Tea drinkers of the world...UNITE!!!

Cafe Society
1

I’m not a big fan of coffee. Occasionally, if I need to be wide awake for something, I’ll grab a cup of strong coffee. I have to put a lot of sugar in my coffee, though, because, to be honest, I find the taste unpleasant (althought I quite like the smell).

Tea is a different story. I love tea. I don’t think I’d be able to function in the morning without a nice hot cup of tea (a dash of milk, but no sugar under any circumstances). If I have enough time, I’ll make myself a second, maybe even a third cup. I don’t even want to think about how many cups I get through on an average day. But, with no serious health risks and costing only a few dollars a month, it is one addiction I will never give up. As a student, I’m not rich enough try all the varieties of tea, so I tend to go for the cheapest brand (which never fails to do the job).

I blame my parents. They brought me up on tea. As Dad likes to tell me, I moved from breast milk to orange juice to tea in the space of 6 months.

Being a 21-year-old male New Zealander, my tea addiction is somewhat unusual. Most of the people I know are coffee drinkers (although some of them enjoy the occasional cup of tea). Sometimes I think I’d fit in better if I was somewhere like England, where it’s more unusual not to like tea.

Are there any other tea drinkers out there? In particular, are there any that do not fit into the typical tea-drinking demographic? How do you have your tea? Any favourite varieties?

2

A few months back, I switched from coffee to green tea for the health benefits. Lost eight pounds, without making any other lifestyle changes.

I’ll only drink coffee when I can’t get green tea and don’t have the facilities to make my own. I usually drink it with a bit of sugar or honey, but there are some brands that I guess are packaged a bit fresher that have a naturally sweet taste, and then I don’t bother with sweetener.

I really don’t like milk in my tea, and don’t understand people who do. I tried it a couple of times. The only time I like milk in tea is when I’m havin Thai iced tea (which has far too much sugar, yum, and then the waitress tries to make me stir the milk into the tea instead of having it sit on top where it’s pretty.

3

Sometimes I love tea, sometimes I don’t. I am in the middle of a period of not liking tea.

For my tastes adding sugar to coffee or tea makes it worse.

4

Tea drinker checking in! My mother used to put it in my baby bottle, heavily diluted with milk, of course. So there has virtually never been a time when I didn’t drink it. Like you, I love the smell of coffee, but not the taste. I’ve only ever had a mouthful of it, and I had to spit it out. I’ve grown accustomed to having tea in a Thermos mug with a lid. It holds two cups’ worth. I take one to work in the morning, and have two, sometimes three of them throughout the day. My favorite brands are Tetley and Twinings. I have the former daily, and the latter whenever I feel like treating myself. I especially like their Earl Grey. If I’m having a regular mug of tea, I have two sugars and 2% milk. Never whole milk, cream, or (horrors) Half-and-Half.

As for being out of the demographic, I’m in Florida, where they don’t know what a cup of hot tea is. They drink this stuff that looks like it might be tea, and tastes like ice water that passed by a box of tea bags once. It comes in two varieties - “Sweet” and “Unsweet.” I’ve been able to get hot tea at places like International House Of Pancakes, but it’s wretched, and the water is never boiled - it always has a scum on the top. There is a Tetley brand sold in Florida, but it’s not the round tea bags from England. They are super-large sized bags for making iced tea. They make regular-sized rectangular, folded tea bags, but they taste like floor-sweepings. I get real Tetley tea from their online store. $15 for 6 boxes, which last me roughly 6 months.

Yes, I likes me some tea. :smiley:

5

I have a severe aversion to tea because I used to only drink it when I was sick, since it didn’t hurt a sore throat. Now the taste, smell, and even appearance make me feel vaguely ill. This applies to all kinds of tea, even iced (I’m from the South, so some people automatically assume I drink iced tea. Insert barfing smiley here).

For the record, I don’t like coffee either (though I do like coffee-flavored drinks, ice cream, et cetera).

