HOT TEA

muziclver
muziclver Posts: 145 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So, I'm a southerner that is addicted to sweet tea. I'm trying to get away from that a bit and I'm trying to find some HOT teas that I can drink in the morning. (Hate the taste of coffee). I tried this Zao Mint Tea, it tasted like hot water with an after taste of mouthwash. I don't particularly like fruity drinks so I want to try to find a good green tea (maybe?) or mint tea that has a better taste. Any suggestions?

Replies

  • ItsGoodToHaveGoals
    ItsGoodToHaveGoals Posts: 58 Member
    I love the tropical green tea from Mighty Leaf. I buy it online but I'm sure you could probably find it in stores. They have a ton of different flavors - even chocolate mint tea. They also have a fantastic citrus chamomile. Stash also makes a very delicious lavendar tea that is very soothing.
  • tigerlily8045
    tigerlily8045 Posts: 402 Member
    I LOVE my Orange, Passion Fruit, and Jasmine green tea by Lipton. Its not too sweet, I do add a tsp of sugar or splenda.
  • jonesin_am
    jonesin_am Posts: 404 Member
    Are you looking for an herbal tea? I like sleepytime tea any time of day!
  • Pretz72
    Pretz72 Posts: 3 Member
    I love my Earl Grey tea! I pretty much drink it all day long....black of course!
  • kriskris92
    kriskris92 Posts: 190 Member
    I drink green tea religiously. They have some good flavoured green teas - my personal favourites are acai berry and pomegranate.
  • healthygreek
    healthygreek Posts: 2,137 Member
    My favorite green tea is Tazo Organic Green Tea and for a wonderful full body tea that you can have with milk and stevia or whatever your sweetener is-Tazo Organic Chai-a delicious black spiced tea.
    I'm just a tea drinker and I love them both.
    I also love Earl Grey and Tazo Organic Spicy Ginger.
  • magpie0
    magpie0 Posts: 194 Member
    Haha' hot tea'.

    Orange pekoe is a great basic tea. You can put milk in it without it tasting funny like an Earl Grey would. You could certainly add some lemon juice to it.
  • montana_girl
    montana_girl Posts: 1,403 Member
    We have a local tea shop that sells a wide variety of teas (loose leaf or bagged). I have a bunch of flavors I like and they generally have a combination of vanilla, coconut and/or chocolate. I enjoy both black teas (during the day for the caffeine) and rooibos teas in the evening.

    As for store teas... anything with vanilla, caramel, or chamomille. I stay away from "fruity" flavored teas... but I am willing to try just about anything.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    I like black tea best - English Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey, etc. You might try chai tea, which is a spiced tea.
  • RumpusP
    RumpusP Posts: 163 Member
    Orange pekoe isn't a type of tea (unless someone has started using it as a brand name?), it's a grade of tea.

    If you are looking for general store tea bags, Lipton, Red Rose, Tetley, Tazo... you're just going to have to keep trying various stuff til you find what you like.

    Basic types of tea: black, oolong, green, white and pu-erh (though there is a tiny sub-section growing called yellow).

    If you're looking for something heavier flavored similar to coffee, I'd suggest Assam, Keemun, and Ceylon blacks. (Most English blends are made of these in differing amounts).

    Chai can be very flavorful if you're looking for something that involves spices and milk (it's base in almost always black teas, though sometimes people make it differently).

    Pu'erhs tend to be fairly strong, depending, but often have a "fishy" taste that can put people off at first.

    Japanese greens like sencha can be strong.

    Also, to make stronger tea use a higher tea-to-water ratio, not steeping longer. Add a second tea bag or use more grams of loose leaf til you find what strength you like.
  • RumpusP
    RumpusP Posts: 163 Member
    Oh, and a good beginner's tea site for exploring and getting sample amounts is adagio.com. They have a good variety and you can get sample size, loose leaf, and tea bags of almost all of their teas.
  • AlexBoBalex79
    AlexBoBalex79 Posts: 99 Member
    I like Celestial Seasons teas like Lemon Zinger, Orange Zinger, Sleepytime. Get a sampler box and see what you like.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    It depends what your tastes are. I like Chai and you can get some not bad flavored teas made by Tetley. I shop online at Teavana for a lot of my teas. One of my morning favorites is MateVana. I also like Rooibos teas if you want to stay away from caffeine and you can usually get those in the grocery store, vanilla is a good mix with rooibos.
  • snowangeljo
    snowangeljo Posts: 11 Member
    I love the variety from davids tea, cookie dough tea is sweet without sugar :) there are many of their teas i love, green matcha, pumpkin chai, three wishes, santas secret, sleigh ride, i could go on lol :)
  • Froggyh
    Froggyh Posts: 81 Member
    I LOVE tea. I tend to drink black tea with milk in the morning, then green tea (plain or jasmine) throughout the day.

    The important thing to be aware of if you're new to tea is how to make it. Black tea is easy: just pour boiling water over it and leave to steep for 3-5 minutes. Green tea's a little more complicated, as actual boiling water is damages the delicate leaves. You also don't want to steep it for more than a minute or so, unless it's a flavoured one (jasmine pearls, for instance, should be steeped for around 3 minutes). I thought I hated green tea for years because I was making it terribly bitter by brewing it like black tea! Then I learned it should be brewed at 175F/80C, not boiling. If you don't have a thermometer (I don't), just pour boiling water in your mug or a Pyrex jug and leave it for two minutes before adding the tea.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    I prefer plain old English Breakfast Tea. (It's a black tea though). I'd recommend that you buy a couple of sample packs and try them out. You never know how someone else's tastes are going to compare to yours.
  • Defren
    Defren Posts: 216 Member
    I like black tea best - English Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey, etc. You might try chai tea, which is a spiced tea.

