Serious tea drinkers drink it any way they get it. Those leaning toward Asian blends and tea pots, usually never sweeten but the English...and Americans often ad "one lump or two" and a bit of milk. Frankly I prefer lemon in my tea.

My mother was Canadian and we drank milky Lipton tea as young children when I was growing up, and I've been a tea drinker ever since then. I enjoy almost anything called "tea" (including herbal teas) all the way from the best white tea, Irish Breakfast, Jasmine or Rose Tea, and soooooo many more, to the 100 bags for a BUCK from Wal-Mart (which is probably the tea dust sweepings off the floor ;-).

I was part of a "tea group" on-line many years ago, and they wore me out with the "rules" of tea. I just enjoy it - with a couple exceptions - I won't drink smoky-flavored tea like lap-sang souchong because it reminds me of the smell of our cousins house after a home fire when I was a kid.

Someone here in the Cooking group shared how to make the "Perfect Cup of Tea for One", and I've followed this method ever since.

1. Add 200 ml freshly boiled water to your tea bag (in a mug).
2. Brew 2 minutes.
3. Remove bag
4. Add 10 ml of milk.
5. Wait 6 minutes until the tea is 60°C (140°F).

There are a few teas I think do well sweetened, but that's always about your personal taste - it's YOUR tea. Personally, I don't like lemon in hot tea, but prefer it in cold tea (no sweetener). Just don't make the mistake of taking milk in your tea and also adding a slice of lemon - you'll be drinking curdled milk like when you make a substitute for buttermilk with milk and vinegar..... I helped with a high tea celebration at a local museum many years ago. Among the many kinds of tea we served, we had the Queen of England's favorite - Earl Gray (which is black tea flavored with bergamot oil). One man laced his with milk, lemon and sugar, and what a horrible curdled mess he had..... I warned him, but he drank it anyway!

Start by finding books at the library and there's all kinds of information on-line, and just enjoy YOUR big tea adventure. You'll know what you like ;-). I have two favorites: the cup of tea I share with a friend; and the one I pour for myself from a tea pot that was a gift from my son, and savor each and every drop when I really "need" it most.

-Grainlady

My sister has got my mom hooked on Teavana teas. They have stores in many malls, as well as a website. The benefit for me is that I get any leftovers that they don't use before they go to visit sis.

My sister is like you and likes a sweeter taste, so she buys their rock sugar. Personally, I wouldn't buy $9/lb. sugar, but to each their own. They also sell other types of sweeteners, so you aren't alone in having a sweet tooth for tea. You can also get flavored teas (peach is common) that are a little on the sweet side. Most Teavana shops have a few types ready for tasting. There are a number of other good shops as well.

One thing about good Asian tea though... if you brew it according to the directions, you may find that you don't need as much, or any sweetener at all. Most tea bags are made up of tea dust. It can be very bitter, and most people put those bags into boiling water. The too hot water causes a lot of bitter tannins to be released. To compound the problem, they leave the tea in the water too long, and that also contributes to bitterness. I'm not saying that you do these things, but good Asian teas, brewed correctly, are much less apt to need a lot of sweetening. However, each person's taste is their own.

Also remember, a good loose-leaf Asian tea can be brewed multiple times. In fact, the 2nd and 3rd brew of some types can be the most desired. The most discerning (read: pickiest --- also most financially able lol) of tea drinkers throw away the first brew of some types of teas. So even when the prices seem high, remember not to toss used leaves until they've given their all!

I think the sweetening and other flavorings for tea depends on the variety. Orange pekoe or malty Assam can take sugar better than something like an Ooolong which can be woodsly, or a jasmine, which is already sweeter and floral. Also, some teas are cured to different levels which can affect the taste.

I say have fun experimenting. We buy most of our tea from a small local coffee and tea shop. I like this Finum tea brewing basket for loose teas. I have a smaller one for just brewing a mug and a larger one for pots. I like milk in chai tea, especially nice in the evening. Most green teas and some herbal teas I drink without any sweetener (and I generally like sugar). There are many wonderful teas to choose from. One of my favorites both iced and hot is a peach-ginger-black tea. So sooothing. Teavana has good teas but they are out of my budget. I also do not care for Russian smoked teas as I think they smell like a barnyard.

