It’s time for my favorite new feature: Stuff We Like, a monthly round up of things that are fun, useful, fantastic, and giving us all the happy. This month: A Beginner’s Guide to all things Tea!
In the last Stuff We Like post, we had a comment from Olivia suggesting a tea post aimed at beginners:
I feel like there would be a ton of great suggestions. It’s really hard to decide where to start.
A few of you echoed Olivia’s idea, so here we go!
Of course I had to turn to Elyse and Carrie for information. As you may have already heard if you listen to the podcast, I’m not much of a tea drinker, so this is as educational for me as it is for y’all.
Please note: some of these links include affiliate codes which send a percentage of your purchase back to the site at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
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Elyse: I drink a lot of tea. A LOT. And I’m pretty snobby about my teas, generally speaking. My first suggestion for tea drinkers is that loose leaf tea is the way to go. Most bagged teas are of a lower quality than loose leaf. When the tea is all ground up and in a paper bag, you’re going to get a cup of tea that tastes like dirt.
Some brands offer tea in pyramid shaped sachets, and if you need bagged tea, that’s the way to go. I recommend Tea Forte or Harney and Sons for that.
Basically you want a nice, long, unbroken tea leaf. Here’s what I’m talking about. This is what a tea leaf should look like:
This is what you get in bagged tea:
So what’s the big deal? Believe it or not those top leaves provide a really nice flavor. The grounds at the bottom are literally the dust leftover after the better tea leaves are shipped. It’s like drinking your favorite coffee after grinding fresh beans versus drinking something that’s been sitting in the pot for two days.
So, first, get better leaves, either loose leaf or in a pyramid sachet.
There are six different types of tea: black, green, oolong, white, red and herbal.
I drink mostly black tea. Black tea contains the most caffeine and should be steeped in water that’s just at a boil.
There are three types of black tea: Assam, Ceylon and Darjeeling. Breakfast blends are usually a combination of a few of these. I prefer Assam: it’s a malty, strong tea. Ceylon is a little mellower. Darjeeling always has a musky taste to me.
Oolong tea is a blend of black and green and has the best tea names – “gunpowder” and “iron goddess of mercy,” to name a few. Steep oolong like black tea, with water just boiling.
White tea is the mildest tea–it’s even less processed than green. I personally can’t drink it because it has no flavor to me. You want to steep it at water under a boil until you get a very pale yellow color.
Those are the actual “tea” teas. Herbal and red/rooibos tea actually come from different plants.
Herbal tea comes in a bajillion varieties and are made up of different plant blends–camomile, peppermint, hibiscus, etc. It’s almost always caffeine free and really just a matter of personal taste.
Red tea comes from the rooibos plant and has a mild smoky flavor. It’s caffeine free and very high in antioxidants. It’s also good for allergies and is a natural bronchodilator. You steep it in boiling water and you get a nice red color. Like black tea it takes milk or cream well.
Okay, that’s a lot of info.
Here’s a shopping guide to get you started.
It’s a little pricey, but Tea Forte’s tasting chest will give you the opportunity to try all kinds of tea from black to herbal. You also get sachets so you don’t need an infuser:
To steep loose tea you need an infuser, and oh, darn, there are so many to choose from, including adorable and charming options:
So much adorable. A LOCH NESS TEA INFUSER!
And don’t forget – there are also adorable infusers on Etsy, too!
Okay, so what are my favorite teas?
Fava’s Winter Blend is my favorite black. It’s robust and has cinnamon, clove, orange and peppery flavors.
For a plain black I go with Golden Assam.
My favorite Oolong is Iron Goddess of Mercy and sometimes I shout at my staff while I’m drinking it, “Am I not merciful!?”
Like I said above, I go with a plain sencha for green tea. Green tea does come in all kinds of flavors though. Jasmine green is popular.
When I don’t want any caffeine I drink red tea. My husband who says tea tastes like “when my brother would push my face into the leaf pile while we were raking” actually likes red tea with honey.
Specifically, I like honey bush red.
CarrieS:
I also like The Mighty Leaf’s Rooibos Tea and Teavana’s Joy tea.
