Different kinds of tea...

I love bigelow brand earl gray and vanilla chai tea, also found a peach one that was nice. I had a white chocolate bigelow one and it was awful.

Love tea. Sometimes for the ritual, sometimes just because it's delicious.

If you like to add honey - Tazo's passion tea, either loose leaf or bagged - is delicious with honey. It's my go to tea when I'm sick.

I've also had some good luck with Fresh and Easy teas. Not sure if that store is by you - but they have some fun flavors of bagged teas like ginger peach and each bag is wrapped in plastic so it seems to keep it 'fresher'.

MaitreyeeMAYHEM wrote: »

What is the matcha?

Matcha is an incredibly awesome Japanese green tea (you may have seen this in traditional japanese tea ceremonies). You digest the entire tea leaf, not just brewed water.



It comes in powder form and is whisked with a bamboo whisk into hot water. It has a ton of vitamins, minerals, have 6x the caffeine of a cup of brewed green tea (so boosts metabolism). I cannot recommend matcha enough.

You can also make matcha lattes, matcha candies, matcha tea cakes, etc. It's an awesome ingredient in cooking.

As far as fruit tea is concerned, my comment may have been a little confusing. I meant that teavana uses artifical flavoring which is infused with the tea leaves themselves. In other words, the tea will taste the same with or without the fruit chunks they add in to the mix. This means that they charge you for tea by weight, and the fruit is a filler which just makes it more expensive.


Lastly, to the person above who said it's too much of a pain to make tea, i HIGHLY disagree. When i was in the U.S. i thought the exact same thing because the method of making tea WAS too much of a pain in the butt. Now that i moved to Scandanavia and i've seen a ton of europeans it has totally changed my mine.

Almost everyone has an electric kettle. They are SUPER cheap, and fantastic. You can get a nice and stylish one for under $20.00.

You just fill it with water, press a button on the handle, and it will beep when it's ready. It also keeps the water hot for a super long time. You just place the teabag in the cup, fill with water, and go on your way. You can also brew another cup by just putting in another bag and grabbing and pouring again. You can make instant coffee (which is the norm here, it's WAY better than even the ground coffee you buy here), you can add the water to ramen, you can use it for cleaning (pouring down the drains), etc.

It's pretty awesome to have super hot/boiling water on hand at all times.

I like a lot of different teas. I drink mostly green...I like it with jasmine. But I will try anything.

My absolute favorite is a black tea called lapsang souchong. You have to get it from a real tea place...a grocery store won't have this. It's a smoked tea...very distinctive. Give that a try if you are looking for something different.

I dont drink coffee at all, never have. Tea on the other hand, i have been drinking since about the age of 4. One of my neighbors was from England, and would invite me over for tea time every afternoon, for many years. I learned to appreciate tea. Since then, i have become a tea hoarder. I have every type of tea, in every flavor that you can think of. One of my favorites is a blueberry tea from Three-Rivers, Canada. It is the most wonderful stuff i have ever tasted.I also have a customer who brings me loose green tea directly from Japan, he travels there on a regular basis. Everytime i go somewhere and i see a type or flavor of tea that i dont have, or have never tried, i pick it up and add it to my collection. I suggest that you just do the same, and experiment with all the different ones you come across. You will learn of new flavors that you like as you go along.

I'm on a bit of a budget nowadays....so I take lipton black tea, put 4 bags in a 2qt pitcher and put it out on the balcony for the day. It makes a nice brewed tea, and then I can stash it in the fridge and add a slice of lemon or some mint or a splash of nectar (my favorite). Or just pop a cup in the microwave and the flavor is fantastic from the slow brew. Then I can make any flavor I like super cheap. I really like to do this with chai tea bags and peppermint too. In the summer I cold brew coffee as well..... really maximizes the flavor and I can have custom drinks for a fraction of the coffee house cost.

Also, i totally thought this thread was going to be about teas that were supposed to magically make you lose weight, so this was an exceedingly pleasant surprise. Thanks OP!!

ZOMG, just Googled and I can pretty much just walk down the street to get one!! And they're only $5. Sorry boring tea ball infuser, your work is done.

Alatariel75 wrote: »

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

ZOMG, just Googled and I can pretty much just walk down the street to get one!! And they're only $5. Sorry boring tea ball infuser, your work is done.

A tip - it tends to list to one side when you first pop it in, but once the tea becomes saturated it should float upright. If it isn't tap it on the side of your mug to even out the tea in the basket, that will do the trick

Ohhhh, drunk ducky. Gotcha

rainbowbow wrote: »

MaitreyeeMAYHEM wrote: »

What is the matcha?

Matcha is an incredibly awesome Japanese green tea (you may have seen this in traditional japanese tea ceremonies). You digest the entire tea leaf, not just brewed water.

It comes in powder form and is whisked with a bamboo whisk into hot water. It has a ton of vitamins, minerals, have 6x the caffeine of a cup of brewed green tea (so boosts metabolism). I cannot recommend matcha enough.

You can also make matcha lattes, matcha candies, matcha tea cakes, etc. It's an awesome ingredient in cooking.

Matcha is my favorite tea, and I just did a matcha latte this afternoon! Can anyone recommend a good brand though? Right now I have a couple of tins that I got from my parents who didn't like it, but when I'm through with those, I want to buy some decent tea.

I personally right now do make yerba mate in a french press. It's not technically tea, but I like the caffeine and energy boost from mate much more than regular tea or coffee. It's marketed as having the "strength of coffee, the health benefits of tea, and the euphoria of chocolate" but all I know is that I like it and it's better for me than coffee.

MaitreyeeMAYHEM wrote: »

I love the world market but I got a huge tin of Twining English Tea and I feel that was way over priced. It was a loose leaf tea. Does loose leaf cost more than tea bags?

MaitreyeeMAYHEM wrote: »

I prefer steeping my own, especially if their loose leaves. I just feel like it's more fresh, maybe its because I can see the leaves lol. It took me awhile to get used to black tea but now I love it. I add honey and sometimes table sugar to mine but I feel kinda guilty with all the sugar.

Loose leaf may seem like it costs more than bags but for the amount of tea you get, it is actually better priced and usually higher quality. You want make sure there is enough room for the leaves to unfurl. Also, most loose leaf can be brewed 2 up to 5 times so you get more cups of tea for your money.

I am a big fan of tea, but not so much of tisanes although I do drink chamomile on occasion and ginger when I need to settle an upset stomach. My go-to black tea is a Nepalese Black (similar to a darjeeling). I also like oolong, green, and white. Flavored teas I like are Earl Grey, Earl Grey Creme, and Jasmine green. I get a lot of mine from the Dragon Tea House on Ebay (usually free shipping direct from China) or online at Upton Tea. I always make it in a teapot so the leaves have plenty of room. Here is my little collection:

There are tea balls that open in to a flower in the hot water. So lovely.

You really must try a chai. Try sprinkling cinnamon in your tea.

I like tazo brand. I drink their green tea, I think it's called "zen"

I also enjoy chai tea

Plain black tea is good too with some cream/sugar

I drink insane amounts of tea because it's all super stocked at work. There are about ten different tea varieties. Mostly bigelow and a couple celestial.

It's easy to keep drinking tea when you have instant hot water spouts everywhere!!

My favorite is green tea but it's nice sometimes to mix a green tea with bigelow black cherry or bigelow raspberry zinger. They're sweet so you use less sugar or honey but you still get the caffeine from the green tea.

I usually double bag my teas and never use sugar of milk/cream. Occasionally I'll use a bit of honey.

I tried yogi teas a couple times -- ugh hate it!!