Beginner looking to step things up a bit
Hello! I am new here, and new to the world of tea.
In the past year or so I have switched from drinking coffee to drinking black tea, because for some reason regular coffee makes me feel very jittery but even two or three cups of black tea doesn’t.
I’ve mostly been drinking Earl Grey from Twinings or Trader Joe’s, and sometimes Mighty Leaf when I want a treat. But now I want to try some nicer options.
I drink my tea with cream or milk, no sugar. I don’t love a very perfumey or flavored-type tea — I’ve definitely preferred the Earl Greys with a lighter bergamot flavoring.
I have two questions:
1. What Earl Greys or other black teas would you recommend for a beginner (meaning, not too expensive) who likes to drink their teas with milk? I’ve read that Harney & Sons makes some good options, so I’ll probably be getting some from that brand.
2. What supplies should I get to make a great cup of tea at work, where I have access to a boiling water tap and a microwave?
Thanks!
You should check KS’s tasting log. He does a lot of black and EG teas.
http://steepster.com/ks6
Welcome in!
I doubt anyone be opposed to you making this choice :)
http://whisperingpinestea.com/flights-teaware/flights/black-kit.html
Thanks for the recommendation, LP! Emily, if you go ahead and order this set, I’ll toss in a free sample of my soon-to-be-released Earl Grey :-)
Order received! Thanks so much for your business! That’ll ship out tomorrow afternoon :-) Lemme know if you’ve got any questions in the meantime!
I would also give those a try without milk – you might be pleasantly surprised.
(that also means I get to recommend lots of nice tea for got to try as I don’t take mine with milk)
It’s tough for me to drink tea without milk because my teeth and gums are pretty sensitive. When I’ve drunk a lot of iced tea, for example, I kind of end up being in pain. Same with hot tea and black coffee :(
Ive got really sensitive teeth & gums as well (I have never bitten ice cream or ice, for example – too much pain)
- but lots of these teas are brewed between 70c-100c, and also drunk at a cooler temperature (I drink my oolongs & whites at about 70c) so it doesnt end up hurting them
A good site for black teas, especially if you don’t want to spend a lot of money is Simpson and Vail, www.svtea.com. Their teas are good quality but perhaps not quite as good as someone like Whispering Pines. Their teas are half the price of Whispering Pines but not half the quality. They are one of the best values in tea if you are not looking for puerh.
Only bummer about S&V is the size you have to order to try the teas. They didn’t sell samples last time I checked.
They sell 1 oz. samples of everything at no higher cost than you’d pay for much tinier samples at most other places.
I’m looking at their site and it looks like some teas have a 1oz min and others (black flavored) have a 2oz min. I wonder why they differentiate.
I’m not sure, I’ve never calculated it. Lots of factors including how heavy you leaf your cups and how dense each tea is.
~3g if im doing western style (using an infuser), ~2g or less if grandpa style (leaving the tea leaves in the cup – can get icky/bitter/sour at the bottom as the leaves are always steeping) and ~5g for gongfu style with a gaiwan & mini cups for a longer session
What area of the country are you in? In Austin we have two stores (Whole Foods and Central Market) that have a variety of tea sold in the self serve bulk section which lets you buy sample sizes and smell the tea before you buy. Maybe someone could suggest a store like that in your area or a tea shop that sells sample sizes.
As far as steeping at work goes, a good travel tumbler would work well. There are many out there (and reviewed on Steepster) that have infusers built in. I am liking the tumblers that David’s Tea has, but there are tons out there, you just have to decide what features are important to you like plastic vs. glass vs. steel ect.
Hi Dustin, I live in San Francisco — we have Whole Foods and other nice grocery store options. I’ll have to look out for the bulk sections, that’s a great thought. I also have lots of Asian and some Russian grocery stores in my neighborhood, if you or anyone else have any recs there. It looks like we have some David’s Tea shops in SF as well.
For making tea at work in a travel tumbler, would I just use water straight out of the boiling water tap? I know that people like to control the temperature of the water for their tea, but are people a bit more casual when it comes to making a cup at work?
You mentioned only drinking blacks and they can take the hotter temps like boiling and just below, so I think right out of the boiling tap would be fine. If you were drinking greens, I’d invest in a thermometer so you know when the water cooled to the appropriate temp.
If you can make it over to Berkeley, go to the Pasta Shop on 4th. They have a selection of a dozen or so Marriage Freres (Fancy French brand) teas sold in self serve bulk, so you can get just a small sample to start off with. French Breakfast is my fav of theirs when I want something malty and solid with cream and sugar, Wedding Imperial is another popular one by MF. The other Pasta Shop location only sells in tins, FYI. Teance is two doors down from the Pasta Shop if you want a super refined tea palate experience.
Chinatown in SF is FILLED with tea shops, some selling in bulk, some not. David’s sells in bulk with the minimum being 1/4 oz or so. You can also buy a cup of tea there and try teas out that way. Peet’s has their own line of teas that some folks really like, but I have never explored. I don’t think they sell all of them by the cup, but there are several you can choose from if you want a cup to go. If you want flavored blacks, Lupicia has a location in a mall on Market, but they only sell in packets of 1.7oz. You can smell their teas before you buy. I’m not a huge EG fan, but I really like Lupicia’s breakfast EG. It’s really bright and holds up well with cream and sugar.
