tea!

[jazzfish]

merseine0613 asks:
So what, besides Bigelow, is drinkable in your estimation? And what is "good" tea?

Oh dear. Where to start.

I drink non-flavored black tea almost exclusively. I'll have green or oolong if I'm at an oriental restaurant where they're serving it with the meal, but I rarely make a cup or pot for myself.

I want strong tea. Flavorful tea. Tea that I can taste.

WARNING: DO NOT OVERSTEEP THE TEA. This will force me to come to your house and flay you with a mesh tea ball. Also it makes the tea undrinkably bitter. Boiling water, three minutes. Maybe less; the Assam Golden Rain that Teavana sells is done after 2'30", for instance.

So, with that out of the way:

Good tea is single-estate loose tea. (To be fair, I've not tried many blended loose teas. I suppose some of those might be good as well.) If you want to get specific, my current preference is for a northeastern Indian variety called Sikkim or Temi. I'm also partial to Assam or Keemun, and not such a fan of Ceylon or Darjeeling. I think I've tried and been unimpressed by one or two other Chinese varieties as well.

(Lapsang souchong is not tea. It is essence of smoked bacon dipped in hot water and served to unsuspecting gweilo.)

However, I accept that most normal people don't have loose tea, or good teapots. And when I travel, it's far more convenient to just have the individual bags. So, I'm more or less resigned to drinking bag tea when not at home.

Stash is pretty good, as is Tazo. Bigelow will do in a pinch. Lipton is surprisingly decent; I'm never sure if that's because it really is okay or if I'm just constantly expecting it to be awful and impressed when it turns out to be drinkable.

I don't like Twinings at all. Not the stuff they sell in the US, anyway. I'm told their UK tea is better. I would hope so.

At the bottom of the barrel we have Tetley. This is a tea that advertises itself as "the tiny little tea leaf tea." Tea is graded for quality based solely on the size of the leaves: larger leaves, higher grade. What Tetley is saying is, in essence, "Our tea sucks! Drink it!" I cannot argue with the first part of this, and try very hard to avoid complying with the second.

And now you know more about my tea preferences than you ever wanted to.

Comments

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

I have become a bit of a fruity-tea drinker of late. Mostly because if you order tea out a lot of places have it, and it's far less likely to be bitter and oversteeped. That's not to say that I don't love a good black when I get one, but the fruit-infused blends seem to take to ice better than some of the harsher blacks. And... well... it seems to be The thing to do in California.

I've been pleasantly surprised by Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf: their teas take well to ice or served hot, and their blacks aren't coffee-bitter like Starbucks (eeeeewwww). I was using the loose leaf at home for a while, but I tried their bags and they use mesh bags packed very loosely so it ends up being pretty darn good for bag, the lazy in me likes the easy clean-up.

[jazzfish]

Iced tea is something else altogether. I'm happy to drink fruity iced teas, even strawberry (which I tend to not like on its own). And I much prefer my iced tea to be Sweetened. As in, 'if the spoon don't stand up on its own that ain't enough sugar.'

A lot of the problem with Starbucks is that they don't bother removing the bag when the tea's done (see DO NOT OVERSTEEP THE TEA, above). Will have to look into CB&TL.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

FWIW I have found the silk-bag teas remarkably better than the paper bag ones. I expected it to be twee affectation, but IMO it actually works. Tea Forte makes them as does Novus.

[jazzfish]

Huh. I wouldn't've thought that. Neat. Will have to try them.

The pyramid bags actually taste better than the flat ones, but I'm never sure if that's a result of them using better tea or actually steeping more effectively.

[elf.livejournal.com]

i think it's both, but for a control i tried pg tips - which does their tea in both shapes. pyramid shape did make a slight, but noticeable difference.

i also dig the nylon bags - two leaves & a bud does a nice biodegradable one, and has good whole leaf teas. of course, i haven't tried their blacks (because i tend not to drink black at work), but i've liked their other stuff.

might be worth a try.

[jazzfish]

Yay science!

. . . wait, how can you have a biodegradable nylon bag? Isn't nylon a plastic?

[elf.livejournal.com]

cornstarch based nylon = way more awesome than petroleum based nylon.

[jazzfish]

Oh, right, that stuff. I've seen it in packing peanuts. Never realised it was nylon, though. Neat.

[ts52.livejournal.com]

I've had good luck in the past, making loose leaf tea at work with a variety of single cup infusers. Currently back on coffee, as it's still free and drinkable at work.

[jazzfish]

The trouble with loose tea at the office is the mess. Can't clean a tea-ball (or whatever) at my desk.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I regret to inform you that Tazo tea, while they may have an amusing website, has perfected the art of making tea taste wrong. (Have you had their Earl Gray? That somehow, strangely, tastes Nothing Like earl gray?) This is reason #1 why Starbucks is the evil empire and must be avoided.

Another thought re:travel: make your own teabags with whatever you want in them

[jazzfish]

I don't think I've had the Earl Grey. I mostly have the Awake, which tastes mostly like tea.

The problem with avoiding *$ is that they're often the only tea available in airports. . .

