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Tea time
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Tejas Janet
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Dec 29, 2014 12:16PM
Not familiar with Noni. Interesting to learn of it. Haven't ever had licorice tea... tell us what you think.
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Noni Juice, I remember that. I think I may have drank that years ago. If I remember right, it's supposed to be very good for you.
Went to the tea plantation today! We had way more fun than was probably warranted in the unnecessarily well-appointed gift shop. I did not know it is the only tea growing operation in North America. I also did not know that green, black, and oolong teas all come from the same plant. The difference is in the way it's processed. And they have the coolest machine that harvests the tea. It was a very educational tour. Even on a dreary wet day.
We managed to leave with only three kinds of tea - all black and all loose. Charleston breakfast, governor gray, and cinnamon spice. And a bunch of souvenir-y goodness. Tea spoons, mugs, infusers, etc. they had lots of cute things. I managed to control myself enough to keep away from the tshirts and jewelry. Maybe when I am back home on my laptop I can figure out how to post pics.
Glad you had so much fun Melissa! It sounds like it was a great tour, you're so lucky to live close enough to make it a day trip. Only three teas - you really showed restraint! And it sounds like you have everything to to make your own tea ceremony. Have you used photobucket? I upload pics there and copy them to posts
That sounds like so much fun, Melissa! I would love to go visit there one day. I did a quick google search for the name, is it Charleston Tea Plantation?
Tejas Janet wrote: "Not familiar with Noni. Interesting to learn of it. Haven't ever had licorice tea... tell us what you think."Bleck!
I like licorice. But apparently not in tea.
Noni. What is a stinky surprise left in a diaper? Oh, did baby have a noni for mommy?Sorry never actually heard of noni but thats the first thing to pop in my head.
I DONT like licorice (at all!!). I should be made of a strange root an -originally- of horse blood *shudder* (no ofense intended)
Tasha, yes that is the name but I've been having trouble getting the website to work. Try this: https://www.bigelowtea.com/Charleston...One of my tea of the month teas is a chai with star anise which is very licorice-y. I'm not especially fond of it either but I can take it with a little cream and the other flavors.
Tasha, yes that is the name but I've been having trouble getting the website to work. Try this: https://www.bigelowtea.com/Charleston...One of my tea of the month teas is a chai with star anise which is very licorice-y. I'm not especially fond of it either but I can take it with a little cream and the other flavors.
I"m not a fan of the licorice either but I think it's good for a sore throat. We have a sore throat tea that has licorice in it.
Stephanie wrote: "Licorice and mint sound like a yummy combo :-)"yes, and the noni sounds interesting too.
Nuri is the seaweed you are thinking of, Janice.
Tejas Janet wrote: "Not familiar with Noni. Interesting to learn of it. Haven't ever had licorice tea... tell us what you think."Stash makes a Licorice tea. I really like it. I had a friend who used to keep it just for me.
I have a stove top whistling tea kettle too and a glass teapot with the plastic infuser basket for loose tea. I admit that my granddaughter uses it more than I do. The microwave and a tea bag is my go to extent when I get home from work.
So I'm home for the holidays and my family' s well water does not take kindly to black tea. Yuck! I feel bad using bottled for a cuppa, but tea is a necessity, yes? I hope everyone is having a restful and happy first!
It is the new year and I haven't brewed a cup of coffee..the tea I have is ok but I think I may be missing the sweetness of the coffee creamer, lol! I'm trying to keep muskeg from adding anything to the tea :) hopefully my taste buds will adjust soon :) I didn't have a headache yesterday but have a slight one today..I'm guessing because of the decrease in caffeine even though I only drank one cup of coffee per day, lol!
I am addicted now to the Tazo Vanilla Chai Tea (mild caffeine) with a scoop of honey and some almond (homemade) milk. Try putting honey in your tea unless you are also trying to avoid sugar. At least honey is healthy. :)
I always put honey in my tea. But since the bee hives are only a mile from my house we buy honey a caseat a time with a readily available supply
I will try some honey! Thanks, Tasha and Travis :-)
That's lucky, Travis! I would love that. :)I decided to treat myself with a tea today and got this one from Republic of Teas (through amazon though using some gift card $):
http://www.republicoftea.com/lemon-ch...
Looks delicious Tasha I need a good lemon tea
It does, doesn't it? I wasn't even looking for a lemon tea. I can't wait to see how it tastes.
Lemon is one of my favorites teas. Your comments made me smell it. I'll need to get some soon.