The most unusual tea I ever had was Tundra Tea, also known as Labrador Tea. When I lived in Alaska I lived on the tundra, and we all made tea out a local plant (we just called it the Tundra Tea plant). It looks like a mini pine tree. The needles are said to be medicinal, although I’ve also heard that in very large qualities they are toxic. All I know is that the tea was wonderful for respiratory bugs. It was a bit like eucalyptus. Sometimes I would mix it with Lipton Tea for a softer flavor. I haven’t had it in 20 years (and as far as I know it’s not a product one can buy) but I still recall it fondly.
True fact: My husband and I met because he sent a friend of mine a wedding gift of tea collection. He mailed me some gunpowder tea and I mailed him a baggie of Tundra Tea. Many cups of tea and episodes of The X-Files later we got married and are still drinking tea together seventeen years later!
My advice to new tea drinkers is to try a lot of things and love what you love. Try loose leaf tea, try bagged tea, try different flavors. Apologize for nothing. I love an electric tea kettle because it doesn’t burn down the house, and I spend 99% of my tea drinking time drinking bagged tea from enormous coffee cups while multi-tasking. On the other hand, nothing is more classy and relaxing than a “real tea kettle” and then pouring the hot water into a china teapot, and then steeping your loose leaf tea and sipping it from a delicate cup.
Sarah:
Amanda and I found some accessories to go with your tea-drinking, no matter what you’re doing. I mean, the fun part of new hobbies is the shopping, right?
The Sofia + Sam Multi Tasking Laptop Bed Tray is $40, and has room for a tablet, a phone, and a laptop up to 18 inches – Amanda is a little obsessed with this one.
And if you’re reading your paper books in the dark, this wedge light might be a huge help:
This handy-dandy tool is $13, and runs on 3 AAA size batteries.
And if you spike your tea with something a little stronger, may we suggest…
Drunk Crosswords by Francis Heaney and Brendan Emmett Quigley is a $5 spiral bound book – and the crossword fans in the reviews really liked it.
Or, if you’re a puzzle person, Amanda found ZELDA jigsaw puzzles!
There are a few different Zelda puzzles, too – this one is $12, and 550 pieces.
What about you? Are you a tea maven or a tea newbie? Any suggestions or ideas or questions? Please share in the comments!
This whole comment section is a testament to “different people like different things, The End”.
So all my Assam-hating, Darjeeling-loving self will add is:
If you want to get into drinking tea and want to learn what you like find a tea shop, one that sells loose tea in a variety of types. Ask if you can buy a cup of whatever strikes your fancy. Generally you can. Tell them what you like or don’t like about what you’ve just bought and they’ll be thrilled to make suggestions.
Yes, loose tea looks expensive, but it’s no more expensive than good coffee. You can often get two cups out of a teaspoon. A 100g bag lasts me two weeks at a pot/three mugs a day and that’s full strength not resteeping.
Most importantly, once you learn what good tea tastes like you can start hunting for the cheaper varieties. I’m something of a snob but there are good, drinkable bagged teas out there as well, as long as you brew them with care.
What a great post! Having fun reading all the comments and now I need to check out all the new tea shops everyone mentions. My personal favorite is Tealuxe http://www.tealuxe.com/ which I discovered in Boston. Their Irish Breakfast Tea is my favorite indulgence. As a New Englander I also grew up with Wagner’s teas and still adore their Fruit & Spice blend. A friend recently introduced me to Adagio; she sent me a box of assorted rooibos blends and I have to say their Rooibos Citron is just the best thing when you have a cold. My daily morning go-to is a real Chinese Jasmine Green that I get at the Asian grocery down the street; I can’t tell you what brand it is because the labels are all in Chinese, sorry. Celestial Seasonings also makes some good seasonal blends; I like their Sugar Plum Spice and I also stock up on their Candy Cane Lane at Christmas and use it to make iced tea all summer. (Mint iced tea is twice as cold as regular iced tea and that’s a fact. Xing Mint Tea in a can is also amazingly refreshing.) Their Roastaroma is also a great coffee substitute with milk and sugar; I used to drink it with a spoonful of molasses as a healthy pregnancy drink – no caffeine and lots of iron and antioxidants.
