Tea

[Calib]

What's your favorite kind of tea? Do you drink tea?

For non-tea people, here's a short primer...

Tea is made from leaves, roots, and flowers steeped on hot water. The most common "tea" is made from the tea plant and will have varying amounts of caffeine and antioxidants depending on how the tea is processed, where it is grown, and how old it is amongst other things. It can even vary from year to year with plants grown in the same soil! Luckily, blending comes to the rescue to assure a fairly even flavor every time, regardless of what year it is.

Different brands naturally taste different due to blending and plant sources. For example, Bigelow's green tea is earthy with a thick heavy flavor. In contrast Prince of Peace's green tea is light and a little sweet. Both are the same kind of tea, but they don't taste alike.

Black Tea
This tea has been dried and aged (sometimes fermented) until it turns a dark brown, almost black color. The darker it is, the more caffeine it tends to have.

Caffeine: moderate-high
Made from: tea plant
Great for: iced tea, coffee replacement
Common brands: Lipton, Bigelow, Tetley
A few example kinds: Early Grey, Oolong (Chinese black tea), Orange Pekoe, Chai (black tea + spices and steamed milk)

Green Tea
This tea is steamed, then dried. If left alone for too long, it becomes black tea, so drink it up!It tends to be higher in antioxidants than black tea is. Sometimes other things are mixed in to give the tea a different flavor. White tea is green tea made from very young buds.

Caffeine: low-moderate
Made from: tea plant
Great for: health benefits (4+ cups a day are great for the heart), used in assorted cookies, cakes and frozen treats
Common brands: Prince of Peace, Tazo, Yamamotoyama
A few example kinds: Jasmine Green (Jasmine flowers added), Genmaicha (toasted rice added), Gunpowder (tea rolled into tiny balls before drying for longer-lasting fresh flavor).

Herbal (Tisane)
These teas are made out of anything but the tea plant. This includes fruits, leaves, roots, and blossoms from plants all over the world! The properties can vary wildly, but generally there is little or no caffeine.

Caffeine: none-low
Made from: Anything but the tea plant. Contains no tea plant at all.
Great for: wide variety of flavors, very kid/elder friendly, sometimes medicinal.
Common brands: Celestial Seasonings, Teavana
A few example kinds: Rooibos ("red tea" made from an African bush), Chamomile (pale yellow tea from a daisy-like flower), peppermint tea (green colored tea made from a plant that lives near freshwater streams).

[Aevix]

Ooo I love tea! My favorite drink ^-^
I'm personally pretty picky with my tea.. I tend not to like most oolong and herbal teas. And Earl grey has to be my utmost least favorite flavor tea, it's nasty to me :x Green tea is ok in most cases.. Chai tea has to be my favorite though. I always get the one brand of vanilla chai.. Haha I forget the name, havent gone to get any in a while. But vanilla chai + honey + milk = love <3
And I really love going to Teavana! It always smells so nice there. Aah they always have this one sample.. White Samurai chai I think? *-* So delicious. There's also another sample they always have out, and they put an entire flower to steep in a glass pot and its really beautiful to see o.o Of course, it tastes pretty nice as well. I like to sweeten my tea with their rock sugar if I lack honey haha. Or just nom on rock sugar as it is >3>

[city]

I love tea, with a preference towards chai and green. I used to only drink tea when I was sick and hated it then, but now I drink it all the time. Since It's summer now, I brew it brew green and herbal teas for some nice, non-sugary iced tea. c:

[SpottyWolf]

I love tea! Orange pekoe and Irish breakfast tea are my 2 black tea faves. I do have a thing for jasmine green tea as well. That's the Asian side of me coming out.

[cpvr]

Green tea is my favorite, but I'll also drink some black tea. ^.^

[Calib]

Green tea is awesome. I've been trying to get myself to drink 4+ cups of it a day in order to increase my health. Some days I can pull it off, some days I can't.... usually because sometimes I forget to brew more tea. I have many brands of it around the house so I can always have a variety.

My favorite in bags is Price of Peace. My favorite loose green tea is Temple of Heaven.

[cpvr]

Green tea is awesome. I've been trying to get myself to drink 4+ cups of it a day in order to increase my health. Some days I can pull it off, some days I can't.... usually because sometimes I forget to brew more tea. I have many brands of it around the house so I can always have a variety.

My favorite in bags is Price of Peace. My favorite loose green tea is Temple of Heaven.

I ran out of my green tea bags. I need to buy some more. I got 100 packs for $5 a week or two ago. I put 4 packs per cup, so it evens out for me. I like drinking it hot, warm or cold depending on how I'm feeling.

How long have you been a fan of tea?

[Calib]

I ran out of my green tea bags. I need to buy some more. I got 100 packs for $5 a week or two ago. I put 4 packs per cup, so it evens out for me. I like drinking it hot, warm or cold depending on how I'm feeling.

How long have you been a fan of tea?

That's not a bad price. Prince of Peace usually runs $3-5 for 100 at Big Lots. Anywhere else it tends to be 5-10 for 100 instead.

I've been drinking tea my whole life. Before I was one year old I remember waddling up to dad and asking "Whats that?" Dad looked at me and said "You won't like it." I kept demanding "What's that! What's that! Want? Want!" until dad let me have some.

It was jasmine green tea.

Dad started sharing tea with me when mom wasn't looking. My favorites were Mandarin Orange Spice (Celestial Seasonings) and, of course, the Jasmine Green with the tag I couldn't read. It ended up being Prince of Peace.

I still love both teas.

How/when did you start with tea?

[cpvr]

That's not a bad price. Prince of Peace usually runs $3-5 for 100 at Big Lots. Anywhere else it tends to be 5-10 for 100 instead.

I've been drinking tea my whole life. Before I was one year old I remember waddling up to dad and asking "Whats that?" Dad looked at me and said "You won't like it." I kept demanding "What's that! What's that! Want? Want!" until dad let me have some.

It was jasmine green tea.

Dad started sharing tea with me when mom wasn't looking. My favorites were Mandarin Orange Spice (Celestial Seasonings) and, of course, the Jasmine Green with the tag I couldn't read. It ended up being Prince of Peace.

I still love both teas.

How/when did you start with tea?

Thanks for sharing that with me, I really appreciate it. Well, I started off drinking the Liptop bottled green tea back in 2006, then I learned it wasn't so healthy[this year] Thanks to @Vermillion so now I drink the green tea packets - and I've been seeing a lot more energy, and it tastes a lot better than the Lipton Bottles.

Just went out and purchased more tea. This time it was $3.50 for 100 packs!

[Cakes1991]

I usually prefer green tea...but herbal tea is my choice when I'm sick!