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What's your favorite tea?

Bob N

Bob N

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I drank coffee for over forty years. In 2011 I successfully fought off throat cancer. I don’t know if it was the chemo, the radiation or both but afterwards I no longer enjoyed the taste of it. My mother-in-law received a tea set as a gift, complete with an infuser and a few varieties of loose leaf tea. Since she prefers coffee she offered it to me. I enjoy drinking tea so much more than I ever did coffee. I always drank my coffee black without sugar and the same goes for the tea but there are so many more flavors and blends with the tea. I believe tea is more popular on your side of the pond and was wondering the favorite blend is. Do folks mostly like bagged tea? I drink black tea in the am and herbal before bedtime.
Just wondering...
 
You're right Bob, we are a nation of tea drinkers, I know I am. However, there are plenty who drink coffee too. When my daughter visits she always wants coffee, and 'our' Bill often tells us he's enjoying his morning cup of coffee. When I am at home I drink tea all the time but when I go abroad I drink coffee, because the tea, even if it pruports to be 'English Breakfast Tea' doesn't taste like the standard tea back home. The 'standard' British tea can be bought in any supermarket and even the branded varieties taste the same - they are all blended that way. It always comes in teabags these days but this is a change that has occurred in my lifetime. Most people drink this tea white (with milk) but some prefer it black, for me it's too harsh without milk. There are plenty of other 'fancy' teas to be had on the supermarket shelves, I like them all but there is something addictive about the taste of the 'standard' British tea. The best tea I have ever tasted was on a trip to China. They have a huge variety of teas there and some of the teas I tasted were really amazing, but I couldn't buy them here.
 
I'm very much a herbal tea drinker at home. I make my own blends all the time depending on the day. But my favourite by far is lemon balm. ( which I'm not supposed to drink due to thyroid issue) I have it occasionally when I get the chance to sit and relax, which in my busy life isn't very often. When out and about its bog standard bag tea, milk and 2 or decaff coffee, milk and 2. Currently trying to drink less of them all and drink Adam's Ale instead, but not succeded so far.
 
We've settled on Yorkshire tea with milk as our standard brew. A few of our friends prefer Earl Gray but it tastes too perfumed to me. Lots of folk drink the herbal teas mainly without milk.
 
Drinking tea with milk is a very British thing. We think it's normal, other people think we are weird. I am of the opinion that standard British tea has been blended to go with milk, other teas should definitely be drunk without.
 
Tea drinking here is catching on but nowhere near as popular as coffee. Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks stores are everywhere. Even when I was a coffee junkie I couldn't stand Starbucks coffee. It's strong and downright bitter. Their pitch is that it's double roasted... in my opinion, they burn it. Plus they sell all kinds of cakes, breads and sweets. It's expensive and people are lined up for it.

Anyway to get back to my post, I start my day with a blend called cream of earl grey, I drink it black with lemon. In the afternoon I've been having a bagged tea made by a brand I found in the supermarket here. The company is Tazo and the blend is "Vanilla Bean Macaron", I drink it black. It goes really well with just about any snack. In the evening I have a tea called valerian nights by David's Tea, a Canadian company. What I like about it is that I sleep like a baby.
 
I make herbal tea in the evening (black obviously) then I let it go cold and will drink it during the night if I wake up thirsty..otherwise I prefer coffee but I’m not fussy about it….I'm happy to drink English breakfast tea through the day but I guess I’m a bit of a pleb. I’m definitely a milk & two sugars kind of guy.
 
At first I wasn't fond of earl grey and preferred the English breakfast blend over it but then I found the cream of earl grey and stuck with it. I'll sometimes have a cup of English breakfast or a blend sold by Whittard called Piccadilly. It’s pretty good, like a combination of earl grey and English breakfast. I found it on the tea shelf in a store chain we have here called Home Goods.
 
Hey guys... is this more like a tea I might find on a store shelf over there
 

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We have Co-op 99 blend fair trade loose tea same as my mother and gran used to. You can get it in tea bags as well
 
One of the problems you will find, Bob, is that many of the large international brands will market different products under the same brand-name. As I said earlier, I don't drink much tea abroad because it is not like the tea at home, even if the brand and label looks the same. Same applies to coffee, get a cup of coffee in Italy and it's delicious - come home and buy 'Italian coffee' and it nothing like what you had in Italy. Some of the packet soups do the same thing - buy a packet of Knorr or Maggi vegetable soup in France and it's fabulous - come home and buy the exact same thing in the UK and it's nothing like what you had - and rubbish by comparison. So I think your chances of getting 'genuine' British tea over there are slim unless you have a British shop nearby, selling real British products. I know such shops do exist in the States but not sure how common they are.
 
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