Not a fan of Teavana; I think they’re overpriced and I don’t like their habit of mixing several types of tea; how do you know how they taste individually? And Tazo is tea for people who drink coffee; it’s very harsh and has no subtlety at all. (Although a coworker recently gave me a box of their Tea Flowers for my birthday and I have to admit they hit it out of the park with those blends.) I have also been warned away from Yerba Mate as it has been linked to esophageal cancer and I have a genetic potential for that already.
I inherited the drawers from my grandmother’s old treadle sewing machine (my grandfather long ago took the machine itself apart and turned it into a belt sander); hubby put a top on them and turned them into my official tea cabinet. But I also have a kitchen cabinet shelf for all the boxes, jars, bags and tins that don’t fit in the drawers. So yeah, I will stake my tea collection alongside anyone else’s. And I’m still always looking for new ones.
Sooo many tea samples in my Adagio cart, just when I started going to the library again to save money on books. Oh well!
Love this post! I love loose leaf tea, I think it tastes better than when it is bagged. I drink Harney & Son’s Black Vanilla and Paris teas. I also like Republic of Tea’s Vanilla Almond and Coconut Pu-erh. I have the Kati Steeping cup from Tea Forte for my tea steeping needs. The infuser is at the top of the cup and has lots of room for the tea to spread out.
I have been thinking of getting a teapot and brewing it in the teapot rather than in the cup, but when what I have works fine I have a hard time justifying the expense. :o)I may have to break down and do it after reading this post.
I’ve never been able to drink coffee–why oh why doesn’t it taste like it smells?–and I grew up drinking Lipton’s (or as my college roommate called it, “brown-colored sugar water.” At grad school a Kenyan student introduced me to the concept of adding milk to tea, and that changed everything. Now I make it strong, with milk and sugar. I mostly drink Tetley’s British blend decaf, with Republic of Tea Earl Greyer for weekends and special occasions. Thanks to the Bitchery for a wider range of suggestions, and I am definitely getting a bigger infuser now that I know that the ones I have are too small. And thank you for the info on steeping times; I think I was steeping my green tea too long, but it still tastes too flowery for me. Fruit teas like my sister likes (she likes apricot with a little honey), taste like unset Jello to me. I love Constant Comment in the winter–like now–or a cup of strong tea with a Hot Damn back (thanks, Judith!) And I’m not much of a mint tea drinker, but making sun tea with a 3:1 ratio of black tea and mint tea makes the best iced tea EVER.
@EC Spurlock, you mentioned Tealuxe before I could. They are my favorite source of loose-leaf tea, and since I live in the Boston area, I indulge frequently. I have one of their personal-size teapots with a mesh infuser. (I also have about eight other teapots, because people who know I like tea give them to me, but that’s the one I use.)
I really only like black tea, and I don’t object to teabags. I don’t drink coffee at all, so I like my tea strong. My morning tea is Taylors of Harrogate Scottish Breakfast; for an afternoon pick-me-up, I drink Yorkshire Gold.
I’m not a tea drinker at all (give me hot chocolate any day!); however, my husband is.
Some of his favorites ~
Earl Grey Tea from the San Francisco Herb Company
Murchie’s No. 10
He uses T-Sac Tea Filter Bags which are compostable instead of a washable Infuser. We buy them in bulk by the 1000; he likes size 2.
When I moved to Australia in the early 1990s, I discovered both tea and the social drinking of tea. My favorite tea story involves the hospital after I gave birth to my first child. I was told by the nursing staff that I should be careful not to drink too much caffeine as I was breast feeding. They then proceeded to bring me a pot of (black) tea every morning at 6am, another at 8am with my breakfast, another at 10am with biscuits, another at noon with lunch, another at 3pm with biscuits, another at 6pm with dinner, and a last pot at 9pm. I was there for a week and I could have floated away with all of the tea they brought me. One day I confronted the nurse by asking “How much tea is too much for a nursing mother?” “Don’t worry, we just bring you the bare minimum for civilized living,” she said.
Tea! <3
I have the fortune of good access to a couple of local tea shops, and I get most of my tea from them.
Seattle-area people: MarketSpice at Pike Place Market has great tea, not only their Cinnamon Orange Spice blend that's their signature stuff, but also their Northwest Breakfast. Northwest Breakfast is what I usually drink for my morning tea.
