Tea is freakin' amazing... page 4

[sakura_girl]

Judipurple, why cold water and not hot?

I love brewing cold tea because I feel like the taste is a lot more delicate that way.

[JudiPurple]

Gilleh - I think it cuts alot of the lingering bitterness from the tannics in the tea. And like sakura_girl, it does have a finer, more delicate taste. In the winter, when the garden has gone to bed, I use mint extracts to add that minty, refreshing edge.

[JudiPurple]

There's a great company for Chinese tea in the UK called Attic Tea, their website has some awesome quality teas from China, and they ship worldwide. But its worth checking out just for their teablog, which has interesting musings on tea, including the most recent entry which discusses why caffeine in tea doesn't affect people in the same way as coffee.

Thank you for the tea info, EiO, very interesting blog and website. Sigh...like I need another place to buy more teas!

[Alex Good]

Well tea IS medication.... The middle and far eastern cultures used it to cure everything.

[RitaRose]

I'm one of those freaks that can't handle the caffeine, so I only drink herbal teas, but I do love them! My favorite right now is a cheapy cinnamon hibiscus, and I just let the bag sit in the water until it's gone. Yep, I'm cheap and tacky!

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of cooking done with tea leaves, and I hadn't seen that before. Very interesting.

[Drumroll]

I'm a huge tea snob, and routinely buy teas that cost around $200 a pound. It's not a cheap habit at all. But the hubby and I love going to Chinatown (or to China when we have the chance) to go tea tasting and choose our favorites. There's nothing like a good cup of green tea in the morning.

At Teavana, I like their Huangshan Maofeng and the Dragonswell (both green teas, the Dragonswell being much less expensive). I am not really a fan of flavored teas, which is a good thing, because I found out that Teavana has dairy in a lot of their flavored teas, and I don't tolerate dairy well.

I also enjoy the occasional cup of Oolong. I love Feng Huang Dan Cong, and Ali Shan. But there's something about Oolong that gives me a super strong buzz, where green tea just gives me a stable feeling of energy.

Depending on how oxidized the oolong tea is, it WILL have more caffeine. The Feng Huang Dan Cong is a more oxidized one, correct? If you're unsure, just look at how dark it is. The less it looks like a green tea and more like a black, the more oxidized it is.

You can get green teas that have more caffeine than certain oolongs, but this tends to be when comparing them to less oxidized oolong teas. Get into the darker oolongs and they almost certainly have a little more caffeine in them.

Oolong teas are a mix of the antioxidants found in green teas (egcg, egc ect.) and the antioxidants in black tea (theaflavins and thearubigins). Green tea only has the former, black tea only the latter. The unique combination found in oolong teas could effect the way the caffeine hits certain individuals.

[Drumroll]

i'v e been a tea drinker for years. used to have 2 shots of espresso around 5:00 at work, in the restaurant, and after awhile realized i was getting headaches from it. gave that up.

we have teavana here and i get their early grey blue flower. i used to buy black litchi tea in chinatown, but they changed owners and changed the formula. i haven't found it since and that brings me sads.

i like strong black tea, always straight, no sugar, no milk.

after all the drugs i did in my 20s, this seems a harmless indulgence.

The Earl Grey with the blue flowers in it is their "Earl Grey Creme" I think. The guy I asked about it described it as Earl Grey with a hint of vanilla flavor which is provided by the Madagascar Vanilla they include along with the traditional flavor of bergamot oil found in Earl Grey tea.

If tea keeps you off of drugs, I think of it as the lesser of two evils. Why worry?

[Drumroll]

Well tea IS medication.... The middle and far eastern cultures used it to cure everything.

Indeed, it truly is. And the traditional native tribes of South America have ascribed medical benefits to yerba mate for centuries as well.

[Drumroll]

I'm one of those freaks that can't handle the caffeine, so I only drink herbal teas, but I do love them! My favorite right now is a cheapy cinnamon hibiscus, and I just let the bag sit in the water until it's gone. Yep, I'm cheap and tacky!

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of cooking done with tea leaves, and I hadn't seen that before. Very interesting.

Have you tried yerba mate? I find it ironic that it has as much caffeine in it as black tea, maybe even slightly more, but I sleep WAY better on the days where I drink it and am much more relaxed throughout the day as well. The caffeine hits me much different than in coffee or even tea. I think this might be owing to the unique mixture of antioxidants and the fact that yerba mate is more than just pure caffeine. It is actually a mixture of the three stimulants caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline, which in the combination found in yerba mate can make it have a completely different effect on your body.

[JBailey]

Tea is the only way I can get enough hydration at work, since water just doesn't go down well. I have a 16oz mug and my first cup is a nice black, white or green tea (depending on what caught my eye at the store that week - our local co-op has a decent selection). My 2nd cup is usually something herbal from Celestial Seasonings. And my 3rd cup is pure homegrown medicine - lemon balm, mint & nettles all harvested from my yard where they grow like crazy.

I tend to drink more tea at home in the winter, and that's when I spend more on snobby tea. I do like pu-erh too.