Topic: Tea discussion topic (Read 1336 times)

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mkk if none of those are decaf that's kind of nearing too much caffeine, which isn't good for anxiety or sleeping problems if you have em. I limit myself to a maximum of one caffeine drink a day and my anxiety has almost entirely disappeared and I never get insomnia. caffeine is a harmful drug for some people
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I'm always drinking green and red teas hot with almost every meal and throughout the day while I'm readin' or loungin'. Most of the teas I drink comes loose from a small shop by the local market so the way I do it I heat up water and put it into a teapot that has a little mesh ball with all the leaves inside, wait for a bit then drink it.
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Tea is a great beverage. It's warm, it's helps you relax, it goes with almost all kinds of meals and has a number of confirmed health benefits. I was always an avid tea drinker but really became a fan when I discovered a small tea store in the city that sells really good loose leaf tea. I've been trying out different kinds for years and regularly import stuff from China via eBay.

If you like tea and know of a place where they sell it loose, I suggest you give it a try sometime. You can use a filter or a tea egg like DietCoke mentioned or you can get tea sleeves (which I use).

Making tea is easy, but if you're going for the fancy stuff there's a few things you should know:

1. There's more than just black tea. The most important types are black (also called red), green, oolong and white tea. They each have different processing types but all use the same basic plant.

2. Different tea types require different water temperatures and infusion time. This is especially important for white, green and green oolong teas, which need water between 80-90 degrees centigrade (176-194). Green tea should typically only be infused for 1 minute (make sure you steep it during that one minute), oolongs for 4-6 minutes, black for 4 minutes, and white tea for 6-8 minutes. Black tea and black oolong usually need boiling water. Ask your tea vendor to write it on the label.

3. Don't spend too much money buying tea blends or flavored crap like wolfberry or banana tea. They're usually just poor quality Earl Gray with some spices, dried fruit or additives thrown in and sold at exorbitant prices.

4. Try to find a store that sells tea rather than ordering stuff online right away. Believe it or not but you might actually save money that way. I've compared the store I go to with the online stores and found that they're actually much more expensive most of the time. This shouldn't be true since internet stores are supposed to have a lot of competition that drives down cost, right? Well, quality tea is such a niche that many people searching for the stuff online don't know exactly what a fair price is, whereas the quality tea stores usually have to sell stuff at slim margins to prevent themselves from going out of business during a time when people are getting rid of luxurious commodities.

By the way if this post seems incoherent or poorly written, it's because I'm really tired at the moment and really just want to drink some tea.
Last Edit: May 13, 2010, 06:21:27 am by Dada
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By the way, here's how they make the kind of crap that Lipton sells: they first harvest the tea leaves, then comes the drying, bruising, oxidation and rolling, then they put the leaves in large wooden crates and ship them off to the middle man for further handling. But none of that stuff actually goes to Lipton.

Then they all grab brooms and sweep up the factory floor, run the crap through a large sieve to filter out the tiny ground up leftovers from today's production, store that in wooden crates and then ship THAT off to Lipton to be bagged and sold at a dollar per box.
Last Edit: May 13, 2010, 06:20:00 am by Dada
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All you need to know about tea can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Flying-Teapot-Gong/dp/B00005REQR/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1273698678&sr=8-1
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I've been drinking tea while I study at night, where I need a refresher, but it's too late to be drinking coffee.  I never thought about varying the temperature at which I steep, however.  I'm limited to a microwave and a coffee pot, so it's hard to experiment that far.  I really like those black teas with orange rind.
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here is a song i wrote about tea. i drink lots and lots of tea. it's good shit.