There's also a lovely shop called An Afternoon to Remember, which is headquartered in Bothell.
An Afternoon to Remember is not to be confused with Friday Afternoon, who show up to sell geek-themed teas at local conventions. I buy from them sometimes too. 🙂 http://fridaytea.com
But since the post mentions Tea Forte, I will also note that every so often I DO get their Vienna Cinnamon, in a loose leaf canister. That stuff is delicious. Good strong black tea with a cinnamon kick. Yum.
Every so often if I want a green, I get sencha. The local stores of the Uwajimaya chain sell good green tea, so I get it from them.
Also of note: although I do favor loose leaf, I also buy mesh bags to spoon my tea into before I steep it. I can get 'em for cheap at the MarketSpice store I mention above. That way I get to have the flavor of the good leaves while also keeping my tea cup nice and tidy. 🙂 And they're compostable!
I’ve been an enthusiastic and habitual tea drinker for decades! I prefer black teas and black tea blends, but you Earl Grey drinkers can keep that one. It reminds me of perfume, and not in a good way.
I love Fortnum & Mason teas (especially Royal Blend–I see you, @Francesca!), an electric kettle for convenience and getting water to the correct temperature (tea sucks if not brewed correctly), and while I will drink tea brewed from tea bags, I love the pyramid sachets from Harney & Sons and loose leaf teas.
Also, @Carrie S, Labrador tea is a smell from my childhood (yes, in Alaska)! I’ve never imbibed, but I remember picking the leaves as I wandered through marshlands and scrubby woods. The underside of the leaves was slightly fuzzy and brown, and the tops green and shiny. I don’t see it much anymore, but I don’t take the time to wander the way I did as a child, either. Thanks for the memory!
People who enjoy flavored black teas should check out Mariage Freres, you’re going to want some for the packaging if nothing else. I’m a big fan of Upton, if I want good black tea, but honestly I’m happy with all kinds – I will even enjoy Lipton if I must. Sometimes I want sugar, or honey, or milk, or cream, or some combination of those, sometimes plain, or with lemon…I like variety.
I drink lots of herbal tea, too. I love green tea and barley tea and white tea and all sorts of chai. Basically anything but bubble tea.
One thing I don’t understand, though: why does rooibus get a different category than herbal tea? How is it not a type of herbal tea?
@kkw: technically, Rooibos is classified as a herbal tea. It’s made from a bush plant found in South Africa,and is naturally caffeine free.
🙂
“Bare minimum for civilized living.”
HAHAHAHAHA!
I love tea, and I always felt like my taste in teas was all over the map. Like someone else said, I also highly recommend Adagio online – their blends are always interesting and they were the ones to introduce me to my all time favorite green tea, hojicha.
So my recs, if anyone reads this far and wants to know: twinings lady grey (less bitter than her husband earl grey), bigelow darjeeling and lemon lift, and hojicha green tea (it’s roasted differently from other green teas – so gooooood). And then on the extremely plebian side, I swear by the generic brand of citrus green tea at my local HEB.
The adagio teapot is also fantastic, if anyone was considering that side of things. I’ve gotten to the point where if I’m making loose leaf, I just make a whole pot because I’ve always found that infusers don’t work as well as I want them to.
While in general I stick with Tetley and Twinings bags for convenient (blackcurrent flavoured, Lady Grey and Earl Grey vanilla are standards), I’m happy to sample loose tea when someone else goes to the trouble of brewing it for me. The best I ever had was some Green Dragon Oolong at the original Twinings store across from the Royal Courts of Justice in London. I’d have been tempted to bring some home with me (proud Canadian raised by English mother), but the 20 pound price for a not over large bag was a dealbreaker. I did stock up on their lemon flavoured black tea which I can no longer get in the grocery stores here and which is wonderful when I have a cold.
In Ireland the two major brands are Lyons and Barry’s and many an argument starts with declaring an allegiance. I often say Campbell, another irish brand. Irish breakfast tea is strong, and used as a panacea
I am a loose leaf tea fanatic. Try Den’s Tea. I like their “Sencha extra green” and their “matcha genmaicha” and their “houjica.” Also Restaurant grade matcha. Follow their brewing instructions and you get a great cup.
