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Tea?
a year ago
Is anyone an experienced tea drinker? A long, long time ago, I started drinking tea. Nothing fancy, just Lipton brand dunked tea bags; I like them. But, some years later I was lead to believe I was missing out, and since then I've been wanting to try getting "into tea". It's my understanding that there is so much more to tea than just picking a brand on the store shelf, boiling water, and dunking the tea bag, but I have no idea where to even begin.
Example: Are tea bags generally considered good? Bad? Depends on the brand? Should I try tea leaves, instead? How? Are there different ways to prepare tea? What sort of flavours should be expected? Is "drinking tea" a difficult thing to get into, or easy?
I'm hoping someone that sees this might have some advice or suggestions on where to begin and/or what to look out for.
Example: Are tea bags generally considered good? Bad? Depends on the brand? Should I try tea leaves, instead? How? Are there different ways to prepare tea? What sort of flavours should be expected? Is "drinking tea" a difficult thing to get into, or easy?
I'm hoping someone that sees this might have some advice or suggestions on where to begin and/or what to look out for.
With different ways you can either use bags, or loose leaves with a tea pot and tea strainer or tea diffuser.
As for flavours they are wide and varied, you have herbal teas, fruit tea, black tea, green tea, white tea I would suggest finding a good tea shop near you and talking to them, maybe just get a small selection of different teas to try and see what you like.
Like any hobby getting into it is as difficult as you want to make it, you can just get a simple infuser and go from there going as complicated as you want, its the same as with coffee some people just find a coffee that they like, other have to have the water at a certain temp, use a certain metal for everytging etc etc.
-Avoid putting sugar in it as much as possible. A little lemon or cream is fine, but it also depends on the tea
-Get one of those little metal sieve things to steep tea leaves in for a reasonable time (yes avoid the bags, as much as I can understand. There are rare exceptions - Harney and Sons has some good stuff)
-Make sure to use kettle. Microwave = High Holy Sin to anyone I’ve met that appreciates tea. Electric ones are pretty fast and convenient
-If you’re American, US wellness naturals seems to be a good loose leaf brand
If you want recommendations, Earl Grey, Oolong, Rooibos, African Sunrise. I think they also used to have a mix called London Fog or something that was pretty good
And that’s all I really know- hope it helps