# Any tea drinkers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 27, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503 "2015-12-27T21:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/101 "2016-01-14T15:45:14Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > There’s a fundamental difference in quality, but not in the way you think. A tea harvest gets rated and separated by quality. The quality is defined foremost by how broken up the leaves are. A broken leaf will become more bitter more quickly in hot water than an unbroken leaf. A powdered leaf will get bitter even faster. So the top quality teas are whole leaf teas and everything that gets accidentally powdered during the process gets shuffled off to get stuck in the lowest end tea bags. You can get higher quality tea bags with only somewhat broken leaves, but none of them will be as good as whole leaf. That’s why with the best teas you can’t even get them in tea bags, because the sellers don’t want to have any leaves broken by the bagging process and ruining the flavor. And of course the whole fermenting and drying process can be botched or done poorly and result in tea leaves that are destined for bag tea from the get-go. Huh. Ocha, the tea the Japanese use in that ritualistic tea ceremony is powdered. A whisk is used to stir it into the cup. Never having tasted it, I wonder how bitter it is. Bancha, their lowest grade, looks like twigs to me and not much in the way of leaves of any sort. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/102 "2016-01-14T17:34:01Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Huh. Ocha, the tea the Japanese use in that ritualistic tea ceremony is powdered. A whisk is used to stir it into the cup. Never having tasted it, I wonder how bitter it is. Bancha, their lowest grade, looks like twigs to me and not much in the way of leaves of any sort. Ah, I only drink black tea so I totally forgot about green tea. What you say is correct. Honestly, I’m not sure why green tea works in the reverse but the highest quality green teas are powdered as you say. Perhaps it’s to create a stronger flavor, because powdered tea releases flavor much more quickly. I always found green tea too bland or simply “tastes like grass”, but probably I have simply not tried it properly (don’t know if I’m willing to spend the money to try properly though). ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/103 "2016-01-14T18:12:35Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > Ah, I only drink black tea so I totally forgot about green tea. What you say is correct. Honestly, I’m not sure why green tea works in the reverse but the highest quality green teas are powdered as you say. Perhaps it’s to create a stronger flavor, because powdered tea releases flavor much more quickly. I always found green tea too bland or simply “tastes like grass”, but probably I have simply not tried it properly (don’t know if I’m willing to spend the money to try properly though). It doesn’t, high quality green teas are whole leaf as well, with the exception of the powdered tea. The reason powdered tea was powdered was because it was imported from China and easier to ship in blocks. When the blocks dried out, the tea crumbled. So the Japanese developed a taste for powdered tea. That was catered to and high quality powdered teas developed. But Matcha is grown and processed to be powdered and therefore has a very distinctive taste and is high quality tea. Not the fannings or orange pekoe you’ll find in a bag of Liptons. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/104 "2016-01-14T18:31:52Z")
I’m a lot like the OP, except I haven’t completely gotten weaned off coffee. But my girlfriend got me turned on to a tea flavor called “Bengal Spice” - it’s so satisfying flavor-wise that I drink it without any sugar or anything else. Just leave the tea bag in and drink it as strong as it’ll get. No caffeine, no calories, but really satisfying- it makes me feel like I’ve had something substantive and energizing. ---
**Author:** ![CheapBastid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8baadc/32.png) [@CheapBastid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheapBastid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/105 "2016-01-14T21:59:03Z")
After reading a thread where a Brit lamented the difficulty in getting a ‘good cuppa’ in the States I started researching and experimenting and have settled into this method for my ‘[mouse trot](https://twitter.com/hautepop/status/282077085542010880) [builder’s tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Builder%27s_tea)’ cups in the morning: Pre Warmed 30oz Teapot Water freshly poured and just off the boil A large strainer with one teaspoon of decent whole leaf Keemun laid down first, with a teaspoon of Mamri CTC (for oomph) covering it, and then a teaspoon of Keemun on top of that. Half the water poured very, very slowly (From my Aeropress days) for about a 30 seconds to try to fully wet the leaves. Slosh of the pot to allow the liquor to extract into the surrounding water Remaining 45% of the water slowly poured Slosh/tap the pot to be sure that all bubbles have been extracted around the leaves and they’re solidly soaked Final 5% to be sure that all leaves are submerged in water Steep for 3-4 minutes (depending on how impatient I am) I then act out of a combination of Heresy, Thrift, and Laziness and leave that little pot on the counter for the next few morning’s cups that can solidly stand up to 1/2&1/2 and sugar. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2018, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/107 "2018-01-04T07:51:57Z")
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**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-tea-drinkers/741503/109 "2019-10-19T00:14:32Z")
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