The Tea Spot carries the black teas I like. Try their “mile high chai” or “Russian caravan.” Their “urban tea tumbler” is a must for work or travel.
At home, I use an electric kettle and a yixing teapot (green) or a cast iron tetsubin teapot (black). Both teapots I got at the thrift store…save your $ for high quality tea.
Houjica is smoked green tea. Give it a try. Blend it with peppermint leaves and honey for a head cold.
@Cerulean OMG Elyse tea!
@Anne Gaston Yes! I love peppermint tea when I have a migraine (or I’m feeling anxious)
One of my big tea drinking pet peeves is that if you order a cup of tea at a Starbucks or restaurant here it comes in two temperatures 1. Lukewarm or 2. Surface of the goddamn sun
I’ve fried my tongue so many times because I can’t wait for it to cool. So now i annoy baristas and demand 3 ice cubes too
With regard to the laptop desk, I needed one since I have to sit with my legs in a lymphadema pump for an hour at a time, 1-3 times a day (inherited vein issues) and needed something that would fit over the fully inflated sleeves. While I like the desk shown, the legs are not adjustable so I got a bamboo one from Amazon (SONGMICS Right/Left handed Laptop Desk Bamboo Foldable Bed Tray w’ Tilting Top&Drawer). The legs adjust up and down. It’s light so I can easily fold it up and lean it on the wall when I’m not using it. The ledge to prevent your device from slipping off is removable so you can leave the leaf down and write without the ledge/lip being in the way. You can spend more and get one with a fan underneath the top to cool off your device but I’m using a Kindle Fire HD10 (I get a lot of reading done while pumping) and it doesn’t overheat on the desk. I think it was on sale when I got it because it didn’t meet Amazon’s free shipping amount, but I ordered from the Songmics Amazon store instead of Amazon itself, got to use my Amazon gift card, and didn’t have to pay shipping.
I’m also a tea drinker, though not nearly as much as when I lived in a colder climate, and definitely prefer loose tea. I also like good strong black tea and Peet’s Scottish Breakfast Tea is a favorite when it’s cold and dark out.
@Angela James (#40): I have that tea maker, too! Plus several electric kettles. I finally got rid of my Revereware stovetop kettle about 2 years ago, but then someone gave me a new one. Oy.
I’m all about my tea. I almost exclusively drink tea (and I’m loosely including everything from black tea to herbal tisanes) or water. I’ll occasionally have coffee, less often soda or juice.
Naturally, I have more tea and tea paraphernalia than you can shake a stick at. I use different pots/cups/mugs depending on which tea I’m drinking–this is serious business, people!
I’m less fussy at work since I’m usually more about the caffeine injection than the experience. Right now, I have at my desk Yorkshire Gold, Ty-phoo, several Republic of Tea varieties, Paromi, Harney, Kusmi, Bigelow, Steven Smith, and Marcus Samuelsson teas awaiting me. Several mugs (the Forte mug with infuser and lid is a good work choice) and my Mr. Coffee mug warmer round off my essential office set-up.
Seriously, I’m almost never without my tea.
My fondest hope is that someday good, already prepared tea (heck, even decent tea) will be available to the extent that coffee is. I almost never order it out because it’s always that sad cardboard cup or little stainless pot of lukewarm water you’re supposed to swish a teabag through. It’s depressing.
For people whose only experience with tea is that bag of Lipton’s in a cup, I’d say that no more represents the tea experience than a cup of freeze-dried instant represents coffee. I’m not necessarily knocking Lipton’s tea or freeze-dried coffee–sometimes they fit the need and situation–just know there’s more. I second the advice here to experiment with a better quality tea and research how to make it properly. Don’t give up if the first one doesn’t knock your socks off since there is a whole world of choices. Enjoy!
I should have mentioned that I have absolutely no connection to Songmics and am only sharing my experience. I derive no personal (or public for that matter) gain from my post.
Angela James, yes to travelers not getting good tea! I hate going to conferences and seeing the big metal urns .. They say “hot water,” but you can tell they’ve been used for coffee.
Speaking of water, the water you use can make a difference. Our water has a ton of minerals, so we use reverse osmosis water for drinking. When it runs out, and I’ve made tea with tap water, it tastes terrible.
