I'm drinking Twining's China Black at the moment.  I find that
there's a greater variety of flavors in tea than in coffee, barring
the "varietal" coffees now in vogue (Vanilla Fudge Nut Honey Almond
Cream Hazelnut, etc.).  Anyone else use tea as a drug?  What are
your favorite kinds?  Any anti-bag fanatics here?  Sun tea fans?
Please share.

229 responses total.

  I favor Twinings Prince of Wales, Lapsang souchong, and Earl Grey. I don't
mind bags, nor tap water, just as long as it's served pronto with lots of
lemon and sugar.

I seem to do raspberry leaf tea, with loose leaves in a tea ball, to help
with PMS.  I dunno why it works, but it does seem to help.  Maybe it's
psychosomatic.  At some point when I asked about what's in raspberry
leaves, Rane found some information that said there are mild analgesics
in them.  Maybe that's why it works?  It works a lot better than, say,
ibuprofen or aspirin, so I think there's more to it than just the analgesic
effects.

Other than that, I'll often order herbal tea at a restaurant.  It's warm,
and a lot easier for the restaurant to get right than coffee is.  Right now
I think I'm probably awake because I had some Twining's Earl Grey tea at
a restaurant about 2-3 hours ago.  It was good.  I was sleepy.  I'm not
sleepy now, but, judging by the hour, I should be.

i'm really not a  big tea fanatic (o.k., so i hate the stuff...:), but there is
one that i've found that i absolutely adore....it's a hot cinnamon tea that
i get from work, eithr in bags or loose...it's best with too much lemon, and
some sugar.  :)

My own choice is almost any mint herb tea.  I'm a pro-bag fanatic, where
my *own* consumption is concerned.

I worry about the bleaches they use in tea bags, even though we're probably
consuming them in such small quantities that they're harmless.  They're not
harmless to the environment.  But teabags are sure a lot more convenient than
doing the tea-ball thing, so I end up using them at work and restaurants.

I heard a story once about a British tea-taster: "Hmmm... Oolong.
Ceylon number two. A touch of red Hangchow.  And, of course, the bag."

I don't know what tea has in it apart from a little caffein, but 
it wakes me up and clears my head much better than coffee does.  
(Might be psychosomatic, as popcorn says, but I'm not arguing.) 

If I'm making a whole pot, which I seldom do, I like to use loose 
tea and a tea ball.  Otherwise, bags are just fine.  In addition 
to Twining's China Black, I like Bigelow's Constant Comment.  
Constant Comment is *the* thing to drink when you come in from 
raking leaves on a chilly autumn day.  (Remember chilly autumn 
days?) 

I've always loved iced tea.  We have a "Mr. Coffee" iced tea 
maker that makes a half-gallon of any kind of iced tea you like, 
ready to drink in fifteen minutes.  

Some herb teas are wonderful.  Blueberry leaf is one of my 
favorites.  Chamomile tea has, for me, a relaxing and nostalgic 
quality, like bringing a warm sunlit meadow indoors.  Also, some 
of the Celestial Seasonings blends, like "Emperor's Delight" or 
"Autumn Harvest," are okay.  But many commercial herb tea blends 
are bulked out with hibiscus flowers, for some reason, and you 
might even find hibiscus flowers to be the primary ingredient in 
some tea blends that don't have hibiscus in their name.  

Milk: pro or con?  I'm against it in tea.  Makes me sick to my 
stomach, in fact.

I love tea, and I love coffee, too.  For tea, I prefer Twining's
Earl Grey or English Breakfast, either brewed in my automatic drip 
coffee pot (that gold coffee filter is easier to clean than the
balls, and we end up with no leaves!).  I find that we make the
tea on the strong side; I like it straight and my husband adds
unrefined sugar.

Pregnant I drink Celestial seasonings mandarin orange or mint
medley.  (Beware...I think it's bigelow's mint that is flavored
tea, complete with caffeine).  For those, I use bags.  My kids
drink apple orchard (again, celest. seas. caff free).  They aren't
allowed to have soda, so they like making this or hot chocolate 
for themselves.

I have yet to find a tea ball or strainer that doesn't leave me feeling
like I'm drinking sawdust.

i like irish breakfast tea, english breakfast, darjeeling, and
the regular ol' red rose orange pekoe.
i just bought some pure peppermint herb tea, which my cat seems to
like more than i do.
once i tried to drink catnip tea around a cat...heh.. i think that
is something everyone should try once.

  I can drink it with milk, I prefer cream, with sugar. But usually it's
lemon and sugar, or just sugar. 

