Tea!

[marydell]

Ok, so yesterday's doctor verdict means that I can't drink Diet Coke any more, and I can't drink Earl Grey tea either because of the bergamot oil.  I'm never going to be a real milk drinker, even if my tolerance improves with better asthma control, so I typically don't drink breakfast teas.  Right now I'm going with Darjeeling for my caffeine fix, but I'm interested in something a little more flavorful (but no citrus or cinnamon, b/c of allergy).  For herb tea, I generally don't like herb teas--maybe they're bitter? --but I am fond of Rooibos tea.  I also haven't managed to find an iced tea that I like, but maybe Rooibos will be good cold.

So tell me, O internets, what are some good teas?  Varieties, brands, etc?  Feel free to include teas that don't fit my allergy profile, since other tea drinkers will be interested in recs too.  Also tips for brewing, although I'm pretty well hooked on my Senseo coffee hot water maker.

Comments

[mellybrelly.livejournal.com]

This isn't about tea, but now that I'm off of dairy I needed something to put in my occasional coffee, and a friend recommended hazelnut milk, because it's creamier than other alternative milks. Might be good if you want to try a tea that needs a bit of something added! I need to pick some up.

I buy most my tea from here: http://www.teacentre.ca/ They are in my hometown.

[sanguinity]

We fell in love with rose-scented black teas via Twinings (unfortunately, their rose tea isn't available in the U.S., or wasn't last time we checked). Fortunately, there are U.S. sources for rose-scented black teas, but I can't rec specific ones to you, as all the ones I know of are regional.

The Russian market sells a black currant tea that we like very much.

And the Asian supermarket has a whole aisle-full of teas and flavored hot drinks. We especially like plum tea and ginger drink, but I heartily recommend exploring. Barley tea is nice iced, but if the wheat-thing is a gluten-thing, that may not be a good fit for you.

[aedifica]

That reminds me that I've found a number of fruit- or flower-scented black teas at the Russian grocery stores here. I tried the rose and the apple, and liked both (though it was very easy to oversteep them).

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I like fruit-flavoured black teas. Twinings's four red fruits is pretty much the fruity standard. Pomegranate black teas, strawberry black teas, currant black teas are all good as far as I'm concerned.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

i am quite fond of celestial seasoning's raspberry herb teas, though like you i don't like herb tea much.

l like darjeeling and also english breakfast tea, which are both milder than earl grey to me.

[redbird]

My main tea for home is a good loose Golden-tipped Assam. I often drink it with milk and sugar, but it's fine with just sugar, and acceptable with neither.

This is one where there's a significant difference between the mediocre Assam (which I really want both milk and sugar for) and the good stuff I'm describing above. The problem isn't price: loose, I'm now paying a whopping $20/pound, which sounds like a lot until you think about how many cups of tea a pound of leaves makes (brewing 10-12 cups of this stuff a week, I'm best off buying it in half-pounds, which works out to $10 every few months). The problem is finding the good stuff; I get mine from McNulty's, which has been on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village since the 1890s (and which charges more, in general, than the other Village tea and coffee shop, but Porto Rico doesn't have a really good Assam).

I like a good vanilla-scented black tea, but that's also hard to find, and there's a lot of tea out there that is (for me) overly-vanilla'd.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I second the golden-tipped Assam. They are full-bodied, stand up well to milk, but are strong and sweet and delicious without them. They have a nice malty quality I enjoy, too.

Darjeeling can feel rather . . . thin and sharp? I find it refreshign iced or in the afternoon, but my morning tea has to have more of a flavor kick to it.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

uptontea.com! Samples for $1 or so, enough for a couple of pots. Good descriptions on the website. Watch out for "Russian Caravan" blends--they're often a hiding place for unspecified flavorings that seem to include a lot of citrus.

I never, ever put milk or sugar in my tea. If I want a breakfast tea, I just brew it for a shorter time.

Rose congou (black) and rose chun mee (green) don't need sugar or milk, IMO. Darjeeling with rose water is a good cheat. Numi makes a good white w/rose, but it costs the earth, so I add my own rose petals (on the advice of the nice people at Upton).

I just tried some of Upton's "lemon myrtle," which is some kind of Australian non-tea non-citrus thing, IDEK. It was pretty good, if you get utterly desperate--I could try half it and half Darjeeling to see if it comes close to Earl Grey, if you like.

I like what used to be Red Zinger--it might be Raspberry Zinger now--and if you put a tea bag into a big plastic glass, and put in lots of ice cubes, and then put in cold water, and then you wait a while, it turns into really good iced herbal drink. Peppermint tea in bags does the same thing.

I've not been fond of the Tazo teas I've tried, except their mint.

I adore Stash white chai. You can also go to your local South Asian grocery store and get your own masala chai, which is good in many other things like kheer (which is rice pudding you can make with almond milk).

More as I think of it.

[pmrabble.livejournal.com]

The Stash green teas seem to be pretty good across the line. I usually go with a black tea (currently Twining's Irish Breakfast, unsweetened and without milk!) in the morning, and green teas through the day.
Latest discovery has been Republic of Tea's Black Raspberry Green Tea. Pretty good both hot and iced.