Replies are fun and also amusing in some cases. Will begin my learning process with your suggestions, but plan to start with new teas by tasting first then, if necessary, adding just a touch of sweetener to see if I can get along without it. Think this bugs me because my late husband used to express scorn when I added sweetener to my tea. Guess I should get over that, eh? I do enjoy milk in hot tea, but not with lemon as specified. I like chai tea - does it come in leaf form?

rgreen48: It would definitely be against my nature to toss the first brew of any tea, but appreciate the info as it's interesting to learn the different preferences.

Onward and upward. I shall sally forth with my experiment. Thanks for all help. Pink

The only time that I really enjoy a cup of tea is when I am in England. I've never been able to recreate it here at home - even when I bring the tea (leaves or bags - doesn't matter) home with me, so there is obviously a method to brewing that has eluded me, sorry I'm not able to help.

@grainlady, I am curious about your comment about your Canadian mother serving milky Lipton tea. I am also Canadian and my parents drank their tea straight (as do I). I recall their tea of choice was Red Rose, although I am quite certain it had more to do with price than taste.

One grandmother dutch by heritage and by living in Dutch New Jersey, always had tots of milk in hers....drank Tetley's

Perhaps while you are in England the water is different and the little cups are china, besides you are being served with hospitality and not making it yourself inyour kitchen. It's like home cooking - someone else's tastes differently when they use exactly the same recipe and ingredients.

The secret to a good pot of tea is to use non-chlorine filtered water, heated just barely to boiling @ 180F, and infuse the tea leaves, not in a basket or bag, in a warmed ceramic or china tea pot for 5 minutes, stirring once with a wood or bamboo skewer (not silver, chrome or plastic) waiting for the leaves to settle to the bottom. Warm nice tiny china teacups, use a matching saucer, and add a fancy napkin on a dainty lace place mat. Somehow the falderal is what makes English tea so much better, plus their air is always moist adding to the enchantment.

Japanese tea ceremony is a time honored traditional falderal-to-the-max, but the tea is outstandingly delicious, never to be duplicated unless you have an obi tied on your kimono and years of practice. Like England, it is the environment and the lovely service making you feel special that makes it taste so wonderful.

DH and I love tea because we had to give up coffee for our hearts. The tea is decaffeinated, something sugared and hot to drink instead, and we use our clean fresh country well water. Flavored tea to us is like drinking flowers or spices. I'd rather have those flavors in a sweet little delicate shortbread alongside.

Nancy

I agree with Nancy about the water. I use distilled for coffee and tea. There are some waters that pair well with some teas, but as you boil the water, it concentrates the minerals and water that tastes good cold can be less good hot (though the minerals will also sometimes stick to the pot). Recently, I've found that an enamelled interior to the kettle also makes the tea taste better than plain metal.

There are some teas that are naturally sweet. When I was a teen and went to Canada for the first time, I thought the iced tea I'd been given was sweet tea (like in the South). It turns out it was just the kind of basic tea they used, and most places had the same. I would never add sugar to Oolong, for instance. There are also some blended with fruit, like blackcurrant, which also don't need sugar. They might be an entry for you to have sweetened tea that isn't sugary, if you'd like to learn to drink your tea straight.

I don't get why anyone would mind if you sweeten your tea, especially with sugar. It's not like you're adding a strong flavor like licorice! You have to be careful with honey or agave, and some other sweeteners, to make sure the pairing is good. I don't like sweetened tea at all, but I don't like sugar sodas or other drinks either (though I don't seem to mind sugar in cocktails). Lots of people like sweetened tea! Who am I, or anybody else, to tell you that's wrong? I even read in a history of the tea trade that as tea became accessibly priced in England, the health of the lower classes improved because of the small amount of sugar and milk they were putting in their tea! If a tea snob bugs you about it, just say you're being historically accurate, or that you need the nutrition!