Years ago I had a roommate who travels with a dance troupe. She came back from the Carribean raving about sweetened condensed milk in tea. It’s amazing! It adds sweetness, but also a lot of milkiness, so you get more like a chai without having to heat up milk separately.
If rooibos is good for allergies, I sure wish I liked it. But I hardly like any herbal teas. One that I have recently discovered is Celestial Seasonings Roastaroma. It’s supposed to be sort of like coffee, but I can’t stand coffee and yet I love Roastaroma with a teaspoon or so of sweetened condensed milk. It’s great in the evening when I don’t want caffeine.
I’ve been a tea drinker since my age was in single digits which is quite a while ago.I’m pretty eclectic on my tea choices although I draw the line at trying anything that prices out at over $100 US per pound. Yes, when you get into the alphabet soup world of plantations, pickings, and plant positions (among other little details), limited supplies can command serious prices.
Some cities have stores catering to Asian communities, those can be good starting points to try various green, white, and oolong teas. I’ve found both bags and loose teas at reasonable prices and qualities. If you just want to try a loose tea, check minimum purchase amounts for either on-line or in-store purchases and go for smaller sizes. It’s no bargain to get a volume discount on a tea you dislike. You can usually buy more somewhere if it’s not a proprietary blend. Speaking of blends, learn your ingredients. Blends that contain citrus products can curdle dairy products. I have to avoid most herbal blends because of certain plant allergies. Reading ingredients and asking questions saved both my money and my health. While you can use just about any water, a good rule of thumb is don’t brew with a water you don’t want to drink.
If you really want to use a tea bag, I can recommend a lovely disposable product called the T-Sac. They are unbleached paper filter bags that come in several sizes from single cup serving to 12 cups for that industrial sized teapot you can barely lift.
If you like iced tea, I learned a trick from my mother: 8 single cup tea bags in 1 gallon cool water in a glass gallon jar. Let it sit in the sun for a day, remove tea bags and enjoy. You don’t get the bitterness of heat brewed tea and you can experiment with your good loose teas. The one warning is to refrigerate your tea as soon as you stop brewing and thoroughly clean your jar between uses to avoid bacteria or mold contamination. Beyond that, Enjoy!
@Cleo – awww thank you!
@Jessica London has great tea!
Here is the closest I can get to it. This is my morning tea routine.
1. Buy Yorkshire Gold tea. It is available on Amazon. I prefer to buy in tea bags because I am lazy. Also, a bag helps ensure you have the right amount.
2. Pour boiling water on a bag in a mug. Do not fill to the top, leave about a half inch at the top.
3. Steep for 3.5 minutes. +/-.5 minutes if you prefer it weaker or stronger.
4. Remove bag.
4. Add milk. Pour until the milk clouds the bottom of the mug and starts to rise. Stir.
6. Drink, feel completely at peace with the world.
There are some other UK brands available that are higher quality than any US.
PG tips: Seemed bitter to me
Tetley: Decent
Twinings: Pretty good, but beware accidentally buying the US version of the brand. It is low quality, right next to Lipton aka garbage water.
Also, has anyone else had Starbucks tea? Their English Breakfast has a sour note at the end that is like wet socks.
I am a tea maven. I’ve got, no exaggeration, at least 40 or so different varieties in the house. Bagged tea for convenience, when I want a quick cup, or to take with me when we travel. I like Twinings, and for herbal teas, Celestial Seasonings, and for medicinal teas, Yogi brand. I am not impressed with Teavana at all. I have several loose teas I buy from Middle Eastern grocers, including a really good variety of Ceylon tea called Alghazaleen, and an organic Turkish black tea, and Royal World brand Earl Grey. Jasmine tea I pick up in Chinatown, it comes in a really pretty metal tin. I recommend the English Tea Store online, they have a Lady Londonderry tea that I love. Jackson’s of Piccadilly used to have a Lady Londonderry tea but they discontinued it, SAD!
I like to add my own flavorings to black or green tea, like mint from my garden, or dried orange peel, or chai spice mixture(get it from an Indian grocery). Condensed milk for chai is a must.