The honey in my tea was not very good :( I tried just a splash of milk and a tiny bit of sugar next and that was the perfect amount of sweet for me to get away from creamer :)
glad you found what works! It will make it that much easier. :)
As an avid tea fan and dedicated avoider of coffee I fully support the switch and if any of you coffee fiends need a gradual decline in caffeine intake you may want to start with Assam black teas as these tend to have the highest caffeine content. This tea is found in most of the breakfast blends for this very reason but if you need a hard-core hit then you can get pure assam teas (usually as loose leaf) to kick start your day.Next comes your white and oolong teas followed by green tea. Ceylon black tea comes next (so watch this if you after full leaded black tea) followed by Jasmine tea and a specialist tea called Pu-erh tea (not tried this myself but I've heard good things).
Then finally there are the herbal teas which generally have no caffeine and taste like hot squash but I have seen some blends that include green and black teas so check if avoiding caffeine altogether.
And don't forget to give loose leaf teas a try, complete with full pot brewing experiences as this is what tea is all about, the ceremony as well as the drinking.
Enjoy! :-)
thanks so much for your insight into teas! I always thought white tea had less caffeine than even green teas. Thanks for setting me straight on that one. :)
No worries Tasha, I'm always happy to share my tea knowledge, especially to new tea converts :-)
Thank you so much, Sam! I've had to drink coffee on and off as I got headaches the first few days with only tea and no coffee :( I'm gradually weaning myself off of coffee though :) so far so good yesterday and today :-)
No problem and definitely some Assam for you then Stephanie! Good luck kicking the coffee habit and enjoy exploring the world of tea, I've been an avid drinker since my pre-teens and I'm still finding new ones to try :-)
Travis may like the assam as he's commented on looking for/drinking high caff teas. :)
I'm really pleased I saw this thread. I made myself a cup of tea (builders tea as we call it) and sat down to go through the threads and completely forgot about my cuppa on the side. Then I saw there were some unread posts in this thread and it saved my cup of tea going cold so thank you!I drink normal black tea with soya milk most of the time. When I visited Poland, my friends there introduced me to having tea without milk but with the addition of fruit syrup. I vaguely remember raspberry and loganberry was very nice and they had a spicy orange one too. Our local shop sells quite a bit of Polish produce so I'm able to get a small selection of the flavours so I have that on occasions now.
I really like Earl Gray, Lady Gray, Green Tea, Chai and Dahjeeling too. Not sure on the caffeine content of any of these though.
I used to drink coffee at home and we buy decaff. When we went to Croatia in the summer we drank a lot of coffee there and it was so good. Since coming back I have become a coffee snob so the shop bought coffee just doesn't cut it any more so I've stopped drinking it and only drink tea at home. We have started going out for coffee more now and I'll have a macchiato to get my fix.
Lady Grey is my choice. Brewed strong, or leave the tea bag in. Straight. Nothing added.Coffee, you want short with about 1//3 coffee, 2/3 milk. Heated, starting of a foam. A microfoam in fact. In a normal cup. Like a tea cup. This is called a flat white. You should all embrace it.
Apparently Starbucks started making this yesterday. They call it a flat top. Apparently it's okay but weak. To quote a well known Aussie over there who was asked to review it - "It's not coffee, but you know. They are giving it a go."
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Lol Rusalka! That seems to sum the attitude of Aussies about everything!
Sarah, the fruit syrup in tea is how my family (the older generation, I'm russian/ukrainian) drank/drinks their tea. Actually, it's not fruit syrup for us but raspberry jam. I remember having tea like this all the time growing up but not so much now. It's really good that way though, I may have to have a cup like that now and then.
Rusalka - I think "flat top" is Brit/Aussie speak for a latte with no foam. Also called a "flat white". ^^ (Any Brits/Aussies, feel free to correct me!)
It's a flat white. Not a latte. Completely different! This is very important!!!Lattes have more milk to coffee. Flat whites have more coffee to milk. Latte's should be layered (coffee on bottom, milk floating on top) as well but no one bothers. And then yes, flat whites shouldn't have a layer of foam on top, but should be slightly foamed so you have a creamier texture to the milk all the way through.
Flat top is made up nonsense to deal with sensitivities that we don't have here in Australia. (the name is nonsense, not the sensitivities). We don't blink at ordering long blacks, short blacks, flat whites. We're talking about coffee, and it describes what we want. We say that in the States and we're likely to get killed.
Mariab wrote: "Lol Rusalka! That seems to sum the attitude of Aussies about everything!"lol so true.