The infuser you use makes a difference too. Some teapots have a built in strainer so you can just throw the loose leaves in. That's kind of ideal, though you do have to swish it around a little. If you're using a ball, try not to pack it more than half full so the leaves can float and be exposed. It also helps to have one that cleans really easily. I have several, but my favorite for just me (rather than a pot) is actually meant to be a Christmas tree ornament. It's a miniature stainless steel footed colander with handles. The handles hold it nicely in the top of a mug, the leaves can float around and still be contained, and it's easy to clean.

It's also really important to keep your tea where it doesn't dry out, and don't keep it for too long. Like any kind of dried foliage (inc. herbs), it goes from damp dry, to dry, to really dry, to flavorless and dead. Simple airtight, opaque canisters, especially new ones that haven't absorbed even a whiff of another aroma, are all you need.

Have fun on your adventure!

I am not a tea connoisseur, but I do prefer loose tea and usually buy Twinning's in the tin and use Tea Sacs for brewing. Some teas are quite pricey and I don't like tea enough to justify crab claw prices.

Aficionados of both coffee and tea eschew distilled water. It's pretty much "dead" water lacking any minerals. Filtered or natural spring water that has not been chlorinated is said to create the best flavor.

The water at my house is exceptionally hard and so "alive" that it would dominate the coffee and tea, and ruin the coffee maker and kettle. Therefore, we use RO water for the clean slate that it provides.

Pink - try Brooke Bond's PG Tips. That's my special tea treat. It's not perfumed with bergamot oil. It's good strong black tea for people who like their tea to taste like tea and not like eau de cologne (don't kill me bergamot loving folks!)

Day to day I drink Lipton. Nothing to write home about but cheap and deifnitely TEA.

PG Tips is in a league of its own I think.

Wintercat, I agree with you. PG Tips gives you an honest, everyday cup of tea and the knitted monkey in the adverts is just so cute........It's my usual tea. For a treat, Darjeeling.

As for all the hoopla that people think he English go through to make a cup of tea..... it's just a myth. We're just as busy as everyone else on the planet and there's no time for dinky porcelaine cupsand arty water on a daily basis so it's a teabag in a mug and tap water for 99% of the population.

For really good tea, then a porcelaine teapot, warmed, with one teaspoon of loose tea per person AND one for the pot. Leave it to brew for a few minutes, then pour it into the cup/mug through a tea strainer. All these gadgets to contain the tea defeat the object of having loose tea in the first place.

Then, it's absolutely UP TO YOU. Milk, lemon, sugar. It's YOUR cup of tea.

Well, not milk and lemon. That would curdle... :D

The best tea I've had is when we lived in a house with well water that had a very slight amount of iron in it. I know, doesn't make sense but it was the best. We have well water here that has no iron in it, very clear, springlike and although it's wonderful it just doesn't make tea like that did. I've also had tea made with well water with more iron in it but it wasn't good.

Grainlady - I love the idea of tea concentrate! Thanks for that tip.

I would probably spill all my tea if the lady of the house at the Bucket residence poured it in her china cups, from laughing so much. That show is timeless.

I use loose leaf for tea. Only way to go in my opinion. My favorite is oolong which I buy from a local herb and tea store... I don't know the brand but it tastes very good. I use the leaves at least two times before they get thrown in the compost, and I like a little milk and just a touch of honey. For both loose leaf and bags, you need to keep them in an airtight container since leaves can become stale and loose flavor. In my area, the tap water tastes like chlorine so I use bottled when I make tea.

My Dutch great grandmother swore by Lipton's loose leaf for afternoon tea, which was a ritual for her and her eight daughters, and then my mom and I. I've had better loose leaf teas but Lipton's I can find and it is good for every day. There are some acceptable bags, (like Tazo) but with bags you get a paper taste and often a chlorine taste if you get white bags. It's slight, but it is noticeable if you get used to loose leaf. Plus they use inferior leaves and tea dust in them in the cheaper brands and that's not the greatest either.

