Straight Tea

As pure and as organic as possible, I am with you on this one for sure.

I like both, but tend to prefer some one way or the other. I usually prefer unflavored greens (matcha being an exception) and whites, but there are exceptions. Different strokes.

I have sort of a split personality on this topic. On the one hand, I love green tea and especially unadulterated green teas—sencha, gyokuro, Mao Feng, Long Jing—the more I explore, the longer the list becomes!

On the other hand, I love Earl Grey and many other black-based flavored teas, all of which I adulterate with cream!

I find that I feel better when I drink plain teas—either the aforementioned greens or else something like darjeeling, which I do not take with cream. Heavier black teas—Assams and some others as well—I do prefer with cream, but sometimes I take a break from cream-laced brews, and I always feel better (healthwise) after I do.

I basically never add sugar to anything, and I have discovered through my post-holiday order at Teavana, that they are definitely not my kind of emporium… So many food infusions; so little tea! I also have a serious aversion to artificial flavorings. Just the thought of ingesting something of completely unknown identity—n’importe quoi!—already degrades the experience.

I’m very much a straight tea drinker. Jasmine or similar where it is a light scenting added I don’t mind, but like another said I consider flavored teas to be an entirely different category from tea drinking.

I enjoy some flavored teas, there are some really tasty ones out there. But I drink them rarely and consider them more like fruit punch than tea… they’re basically tisanes in my thoughts/feelings.