    I don't drink English breakfast tea, even though I am English and live in England :-) I adore Earl Grey and I also adore green organic Chai tea from Yogi teas, I add freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice to the chai tea, sooo good.
  • ashleymcn01
    ashleymcn01 Posts: 108 Member
    I drink coffee in the mornings, but love a cup of afternoon tea! My favorites are the Lipton Black Pearl Tea Bags, with one packet of Truvia and a fresh lemon wedge. My other favorite if I'm in the mood for Green Tea is the Lipton Pure Green Tea Bags, with a lemon wedge. Perfection!

    I've tried the flavored teas, but just can't seem to get into them.
  • princessnik7
    princessnik7 Posts: 144 Member
    Celestial Seasonings Green Tea Decaf Mint is really tasty I just discovered this a couple weeks ago.

    Normally though I do plain green tea (Lipton, Celestial, whichever is on sale or I have a coupon for), with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and raw tupelo honey.


    I would also recommend trying "variety packs" of tea, that come with more than one flavor so you can figure out what you like without buying whole boxes of stuff you don't want to finish.
  • EmilyBullough
    EmilyBullough Posts: 30 Member
    Celestial Seasonings makes an herbal peppermint tea that I like. I think it's pretty common to feel that hot tea tastes like slightly flavored water when you first start drinking it. The only green tea I really like is sold in loose leaves at a local tea shop in my area, but I've had better luck finding nice black teas in tea bags at the grocery store. I really like Bigelow and Stash chai spiced black teas. Any black teas labeled with "chai" and/or "spiced" will have a very strong, spicy smell that I think improves the taste. I've added links below so you can see what the packaging looks like.

    http://www.bigelowtea.com/Catalog/Product/36/1/47/Vanilla+Chai+Tea.aspx
    http://www.amazon.com/Stash-Premium-Spice-Tea-20-Count/dp/B000CQG8K8
    http://www.celestialseasonings.com/products/herbal-teas/peppermint
  • muziclver
    muziclver Posts: 145 Member
    Wow! Y'all really know your stuff! Do teas normally taste like hot water with a weird after taste though?
  • Pelly57
    Pelly57 Posts: 169 Member
    As a Yankee who was raised on sweet tea (yup, I'm half southern) it took a while, but I now enjoy my tea, black and green straight, no sweetener. Start by cutting the sweet tea with plain tea, or adding less sugar. When that gets to tasting good, cut it back a little more. You will get there, I can't drink it sweet anymore.

    As for hot tea, my favorite is a good quality jasmine tea, brewed properly. A beginners tip for you, don't brew green tea with boiling water, it will be bitter, its much better when brewed at 140-185.
  • EmilyBullough
    EmilyBullough Posts: 30 Member
    I have a very basic understanding of this stuff, but I think the aftertaste your talking about is from the tannins in the tea. Do you drink wine? It's like the aftertaste from a heavy red wine. Or you might just be brewing your tea too long and that's affecting the taste. :)
  • Froggyh
    Froggyh Posts: 81 Member
    Wow! Y'all really know your stuff! Do teas normally taste like hot water with a weird after taste though?

    Nope. I don't even like water cold; that's one of the reasons I drink so much green tea! If it's only tasting like water you may need to steep it for longer.

    I don't know much about herbal teas, but "real" tea - that is, tea from camellia sinensis plant - has a noticeable flavour and, when brewed properly, no real aftertaste, though as someone else noted if you brew tea for too long it can get a bitter aftertaste.
  • kathleennf
    kathleennf Posts: 606 Member
    Hey- well I like hot tea plain, I grew up with it. I like Red Rose and Earl Grey best. Having said that, though, I have another suggestion.

    I have been trying to cut back on my diet soda consumption and in order to do that have been making my own flavored cold teas. Where I live it's really hot so hot tea is not so appealing. Anyway, I boil a kettle of water and use 1 regular tea bag (black tea) and one fruit tea bag (orange, lemon, raspberry, whatever), then add a little Splenda. My next step will be to back off on the splenda. It smells good and would probably be hot- but I let it cool and then pour it over ice. Yummy.
  • muziclver
    muziclver Posts: 145 Member
    I have a very basic understanding of this stuff, but I think the aftertaste your talking about is from the tannins in the tea. Do you drink wine? It's like the aftertaste from a heavy red wine. Or you might just be brewing your tea too long and that's affecting the taste. :)

    I'm only 19! Haha so no wine for me. But the tea I've tried was from starbucks (first and last drink i've bought from there) and I used the mint tea. It was just not my thing I guess. It wasn't sweet or had any type of flavor really at all.
  • alychil820
    alychil820 Posts: 219 Member
    Licorice tea is my favorite, and I actually hate licorice! Try it, you might actually enjoy the taste.
  • freekat
    freekat Posts: 71 Member
    Sometimes you can get a pack of mixed teas. You could taste heaps of different teas and buy your favourites.

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