Tea Anyone?

My grandmother always said that the bubbles that form on a cup of hot tea were money or a sign that you would become wealthy if you quickly slurped them up before they burst.

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We like both our tea and our coffee very strong. Most people think our tea looks like coffee, LOL.

Our preference is for loose black tea. We're currently using a personal blend we make:
- One part Akbar brand (Sri Lankan importer) Ceylon Earl Grey. This is NOT standard Earl Grey. There are no flowers in it. It uses bergamot essential oil, so is much less "floral".
- Two parts Lapsang Souchong, heavily smoked, a Nepalese bulk import by a local herb company. This is the smokiest LS we've been able to find so far.

When we drink bagged tea, we prefer Irish breakfast but it's hard to find. A decent sub is the Tazo brand, Awake English Breakfast (https://www.tazo.com/us/en/products/tea-bags/awake-english-breakfast.html. Tazo was better when it was truly a small company, before it sold out to Big Corp., but the Awake is still the strongest black tea we've found in teabag form. Our local Safeway and Lucky supermarkets carry the brand now so easier to find.

Numi makes mostly white and herbal teas, but they do make one exceptional black tea that is a recent introduction:
Aged Earl Grey: https://shop.numitea.com/aged-earl-grey/p/numis-10170&c=numiteastore@bytype@black. True Assam black tea, scented with bergamot - and like the Akbar brand we use, it is bergamot oil, not an overload of flower petals.

We've started to take the Tazo and Numi teabags with us when we travel, because good bagged tea is so hard to find. My DH absolutely loathes the flower-heavy style of current Earl Grey. Having grown up drinking tea in Hong Kong, he prefers his tea black and super-strong!
 

Lethe200 said:
We like both our tea and our coffee very strong. Most people think our tea looks like coffee, LOL.

Our preference is for loose black tea. We're currently using a personal blend we make:
- One part Akbar brand (Sri Lankan importer) Ceylon Earl Grey. This is NOT standard Earl Grey. There are no flowers in it. It uses bergamot essential oil, so is much less "floral".
- Two parts Lapsang Souchong, heavily smoked, a Nepalese bulk import by a local herb company. This is the smokiest LS we've been able to find so far.

When we drink bagged tea, we prefer Irish breakfast but it's hard to find. A decent sub is the Tazo brand, Awake English Breakfast (https://www.tazo.com/us/en/products/tea-bags/awake-english-breakfast.html. Tazo was better when it was truly a small company, before it sold out to Big Corp., but the Awake is still the strongest black tea we've found in teabag form. Our local Safeway and Lucky supermarkets carry the brand now so easier to find.

Numi makes mostly white and herbal teas, but they do make one exceptional black tea that is a recent introduction:
Aged Earl Grey: https://shop.numitea.com/aged-earl-grey/p/numis-10170&c=numiteastore@bytype@black. True Assam black tea, scented with bergamot - and like the Akbar brand we use, it is bergamot oil, not an overload of flower petals.

We've started to take the Tazo and Numi teabags with us when we travel, because good bagged tea is so hard to find. My DH absolutely loathes the flower-heavy style of current Earl Grey. Having grown up drinking tea in Hong Kong, he prefers his tea black and super-strong!
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Thank you.
 
hollydolly said:
I'm British, I rarely drink anything other than hot black tea....
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I've never acquired a taste for tea (and I've tried a number of them), but on one of my UK trips I mentioned to some ladies that when I did drink tea at home, I would drink Green Tea. I got some variation of an 'ugh' sound from that. I don't know if that was a personal commentary or Brits don't do Green Tea.
 
retiredtraveler said:
I've never acquired a taste for tea (and I've tried a number of them), but on one of my UK trips I mentioned to some ladies that when I did drink tea at home, I would drink Green Tea. I got some variation of an 'ugh' sound from that. I don't know if that was a personal commentary or Brits don't do Green Tea.
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hmmm..I got some Jasmine tea last night.dying to try it.
 
Lethe200 said:
We like both our tea and our coffee very strong. Most people think our tea looks like coffee, LOL.

