So, we have many things on this eighth board we call home: contests, competitions, mafia, rankings, and all kinds of stuffs we generally have to agree to disagree about (even though you are wrong). What we do not have, is a dedicated topic about tea. Until now.
What is tea you might ask? Tea is life. Tea is joy. Tea is everything that is good in this world diluted into liquidy bliss. So very many have little idea of the positives tea can offer, and to some it is just 'that thing some people drink instead of coffee' or perhaps more in tune with this board 'that stuff Captain Picard drinks'. But tea is so much more...
Essentially, it has antioxidants and theanine. Theanine is special in that it is only found in tea plants (and like, one kind of mushroom). It counteracts the caffeine in tea, acts to relieve stress, and improves cognitive functions. It is a lovely little substance that you sure as heck won't see naturally in sodas or coffee and the like.
There are a bunch of tea types out there, so it can be a chore to figure out what you want to try. You might have some experience with teabags, but there is a lot more you can do with tea, and teabags usually contain tea dust, aka the leftovers of producing quality tea.
Types of tea:
Black - Tends to have the most caffeine; highly oxidized; boiling water for a few minutes brews well Green - Less caffeine than black; minimal oxidation; sub boiling temps work best, and times range from 30 seconds to a few minutes...quality of the tea affects this. Oolong - Less caffeine than green; dried in the sun before oxidized; brewing info is all over the place, but you can brew oolong teas many many times (i have seen some claim up to 8 steepings) Yellow - Similar to green tea, but yellow. Apparently there is a longer drying phase. Pretty much a tea you'll only see in china. White - Less caffeine than green; not oxidized; very finicky brewing Pu-erh - Little caffeine; fermented and well aged; typically brewed gonfu style. This tea is what china calls black tea, and what we call black tea they call red tea, and what we call red tea... Rooibos - ...is not technically a tea at all. Totally different plant, has zero caffeine; oxidized; largely immune to bad brewing.
These types all have subdivisions with various grades of quality and subtypes. Green tea for instance can be separated into chinese/japanese styles. China seems to pan fry to oxidize, while japan uses a steaming method which completely changes the taste. Japan teas can be broken down into gyokuro/sencha/bancha (among other types) which are all cultivated/cared for in different ways which completely changes the taste. These teas can also be harvested at different times, which again affects the taste.
What I am getting at here, is that there are a number of variables at work for any tea type if you look close enough. So saying you had green tea once and hated it isn't all that fair. About the only kind of tea you can do that with is Pu-erh which seems to be the most polarizing of tea types. Brewing can affect the results a bunch too. Black isn't so bad, green becomes bitter, and white is delicate regardless. Most tea companies will have recommended brewing times and temps to help get the most out of the particular tea you try.
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
http://www.teaviews.com/ - has a bajillion reviews on a bajillion tea types and is a good way to get familiar with some of the main online tea companies.
http://www.adagio.com/ - one of the aforementioned tea companies, their site is a pleasure to navigate, though their teas are mostly mediocre in quality. Good for the novice tea drinker though (also, their Casablanca twist is high tier stuffs <3)
http://www.denstea.com/ - a more focused company that specializes in japanese green tea. Awesome $3 sample (free shipping and a $3 discount on a future purchase making it $0 overall for quality tea)
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
I typically drink 2-4 cups of green or white tea a day, it is greatness
since you also mentioned a different plant, tulsi(aka holy basil) is good. not particularly fond of the taste but it has a very good effect on my mood and smells very nice
Picard was pretty much one of the inspirations I had for getting interested in tea. Though, as it turns out, I don't really care much for Earl Grey. It is alright, just not something I'd care to drink daily.
I learned pretty quickly that there was a world of teas and they all had their merits, and mostly all had the same general benefits to some degree or another. Some things like 'tea fights cancer' might be a bit overblown, but there are some real tangible pluses to drinking more tea that science tends to back up. If nothing else, tea is certainly more healthy than most other beverages.
edit: on the subject of earl grey though, i have seen this in stores and it made me chuckle
never had tulsi, though it seems to have some nice benefits like helping diabetes, cholesterol, radiation poisoning, and cataracts. also seems to help with stress. apparently well known in india too...having been used for thousands of years.
i'll definitely have to check it out. tea prices seem fairly reasonable.
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I love rooibos and drink a cup in the evening daily, and I've been doing so for around four years. It's really for taste and its own unique health benefits, not to avoid caffeine, hence it not being to the exclusion of tea or coffee. I may have a cup of green, white or black tea (usually in Earl Grey form) every other day.
Typically I drink Earl Grey, but I also like mint tea hot. When it comes to iced tea, I like mint but I also like Bavarian wildberry, peach, raspberry, I guess I like the fruit iced teas, which for the most part are either black teas or not technically tea at all.
