Tea: The Geeklist
Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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I like tea.
Not that wussy stuff in bags.
Real TEA, the kind that comes as loose leaves. You have to steep it in an infuser (like one of those little mesh balls or something).
True Tea has to contain the plant Camellia Sinensis. Based on the time of picking and drying preparation, this can be made into various final products like green teas, black teas, oolong or white tea.
Other drinks commonly accepted as "tea" are things like rooibos (pronounced Roybus) or herbal infusions. I have no problem still calling it "tea".
Let's talk tea.
And please please please add your favorites (or hated varieties).
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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The difference between black and white tea is the way the leaf is prepared.
White teas have the leaf steam dried. That's about it. They look more like fresh grass. Often even slightly fuzzy.
Black tea is what you would find commonly called "Tea" in America. Its been dried through various sun or baking processes.
White tea is far more delicate and sweeter. Often there is a bitter edge.
Black tea is much stronger.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Green tea has oodles of wonderful health benefits. It is steamed, but not oxidized. This preserves a lot of the original plant flavor, but also allows flavors to be added without being overpowering.
Certain strains will taste like... grass clippings.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Gunpowder is a WONDERFUL tea.
Each leaf is individually rolled into a tiny ball and it is smoke dried.
It ras a great round flavor, something like a lightly smoked black tea, but it is a green tea by definition.
This stuff is excellent, and I must always have it available in my house. The least 'green' tasting of the greens. Get the benefits but not the flavor if you find the flavor of traditional greens too veggie.
This stuff expands crazily as the leaves unfurl from their gunpowder shape, which is kind of fun.
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4.
Board Game: Lapis
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Lapsang Souchong.
Tea of the Gods, I tell you!
My son calls it "Burnt Bacon" tea.
This is a very strong flavor (and smell) made by drying the tea leaves over burning pine needles.
It tastes like the acrid smoke of burning rope, and I mean that in a good way.
If you consider yourself a tea drinker and have never delved into the heady masculine flavor of lapsang, you are doing yourself a disservice.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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India is a huge producer of Tea, and the place where Chai comes from.
OK, all you Starbuckians, let's get this straight - "Chai" in tea terminology is the cheap crap tea that is too powdery to be made into good loose leaf tea. That's right, chai is the scraps, not the good stuff.
However, to make up for the shoddy quality of the base leaf, all sorts of wonderful things tend to get added.
One important additive here is milk. Chai is meant to be served heavily milked.
Another characteristic of Chai is the spicing added to the base tea. Usually cinammon is among the flavors.
I enjoy Chai Rooibos, which is a wonderfully seasoned "tastes like red hots" blend, which you can add to your favorite black tea (1:1) and end up with a good hearty spiced tea.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Earl Grey, piping hot.
That's what Picard often asked the replicator for.
Earl Grey is a standard imperial black which has been infused with bergamot.
Bergamot is a flower with a very strong scent.
The result is a somewhat floral bouquet and a tea which has a taste something like licorice.
It isn't unpleasant at all.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Sometimes, what makes a tea so compelling is not just the flavor, but the presentation and preparation.
Star Of China is a strange tea. It is a very very green tea. It tastes like fresh cutting. This requires a bit of over sweetening for most, although the flavor is very delicate, and it you sweeten too much you get hot sugar water.
Anyway, Star Of China is made by someone actually taking the tea leaves and hand tying them into little tiny 5-pointed stars. Asterisks of tea! Rather than the usual "1-2 tsp per 6 oz" or such, you steep several "stars" worth of tea.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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China Beauty Ring is a bit less elaborate than the Star tea. Each leaf is wrapped around a chopstick during dry time. This makes, you guessed it, little rings.
This is my favorite 'green tasting' green tea. (as opposed to Gunpowder, which does not taste like a green tea).
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Emporer's Red is a great black tea from Fujian and has a wonderful chocolate like taste. Very high quality, great for breakfast with a donut. People say its a dessert tea, but this is really unflavored, and I always felt dessert teas need more festive flavoring. It goes well with desserts and cakes, however.
A great traditional black single estate tea. (As opposed to a blend).
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Several teas are called "Monkey" such and such.
This is due to a legend that monkeys were trained to get the leaves.
I'm not sure how true that ever was, but the annoying thing is it really doesn't define a flavor or denote a blend or anything. Keemun 3 Monkey (a very pleasant black) is NOTHING like Monkey-Picked Ti Kuan Yin (a fairly fruity oolong).
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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GyoKuro is the GREENEST of green teas. It is picked before harvest so the leaves are rish in chlorophyll.
Some people find it the finest. The tea is BRIGHT green.
