So what your life like with tea? How you prepare it? Let share some tips and tricks.
I generally use bagged teas with different mixtures from usual leaf teas to fruits and roots. Number 1 will always be green tea with different levels of deepness. I drink about 3 pots per week, 2 cups in the morning and carry 16 litters for the day.
Aw yeah tea.
For general use tea I swear by Yorkshire Tea, but at work I tend to drink either bagged green tea or some redbush to avoid office milk politics and minimise the fuss of washing up.
When drinking loose leaf I generally go for some kind of Assam blend, though, like Irish Breakfast. A fancy tea shop (T2) opened up where I live, so I got some stuff from them recently, but honestly I might just go back to Whittards. This T2 shop is mad hipster about tea, trying to upsell me jars and steeping devices and other such things.
Somehow I have ended up with about 6 teapots as well. I worry that I may turn into my mother at this rate.
Iāve become partial towards herbal teas and similar caffeine-less natural teas to offset my coffee consumption. When I am going for a quick tea I go for chamomile; with more time, however, I try making a really nice ginger tea with cinnamon, honey, lemon, & turmeric root.
When Iām going for some tea that Iām going to sit down and appreciate then I usually go for all the Japanese, non-caffeinated stuff: Kukicha, Hojicha, Genmaicha, etc. Sometimes my wifeās mom sends us some weirder stuff too like gobocha (burdock).
But if Iām sitting down to work I typically turn to anything that will keep me peppy: green teas or black teas (mostly Earl Grey or English Breakfast). Iāve also been drinking a lot of mint teas and ginger teas, they tend to be refreshing enough to keep me going but donāt have caffeine (which Iāve usually maxed out my intake earlier in the day).
just normal tea is fine innit.
I was raised in a Ceylon house (either milk and a flat teaspoon of sugar or a dash of lemon) which has probably irreparably twisted my tastes (vs every other person in the UK who considers neutral/normal tea to be Assam blends like builderās / English breakfast).
Iām generally going to be drinking lapsang souchong nowadays as a daily cuppa (with a touch of lemon but if youāve not got it a dash of milk will do) because I prefer a bit of a smokey edge. Loose leaf in an infusion teapot. Itās a weird thing that you can get a loose leaf for the same price as bagged here for most blends/varieties (outside of a cheap blend) so you either buy lose leaf and get something nice or get some tea dust (probably not helped that Twinings is everywhere and generally kinda poor) in a paper bag for the same price: seems to be a really obvious choice.
Will also go for an Earl Grey (as you might guess from the lemon preference) or Darjeeling for variety. Both fine with milk or lemon so if Iām thinking about a cup of milky tea Iāll probably reach for Darjeeling over lapsang souchong.
I will also drink whatever Assam/blend is available. Even bad tea is quite good, unlike bad coffee where Iād rather just go without.
If I want milk in my tea Iāll usually go for a Darjeeling or just a standard English breakfast blend. If I am not putting anything in it and have more time I like a roasty Genmaicha. I used to work in a store that had a self-serve loose leaf tea ābarā and I miss that a lot.
Nice video on tea
English Breakfast or some similar blend, please (i.e. what most of the UK would call ānormal teaā). No sugar, but make it quite milky. And Iāll have a biscuit.
But Iāll drink Earl Grey, too. I like that. Still with milk.
I recently had the revelation that I can brew loose-leaf teas in my cafetiere, which has been a minor game changer.
Chilled barley tea all summer.
Rooibos is by drink of choice but I try to have a black tea in the morning, usually Irish breakfast or Earl Grey.
Tea is good.
I usually have a pot of shu pu-erh going through the day although pretty much any non-fruit/non-herbal is good (with ginger being the exception).
Never milk or sugar.
cheap jasmine tea, by the pot, multiple a day
Iāll also do cheap earl grey, cheap chamomile, and mid-tier (so still cheap) tieguanyin but it usually comes back to that budget jasmine
really iām just not picky, I think
Brandy and honey are pretty much what I put most in my tea.
Teavana is awful but they have a lavender blend and a strawberry blend that taste very nice.
I am not the best at tea. (also always honey or sugar, never milk)
Hoo man I tried lapsang souchong a few weeks ago off of a friendās suggestion, and maybe itās just the batch I have but āsmokey edgeā seems like an understatement. It tastes like something I should be pouring in my car rather than drinking. Is it an acquired taste, or just not for me?
Itās definitely like drinking liquefied campfire smoke
Ye, I can see if youāre not really into smokey tastes that it could be overpowering.
Also depends a lot on how long it was stewed for really, as with most tea you can really vary the flavours by doing a fast brew. Iāll be happy with 10+ minutes but a really quick brew would probably leave more a bouquet of smoke than that much flavour.
Every time I encounter a thread like this I have to bring this up:
In Seoul, I visited a place called Old Tea Shop, and while there I had a tea called Hot Cinnamon Tea (that was the English name, I cannot read Korean). Itās the only tea Iāve ever had that I completely and utterly loved. Iāve tried cinnamon teas since then. None of them have come close. Most of them I have disliked. If anyone has any idea what it could be that I drank, man, please help. 
(That place was pretty odd but nice. There were a bunch of free-flying birds and every cup of tea had seeds at the bottom so if you finished and placed your cup on the table sometimes birds would hop over and eat and chill. Very unique?? I loved it.)
I wish I could get into tea. I drink coffee (with lots of sugar/milk if I have my way) for the Hot Drink satisfaction, sometimes hot cocoa. But tea SHOULD be something I like that I could use to replace the caffeine (I hate that I drink so much of it) and sugar (Iā¦ should drink less sugar).
Cāest la vie. ):
Lapsang souchong is my fav. i have to make it pretty strong and then put a fair amount of milk in. smoky & sweet, thereās no other taste like it.
If you find lapsang souchong is a bit too much for you, might be worth seeking out some Russian caravan? Also a bit smoky but not as much (although I guess itāll depend on the blend).
I went through a big mint tea phase a few years ago but I think I made myself sick of it. Same with earl grey, which was my go-to black tea before lapsang.
At work I drink regular black tea, which is because they complained too much about the smell of my lapsang 
. I once ordered a cup of lapsang at a cafe in Brooklyn and the waitress asked me if I was ~really sure~ likeā¦ three times before sheād accept the order. I honestly donāt think itās that strong or abrasive, but maybe Iām just used to it now.
I like genmaicha too, but mostly will only drink black tea becauseā¦ I like milky tea best.