 I keep all my teabags in mon big ziploc bag so that they can intermingle;
gets pretty interesting after a few months.

we have a glas teapot at work that apperntly works wonderfully....there is a 
middlei cylendar that has verrrrrry thin slits to hold the tea in, and let the
water out...one of these day's i'm gonna try it...:)

Last time I was in England, I discovered that there is a quaint custom
of asking, "Would you like a cup of tea," before your host brings you a
cup of tea.  The question is pro forma.  Your answer, "Yes," "No," or
"A giant purple monster ate my boxer shorts," will inevitably result in
your being brought a nice, hot cup of tea.

Why not use a proper English tea pot, with built-in strainer, and deal
with the stray tea leaf?  You'll be happier.

thats what this glass pot is....t's like corning ware, and very strong.

We got one of those glass teapots as a wedding gift.  You put the loose tea in
the middle cylinder and pour boiling water through it.  Ours has a glass base
with an indentation in it that holds a small metal cup for a voltive candle
to keep the tea warm.  Whenever we can both decide on the same tea we use it,
makes wonderful tea and gently keeps it warm.  However, we usually don't
agree on which tea to drink at the moment and so we have several tea ball,
strainer thingies, special spoon shaped tea ball devices so that we can each
make a cup of whatever.  (STeve loves to go and pick out a selection of teas
at the People's Food Co-op.  Makes live interesting cause he doesn't always
label the bags and you have to guess which is what by smelling them.)

This is the time of year that I start thinking about Russian Tea (orange, lemon
spiced tea) and will probably make up a batch (as soon as I find the box that
is hiding my recipe box or we get a working monitor so that I can access my
computer recipe files).  Will post the recipe when I do.

we just got our noel tea in at work.....it's good sstuff, even tho the smell is
sorta like bubblegum...:)

i want to get a teapot, even if it is just a plain ceramic one...

i really detest earl grey tea. to me, it tastes like that bitter
dandelion milk.

I have found that the proper way to enjoy earl grey is with lemon.
I agree earl grey by itself is sort of scary stuff - it always
reminded me of mosquito repellent.  But with lemon & sugar, I
find that it turns into pure ambrosia.

I even like it straight up.

I love english breakfast and ceylon teas...I make them in my automatic drip
coffe maker and I make them rather strong.  I don't drink coffee.  I like mine
with just enough milk, the thin stuff, to cool it to drinking temps.  I drink
about 2 pots a day.  For herb teas, we all like raspberry, red zinger or lemon
zinger.  My husband loves sleepy time tea.  I also like mint tea when I am
not feeling well.  Got sick of constant comment a while ago.  

I've been drinking a lot of "Harvest Spice" (I think that's its name)
tea, from Celestial Seasonings, at work lately.  I tried their Bengal Spice
flavor, too, on the theory that it has cardamom in it and cardamom is one of
my favorite spices, but the resulting brew seemed to be all aroma and no
flavor.  Which led me right back to Harvest Spice again.  Yum!

Harvest Spice is wonderful.

I've been trying some of the over 100 kinds of tea we have at our store.
One thing some people forget is that tea must expand to three times its
dried state to fully infuse. So fill your tea balls and spoons only about
a third of the way, and use the proper amounts. About a teaspoon per six
ounce cup, so a mug (mostly twelve oz) would be two teaspoons. Three mins.
steeping for green teas, four to five for blacks. Herbal tisanes (there is
no "tea" leaves in them) are pretty much to taste, but often not more than
ten mins.

I'm a big tea drinker, too... I drink more iced tea than hot tea, but I
do enjoy them both. Am currently drinking ginger-peach iced tea.  For
hot teas, depending on my mood, sometimes I drink them 'straight',
sometimes with cream, sometimes with sugar or sweetner.  Down south,
here in NC where I am currently residing, when one orders iced tea,
95% of the time you'll get it already sweetend unless you specifically
ask for unsweetened tea... I used to always drink my iced tea unsweetened
but have gotten into the habit of drinking sweetened, mainly because
at restaurants, its easier [and fresher], though I'm trying to break myself
from that habit!

well, i got a teapot and teaball, and even dug out a fancy teacup!
i'd been making a lot of tea of late.
a friend told me to try boiling a mixture of half milk and half water,
then steeping the tea in that. i was skeptical, but it is actually
pretty good!

I've wish I liked tea.  The tradition is so elegant.
But I can't seem to aquire a taste for it.

s/acquire/aquire  

Think I'll get some cooffee going.