Sorry about the Diet Coke thing, too. My life survival, despite the tea habit, is based on Diet Dr Pepper!

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Most of my favorite teas have cinnamon in them, but I also like floral teas, especially with rose. We made a rose-violet-mint tea last Christmas--I can't remember if that was one of the things that ended up in your bag? If not, we still have some and will probably make more this year.

Next time we get together, we'll pull out a selection of cinnamon-and-citrus-free teas from our massive collection, and we can have a tasting.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I am a big tea slut. I've taken to drinking various green teas in the morning and usually save my black tea for the afternoon, but that's just me.

I really like Ceylon teas, and also Russian blends that are not too smoky. And blackcurrant when I want something fruity.

You might try lychee tea if you want just a wisp of fruit perfume.

Darjeeling is nice but not muscular enough for me most of the time. Similarly, I also like green jasmine tea, but it's an afternoon brew for me.

[carbonel]

If I'm going for a tea without any adulterants, I'm very fond of a good oolong, like Iron Goddess of Mercy.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! Oolongs! I like Choicest Formosa.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

But Iron Goddess of mercy has more robustness.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

I have been going through a Lapsang Souchong phase, but it's really not a tea for everyone. It's a black tea with a very smoky taste; I've heard it described as "bus exhaust" by people who actually like it. (People who don't like it say much worse.)

I'm also drinking a lot of jasmine tea, which I get from my local Chinese-Indonesian supermarket. It's clearly imported from China with local-language labels stuck on as an afterthought.

For herb teas, nothing I say will be of any use to you, since the Dutch have very different herb tea tastes than Americans. Some of them are really weird. My favorite is something called "sterrenmunt", which is star anise and mint.

(When my father came to visit the first time, I found him in the kitchen with all my teas and a Dutch-English dictionary, trying to figure out what on earth they were.)

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

My absolute favorite green tea is the Pi Lo Chun from Adagio. I don't really have the vocab to describe it, but Adagio does excellent teas in general, and that one comes in their green tea sampler, which I highly recommend.

[zelda888.livejournal.com]

One of my SO's go-to gifts for me is a sampler from Todd & Holland (http://www.todd-holland.com/teacart/pc/Samplers-c144.htm). (They have a bricks&mortar in Forest Park, but I think he does everything online.) Never gets old.

If I'm drinking black tea and don't have/want milk, I like Nilgiri. Celestial Seasonings Madagascar Red is one of my favorite red teas.

Bergamot oil and citrus are really that similar? The plants are totally unrelated... Any chance you know what specific substance triggers the allergy? Inquiring biochemists want to know...

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Oh, perhaps I am being misled by a wrong assumption. I thought that Earl Grey had some kind of orange in it (on the assumption that bergamot is an orange?) so I figured I'd have to avoid it. I haven't found it to trigger anything noticeable, but I've been constantly sick so it's hard to identify single triggers until I get to a baseline of not-sick.

*goes off to read about bergamot*

ETA: apparently there is a mint-related herb called bergamot, and a totally unrelated citrus fruit called bergamot, and the one in Earl grey tea is the citrus fruit.

[zelda888.livejournal.com]

I had no idea-- I see Monarda all over local gardens & prairies, and was clueless about the fruit. I am enlightened; thank you.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I HATE cinnamon in my teas. HATE IT.

Here are links to the teas I mentioned above:
http://teasource.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=1258&Category_Code=Assam&Product_Count=1

oooh also I have just discovered Black Bud, a DELICIOUS Hunan:
http://teasource.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=2231&Category_Code=Hunan&Product_Count=0


Oolangs are lighter and milder, but still nicer than Darjeeling for breakfast:
http://teasource.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=5010&Category_Code=Formosa&Product_Count=3

and

Iron Goddess of Mercy:
http://teasource.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=5021&Category_Code=ChinaOolong&Product_Count=3

Here is the second-best rooibos-based herbal tea I have ever tasted:

http://teasource.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=9030&Category_Code=Tisane&Product_Count=0

The first best has orange peel. :-(

If you want to just experience a bunch, the Tea Source has some nice sample packets:

http://teasource.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TeaSource&Category_Code=Samplers

(The rare basics one looks particularly tasty)

[raqs.livejournal.com]

I ADORE rooibos cold. there are so many good white and green teas... I drink an organic mint green tea that I love, and it also comes in a vanilla...

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend looking at my favourite source of teas: www.teavana.com, you'll find an amazing selection.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Ahem. That comment was meant to go on your *other* post!

What I was going to say here is: English Breakfast Tea, and Tazo-brand tea in general is a good place to go hunting since they've got marvelous flavors.

[pameladean]

I like very strong breakfast teas, so I'm not much use to you at the moment, but I wanted to mention that almond milk is very good in tea. I ordinarily use soy-milk creamer, which of course is not possible for you; but at Wiscon I stumbled upon a tea party that offered almond milk as a dairy alternative. It was remarkably good.

P.