I’m a reformed coffee drinker. Otherwise known as a tea fan.
Ally posted recently about her assortment of tea flavors, and it reminded me that I have… a lot of tea in my house.
Since I cannot remember my origin story as a tea drinker, I will instead give you a tour of my tea.
It was so fun to read about how many of you have strong thoughts on herbal vs. black tea, and I will say that I have equally strong feelings about tea. The first feeling is that I don’t really understand what herbal tea is! Which is probably pretty understandable, considering that I drink black tea 95% of the time.
My favorite is Earl Grey, and its variations. I love me some bergamot. The very best Earl Grey tea I have ever had was at a little brunch place in Montreal. I ordered a pot of Earl Grey and it was so floral and delicious that I wrote down the name of the tea they served and have asked for it for Christmas every year since. (It’s called Uncle Grey and its made by Tea Squared in Canada.)
Because Uncle Grey is pricey, it’s not really reasonable to drink every single day. (That’s why it makes a great gift.) So I’ve had to come up with some acceptable alternatives. There is a lot of bad tea out there, folks. My favorite is Double Bergamot Earl Grey by Stash. I can often get it at a local grocery store, and if not I can order it by the 100-bags from amazon.
I drink an enormous cup of tea every morning, and I use two tea bags to make it strong enough. I read somewhere that you do not strengthen tea by steeping it longer, you strengthen it by using more tea bags. (Steeping it longer can make it bitter.) If memory serves, I read this years ago in the first Cormoran Strike novel by Robert Galbraith/J. K. Rowling, so I’m not sure if you should take it as gospel; it is advice that has served me well, however.
Despite liking my tea strong, I don’t like it black. When I make Earl Grey or Chai, I always add sweetener and half-and-half. I use about two tablespoons of half-and-half, so my tea is a lovely tan.
My second-favorite tea is matcha. But the way to make matcha good, in my opinion, is to make it with milk rather than with water, and that is sometimes usually more of an effort than I care to make. You will note that my matcha is encased in a resealable bag inside a Zip-loc bag, because I have learned from bitter experience that it is a bitch to clean up matcha powder that has spilled all over my pantry.
My third-place tea drink of choice is probably a tie between Chai and green tea. If I order tea from Starbucks, for instance, I almost always order a Chai latte. But if I am having a second cup of tea during the day, I will make green tea. I like the grassy taste, although I sometimes add a little plop of honey. I enjoy jasmine green tea quite a bit; I guess I like flowery tea in general.
My tea collection includes a wide variety of teas other than Earl Grey, matcha, chai, and green tea. Sometimes I browse the shelves and shelves of teas at the store and think, “Hmm, perhaps I am a rooibos person!” (I am not.) or “What I need is a tea with winter spices!” (I do not.) Then I buy them and try a cup and hate it and go back to drinking my same old, same old.
My husband enjoys some of the winter-spice teas, but contrary to my original assumption, which was that the winter-spiced teas I am posting here are his, he actually has all “his” tea in the same drawer where he keeps his coffee. So this is all tea I have purchased in hopes that I will magically become a different person.
The chamomile is a different thing, though: I have chamomile because my mom used to make it when we weren’t feeling well. It was part of the Sore Throat Regimen (which also involved gargling with hot salt water). Even though I’m not a huge fan of the taste, it is comforting because it reminds me of my mother, and how tenderly she took care of me when I was sick.
I much prefer a tea bag to a loose-leaf tea. This is something I continually try to revisit with myself, because the tea bags produce a lot of waste. I have the matcha, I have some micro ground tea, I have some loose leaf tea. I have a little tea brewer apparatus, into which you can pour your tea leaves and your hot water; once the tea is done steeping, you balance the little apparatus on top of your mug and it drains the brewed tea into your mug, leaving the leaves inside. It’s ingenious, really. But it’s difficult to clean (and you aren’t supposed to put tea leaves down your drain) and it doesn’t fit on my mug because it’s too giant. I will continue trying to train myself away from the tea bags though; it’s a terrible, wasteful habit.
