I love tea. Tea comes in a wide variety of flavors. Tea may be loaded with complexities or instead be simple yet satisfying. Tea may be sweet or savory, served hot or cold, and comes in varieties suitable for any flavor palate. There’s a lot one can do with tea – warm up a chilly day, invite friendship and discussion, and (my favorite) enjoy parties with dainty little finger foods that make you feel prim and proper regardless of how many times you double-back for more.
Some teas I’ve been drinking since I was a child. Some I prefer without additives, others might get a cube of sweetener, others get a splash of dairy for smoothness, and others may get both sweetener and smoothener (applying for that to be added to the dictionary…). I still candy my orange pekoe: extra sweetener and a hefty splash of cream. I enjoy trying new tea, but I also have standard teas that I drink on the daily.
Everyone with a take on anything has preferences, so before I launch into tea reviews, I’m providing a baseline. This will help you to select your teas with reference to my reviews: if you have similar taste preferences, you can look for the same sorts of teas I jump for; if our palettes differ, you can pick out the ones I highlight as not being my type. I’ll give guidance on the flavor profiles of each to help you select some new stuff to try.
Most of my tea gets sweetened. I typically use two travel mugs (simultaneously, each with different teas), one 16 oz and one 20 oz. I use about a teaspoon or two of stevia (In the Raw – maltodextrin mixed with stevia for an equal sweetness with sugar) per mug. That’s about 1-2 sugar packets per mug (in the United States). If I’m traveling and at the mercy of hosts as far as sweeteners is concerned, I may reach for sugar, a Splenda packet, or go black. (If using a Splenda-type sweetener, I use a maximum of a half packet per mug. The times I’ve forgotten to halve it have been unpleasant – that stuff is so much sweeter than sugar.)
One of my mugs is for caffeinated teas and the other is for non-caffeinated teas. I don’t do decaf; it doesn’t make sense to me. I want the tea as a whole, not crafted then torn apart to take out most of the component that people often drink coffee for. (I understand some people avoid caffeine due to sensitivity or religious reasons. Decaf is not the answer: some of the caffeine remains in the stuff.)
My favorite and go-to tea is Bigelow’s Vanilla Chai tea. It has an edge of inherent sweetness, and more than the complex hearth-welcoming flavors, it’s a great tea for if I don’t want to have to think about sweetening it. A little stevia brings out a variety of notes that are otherwise very subtle, but some days I prefer the subtlety. Bigelow makes their tea available both in the standard tea bag form as well as K-Cup pod form for Keurig users (also available in a party pack).
I often drink a calming, de-stress kind of tea, too. I’m still looking for a true go-to in this category. For me, this type of tea has valerian or valerian root in it; this was used to help with anxiety during the air raids of World War II, so I figure it’s good enough to fight against my everyday concerns.
The tea that best reminds me of home is Salada’s original blend black tea. It’s my standard orange pekoe and my mother’s go-to tea. The aroma reminds me of a calm afternoon with her flipping through sheet music at the dinner table. It’s available from Amazon in multi-packs, including this one probably ordered most by hotels and entertainment venues, and they do make decaf as well.
The tea I’ve been looking for the longest to restock on is Red Rose’s Sunset Spice blend. It seems they stopped making it – a pity as it has a robust hearth-welcome flavor. This is something I highly prize in tea: a sit-down-by-the-fire-to-chat feeling emanating from a warm cup, something that convinces you that you’re amongst friends who enjoy your company.
Armed with a baseline, we can charge forward to tea reviews. Onward and upward!
