Ask Lemmy

Earl Grey, hot, straight from the replicator.

Yorkshire Tea

Local loose-leaf. Although I do enjoy Ahmad Tea loose leaf. It's very high quality for the price.

Brand? The fuck is that?! I pick my tea from the wild and sun dry it at home as any proper tea lover would.

Bunch of fukin posers talking about brands n shit...

I try to buy local loose leaf.

If you are looking for a grocery store recommendations, I love Celestial Seasonings herbal teas. They have an amazing peppermint tea.

Yorkshire tea gold. As demanded by the Spiffing Brit.

I buy it in a tea shop close by as loose leaf. It‘s a day and night difference between loose leafs and prepackaged and processed tea. It‘s also a lot of fun to try so many different teas and find the one you enjoy the most, there is so much variety.

I'm almost always an earl grey drinker. For that, Harney & sons is pretty much my favorite, with Taylor's being almost the same for my preferences, depending on which is fresher. The key difference that makes Harney better is the bergamot rather than the tea itself. It's just a tad more aromatic and that matters a lot. However, if it isn't fresh, Taylor's matches the flavor profile very closely for me.

Choice organics is a close third place. The tea is just a tad less aromatic, and the bergamot is flatter. Still miles better than the stuff at the grocery store, even if you ignore freshness.

For breakfast teas, the only other hot tea I really drink, it's Taylor's mostly. I have some Harney's on the shelf, but I like how the Taylor's tastes with lemon better, and that's how I like breakfast teas.

Iced tea, it's tetley's or GTFO if I have a choice. My wife is kinda swinging around to that now that she's drinking southern style iced tea. She's a Lipton's fan, but tetley holds up better at the strength we make iced tea. Lipton gets bitter in an unpleasant way with the strength we brew at. Tetley also holds up better sweetened to the degree that southern style iced tea tends to have. I make mine way less sweet than anybody I know, but it's still sweeter than my wife or her family ever did it.

Kinda funny. Hot tea, I barely add sugar, just a level teaspoon for a double cup. Coffee I go a little higher, but not much; a heaping teaspoon. But iced tea? It would work out to about 4 teaspoons per cup the way it's usually made around here, with mine being a tad under 3. You grow up with that thick, strong, syrupy tea, and iced just doesn't work without high sugar levels lol. Hell, I know some folks that add 3 cups of sugar to a gallon of tea and that's just barely sweet enough for them.

Hence, we don't have iced tea often because damn, you can't drink like that regularly. It's a rare treat.

But I'm an earl grey guy for the most part now. And I've tried something like twenty brands? I used to have a file with my notes in it, but deleted it by accident. I never drank hot tea until my wife moved in before we got married. She's a tea drinker all day, but isn't picky. I tried her bigelow stuff and was meh about it. Then I had some at her mom's house during a visit I yankee land that was Taylor's, and the experience was totally different.

When we got home, I used some savings to order a bunch of brands, and tried them all over a few weeks, taking notes and all that crazy crap. It just blew my mind that there was that much difference in brands, even knowing that it could be somewhat different in iced tea.

But, yeah, I found a few favourites and stick with them. One sugar, splash of milk and that's my earl grey. One sugar, splash of lemon for English and Irish breakfast teas.

Arizona.

Loose leaf tea from the middle east and for the most part which are country, region, and type based. As far as brands go, Sadaf Cardamom tea is pretty good and affordable.

We mostly order loose leaf from Adagio. Though I might try Yunnan Sourcing soon. No shop near us sells loose leaf in any appreciable variety or quantity.

I drink all kinds of different tea. At the moment I often drink Keiko Matcha and lots of really beautiful green tea my friend sent me from Taiwan. I love to coldbrew green tea in summer. Greek mountain tea my parents bring me from crete. I also buy fresh mint to make tea from some of the fresh leaves and to dry the rest.

Besides that my favorite brand is The English Teashop in all forms it comes in and Cupper/Clipper.

Tips is good. I drink all kinds depending on mood. If you like cinnamon you need to try Harney and Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice.. I am addicted.

I also like to make sun tea in the summer, but I'm searching for the perfect tea for that. Local grocery has the usual Lousianne and Lipton.

Grew up with loose leaf so I don't like most supermarket brands. Palais des thés is not bad tho.

Most tea I buy from Yunnansourcing.com and thes-du-japon.com

I mostly drink yanchas/Wuyi rock oolongs. Get them from various sources, no specific brand. Also occasionally reputable sheng pu-erh if I can afford some, non-pu fermented teas, jin jun mei, genmaicha, or anything Nepalese or Malawi whole-ish leaf, in small quantities (max 50g).

This gunpowder green tea is good for beginners or the lazy because it's mild and exceptionally tolerant of steeping too long, or in too hot water. Never bitter.

If you already like green teas, try some Taiwanese 10% (nearly green) oolong, more complex than plain green. 0% oxidised is green, 100% is black, oolong is everything in between.

A tea shop in Seattle called miro. I get their English breakfast delivered in bulk across the country it's so good.

Usually Twinings, but I'll accept store brand for black tea. Lipton or Tetley for green teas.

Clipper

Ahmad earl grey. We buy the loose tea, about ten 500g boxes per year. Also use it for kombucha.

I'm still going through the Ceylon black tea I bought at Buckingham Palace in 2019.

Twinings or Yorkshire

We like the big UK brands like Yorkshire (the British know tea), but of the main US brands, usually grab Bigelo. But any tea drinker has a cabinet full of all kinds of tea.

If you're in a place they ship to, check out these guys. Oolong specialist tea shop in Seattle that has some of the best quality tea I've ever had. It's a really small operation, too, with people who really love what they do: https://floatingleaves.com/

Yorkshire if I'm lazy, Golden Monkey from Wenyang Tea Garden if I'm not.

Twinings mostly

Bigelow spiced chai.

Davidson's gunpowder green and occasionally their Earl grey

Twinnings is my usual. Pukka, mostly for herbies, and various supermarket ownbrands (not each of them's cheapest ownbrand mind you). Yorkshire is decent, PG tips OK but I never buy the latter myself.

Guizhou Mao Jian (毛尖) of various brands is decent too, if you can find it. More commonly I love an English Breakfast, Earl and Lady Grey, Rooibos, and various herbal concoctions.

Edit: nicest brand of tea I had was TWG, and they were amazing. Too expensive for me to ever buy for myself, though.

Constant Comment

I drink tea from Mariage Frères and Palais des Thés (I gave you the en links). I have a fair number of teas that I go through. They both have a fairly large collection, especially Mariage. I haven't tested them all obviously. And don't intend to.

Shaka tea, either ice tea in cans or brew hot from packets.

Broken Orange Pecoe from the hills of Kerala. I bought a 5kg bag twelve years ago at the factory (can't remember the exact place...) and I have some left.

A couple years later I developed a taste for jasmine tea, but it's been a while since I had any.

Twinnings everyday or english breakfast

Local to me, but Rare Tea Cellar makes some excellent blends.

I feel like such a poser over here with my Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings.

Bigelow or Stash double bergamot Early Grey, or Hime Genmaicha. I've tried brands that cost more or less and always come back to these three.

Not sure it counts as tea, but I've also got a taste for Yerba Mate.