You know, I think I actually have some of the make-yer-own-teabags hanging around somewhere. I should look into those for travel purposes.

this is how i roll; YMMV

[fishy1.livejournal.com]

...more or less resigned to drinking bag tea when not at home

at work i have
1) a baby tetsubin (size: fits in the palm of my hand)
2) "matching" cup
3) sauce cup that i stole from a restaurant some time ago
4) a couple mini tins of loose tea

3 is for setting the infuser in when it's not in the pot. The whole arrangement takes up relatively little space, but allows me to make real tea at work. The small size of the pot encourages me to take breaks to get fresh hot water.

Re: this is how i roll; YMMV

[jazzfish]

I've considered something like this for work. Actually, what I was considering was one of those things you stick into the cup that makes the water boil, plus a teaball or other infuser. The trouble is the mess from the infuser. Can't clean a tea-ball (or whatever) at my desk, and I don't really like to get up again once I get sat down and into whatever I'm doing.

[meghatronn.livejournal.com]

What do you think of Celestial Seasonings? My favorite tea of late has been this (http://www.celestialseasonings.com/products/detail.html/special-occasion-teas/vanilla-strawberry-rose). I find it delightful, especially with a bag of animal cookies. I'm not hard to please.

I've tried quite a few from Republic of Tea as well, but I have found them thus far to be somewhat overrated.

[jazzfish]

I had no idea that Celestial Seasonings made black teas! I thought they were solely herbals and other infusions. I'd definitely try them. My main problem with CS is that their bags don't have strings.

I'd forgotten Republic of Tea. Overpriced and unimpressive, yeah.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

I didn't see this before I posted. :-P

My favorite CS tea is Red Zinger although it's getting harder to find. I should probably learn how to copy it sometime.

[jazzfish]

I used to drink a lot of Red Zinger. Not sure why I stopped. The main ingredient is I think hibiscus, which isn't too hard to find.

[meghatronn.livejournal.com]

Mmm...
I actually realized after I posted this that the reason I think I like that tea so much is that it has Rooibos. I'm really into that because of the natural sweetness.

[befers.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, I discovered Mighty Leaf Tea (http://www.mightyleaf.com/). I have greatly enjoyed every variety of theirs I have tried. Their tea bags are roomy silk ones and they use whole tea leaves that are as nice looking as the pictures on their website. They sell loose tea, as well. I haven't found them in stores, though I am sure they have some distributors. Their online ordering is easy and quick, though.

[jazzfish]

When Teavana stopped carrying Sikkim a year and a half ago, shortly after I started drinking it, I was casting about looking for someplace to get my fix. I found a place in India that offered free shipping on orders over $40 (up to $60 now). Which was like two packages of Sikkim plus a couple samplers.

I didn't appreciate how much tea 0.5 Kg really /is/ until the box arrived four weeks later. . . it took uilos and I most of a year to drink it. Good times.

[idoru.livejournal.com]

Lapsang souchong is not tea. It is essence of smoked bacon dipped in hot water

Yes.

I find myself drinking far more tisane than tea, strongly fruit-flavored [the redder, the better] blends OR licorice-root based things. Barring those, I drink green tea far more often than black -- I love a good genmai cha.
OH OH OH I also could live on Harney&Sons' [black tea-based] Cinnamon Sunset blend.

Have you poked through Adagio teas at all?

[jazzfish]

I didn't even realise Adagio had tea. I thought they only made the neat plastic tea-maker things. Neat.

(Also, Inara + tea FTW.)

[jameshroberts.livejournal.com]

My last boss is from the UK and says that Twinings is considered to be quite good there.

He doesn't drink tea in the US, because he finds it unacceptable. Although I think he's only considering supermarket teas and not tea shops. Anyway, he drinks (bad) coffee, which he doesn't like much, but since he doesn't know a good cup from a bad he's never disappointed.

[jazzfish]

I've heard from two or three people "oh twinings is awesome what are you talking about?" and when pressed they're always talking about the Twinings they got in London, and haven't ever actually tried the stuff here.

His attitude sounds like that of most Americans towards tea. Yay for cultural relativism.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

If you like Stash and Tazo, keep an eye out for "Mighty Leaf" brand tea. Good whole leaf teas. They are my general bag of choice unless I'm using my frech press to make loose leaf tea. Generally Dragon Water teas. I really like the "Jasmine Silver Ball" tea from them or the 1000day flower.

I can see your dislike of Lapsang style teas, though if I crave soemthing really strong and smokey I like the Pu-erh Tuo Cha.

Dragon Water's Earl Grey double shot is good if you like really strong bergamot flavor. Big-Jay would love the stuff.

On the herbal side, a good peppermint teas is good when you have a cold. I've also fallen in love with several blends of rooibos tea.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

What's your opinion on the Republic of Tea? Definitely not full leaf, but they taste okay to me, at least their british breakfast and assam breakfast.

(And I can actually stand tea that's been steeped a lot longer than recommended. I can taste that it's oversteeped but it doesn't bother me as much.)

[plumbob78.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

meh. "Good" is relative. If bad tea is the best you've ever had, and you still like it enough, then the bad may be good for you. I had a cup of bad tea Tuesday night and enjoyed it very much. I'm going to do so again now.