I'm about to leave my teenage years behind me and I figure I oughta start becoming more sophisticated. Well tea is a good place to start.

My favorite kind of tea is wild berry zinger with a ton of sugar. I'd like to become a more respectable tea drinker.

What's a good brand?
What's a good flavor (preferabbly something a little sweet)?
What's the difference between white and green and black and all that shit?
WTF is Earl Grey?
Sugar? Tea? Honey? Cream? Lemon?

Discuss.

I'm having some flavor called "English Toffee" that I found in my mom's cabinet. It's pretty decent right now. And due to a recent episode of "Good Eats" in combination with a sore throat, I'm using honey instead of sugar.

There was a Good Eats on tea awhile back (, ). Green, Black, and Oolong are all made from the tea plant, just treated differently after they are picked.

Wikipedia says Earl Grey is a black tea with citrus oils from the Bergamot Orange in it. Wikipedia also says the addition of fruit was believed to counteract improper impulses in the female temperament.

If you're gonna be sophisticated you should probably go with loose leaf tea. Tazo is supposed to be a pretty good brand.

Monk will stop by and tell you to put milk in it.

flavored tea is usually not good.

earl grey is a kind of exception, but i personally think it's still kind of fru-fru.


if you go to harvard square, cardullo's and tealuxe both have excellent teas. at tealuxe, they might even teach you a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea

as usual, great place to start. as Norton suggested, loose is almost always better.


also imo, cream and sugar mask the flavor of high quality tea. there are a few exceptions, but i find that they are rare. don't get me wrong, i'll sweeten up some tea sometimes (e.g., southern Lipton "sweet tea"), but it's not good stuff.


some easy teas to start with:

oolong (semi-oxidized)
gunpowder green (green)
darjeeling (black)


a little more complex (or acquired taste):

Jasmine
Lapsang Souchang
Assam


be careful with the blends (like English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, etc.). they can be good, but often aren't (at least in the US).


Another good web page:

http://pages.ripco.net/~c4ha2na9/tea/faq.html



final note... don't steep the tea too long. it can make a good tea WAY too bitter.

You're an American! drink coffee

Show of hands please. Who here would rather drink Kool-Aid vs. Tea? I would do it as a poll but I don't know how.

Fag

Dick

Good post monk...I'm a big tea-drinker and have quite the collection...but I'll leave the details to some really good websites out there...look em up. Stay AWAY from anything but loose tea - it's crap. The traditional tea bags are the shittiest grade of tea - basically the dust from the 'good' tea leaves. Making good tea takes a little effort and practice, but then it becomes nothing.