

Mobile 155

As long as your weren't required to eat Haggas with your tea.

Sixty Fiver

Haggis is great, until you remember what it is made of.

(warning - click if you want to see haggis in its natural state)
https://www.foodrambler.co.uk/wp-cont...7-1024x680.jpg

To my knowledge my grandmother never made haggis and I am even more thankful that my Swedish grandfather had no taste for surströmming... both are considered by many to be some of the most vile foods on earth.

I have experienced both... surströmming makes lutefisk (the real reason why Norwegians are truly evil) taste good.

Haggis tastes like ambrosia compared to both these "delicacies".

BluesDawg

I just drink iced tea. I like it unsweetened, unlike 99.9999999% of the other lifetime residents of Georgia, some of whom think this proves I am a commie or worse yet, a yankee. The varieties I know are good tea, not so good tea and bad tea. I try to get the first variety.

I am much more choosy and aware of variants in my beer selection, though most around here only know one kind, "cold".

NOS88

I was until I had my second bout with oxalate-containing kidney stones.

If you're prone to such kidney stones keep this in mind: black tea in tea bags and loose tea leaves contain 4.68 and 5.11 milligrams of oxalate per gram of tea. Green teas and oolong tea had lower oxalate amounts, ranging from .23 to 1.15 milligrams per gram of tea. The oxalate content of the herbal teas range from “not detected” to 3 milligrams per gram of tea.

qcpmsame 

I'm a true Philistine about tea. I love it in the evenings, with my wife while we talk. I just use the Celestial Seasonings flavor of my choice form the sampler, in the paper bags, and boil some filtered water. No milk or sugar in an herbal tea for me. Red Zinger, Lemon Zinger and Chamomile are my usual favorites. The wife loves her loose teas and uses the tricks y'all talked about. She hasn't cultivated or civilized her Marine yet.

Bill

SuncoastChad

I'm back to coffee right now, but I have the equipment and loose teas at home and work. I am offish enough to use a mug since fine china would last about 10 minutes around here!!
I love a silver needles/white and oolong teas without sweeteners. I'm not real picky about my black teas but prefer them without a lot of "extra" flavors - ie. I'm not a big fan of "Earl Grey" though I will drink it if served at someones home.
I have a really nice loose chamomille and several nice herbal blends that are good for the evening or when I want to back off the caffeine a bit.

sknhgy 

I am a hard core tea drinker. My favorites are sencha (green) and orange pekoe (a "red" tea). For mail order you might try Adagio Teas. They have a website and forum where you can post and get all the info you need. I've never been disappointed in their teas. I am lucky enough to have a tea dealer within driving distance so I buy over-the-counter and I get to sample.
As a welder I started drinking tea in order to clean my body. It has become a habit and I attribute my health to it.
My preference is to brew bulk tea, a cup at a time, in a small Halls (look it up) tea pot. At work I drink PG Tips tea bags for convenience. I only use bottled water because here in Illinois all our water comes from the ground with lots of agricultural runoff.

Barrettscv 

I drink both tea and coffee. I'll have coffee to start the day and won't drink coffee after 3pm. I'll have tea anytime and will alternate between tea and coffee in the morning.

I enjoy most teas, but I like Green Monkey King (Tai Ping Hou Kui): https://www.silkroadteas.com/servlet/...ng-(Tai/Detail

Also see: https://www.sevencups.com/tea-culture...kui-green-tea/

I also have a Delonghi Deluxe EC155 Espresso & Capuccino maker. I find that dark Italian roast coffee from Traders Joes is a good, everyday coffee.

miss kenton

My dad was born and raised in Dundee, but we never suffered the haggis. He did make us Clootie pudding a few times!

Dudelsack 

Twinings Earl Grey tea. I put that sucker through the Keurig, dump it in my Stanley thermos, attach it to my special Topeak cage, and off we go. It's very nice on a cold day.