I think it tastes like dishwater.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Pu Erh is tea that is aged. This stuff supposedly helps you lose weight. Let me tell you something - all tea helps you lose weight. You want a snack? Go make some tea instead. It will fill you, give you the psychological feel of a snack and contains next to nothing bad for you and practically no calories beyond any additives you might put in.
Beyond that, Pu Erh is pretty good, and often comes as pressed pellets, looking something like goat turds. That might be what Pu Erh means, as that would be the reaction after stepping in some.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Tea is bitter. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes its too much. Sugar and milk can easily cut the bitter in small quantities. Honey can also be very nice.
For the love of all that is tea, don't use white processed sugar. The flavor is overpowering.
A rock sugar like German Cane or even In The Raw is much less refined and much lighter in taste.
And artificial sweeteners are simply unacceptable.
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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
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Add sugar before lemon. Add sugar before lemon. Add sugar before lemon.
Say it with me.
If you are adding lemon (a very common practice) AND sugar (very common again) THE SUGAR HAS TO GO FIRST.
Otherwise, the lemon actually chemically bonds the sugar and prevents it from melting properly into the tea.
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Robert C Kalajian Jr
United States
Simsbury
Connecticut
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I'm a big fan of tea, but have never gotten into it as much as I have lately.
I still love the canned teas from The Republic of Tea, but have moved from the bags to loose tea. I've also been buying loose tea from Adagio Tea. I even got their great ingenuiTEA tea pot for the office.
I love whites, greens, oolongs, and some reds.
Right now I've got an excellent Monkey Picked Ooolong and some very nice Silver Needle.
I'm more of a stickler for temp and brewing time now. Gotta be exact 
As for milk...no way. Honey? Nope. Sugar? Sometimes. Depends on the tea. I find my tea/fruit blends have a better taste with a little sugar. Raw, of course.
Tea snob? Maybe just a little.
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Steffan O'Sullivan
United States
Plymouth
NH
"There is one really important thing I must write which I have forgotten." (The final sentence in Henry Darger's Autobiograpy.)
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Melissa officinalis, usually called Lemon Balm in the USA, is an herb that can be steeped as a non-caffeinated tea. While not narcotic in any way, it can take the rough edge off a day. Have a cup after work and it helps you let the stresses of the job slip away.
Very pleasant tasting, it needs no sweetener, though some people like honey with it.
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Joe Gola
United States
Redding
Connecticut
Eleven.
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Loose-leaf estate darjeeling is my drink of choice, brewed in a tea basket with no milk, sugar, lemon, honey, et cetera. I brew for four minutes, unless the tea is unusually bitter. I'm very lucky in that there is a tea importer with a retail outlet only a half an hour away from my house (Simpson & Vail). They're super-nice and will give me samples of the new stuff that comes in.
For those who don't know, darjeeling is black tea from the Darjeeling region of India. If you're buying tea bags of darjeeling from, say, Twinings or Bigelow, typically it's a mixture of various harvests from various estates blended together for consistency of taste. If you buy loose tea from an importer or a specialty outfit like Republic of Tea, you will be getting a particular harvest from a particular estate. It's similar to the difference between Johnny Walker Red and a single-malt scotch. The former is blended so that it always tastes the same, bottle after bottle, year after year. The latter tastes how it tastes. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. It depends on all that nature stuff.
The first picking is called "first flush," and the flavor tends to be very delicate. First flushes are in high demand and are the most expensive, for reasons unknown to me. The second pickings are called, unsurprisingly, "second flush," and they tend to have a stronger flavor. Any pickings thereafter are called "autumnal flush," and these usually have the strongest flavor. I like all three, generally speaking, though it depends on the individual harvest.
Darjeeling tea usually has a very subtle flavor and is much less bitter than pretty much any other black tea that you're likely to find. It is nothing like the Lipton's or Tetley's tea sweepings, which require lots of milk and sugar to be palatable. It's best drunk (dranken?) without any milk or sweetener, as they tend to overpower the flavor. You wouldn't pour raspberry syrup into fine wine, right?
Those who like the flavor of darjeeling teas but want something a little stronger should try assam teas. Assam is another region of India, and the tea that grows there just happens to have a stronger flavor.
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Call Me Ishmael
United States
Unspecified
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Oolong is my current choice; a Chinese tea somewhere between the green and the black. Smooth and great.
Other great teas: darjeeling (my gateway tea); the before-mentioned black gunpowder; and a variety called River Shannon (an Irish breakfast tea).
If you're in Central Pennsylvania, I recommend stopping at the Tea Merchant 101 in Duncansville. Joe Doyle has a wide selection of teas and sundries, and a lot of knowledge. It's an ideal place to relax, inhale the different aromas, enjoy a cup of tea, and take some home.