Once, I went to a friend’s house for dinner. After dinner, she brought out this beautiful teak box with a hinged lid, inside of which were a dozen different teas I could choose from. It struck me as so fancy, and so hospitable. I, on the other hand, have a plastic bin filled with teas of all sorts that sits in my panty next to boxes and boxes of other tea. If I ever become a fancy person who enjoys having people in my house, I will certainly be getting myself a lidded box in which to offer my guests tea. (In the meantime, maybe it would make a good hostess gift?)
It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.
I like coffee but it upsets my stomach, so I limit myself to two cups a week.
It’s tea the rest of the time. I mostly just drink one cup each day. At home I tend to make Chai or Orange Pekoe; occasionally Earl Grey. When I go to my favourite cafe it is always only Earl Grey.
I love all your different stashes (and that red storage cupboard is such a gorgeous pop of colour – love!). I have a very tiny stash since I only like to drink three kinds of tea. It might be boring (compared with your impressive array!), but I still love my little corner of the shelf with tea and I really appreciate the aesthetic and feel of my favourite mugs, too.
I drink one cup a day, in the morning. I add a little oat milk or regular milk, and that’s it!
I have a friend with a tea box; it’s very cute and has a glass lid so you can look down inside. Alas, many of the options are herbal and I avoid those completely. (I’ve tried, really I’ve tried)!
I’ve never had Matcha…a goal for 2023 Elisabeth?
I love that red cabinet! And I love that you get your fancy Canadian Earl Grey for Christmas. A perfect gift!
I have a cup that has an insert for loose-leaf tea; you put the insert into the cup, pour the hot water in, and when you are ready you just pull the insert out. It works well!
That sounds wonderful! I am going to look one up right now.
I’m a coffee addict but there’s a place in my heart for tea as well. My dad and my husband are tea drinkers. Twinings Darjeeling was the standard growing up and for the most part it was loose-leaf. Today my husband is loyal to Tetley tea bags. Don’t hate, but my favorite is plain ol’ Lipton.
Tea was my go-to when I worked in an office because it was so freaking cold all of the time and I needed something warm. I never planned to stop drinking tea, but happened naturally when I started working at home where I have the luxury of being able to control the thermostat and being able to cuddle up in a warm blanket at my desk.
I am a big tea drinker, too! I actually do not like coffee at ALL, and never have. Tea became something I started drinking years ago now, after I got married and had kids. My husband likes coffee, and when we would “go out for coffee” I usually would get a hot chocolate or something. But at some point I decided I didn’t necessarily want to consume liquid chocolate all the time (and I felt a little…. childish?) so I decided to start drinking tea. I specifically trained myself to drink it black. I figured if I was going to give up a hot chocolate or a soda in place of this new drink, then I wanted it to be as “healthy” as possible. No sense in replacing one questionable habit with more sugar! ha. (Not that there is anything wrong with adding stuff to tea, I just decided not to.) Since I’ve never had it any way besides black, I guess I don’t know the difference, and I like it just fine black. I am pretty strictly just a plain black tea drinker- like classic black tea. Not even Earl Grey- I actually do not like Bergamont! We have this one coffee shop near us that for a long time ONLY carried Earl Grey as their black tea option, and it would make me so mad! Earl Grey has such a strong, distinct flavor- I think people either love it or hate it. I told them “You really should offer a classic black tea option, like an English Breakfast type tea- like a black tea you’d get in England or Ireland, etc.” I was there recently and was happy to see they finally got a plain black tea on their menu, along with the Earl grey. 🙂 I will drink Green tea with lemon, or peppermint tea, or occasionally a Black tea with caramel if I want to feel cozy in the fall. I am not a fan of fruit flavored herbal teas. I do have a box of Sleepytime Chamomile tea but it’s not really my favorite. I drink tea all day long while I work (usually 4-5 big cups a day), so sometimes in the evenings I’ll opt for a non-caffeine option if I want to sip something while relaxing or watching a show. I don’t drink my tea very strong at all though, so I don’t think there is any problem with my multiple cups a day. I feel like…it’s mostly water!!