Mom liked her tea unsweetened, and Lady Grey was her favorite. She had all kinds of flavored teas since she drank it without sugar. From my many visits to Great Britain I developed a taste for the strong orange pekoe or asaam tea, cut with cream. I don't do sugar, but instead I drink my tea with something sweet, like a cookie/"biscuit" or muffin or cake or roll of some type. Even jam and bread! NOT good for my figure. I used to be a plain tea drinker so I think it is better to develop a taste for it sans sugar, from a health perspective. When I was a little girl I drank it with milk and sugar at grandmas.

Not sure about the various minerals, but the chlorine and salt in treated tap water don't do tea any favors. Or coffee for that matter.

If you want PWM, send me your address on Facebook and I can send you an assortment of mom's teas, mostly the sweeter varieties and high end stuff. I have so much tea left over from her. Super sadly, I can't drink tea anymore due to a bladder condition. It's too acid.

Lpink, NEVER cream in tea!!! Shuddering!!!

I have been a tea aficionado since my teen years. For my 16th birthday, my grandfather made me a cabinet to hold my tea paraphernalia and although the contents have changed, it has been in my household through many moves. For decades, spouse and I have a cup of tea and some type of sweet treat every night at about 8 P.M.

I usually use loose tea but don't have an objection to tea bags. Since I don't drink coffee, they're often the only thing available if I order tea. I also drink a lot of iced tea, except for that horrid "sweet tea" served throughout the southern states.

I try teas unsweetened first and add sugar if I think it would improve the taste. I don't add milk or lemon but that's just my choice. I don't use any type of tea infuser; just dump the leaves in the pot and strain before pouring into the cup. They usually stay in he bottom of the pot anyway.

Like grainlady, I make tea concentrate for iced tea and always had a bottle of it in the refrigerator at work before I retired.

For iced tea, my everyday tea is Twining's English Breakfast (lightly sweetened) and for special occasions, one called Russian Fancy from a local tea and coffee purveyor. For hot tea, I prefer Kusmi teas, especially Prince Vladimir and Russian Morning #24. I used to have to buy them at Zabar's on shopping trips to NYC but they are now available at Amazon. I love a good Darjeeling but about the only fruit flavored tea I enjoy is black currant.

Pink, I hope you'll have fun in your tea adventures. Many tea companies offer a selection of tea bags in their different varieties. I would start with those and then you can buy loose tea in the flavors you prefer. There's no wrong way to drink tea and don't feel bad if you don't like any of our recommendations. Tea preferences are very personal and you'll probably find some that you love!

Well, to be precise, I use half and half in my tea. I am slightly lactose intolerant, which adds even more complications to the mix.

Pink, I was just wondering where you are located? In Portland OR. where my sister lives, there is a fabulous Japanese garden which includes a wonderful tea house where you can sit and enjoy delicious exotic teas. Perhaps in your area there is something similar where you can go and try some teas.... At this particular tea house they also have some yummy cookies to go with the teas as well. Have fun....

ruthanna - the "horrid" sweet tea in the South is variable. Never get it at a fast food place because they use corn syrup to sweeten it, which is horrid. Most sit down places use real sugar. I drink mine half-and-half which is half sweetened and half not. That is more common around here.

Homemade sweet tea the way my dear MIL made it:

"Take a big bowl and dump in some sugar. Boil some water in a pot and put 5 tea bags in stirring until it is really dark but not totally cooled off. Pour into the bowl and stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour over ice cubes in a tall glass while still warm."

Years later I found out why she made it this way - she didn't have a pitcher big enough.

Nancy

I pinkmountain-

The higher the fat content of a dairy product, the lower the amount of lactose in it, so half-and-half is a good choice for lower-lactose over whole milk and the others with an even lower fat content. What you add to your tea a choice. Enjoy it how you like it, or for whatever reason you have for choosing what you add. :-)

-Grainlady

Whatever you like is right...

