Recipe Tea: What are you steeping these days?

Really good tea doesn't need either...unless it's meant to have them. Some really burly Assams and English Breakfast teas go very well with milk and sugar, but that's because they have the weight to do so. However, I've come to enjoy those teas plain over time.

 

This is directed at @Chris Noyb

One good experiment would be to try an Assam (or breakfast) tea black, then with a bit of milk, then with a bit of milk & sugar (or honey). Cycle through that a few times to get your palate used to the differences. You'll find it gets easier to appreciate heavy teas when you let them shine through. Next, get yourself a half-decent Darjeeling. Don't—don't ever—"doctor" a Darjeeling. If I ever find out you've desecrated such a leaf, I will have a few "choice words" for you. Anyway, going from the Assam or breakfast tea to a Darjeeling will let you appreciate the distinct differences between the teas.

Damnit, I really need a Darjeeling now. I don't think I have any on hand.

 

See, the thing is, if you're just steeping a run-of-the-mill orange pekoe, then you may never appreciate straight tea. Try a Darjeeling straight, and you might like it. It's like green tea or oolong that way. It's much better on its own.

I've always wanted one of those.

 

I've been into green tea with honey in the afternoons these days...

 

I love some good chai. I ought to pick some up at my friend's shop.

 

@Baraka_Guru, I think you need this.

Buy Irish Breakfast Black Tea Online | Adagio teas

 

It's true. It's difficult to find an Irish breakfast tea in these parts, especially loose leaves. People must assume having an English breakfast tea suffices.

It does not.

Not malty enough.

 

It's pretty damn delicious. I drank that way too quickly!

 

@snowy

As it happens, my local grocery store recently stocked Bewley's Irish breakfast tea. Now I can get a proper blend directly from the motherland!

And at $0.09 a cup, you can't go wrong.

 

Malty!

 

If you ever get serious about loose-leaf, I really recommend picking up a Finum tea basket: Home Tea balls don't allow much room for expansion of the leaves, which means that the water doesn't circulate as well around the leaves; it's a disservice to good tea. My Finum is five years old or so and still in great shape. I've tried other tea baskets (Bodum, Republic of Tea), but the Finum wins, hands down.

 

It's easy to become that person, haha.

 

I've been steeping a lot of Irish breakfast tea in my attempt to get off the bean.

It's a cheap tea though. It's a box of 80 tea bags that I bought for less than $10. But it's serving my purposes. I've been brewing it strong and adding milk and sugar, like I would with coffee most of the time. I've been back and forth with this and coffee, but now I'm down to just this tea with a bit of maple sugar (no dairy).

I've had some loose-leaf oolong on occasion, but I'm trying to stick to the Irish blend because I want to get through it. I also have half a box of green tea bags I need to get through. I want to go back to loose leaf tea exclusively. These teas I got merely for convenience and cost. However, I miss quality tea.

I'm thinking of sticking mostly to green and oolong, but I really enjoy black tea in the morning. I think I may eventually replace the Irish breakfast blend with a nice Darjeeling that I can drink black. I want to get off the sugar and dairy in tea completely.

So I'm looking at Darjeeling for breakfast, green and oolong during the day, and probably herbal blends in the evening (after 6 p.m.). I have some chamomile I'm currently working through, but I tend to like blends better—something with mint and lemon balm, usually.

Anyway, that's what I'm looking at. I've been drinking as much as five cups of coffee per day recently, partly because I've been so busy with work. I find that coffee has a negative impact on me though. It tends to increase my anxiety, and I'm sure drinking that much affects my sleep quality. The most important thing, though, is that I tend to enjoy drinking tea more than coffee.