"I like coffee,
I like tea,
I like the Java Jive,
and it likes me."

in about 3 weeks, marcvh and i are going to victoria, B.C.
word has it that  it is the most british of all canada.
so, i'm going to drag marc off to a tea whn we are there.
i've heard that the empress hotel is wonderful, except the
more i found out about it, themore inclined i am
to take tea elsewhere.
it is 20 bucks a person, AND you have to dress up for it.
but you do get tea, crumpets, jam, strawberries, cream, teacakes, sandwiches.

we'll probably go to the james bay tearoom. i dont think you have
to be formal there.

I suspect you'll love Victoria, Christine.  John and I were there
not too long ago and enjoyed it a whole lot.  Leave at least one
night free to wander down along the water's edge where there 
are street artists galore.

Too, as of last weekend the currency exchange rate was 34%.
So the price of that High Tea isn't all that bad.

We enjoyed afternoon teas at a hotel in Mayfair when we were last
in London.  Can't get much more authentic than that, you'd think,
and yet the tea itself seemed a minor part of the affair.  I was
and remain cheerfully ignorant of that particular Britishism.

ok, i did it.
i thought it would be straightforward tea, but it wasnt quite..
marc and i had a seat next to the window, and could see the horse drawn
carriages going up and down the street. nice view. when the tea came, it was on
a tray with all sorts of food on it. sandwiches <egg salad, tuna> a lemon tart,
2 spherical baked dough balls. <i assumed these were scones>, jam, a bowl of
whipped cream <!> a bowl of something else, i think the waitress said it was
trifle.. it seemed to be a fruit pudding mixed with cake and covered in whipped
cream. plus a teapot covered in a cozy, and cream and sugar for the tea.

at the time, the place was fairly empty so i couldnt take my
]cues from other people. 
i had no idea if i were to eat the trifle with a spoon
or smear it on the scones. and the bowl of whipped cream was
a puzzle to me. <blush>
i ended up putting jam on the scones and a little blip of whipped cream.
that seemed odd, the whipped cream.
i alternated putting a bit of trifle on the scones, and eating it
with a spoon.

could any knowledgable person  offer ant hints on this matter?

Oh,my, am I envious or WHAT!!
You had a wonderful High Tea.  The 'whipped cream' was probably Devonshire
cream, a slightly thickend, or 'clotted' cream.  
Trifle is a sweet that is layers of cake, fruit, custard, and whipped cream.
Sometimes it also has sherry in it. It is usually eaten by itself.
The scones were meant to carry the butter, the jam, and the Devonshire cream.
High Tea is often like a light supper, hence the sandwiches.  I've had mixed
grill (grilled tomato, sausage, & other things) sometimes instead of
sandwiches.
Then you had lemon tarts, which possibly were small pastries filled with lemon
curd, which is also sometimes offered as a spread, like jam.  
It sounds like a *very* lovely tea, my dear.

thanks for the information on the tea!
and yes, it was very nice. i used it as a light late lunch.

i had heard the term clotted cream before.. but the reason i called
it whipped cream was that it had the appearance of coming out of a can.
but.. it did seem a bit heavier than the stuff we buy here in the grocery
stores.

i asked my brother about it, and he thought that the clotted cream
was supposed to go in the tea. i didnt think so, as there was already
cream on the table for it. 

Clotted cream is a spread for breads, not an addition to the liquid.

In the South of England, we loved Scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam
with tea.  Devonshire especially features clotted cream.  You can buy it here
at Merchant of Vino in the exact jars they sell it in over there.  It doesn't
have a strong taste but a delicious consistency, and  I am sure, tons of
calories from fat.  But once in a while, you have to party.  I could never
understand how the English have high tea like that, then drink pints of beer
(do you believ the size of those pints?) and then go home to have dinner. 
And most of them are so thin.  Good genes, I guess.

No, most of the dinner food is so incredibly bland that they just sit down
and talk, then go to bed.  ;)

   a british pint is twenty ounces.

Early last week, I was in Ashevill, NC with a friend-where we did the
Christmas candlelight tour of the Biltmore Esate  [the largest
private 'home' in the country; built over 100 years ago by George
Vanderbilt.  The house is really decked out for the holidays--and
the 'grounds' are absoloutely wonderfu, too [over 80,000+ acres!].

On Tuesday afternoon, before heading back to 'reality' [home], we
had a lovely "English" Tea at a place called [none other than]
Chelsea's Tea House! This place was incredible... as was the tea selection
AND the plate of foods that came with it--including several kinds of 'finger'
sandwiches, scones with cream and jam, quiche, a bowl of cake/fruit&cream,
and all sorts of delicious desserts. I do plan on going back again
sometimesoon! [Its only a 4 hour drive away!  :-)   ]

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