My wife drinks unsweetened ice tea and is neither a commie or a Yankee. Keep yer powder dry there son.

etw

I like using the tea leaves and find that the teas from

https://www.svtea.com/

are very good. They are nice folks.

Gunpowder green tea and jasmine are among my favorites.

CbadRider

Tea, Earl Grey, hot.

I never acquired a taste for coffee. I've gone through phases where I drank green tea and chai tea, but I've always come back to Earl Grey. No milk or other condiments.

I also drink ice tea with a pinch of baking soda added to smooth it out.

Sixty Fiver

Clootie pudding is not bad at all and the suet is an essential if you are looking for a high energy food.

The only thing my grandfather made regularly was dumplings... they were about as bland a food as one could imagine as he skipped the congealed blood and just added a little bit of pork fat to them.

stapfam

Teapot--China or stainless steel.

Always use boiling water straight from the kettle and prewarm the pot by swilling round Boiling water and emptying.

One Spoonfull of Tea per person and one for the pot. This means two spoons for one person and 3 for 2 people and so on.

Use a Low Cream FRESH Cows Milk and add to the cup first. Hot tea going onto "Stale" Milk will curdle it so you can throw that cup away. And I say Cows milk as Goat and sheep's milk will not give the right taste but some do like it.

Choice of tea. Tea bags do work for some but not for me. I always use Leaves and In the UK there are hundreds of varieties. The Commercial tea is a mixture of various leaves to make a particular taste. I prefer to make my own mix and that is one part Earl Grey and 2 parts Assam. And even the quality of tea from manufacturer will vary so I always like to buy my tea from a small supplier in London and it is "Fortnum and Mason's" Failing that I go to my Local Sainsbury's and buy it there.

Add sugar to taste if required and enjoy.

Tea should always be drunk straight out of the pot -- it does not store in a thermos and neither can it be bunged in the micro wave to warm up. And length of time to "Brew"? The old wives tale is that it should brew for 5 minutes. In my mind this makes the Tea Lukewarm so I only Brew for about 2 minutes but stir the pot before pouring.

And If you want to know the truth?---I prefer Coffee. preferably a "Grande Noir" in a little cafe up in the Mountains of France while I watch the TDF go past.

dbg

I'm in the middle of this transition myself right now. A nasty cold/sore throat started me onto green tea and honey. For two months now I've abandoned coffee and am sampling tea --looking for my favorite. Wow. There sure a lot of options. Previously, I would only have one coffee a day (caffeine hypersensitivity). I'm finding I drink numerous cups of tea a day --and I think it's healthier.

Check out my next post for a disturbing tea story..

dbg

We have an Adagio tea shop in Naperville so I visited, sampled, and bought 6 different versions. I still want the caffeine experience in the morning so they suggested I try some South American Mate teas. One afternoon immediately after brewing (steeping?) and sipping some Adagio Mocha Nut Mate tea I was stricken by a terrible bloody nose --a gusher. First bloody nose I've ever had in my life. Took me an hour to stop the bleeding. Winter dry weather? Was I visciously picking at something? Couldn't figure it out. Two weeks later (just last week) I cycled around to trying the Mocha Nut Mate again. I remembered my bloody nose the last time I tried this tea but didn't think it could connected. 30 seconds after my first sip, --another terrible gusher. I'm clueless to explain this phenomenon. I've thought about "showing off" the effect to others but I don't want to cultivate a hypersensitivity. Weird.

stapfam

Just had dinner and the Cup of Tea was accompanied by a slice of HomeMade Bakewell tart.



Cup type and size does not matter providing it is BIG. Same goes for the Bakewell but this was my 3rd slice.

doctor j

One quart of coffee and chicory every day.

In the summer, I'll add hot green tea once in a while.

In the winter, I'll add Earl Grey (with a bit of honey) once in a while.

az_cyclist

I dont drink hot tea often. Sometimes I will stop by Starbucks for a chai latte after a bike ride. I do drink iced tea 5 days a week. We make sun tea, and use 2 bags of Luzianne and 2 of Red Zinger.