My grandfather lived off of Lapsang Suchong, apparently. I haven't really tried it straight, but my Russian Earl Grey and Samovar teas (a "samovar" is apparently some manner of Russian tea service) are a blend of black and suchong teas, and I quite like them. Reminds me, I need to get more Samovar from the little store at the botanical gardens when I'm down south next. The guy there sells the same tea that I get from Blue Teapot, but Samovar is a blend his wife makes.

tea!

I love tea!!!

hate coffee though. Coffee is gross.

tea is good though! My favorite is green tea but I'll drink pretty much any kind of tea.

I have myself Earl Grey tea right now, regular old Twinings bag stuff. Nothing fancy but it's easier at work. I don't have to pick little odds and ends out of the ancient steeper we have here.

I love me some good coffee -- but it has to be GOOD coffee. Starbucks is the minimum acceptable coffee quality. Folgers is, if prepared correctly, better than one might expect (not fantastic, but acceptable). Cheap coffee like you get at most fast-food restaurants (and at some more expensive places) or poorly-prepared coffee (too much/too little coffee loaded into the machine, water too hot, allowed to steep too long/not long enough, kept hot instead of served immediately) are terrible.

I'm pretty plebeian when it comes to coffee, stuff like Starbucks being too strong, and I usually pack it with milk and sugar so it's more of a dessert thing. The exception was the coffee I had in Rome. Italians are big on their coffee.

Heavens, don't drink the beverage that Starbucks will serve you if you ask for "coffee." That's brewed in advance and kept hot in a dispenser until you buy it. Order an espresso-based drink like a latte or americano. That'll be much more like what you had in Italy. If you must buy "coffee" get something made in the Clover, but not every store has one. (They're fickle machines, break down easily.)

mmm, oh I love a good earl gray!

I don't drink tea, but I don't mind drinking brisk lemon iced tea or raspberry iced tea.

Chai this morning. Just bag Chai, but good enough. The best Chai I recall having was actually at my university during a random buffet fundraiser for a school in India in the Student Union building. $2 all you can eat Indian snacks! A student made it in a pot of milk with an online recipe.

If you want to get students to anything, offer them food. There was a poster hanging in the SUB hallway that said (more or less) "Free Pizza! Oh and while you're there, the will be speakers on what to do with an English degree."

hey, that would lure me in!

I love pizza. o.o

There was even enough left that I could take left-over up to my roommates. Hunting and gathering remains an applicable skill in college years. ;)

I just found a lip balm in "Earl Grey" flavor. Decided to get it and try it. Heavenly.. Tastes just like it. X3
I do love my tea. <3

that sounds delicious!

Bergamot goes nicely with chocolate, too.

I find it almost hard to believe that my dad can't tell the difference between a cup of Earl Grey and a cup of orange pekoe. I suppose some of it is maybe experience? I certainly can't tell much difference between the coffees I've tried, except for some tasting more burnt or more bitter than another; same with beer. I guess it's what people focus their taste buds on.

yeah, that's pretty much how acquired tastes work.

Orange pekoe and Earl Grey are both black teas with citrus oils. Distinguishing them is going to be a matter of experience. Sure, they taste different, but unless you're already familiar with both tastes, if someone hands you a cup of one or the other you won't be able to tell what it is, and if someone handed you both cups, you could tell that they weren't the same flavor but wouldn't know which is which.

Anna Claire; it is! The company is called Savannah Bee if you're interested. ^^

I'll keep an eye out, thanks! :3

I bought some tea today!

Country Peach Passion. I wonder if it is any good.

Didn't know that. I thought orange pekoe was the name of the plant. I've never heard of any actual citrus being in it, unless the plant itself is a citrus plant.

That stuff is absolutely wonderful and probably my favorite Celestial Seasonings flavor, tied with Peppermint.

Also, truer words have never been spoken.

On that topic, I need to find some freshman who's swimming in fake mealplan dollars and get them to buy me food.

actually, orange pekoe doesn't necessarily have any citrus in it and, in fact, isn't even a kind of tea. It's a specific grade of black tea.

according to Wikipedia: "The tea industry uses the term orange pekoe to describe a basic, medium-grade black tea consisting of many whole tea leaves of a specific size."

*does some quick research* Actually, we're both wrong! I had only assumed that "orange" was a reference to a flavor, but it turns out that it doesn't refer to anything about oranges or plants at all!

In other words, if you're in the US or Canada, there IS no such tea as "orange pekoe" and it's actually just... plain black tea, trying to sound pretentious.

EDIT: ... rawr, I need to look to see if there are more posts in the thread before I reply. >.>

hehe, got it in before you. ;)

Heh. I looked at that article, too. And technically, Tim Horton's sells "Orange Pekoe" tea, decaf, so I now just assume it's the grade of black tea rather than a specific thing.

People would always ask for "orange" tea and never seemed to clue in that there was no orange in it. One person would often ask for "Orange Spice" which I'm pretty sure is a thing, but always settled for the orange pekoe. I kept waiting for her (or someone else) looking for "orange" tea to come back and complain about what I gave them. Psychological stuff, maybe. They believe!

haha, wow.

orange spice is good though.

My husband keeps buying unsweetened tea, but he never drinks it so it goes bad and then we have to throw it away. I tell him to not buy any more tea because he never drinks it, but he still does. smh

...How long is he keeping the tea around for? Because tea, especially unsweetened, takes a...while...to spoil...

Bottle tea maybe? The concept of unsweetened tea as a thing is not something I think of outside of iced tea.

It just sits there for months and month and months, that's how! >.>
And he still has another jug sitting in the refrigerator....

All that good tea gone to waste. What a shame.

why don't you drink it, then?

I was thinking the same thing.
My beverage of choice is water. Unsweetened tea tastes close to water, right?

But I think the main reason I didn't touch his tea was because it wasn't mine.

I wouldn't say tea tastes like water, no.

I'm not a huge fan of tea since I'm really bad at making it.
I use two teabags, and then I put too much sugar and milk in and... I drink it anyway :^w it's alright, just cold and sweet.

One of my IRL friends has SO MUCH TEA, one time on skype, one of our friends was complaining that he wanted tea, so she stapled tea bags to a piece of paper, and mailed it to him.

Now I want tea...

Wow :s-laugh:
I don't do stimulants, generally. I don't dislike tea but I prefer funny flavours like Cranberry Apple Cheer :p-kittysmile:

I generally don't think of tea as a stimulant but given it has caffeine, I guess that counts.

I'm terrible at controlling my sugar, also when I make tea. For the sake of my intake I now use sugar cubes (I'm lazy with measuring a lot of the time) even though they cost a little more. It's evened out my tea now, and I found that over time I've dropped it down from two per cup to only one.

I like chilled matcha powder tea. Teabagged tea smells the best though. I never put sugar in tea since I'm not a fan of adding any sort of pure raw flavor.

I'm pretty good at controlling how much sugar I put in my tea.



I just...don't put in any, usually.