Rusalka, now I know what to ask for next time I am at Starbucks. It will be fun to see what I get. I love my tea but I still like just one cup of coffee in the morning to wake up. Usually on my long commute to work, then I'll have tea the rest of the day. I don't care for a lot of sweetness in my tea or coffee but have never been able to take either straight (except rare occasions in desperate need of caffeine and/or warmth). I usually use artificial sweetener, habit I've had for many many years. I know, everything causes cancer. I figure something's gonna get me sooner or later. But perhaps I will try some honey with some of my teas... I don't generally care for the aftertaste of sugar (that's how messed up I've let myself become) but maybe honey wouldn't be too bad.
Anyway, it is freakin' cold here in Georgia today so the tea is just the right thing to have. I have tried some if the pu-ehr teas with mixed results. I think of them as being very earthy, not with the kind of brightness of regular tea - maybe it is a lower tannin content? I have one that was gifted to me by way of a business trip to china - I like it best but still not as much as my regular tea. The one from China comes in little pods and I haven't figured out the exact ratio of water to add.
And I love earl gray and lady gray both. Adagio has a lavender gray that is nice if you like lavender. Also an earl gray moonlight which is very nice. When we were at the tea plantation on vacation we bought Governor gray but if it is meant to be a variation on regular earl gray it has escaped me. I think I have spelled all these grays wrong but not changing them now!!
Rusalka wrote: "It's a flat white. Not a latte. Completely different! This is very important!!!"Thank you for explaining this! It sounds like a Misto in Starbucks speak (reformed barista here) - one-half to two-thirds drip coffee, the rest steamed milk, yes? Lattes, on the other hand, are a few oz of espresso with lots of milk.
Number one on the list of things I learned today. ^^
No no no drip coffee. Drip coffee is evil! No one at all drinks drip coffee in this country. Two espresso shots rest with steamed milk in a tea cup. Lattes are in bigger glasses, with one shot and rest milk.
Ex-barista here too. Although not Starbucks. Australia is the one place in the world Starbucks has failed. Our coffee and cafe culture was too established with Italian and Greek style cafes, that there was no market for sweet and syrupy Starbucks coffee. I believe there are less than 10 shops left in the country, most of them in the international airports.
To highlight how serious we are about coffee in this country, this is our set up at home (although two ex-baristas, Lexx was much better than I ever was and had people come from all over town for his coffee). Please excuse the coffee grinder being such a mess
Annnnnd now I have espresso machine envy. :D And envy for coffee cultures - between the States and Japan I'm obviously quite behind. Thank you once again!Getting back to tea in a roundabout way - I ordered a chai the other day and instead of extra syrup they put in four espresso shots! That woke me up quick. -_^
Wow... that's, just wow. And a little dangerous.Hmmm... now I want chai.
Now that is one serious setup Rusalka. I really want an espresso machine so I can get some decent coffee at home (and much cheaper) - will have to check it out once we have our power setup sorted.I hate how much milk gets put in coffee here in the UK. I don't like milk that much anyway (which is why I drink soya at home). But I can't do black coffee like I can do black tea.
No soy cappuccino/latte options?
Although that was always my loathed order. "Soy, weak, decaf latte" or as I called it, loserchino. Seriously, have some tea. Or warmed milked. Or a babychino if you want to spice things up with chocolate. Just give up on the coffee idea.
I expect there are soy options but I personally don't think it works in coffee - I've had way too many coffees out ehen the soy has curdled when poured inyo the hot coffer. it is probably different if it's foamed but I'd rather just have a strong coffee with a little normal milk instead.
And the Frangeluco liqueur right where it belongs ;-)
A good barista knows that soy curdles at a lower temp than regular milk. Always heat lower! BAh!Lexx used to make hot chocs with soy. The nuttiness worked a treat with the choc. Must say, never tried soy. He was a hard task master though. If you wouldn't drink your own coffee, you weren't allowed to sell it to customers. Entirely agree. But meant many hours working out the machine.
Don't you know it Mariab :P
Wow, Rusalka, my BF would be so jealous! He refuses to drink anything except black and strong ;-)I didn't liked coffee for ages but started drinking it some months ago. Only with lots of milk though, and perhaps some extra flavour, so lattes or machiato's. The Netherlands is not much into special coffees either, so in most places there's not much choice. I'm lactose-intolerant and can only drink coffee with soy milk (I never had it curdled!), but they only have that in special coffeebars. Luckily there's one at work, although the coffee is not that good, and another one that's really good a 5-10 minute walk from work, and there's going to be one in the city where I live soon. Other than that, I'm stuck to drinking coffee at home, from our Nespresso machine with a milk-heating/foaming thingy.
You'll love this one...!! A book club & more
Books mentioned in this topic
Rob Roy (other topics)The Martian (other topics)