6

Twinings English Breakfast, please! Half n’ half and a bit of sugar. Lovely, but stupidly expensive - thankfully I can find Twinings here in Baltimore.

7

I am a huge tea drinker. I’ll drink tea from bags or from leaves (although I like loose tea better, sometimes I’m too lazy to clean out the little basket deal). For teabags, the brand name I like is Twinnings, and for loose tea I get most of mine from either TeaSource.com (for their Welsh Morning or Earl Green Tea) or Adagio.com for their Dragonwell green tea.

For those interested, here’s a great essay by George Orwell about how to make “a nice cup of tea”.

8

Being a Southerner, it’s mandatory that I drink tea but not that warm dirty water that other people are under the impression of being tea. No… the real stuff is served ice cold, with just enough sugar to make it slightly sweet (people that put more than 1.25 cups per gallon are insane), and several liberal squirts of lemon juice.

Ambrosia.

Chai is also delicious and is easily my most favorite hot drink. Mmm.

9

I can’t stand coffee, never have liked it. I don’t even like the aroma which makes me somewhat odd I understand. But I do love tea and drink much of it everyday, both iced and hot. I have a nice selection of loose leaf teas for brewing pots of hot tea. Some blends such as Irish Breakfast and some estate teas. One of my favorites is a nilgiri frost tea. For iced tea, which I brew four gallons at a time, I use Luzianne as it’s the only decaf brand I can get in the local market in large bags. I steep it in water below boiling though to avoid some of the less pleasant tasting compounds since it’s not a very good grade tea. I also like green tea from time to time. I usually sweeten but only add milk to the black teas. I also like to whip up some chai now and then.

10

Yum, tea. I have recently developed a love for green tea. I have been a lifelong drinker of black tea, both hot and iced, but green tea is a new taste for me. I like a little honey in mine.

11

My grandmother, who was the matriarch of our family, was from Ireland, and she instilled a love of sweet, milky tea in me from a young age. I like it with milk (I’ve recently switched to soy) and sugar, or plain, but never with milk alone or sugar alone.

I especially like Twinings Irish Breakfast and China Keemun. I like it strong, too. “When I makes tea, I makes tea, as old Mother Grogan said. And when I makes water, I makes water.”

I do like good coffee–I usually go out for an espresso once a week–but I drink tea every day.

12

Tea, please. With milk and sugar, the English way. Or herbal, without anything. Or spiced, as in chai.

Tea, please. :slight_smile:

13

I like both coffee and tea. With neither do I like added, or processed flavors, like vanilla, liquers, and so on.

My two favorite teas are Earl Grey(tea, Earl Grey, hot) and Lapsang Souchong. Love the smokiness of the latter.

To me tea is more refreshing, but sometimes when I am working long hours, I want the heartier kick of coffee.

14

Tea drinker here.

If I am out, I am not too terribly finicky, but when I make tea at home, everything must be just so. I buy loose tea, mostly from a tea shop here in Chicago, and the milk must always go in first. Except with mint, of course, honey is best with mint tea.

I even have a tea set at work, although I haven’t used it lately. It gets more use in the winter. Nothing like a nice cup of tea on a snowy day.

15

Tea AND Coffee drinker here.

I usually have a cup of java to get me going in the morning, and drink tea the rest of the day. Especially when it’s cold out.

My preference is Tetley’s Earl Grey or peppermint (haven’t found a brand I dislike yet)

Milk and honey (or sugar) in the Earl Grey, honey in the peppermint.

No milk is added to the black teas when I’m sick, at that time I also drink my coffee with just sugar. It’s what Grandma always gave me and it’s soothing but I prefer milk or cream when I’m well to cool it off a little. Any orange pekoe must be drunk with milk because otherwise I find it leaves a funny taste in my mouth that lasts for a long time after the tea is gone.