...I'm drinking tea right now
Last Edit: May 13, 2010, 12:17:20 am by GaZZwa
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Gazzwa, that was beautiful.
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1. There's more than just black tea. The most important types are black (also called red), green, oolong and white tea.
this might be misleading because red tea is always rooibos in the west. or at least in america

rooibos is actually an herbal tea/tisane (not from Camellia sinensis, tea plant) but it has loads of health benefits too. it tastes a little like black tea and because it's not from Camellia it's a great naturally caffeine-free alternative
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i don't like tea too much. instead i drink very strong black coffee and have really burnt toast with it.
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i don't like tea too much. instead i drink very strong black coffee and have really burnt toast with it.

you baby
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i drink tea. milk and three sugars.

i have no teeth.
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this might be misleading because red tea is always rooibos in the west. or at least in america

rooibos is actually an herbal tea/tisane (not from Camellia sinensis, tea plant) but it has loads of health benefits too. it tastes a little like black tea and because it's not from Camellia it's a great naturally caffeine-free alternative
You're right, I didn't know it's actually literally called red tea in the US (I've only ever heard of it being called "rooibos" here). I don't like it too much myself.

On the subject of caffeine, this is also something you will can used to over time. A cup of tea usually contains from around half to one third the amount of caffeine of a cup of coffee. I occasionally drink tea right before going to sleep without it affecting me very much. But if you buy loose tea you can most likely also get decaffeinated versions of "regular" non-rooibos tea as well.
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mkk if none of those are decaf that's kind of nearing too much caffeine, which isn't good for anxiety or sleeping problems if you have em. I limit myself to a maximum of one caffeine drink a day and my anxiety has almost entirely disappeared and I never get insomnia. caffeine is a harmful drug for some people

yeah i try to avoid caffeine generally. but see, i use loose-leaf tea, and the leaves are usually good for more than one steep. so i will have the first steep in the morning and then save the leaves for another one later. after the first use, 90+% of the caffeine is gone from the tea. by reusing the leaves, you can have more tea without getting more caffeine, so that's the system that a lot of frequent tea-drinkers use. that way i can have tea before bed and it doesn't affect my sleep.
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I like tea, but I don't know too much about it. I'm NOT CULTURED

My favorite is Wild Rose/Rose Hibiscus tea. I enjoy fruity teas. I don't like typical store-bought black tea (I think it's usually black???). I wish I could be cool like you guys and drink tea like a real man...
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I drink tea sometimes, it makes me feel like a british gentleman or some kind of important guy. Dunno why.

But I just put water in my waterheater and then I teabag it with strawberry tea.
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I love tea, I've been drinking it daily since 3 years ago. I use whole tea leaves, no tea bags. Also, I microwave my water (nothing happens so stop being faggots). I love the taste of tea, my favorite one is red tea, although the one I drink most of the time is green tea.


If you want to drink tea for the health benefits, then there are things you can do in order to maximize results.
First, make your tea with whole dried leaves, not tea beags, the reason is that common tea bags conain carcinogens.
Second, DON'T add milk. Casein binds to epigallocatechin gallate molecules, making them unabsorbable.
Third, you can add some citrus (lemon). Citrus makes catechins absorbable.
Lastly, you may want to drink many cups of tea during the day. If you're sensible to caffeine, give preference to white and green tea since they contain the least amount of caffeine. The reason to drink many cups per day is to try to absorb as many nutrients as possible and to get a boost into your metabolism.
Give preference to natural unprocessed leaves. Reason is that the process of removing caffeine not only removes caffeine but also many of the tea's antioxidants.

If what you want is taste, then anything goes, even Lipton. Don't limit yourself to camellia sinensis, there are many varieties of herbal infusions that are delicious. Passion fruit is one of my favorites (passiflora edulis), yerba mate and chamomile are great, too. I like chamomile with lemon and some honey. ;)

Green tea has many varieties and nowadays is common to see it with other plant infusions. Jazmine green tea is my favorite.
Last Edit: May 13, 2010, 09:29:02 pm by Pulits
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I have never heard of microwaving water until I read this topic. I thought that everyone had a kettle. The idea of microwaving water is strange to me, maybe I should try it.
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I have 2 or 3 cups of green tea a day. I am hypersensitize to caffeine so I try to limit my intake (I cannot drink coffee, otherwise I'll vibrate). I don't add honey or anything; I drink it black (or green?). I enjoy the energizing, but calming effect it has in small doses. I haven't found any herbal or fruit teas that I enjoy. I absolutely cannot stand the taste of jasmine and all the fruit flavoured teas have tasted like fluoride from the dentist's office.
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jasmine rules bud good luck ordering hot tea at any chinese-american restaurant...