Our preference is for loose black tea. We're currently using a personal blend we make:
- One part Akbar brand (Sri Lankan importer) Ceylon Earl Grey. This is NOT standard Earl Grey. There are no flowers in it. It uses bergamot essential oil, so is much less "floral".
- Two parts Lapsang Souchong, heavily smoked, a Nepalese bulk import by a local herb company. This is the smokiest LS we've been able to find so far.

When we drink bagged tea, we prefer Irish breakfast but it's hard to find. A decent sub is the Tazo brand, Awake English Breakfast (https://www.tazo.com/us/en/products/tea-bags/awake-english-breakfast.html. Tazo was better when it was truly a small company, before it sold out to Big Corp., but the Awake is still the strongest black tea we've found in teabag form. Our local Safeway and Lucky supermarkets carry the brand now so easier to find.

Numi makes mostly white and herbal teas, but they do make one exceptional black tea that is a recent introduction:
Aged Earl Grey: https://shop.numitea.com/aged-earl-grey/p/numis-10170&c=numiteastore@bytype@black. True Assam black tea, scented with bergamot - and like the Akbar brand we use, it is bergamot oil, not an overload of flower petals.

We've started to take the Tazo and Numi teabags with us when we travel, because good bagged tea is so hard to find. My DH absolutely loathes the flower-heavy style of current Earl Grey. Having grown up drinking tea in Hong Kong, he prefers his tea black and super-strong!
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Thanks for the tip about Tazo Awake English Breakfast!

I'm impressed with the bold clean flavor of plain old tea as I remember it.
 
Can anyone recommend a decent caffeine free tea that has some good flavor to it? All the caffeine free teas I've tried are pretty weak and I end up putting two or 3 bags in a cup just to get some flavor.

I like to drink tea at night after dinner, but sometimes it's late when I get around to having a cup. If I drink regular tea too late I never get to sleep.
 
JimW said:
Can anyone recommend a decent caffeine free tea that has some good flavor to it? All the caffeine free teas I've tried are pretty weak and I end up putting two or 3 bags in a cup just to get some flavor.

I like to drink tea at night after dinner, but sometimes it's late when I get around to having a cup. If I drink regular tea too late I never get to sleep.
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I have found many teas to be on the weak side but that's why I like them. I think when you have a stronger tasting tea it usually has more caffeine in it, just my 2 cents.
 
Ruthanne said:
I have found many teas to be on the weak side but that's why I like them. I think when you have a stronger tasting tea it usually has more caffeine in it, just my 2 cents.
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Thanks Ruthanne. I usually drink Red Rose regular tea which I think tastes great and has plenty of flavor, but the decaffeinated version is very weak to me and it's almost twice the price as the regular tea.
 
JimW said:
Thanks Ruthanne. I usually drink Red Rose regular tea which I think tastes great and has plenty of flavor, but the decaffeinated version is very weak to me and it's almost twice the price as the regular tea.
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Does the caffeine in tea bother you? Sometimes the caffeine in coffee bothers me but teas have less caffeine than regular coffee-at least most of them. If it bothers you maybe herbal teas may be good. I know that Celestial Seasonings makes a sampler pack than can be sampled and all the varieties are usually available. I like chamomile tea or Sleepytime Tea, find it very relaxing.
 
Ruthanne said:
Does the caffeine in tea bother you? Sometimes the caffeine in coffee bothers me but teas have less caffeine than regular coffee-at least most of them. If it bothers you maybe herbal teas may be good. I know that Celestial Seasonings makes a sampler pack than can be sampled and all the varieties are usually available. I like chamomile tea or Sleepytime Tea, find it very relaxing.
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The caffeine only bothers me when I drink the tea too late and can't get to sleep. I've tried a few of the herbal teas, some I like some I don't. I've never had the Chamomile, I'll look into it next time I'm at the grocery store. Does the Chamomile tea have caffeine?
 
JimW said:
The caffeine only bothers me when I drink the tea too late and can't get to sleep. I've tried a few of the herbal teas, some I like some I don't. I've never had the Chamomile, I'll look into it next time I'm at the grocery store. Does the Chamomile tea have caffeine?
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The Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea is Chamomile and I don't think it has any caffeine as it's supposed to be good for sleep.
 
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