I drink tea almost every day, usually at least two cups. I like them all, black, green, or herbal, but I like black with a lot of milk best. I like Early Grey and chai, but my very favorite teas are flavored Ceylon teas I get at a tea shop at the beach– chocolate and hazelnut.
I loved reading this post! I have coffee in the morning but when I get home I make myself a tea. Also when one of my friends comes over we always have tea since she is not a coffee drinker and I join in. My selection is not quite as big as yours but it’s close. Tea is one of the things I get when we go to Germany. They have an endless selection of herbal teas in all kinds of flavors at the grocery store and walking into to the smells of a tea shop is one of the best experiences.
I drink herbal tea because I am not supposed to drink caffeine. It’s definitely a drawback of living in my body. But we do have a lot of tea in our house because I have tried A LOT of herbal teas trying to find some that taste like something and not just water with a flower floating in it.
Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Apple Spice is fine, as is their Country Peach Passion, but none of it compares to a delightful green tea with a hint of jasmine and lots of honey.
I’m drinking country peach right now!
My parents were coffee drinkers, but oddly enough, never at home, unless we had guests, then they would use the coffeemaker. My mom preferred to go out to eat for breakfast and get her coffee there. When my grandmother stayed with us, she drank Sanka instant coffee, because she liked a cup after dinner, while my parents only did so if, as stated earlier, it was a company meal.
I have always loved the smell of coffee, especially the hazelnut roast coffee my aunt made every Thanksgiving–that is one of my core smell memories. But I never liked the taste without lots of sugar and cream. My mom always took her coffee with cream and used to warn me a) to not get hooked on coffee and b) if I did start drinking coffee, to not get used to it with cream, because then I’d always want cream in it and be unable to drink it without.
I liked the tea we’d get at the Chinese restaurant we went to every week. (What kind of tea was that? I never found out.)
I became a big herbal tea drinker in college, because I didn’t drink coffee and didn’t yet like black tea, and I had horrible insomnia anyway, so I had a electric hotpot for heating water and a stash of Celestial Seasonings tea. Red Zinger, Peppermint, Sleepytime. I started in on green tea after I had kids and wanted a little caffeine/energy boost.
I went through an iced coffee/cold brew phase, but the coffee seemed to bother my head more than tea, so I went back to tea. I am not a fan of fruity teas. I drink mostly rooibos, decaf green tea, Yogi Ginger, Yogi Rooibos Chai, Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime and Peppermint. I love Earl Grey but have been staying away from caffeine for a while now to deal with migraines, and as much as I love the smell and taste (and the association with my beloved Star Trek), I am loath to start it up again.
I was raised as an English-Aussie-Asia-Scottish citizen/resident. I love and was raised on teapots with loose leaf tea, with a tea strainer held over each cup… lots of English Breakfast Tea/Assam Tea. As an adult with a coffee drinking husband, I moved to teabags (English Breakfast, Twinings preferred). In Australia and Singapore, I could purchase Irish Breakfast Tea (Twinings) which was a strong, earthy tea – delicious. In Scotland, you can get Strong English Tea, but no Irish Tea – ahhh the politics of tea! I really hate how the world over, tea bags have tags and strings but in the UK they are just a bag – I really don’t like it and I don’t understand it, even if pots are preferred 😦 So Annoying. I like Vietnamese Green Tea – especially in Vietnam where they are so selective and brew it so well (fresh but vanilla tasting), but Earl Grey is not for me and I cannot abide anything other than tea and water.
Oh, I feel like I could have written this post. I LOVE earl grey and drink it every day (did you know bergamot is a natural anti-depressant?) To be honest, my very favorite is the Starbucks earl grey. I can’t figure out what’s different about it- the ingredients are the usual, plus lavender, which is weird. I don’t even like lavender and you certainly can’t taste it, but for whatever reason their earl is the best. Of course I’m always looking around for other brands, and I’m going to try the ones you mentioned (I like the thought of “double bergamot” and I’m going to ask for some Uncle Grey for Christmas.) I also use teabags, and always two of them. The only place where we differ is, I just like it black- no milk, no sweetener. If for some reason I’m forced to drink something else, I can drink jasmine green or chai (chai is the only one I like with milk.) Oh, and I also can’t seem to help myself buying different flavored teas and I never like any of them! Last time I was at Trader Joes I bought a “maple espresso” black tea. But I haven’t even tried it yet- who am I kidding? What was I thinking? Although now that I’m writing this, I realize I have to try it and report back.