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Tisane is the term I see used a fair amount to describe herbal/fruit kinds of teas that are not of the actual tea plant. Same general principle though...hot water + plant = om nom nom
Rooibos seems to blend well with a number of things making it ideal for a number of dessert teas (One of my current favorites being a carrot cake tea. A little sugar and milk and it tastes just like liquid carrot cake). On the one hand, flavored teas can mean lower quality of tea can be used while the flavoring dominates, but on the other, a good tea should be able to stand on its own without adding stuffs. Just depends what you are going for I suppose.
With regard to flavored teas, perhaps the most interesting place I've found is 52teas. They make a new tea each week with some...pretty interesting flavors. If you're looking for something unique, it would be the place to go ._.
never had honeybush either...all i really know is that it is similar to rooibos except a bit sweeter. one would hope so given the name.
sipping on mah green rooibos/peppermint stuffs, and i prepared it in my glass infuser thingy and this time i am noticing a bit of a sharp sweet tang that the first cup i tried didn't seem to have.
on a mostly unrelated note, via steepster and teaviews, i noticed a fair number of unique matcha type teas reviewed that used teas other than green tea.
sadly, matcha is a pretty expensive kind of tea, especially if you want something quality. $20 for an ounce which will make around 20 cups, so about a buck a glass, which isn't too bad all things considered (though special accessories can be costly too), but when you can get 3-4 oz of tea leaves for a fraction of the cost as well as the ability to steep them multiple times? the difference is pretty clear, but matcha is damned good if you do get it. plus, i learned you can just shake it in some kind of sealed container to get it frothing and mixed well enough.
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
I'd love to get into tea, but I have nooooo idea where I'd start or what I'd need to make a good cup. I imagine they sell specialized tea brewers like they do for coffee, are any of those good for a novice? I don't imagine I'll be making grade-A cups from the get go, but anything that would help ease me into this process would be pretty cool.
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SunnyX ~ The cream of Robopon fanboyisim http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5711/flawlessvictorynb4.png
SunnyX posted... I'd love to get into tea, but I have nooooo idea where I'd start or what I'd need to make a good cup. I imagine they sell specialized tea brewers like they do for coffee, are any of those good for a novice? I don't imagine I'll be making grade-A cups from the get go, but anything that would help ease me into this process would be pretty cool.
tea generally has pretty low requirements for equipment. sure, there are some things that are nice to have, but as long as you can boil water you are pretty much good to go. it would be wise to have some kind of thermometer to measure the temp of the water too, as temp is important for some teas.
as for brewing methods, i have most often seen tea bags and infusers. tea bags are cheap and you can put loose leaf tea in them, cover with hot water for as long as needed, and you're good. tea infusers generally involve a cup, a thing you put tea in that goes in the cup that will have little holes allowing the tea to work its magic without invading the cup, and depending on the type, a lid. additionally there are mesh balls that do a similar thing, but i generally dislike them especially for green/oolong teas because they need room to expand (good for herbal and black though).
most of the skill with making tea seems to be in knowing what temp for the tea you are using, and how long to steep it for. for example, if you brew a green tea like you would a black tea (boiling water for 3-5 minutes), that tea will most likely come out too strong and bitter.
what i really want to get is an electric tea kettle with variable temperature settings, but these can be on the expensive side. saw one on thinkgeek for like...$50 though, but it was out of stock when i last looked.
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
so yeah, best way to learn about tea is to get some tea and experiment. i wouldn't go crazy and buy super premium stuffs right away, but a lot of tea you find online will be fairly medium quality anyway. one of the stores i linked, adagio, is a good place to start for a novice. hell, even the teabag'd tea at your local grocery would be a decent place to start; you'll at least get an idea of some of the flavors tea can offer (i generally frown on teabag'd tea, but there are some nice quality exceptions out there, and sometimes it is nice to be lazy and just plop a bag in a cup).
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
Funny that you make this topic, I've been drinking nothing but tea in the last couple of days, I was quite sick in my throat but I'm better now thanks to the best healing item ever.
the ability of tea to heal is indeed most amazing! truly the best drink for mind, body, and soul...
and supposedly, drinking hot drinks in summer helps cool you off better by making you sweat, though this is also supposedly bunk due to that pesky law of thermodynamics in that you are both ingesting and removing heat...
though, if you are not in some kind of air cooled environment, you are doing summer wrong >_>;;
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
i have found that i prefer my tea mug to have a white interior, as that seems to best display the color of the teas i drink. black does horribly in this regard, and clear is almost as nice, though allows light to pass through and doesn't look *quite* as pleasing.
that said, most of my cups have a black coating on the inside. overall, a pretty superficial quality, as taste and smell are much more important, but it is nice to be able to compare the looks of the various teas too; different shades of green from light to dark, various browns and reds too.
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
4th of july. clearly this demands the drinking of tea to help counteract all that tea that was dumped in the harbor long ago. or perhaps the boston tea party was entirely misunderstood and they just wanted to make the world's biggest cup of tea :3
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There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out