There are some great local tea shops in SF. You should definitely visit a Samovar Tea Lounge. They have a number of locations but I’ve only been to the Zen Valley one. They are pricey, but in my opinion, worth it. Also, I think Red Blossom is in Chinatown and the have a good reputation as far as I know. Leland Tea Company is also local and were a big favorite on Steepster for a while. Lupicia has locations in some of the malls, though maybe only in the South Bay.
I’ve actually been to Samovar! It was a very nice experience. I wasn’t really drinking tea then, though, so I’ll have to try again and pay better attention to what I get and try something new.
Definitely going to check out Red Blossom and Lupicia when I get a chance. Looks like Leland Tea Company is down in Burlingame, which is a bit of a hike, but something I’ll keep in mind next time I’m down in that area.
Wow, that sounds like a fancy Whole Foods in Austin. I have lived virtually all up and down the East Coast, including big cities like DC. I’ve never been to a Whole Foods with bins of tea in the self-serve bulk area. Minus a couple from Republic of Tea, I’ve barely even seen loose tea at a Whole Foods. Just the standard bagged tea from Republic of Tea, Numi, Mighty Leaf, etc.
The bulk tea has it’s own counter separate from the rest of the bulk items. It is a SUPER fancy Whole Foods. WF was born in Austin so this is their flagship location with corporate offices in a small tower on one side of the building, a playground on the rooftop with tables for eating and an open area on the rooftop that they put a small ice skating rink on in December. They have a ton of really cool counters and bars: fresh and smoked seafood, soup, BBQ with rotisserie, pastries, pizza with the brick oven, bread/bakery, candy/chocolate with a chocolate fountain, raw food bar, sushi bar, cheese, beer/wine and several more that I’m forgetting. It is amazing.
Another local grocery chain (HEB) has a branch of fancy WF like stores called Central Market, which is their way of capturing some of the WF demographics. They also have a good selection of tea in the self serve bulk section.
The most basic way for you to make tea at work would be to use tea filters, with which you basically make your own tea bags. They are available from places like David’s Tea or Teavana but a better place to get them is Amazon. That is provided you don’t want to bring a teapot into work.
I am an Earl Grey addict but must confess to liking the barbarian cheap stuff. For something with a little more class try Harney or Nina’s.
As for making tea at work – a Finum basket is great. To heat your water you can use the microwave (I think it makes a flat cup but most people disagree). If there is a Keurig, use it for hot water only – don’t use those nasty k-cups. If you have a little desk space a Hot Shot works great if you can find one.
Beginner looking to “steep” things up a bit…
I’m sorry I had to xD
Ha, I actually thought about making that pun and then decided that wasn’t how I wanted to introduce myself to this website :P
Puns are always welcome here, just as long as they are PG-thirtean! :-P
Omg. Shu managed to make another pun, I was racking my brains trying to come up with something
haha. Mate! How do you guys do it? I’m straining to think of any good puns and they are just pouring our of you. Wha-cha need to do to make jokes like this?
My favorite Ceylons and Darjeelings and other English-style black teas come from The Finest Brew, which has good sales every year:
http://shop.thefinestbrew.com/
I see you got the Whispering Pines sampler. Hm… I haven’t ordered there yet, but lots of people love Yunnan Sourcing and its prices are good. I’m putting together a bigger order to place there soon:
http://www.yunnansourcing.us/store/index.php?
Brewing tea in a French press at work would work out; easy to use, easy to clean, not expensive. This also offers better contact of tea leaves and water than some other options, and steeping occurs without air contact, which would allow the tea to cool, and for volatile components comprising some of the flavor to evaporate. One can experiment with using different water temperatures related to specific teas to determine their own preference, but black teas are generally ok with boiling point water, maybe just a bit under for some types or per some preference. It’s tea sacrilege to even say it but it is possible to mix a little room temperature water with boiling point water from a hot tap to get to that final temperature, and you could live out your life without ever knowing the exact level experimentation shows that you prefer.
I just tried a commercial jasmine black tea that was nice enough, just a little basic, but I’m not sure how it would be with milk. I bought it last month in Indonesia, so it’s not really even a mail-order option. As you’ve already mentioned it’s the level of flavoring that matters as much as the type, as long as the flavor input is natural, and not from some chemical, which will come across differently.
I mail ordered decent black tea from Vietnam twice last year, which isn’t as expensive as one might expect since shipping is a good bit more but the tea pricing was very reasonable. That supplier sells a nice black tea (Wild Boar), a dark roasted oolong (Red Buffalo, which may not work well with milk, but still worth a try), an Earl Grey, and a jasmine black tea, which I didn’t try, along with more conventional options (they make and drink mostly green tea in Vietnam):
http://hatvala.com/hatvalacoffe/teas-vietnam
Those teas would be reviewed on this site as sold by What-Cha, a reseller from that source.
If you are in San Francisco you should check out the retail location for http://www.redblossomtea.com/
The Tea Spot sells a nice travel steeper:
http://theteaspot.com/tuffy-tea-steeper-steepware.html
Online stores I recommend for samples are Upton, Adagio, and Harney. You can get small amounts to sample and discover what you like best. :)
Login or sign up to leave a comment.