Uncle Grey? I’m familiar with Lady Grey, but there’s an uncle, too? I need to investigate that. I’ve never had Matcha which seems odd considering I’m open to trying all teas, at least once. Another tea to pursue. Thanks for linking to my blog, much appreciated.
I confessed to being a late coffee convert, but tea has been my first love for a long time. I am a big fan of Earl Grey (I also like Irish Breakfast) and a few herbal teas as well. I am not much into fruity or spiced teas (although I keep trying them for whatever reason). The only exception I will make is rosehip. I love rosehip tea.
And I wish I had a fancy little red cabinet like yours to store all my tea in 🙂
Ooh I am a teaholic. I used to loooove Earl Grey but have had too many disappointing experiences with bad EG so I’ve mostly stopped drinking it. I LOVE Yorkshire Gold for a good strong cuppa which is really all that I drink – strong, plain, black tea.
As a southerner, I’ve only ever had sweet iced tea (never have I ever had “proper” tea; i.e., hot tea). But even at that, I don’t even drink sweet tea anymore.
I want to like tea but I just don’t with the exception of some herbal teas. My understanding is that herbal tea tends to not be caffeinated. I like cinnamon herbal tea as it’s so comforting. But I don’t drink it all that often and it can languish in my cupboard for a very long time!
My morning beverage has to be coffee — hot, black coffee. But in the winter, I want to keep drinking hot liquids, so tea comes in handy. I also like to drink tea in the evenings; I tend to drink the peppermint one after dinner.
My girlfriends and I like to go out and explore restaurants when we celebrate birthdays. We have really enjoyed this one Tea Room where we had High Tea a few times, and we all enjoyed the teas we selected so we bought some (all looseleaf). Our neighbor had given us a ceramic mug with a tea infuser so we used it a few times. I really want to keep drinking tea like that — but I have yet to find tea that I really like. I tend towards green tea because black tea is too strong/bitter for me…but maybe I haven’t had really good black tea yet. I don’t care for sweetened or flavored teas.
We have one of those tea boxes — in a rich mahogany color. My husband likes tea much more than I do so I bought it for him many years ago.
Oh, and this is the mug we were gifted with (and I bought another so husband and I can have our own — I chose this cherry blossoms one and the gift was a Christmas design):
I heard a tip this morning that I’ll be trying – if you’re the type of household to like a simmer pot now and then, try simmering tea bags on your stove for the smell. Or adding them to whatever combination of cinnamon/orange/cranberry/clove/etc you have going on.
Especially the kinds of tea you bought but don’t like. Winter spices sounds perfect.
Oh, I love tea but a) chai in the morning, and b) herbal (ginger, peppermint, or this new Yogi orange clove that is fantastic) at night. I used to be exclusively in the tea camp but now drink one cup of coffee in the AM. Your tea collection is amazing! Also, I have a mug like the one shared above – wish I could give it to you as I do not use it!
Reading this I feel like we are should sister. Really. I love love love earl grey and it is my substitute for coffee. Hence my previous comment that I would ditch coffee if I had to decide.
I fear I won’t get a hold of the Uncle Grey tea. But if I ever make it to Canada (again) I be on the lookout. I love the Lady Grey by Twinnings. Thinking of it it’s been a while since I bought that one.
One difference is there between us. I love herbal tea. I have started to grow and gather my own herbs and mix it up to my tasting.
And I agree matcha is fun but such an effort. Something I gladly pay for.
[…] a lighter note, I have new tea. In this post,, Suzanne talked about her tea collection. Our tastes are almost identical, and she described two […]