If I have any extra money, I’m more likely to buy some new tea to try rather than coffee.

16

Avid Tea drinker. I’ve got a tea drawer filled to overflowing with most varieties of Tazo and Republic of Tea brands. Trader Joe’s puts out a fine organic chamomile.

I enjoy coffee, mainly in winter, and when I need it to knock my socks off. Even then though, I can’t drink the swill that comes from the beans that comes from the place that rhymes with farbucks. no sir, it’s Caribou Coffee (preferably rainforest blend, with cream and 4 splenda in a large mug) or nothing.

17

Another Twinings fan here. Earl Grey and Lady Grey are my favorites. I also like the occasional cup of Bigelow’s Constant Comment tea or Stash’s Double Bergamot Earl Grey.

I usually drink mine without sugar, but when I do add sugar, I tend to use Sugar In The Raw or any other type of turbinado sugar.

18

I love coffee! A couple of Dopers have seen me drink ten-shot espressos. I have “six cups” (as measured on the pot – I think it’s actually only 36 ounces) plus a little extra every day before work. (Espresso: w/sugar. Regular coffee: black.)

But I also like tea. My favourite is either Ceylon (loose, and Ahmad Tea brand is good) with milk and sugar, or Earl Grey (again, loose) with nothing in it. I also like darjeeling. Ahmad Tea’s loose leaves make a nice, delicate cuppa. I prefer “orthodox” tea (i.e., “cut”) over CTC. I have some cheap Assam tea that I got for $5 for two pounds. It’s not bad, and makes a robust pot. Currently I have Ahmad Tea Ceylon, darjeeling, Earl Grey and English breakfast loose leaf tea; plus the Indian stuff whose name I’ve forgotten because I put it in zip-lock bags. Tea bags include Lipton Orange Pekoe, Lipton green tea, Tetly British Blend, Hedley’s Pure Ceylon, Forelli Earl Grey, Yogi Tea herbal tea with echinacea, Bigelow chamomile, and Guayaki yerba maté. Finally, I have a little “brick” of compressed tea. (I posted a thread on it recently, as I’d never had this kind of tea before. It’s okay, but I prefer loose teas.)

If I really want to enjoy my tea I put hot water into a crockery pot. (I have three.) When the watter in the kettle is boiling, I empty the pot and put in the usual amount of loose tea. I immediately pour the boiling water into the pot, making sure the tea is well suspended in it. I pour some boiling water into one of the other crockery tea pots. After steeping a sufficient amount of time, I empty the pot that I had filled with boiling water and strain the tea into it.

You may wonder why I bother to strain the leaves, since they will sink to the bottom of the cup anyway. It’s because I live alone, and by the time I finish my second cup, the last cup would become too bitter if I left the leaves in. By straining, I can have the same strength in each cup.

But most of the time, I want my tea now! Then it is easier to just use a bag.

I like to drink tea at work, since I occasionally have to work with customers and coffee-breath is deadly.

I’ve just remembered…

When I was a kid in Japan, my mom bought a tea set there. It’s double-walled ceramic with a “cracked” two-tone green finish, and the outer walls are pierced. The set comprises the pot, and four matching cups. I was in the little Japanese area in West L.A. several years ago, and I saw the exact set. The proprietor said that the same company had been making the same pattern for 300 years. I mentioned it to my mom, and she gave me her tea set. I’ve only used it once, when I was studying with a (very attractive :smiley: ) Afrasian girl. I’ll have to use it again sometime.

19

Sorry. Got ahead of myself there. Tea made by the Orthodox Method is withered, rolled, fermented, dried and sorted. CTC teas are often cut to a uniform size after withering, then sent to a machine to be Crushed, Torn and Curled.

20

I’m a tea drinker. Like some others, I love the smell of coffee and loathe the taste.

I drink a pot of tea a day (four cups). I have a tea maker at work that boils and steeps, I just fill it and turn it on. Heaven!