Personally, I can't stand sweetened tea -- Had an interesting experience driving down to New Orleans, and stopping overnight in a town just a few hours out of NOLA that apparently had only a Burger King and a Chinese restaurant. Well, I opted for the latter -- they brought me tea pre-sweetened. I asked if I could have it without sugar.

Nope, they only had it available pre-sweetened.

I switched it out for water, and then ordered the most innocuous thing on the menu, because if they couldn't handle serving unsweetened tea at a Chinese restaurant, I didn't want to find out about the entree.

(Seriously, folks, if you want sugar in your (hot, even) tea, you can certainly add this yourselves!!! Dissolves fast!)

PS: I don't add milk, either.

When I visited a friend who had moved from the PNW to NC, we went out to lunch at a very nice restaurant. One of the few things she warned me about was that tea was going to come sweetened. I'd never heard of such a thing and can't stand sweetened tea or coffee, so I just skipped it. (I think it was iced tea). I'd never heard of shrimp and grits before either, and boy was THAT a treat!

Iced sweet tea is the norm, I thought it was that way everywhere? But shrimp and grits are definitely a regional thing.

I buy tea leaves in bulk at a tea shop, and my favorite is Fancy Keemun, which you can also buy on line. If you like black tea, I recommend that you try Keemun, as it has a very delicate smooth flavor.

I also buy Assam tea from Indian in bags that I brew for general use - it's much cheaper than the Fancy Keemun. When I was in college, I drank Earl Grey, English Breakfast, and Darjeeling, partly because they were readily available. I still like English Breakfast, but now I more often drink Hojicha - Japanese roasted green tea. Yamamotoyama is a good brand that is easy to find, and I keep bags of it at my desk at work for my afternoon tea.

Can anyone recommend a "Chinese" tea. The kind you get when eating out in a Chinese restaurant? I have tried to track down info from the tea bag, but to no avail. Probably it's only for sale to restaurants.

ellendi6161-

Do you mean Jasmin tea? It's readily available, especially on-line.

I order it from Amazon -

http://www.amazon.com/The-Au-Jasmin-16oz-Pack/dp/B00DAO8K5U

This is the exact same brand they sold at our one and only Chinese restaurant when I was a kid (now closed, and the owner's son is my UPS delivery man), and it's the one I've always used for Jasmin tea.

Some serve oolong or pu-erh also. I looked it up, and there's one, apparently popular, brand that sells a blend of oolong, jasmine, and green teas. Next time you find one you like, I would ask. With today's internet, it's much easier to get hard to find items. I have a restaurant supply warehouse near me and they sell stuff to anyone who walks in. When a box gets damaged, they don't re-box it, they put it on their shelves in the lobby and sell it cheap. I got 3 lbs. of frozen spinach last time for $2, and they routinely sell those huge cans of beans or tomatoes for the same price.

By-the-by... it also seems to depend on where you are. The Chinese restaurants in the south, where I live now, have less access to the same ingredients as they did in NY where I used to live. Because of this, the menu items aren't the same, and the food is rarely as good. I make it at home from time-to-time, but oh, to have a GOOD Cold Sesame Noodle! To please their customers, they must also tone the dishes to meet the taste sensibilities of the area. I'm sure that also makes a difference in teas.

Further confusing what would be a simple question... if the owners or managers of the restaurant are ethnic Chinese, what they serve will depend on what part of China they are from... it's a big country.

If you want to try loose leaf tea I would check out Upton teas. They have a truly amusingly daunting catalogue. I am sure I could not discern between the first or second harvest - or the farm on the east vs west side of a mountain - but the descriptions appeal to my plant snobbery. And I would like to think I could discern. Lol.

A neighbor treats herself to very expensive teas from them which are lovely. I tend to go more mid-low end of the road. As someone mentioned Keemun is a very nice black tea - my favorite. I also usually get gunpowder and jasmin. My last splurge item from them is Jade oolong - which I seem to be drinking last because it cost most....

I generally make tea in a french press or a small cast iron teapot. I don't like sugar, lemon or milk. I do often add a little verveine, mint or lime leaf but not much else.

Enjoy your tea!