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Nicolas Varela
Chile
Santiago
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I've read comments about sugar/no sugar, lemon/no lemon, end even milk/no milk. But nothing about WHEN to pour the milk. Before the tea, or after?
According to h2g2:
"If you think you will like it with milk then it's probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea*. If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea you will scald the milk.
*This is socially incorrect. The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It's worth bearing this in mind when visiting."
I particularly like it before, but my late grandfather (born and raised in Suffolk) would give me a not very pleasant look if I dared to do so.
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Captain Fox
United States
Southwestern
Michigan
Fox by Miss Turtle Artist attended Starfleet academy by Jess and furthermore, I think tipping in GeekQuestions should be fixed.
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Okay, I'm brave, I'm ready to be ridiculed!
I drink tea daily-- in tea bags -- Ha! so There!
My favorite black tea is Red Rose brand tea. My daughter always tries to get me to buy more because it comes with a small ceramic animal in each box.
My favorite Herbal tea is Good Earth Sweet & Spicy tea.
I also love Darjeeling Tea a lot.
You all have piqued my interest and I will consider looking at loose tea the next time I'm in Target.
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Steve Kearon
United Kingdom
Cardiff
Feeling great. How about you?
The once and future game
The once and future game
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All this talk of fancy tea that takes longer to prepare than to drink made me fancy a nice cup of "proper" tea:
Co-op 99, round tea-bags, one sweetener, a little skimmed milk.
Tea as it should be. 
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Greg Todd
United Kingdom
Nottingham
Notts
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I thought I'd digress slightly from tea types to what food should tea accompany.
The answer, of course, is everything.
But particularly the following:
chocolate
cake
fried breakfast
must be served with tea.
Like my friends did last weekend: Have some people over, supply a selection of Hotel Chocolate chocolates and put on a pot of good leaf tea - best Saturday afternoon ever.
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Tiwaz Tyrsfist
United States
Gladstone
Missouri
Behold in amazement as my wife demonstrates the proper way to clean your cat.
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An excerpt from BS6008:
Quote: 7 Procedure
7.1 Test portion
Weigh, to an accuracy of ± 2 %, a mass of tea
corresponding to 2 g of tea per 100 ml of liquor
(i.e. 5,6 ± 0,1 g of tea for the large pot or 2,8 ± 0,05 g
for the small pot described in the Annex) and
transfer it to the pot (5.1).
http://sub.spc.org/san/docs/BS6008.pdf - The compete 9 page guide, from the British Government, on the proper way to brew a cup of tea.
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T. Nomad
New Zealand
Winnipeg/Auckland/Cheonan
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I'm enjoying a nice Assam right now, but my favourite these days is a Rooibos from South Africa with a hint of vanilla in it.
Tea is mood-oriented and mood-altering. I need to have a half-dozen varieties (at least) ready for brewing, depending on how I feel. I use it instead of water to break the fast every morning (drinking 500ml of water is tough to do first thing). Currently on the shelf:
- English Breakfast
- Earl Grey (decaffinated)
- Nok cha (Korean green tea)
- Insam cha (Koran red ginseng tea--"makes you hard!" the old men at the Insam festival told me while gesturing with fisted forearms raised at the waist)
- black adder anise
- cardomom chai
- chamomile
- rosehip (though I can't find the real stuff here, with whole rosehips that float up and down, leaving pink trails behind them....ah, the aesthetics of good tea!)
- black currant & ginseng flavoured infusion
- cocoa mint mate (pr. ma-tay) from Paraguay
When I'm fasting, I live on a brew of raw ginger, lemon, raw honey, and water for a few days. Tastes like ass (the honey's to blame there), but completely cleans the gut and rejuvenates!
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pronoblem baalberith
United States
Pleasantville
Massachusetts
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The national drink of Morocco is mint tea ( atay deeyal naanaa in Arabic or "Whisky Marocain" as the locals call it). It is Chinese gunpowder green tea flavored with sprigs of mint and sweetened with four cubes of sugar per cup. It tastes a little sickly at first but is worth getting used to. It's perfect in the summer heat and a ritual if you're invited into anyone's home or if you're doing any serious bargaining in a shop. It is often poured at a height so that it gets a head. I grow mint in my garden for this very purpose...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_tea_culture
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- Tea Drinker
- Assam (India)
- Darjeeling (India)
- Houjicha (Japan)
- Keemun (China)
- Lapsang Souchong (China)
- Oolong (China)
- Pu-erh (China)
- Earl Grey
- English Breakfast
- teabag
- Ice Tea