@Elyse, lol about the lukewarm tea water. I remember a Jayne Ann Krentz book where the hero was a tea maven and kind of OCD. They’re in just some diner type place and he gives the waitress very specific directions about how to prepare his tea properly. Naturally, what he gets is a cup of tepid water with a bag slung on the side. I’m pretty sure that’s the exact phrase JAK used, “slung on the side”. He is irate and wants to stiff the waitress, and the heroine gives him a good scold about it, because she’s some poor hard working woman who’s been on her feet all day.
I’m thinking it might be “Wildest Hearts”, but I could be wrong. The scene stuck in my mind because I hate getting the water with the bag on the side. By the time it reaches the table it’s too cold to make a decent cup of tea.
Karin @66: of course you just made me think of the iconic sequence in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” where Arthur Dent is served a cup of “a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea” and almost gets everyone killed trying to make the machine brew him a decent cuppa. 😀
I’m British, so I replaced the blood in my veins with tea years ago. I’m an eight-mug-a-day girl.
Loose leaf teas are a PITA. You can never clean a pot out properly after it’s had that in it, and when the leaves get past the strainer and end up in the back of your throat? Yuk. Occasionally I’ll break out the Assam or the Formosa Oolong, but I don’t go in for that most of the time.
China tea is served black, and is a pleasant alternative, but the hard stuff is the thing.
Here’s the recipe – Take three tea bags (I agree, I’ve never had a good cup of tea from a bag in the States, but here, it’s different. The best tea is in the tea bags because that’s what everybody drinks). Chuck them in the pot. Now our pot is never cold, but if this is your first pot of the day, take a few minutes to warm it up first.
The best tea is Yorkshire Tea, but failing that, PG Tips or Sainsbury’s Red Label are good. Tetley’s is a bit on the weak side.
Hard water makes a different brew to soft, but we live in a soft water area, so we’re good.
Boil a kettle. A nice, rolling boil. We get through 2 or 3 kettles a year, which is about par for the course. Electric kettles of course, because then you can keep it next to the pot. When the water is still boiling, pour it on to the tea bags.
Now fill the kettle again and put it back on. By the time it’s boiled the tea is ready. Pour it into mugs. Top the pot up with the freshly boiled water, but this time it can be hot, because the boiling water has done its magic.
Pour the milk into the mugs to taste. I prefer semi-skimmed (in the US I buy the blue top, 4% I think it is). There you go, a cup of tea, and there’s another one waiting for you in the pot when you’re ready. Cover the pot with a tea cosy to keep it warm.
Fancy teas, the ones with herbs in, are training teas, getting you ready for the real thing. A drink that doesn’t have any tea in it is a tisane or an infusion. It isn’t tea. So while raspberry leaves make a nice drink, don’t call it tea.
The cold stuff isn’t for me, I’m afraid. I suspect it’s an acquired taste.I always bring my own tea bags when I visit the US. If you want to try one, stop me at RT and ask. I should have one about my person!
Finally, here’s an ad for Yorkshire Tea. Think on.
Lipton Orange Pekoe teabags are kind of like McDonalds: not very good but always consistent. It’s formulated to be strong enough to infuse some flavour into the most tepid restaurant “hot” water.
I like Keemun tea a lot, which is a Chinese black tea (confusingly called “red tea” in Chinese).
Kusumi (a fancy French brand) has a St Petersburg black tea that i drink constantly. It’s pretty expensive, but worth it for me. You can also get small samples tins from Kusumi. Although… their almond green tea was kind of terrible… when I tasted it, I thought I was dying from cyanide poisoning 🙁
And David’s Teas (in Vancouver at least) has a really lovely albeit expensive rooibus tea called “Caramel Rooibus” that everyone I’ve ever brewed it for has loved. It has actual caramel pieces in the tea and tastes like dessert.
For non-caffeine tea drinkers, there is also barley tea, which is drunk across China, Korea and Japan. People drink it hot in the winter and cold in the summer. It’s got a pretty strong non-tea flavour though, so might take some getting used to. I like it a lot, but my husband refuses to touch the stuff.
I don’t think anyone mentioned it — (Red) rooibos tea is good for acne. It really does help to bring the swelling down. I just use the prepackaged Tetley, and drink that when a breakout happens.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/258984691/drink-tea-read-books-be-happy-vintage
Just found these tea spoons that say ‘Drink tea, read books, be happy’. So cute