Teas that are great without sweeteners
Try high grown Ceylon teas. They are light, naturally sweet and mellow.
Not to disagree with the bitterness fans who have been posting, but…if you want something with a little built-in sweetness to ease your transition, you might want to look into mi xiang teas, often called “bug-bitten” tea in English. These teas are allowed to suffer some leafhopper damage during the growing season, and as a defense mechanism they (allegedly) release enzymes that give the tea a flavor that is usually described as “honey” but I think tastes more like a malty sweetness.
These teas are a big deal in Taiwan, where they’re usually made into either black tea or oolong; here’s one of my favorites:
https://redblossomtea.com/products/formosa-red-native-cultivar?variant=31628077316
but any tea company that specializes in Taiwanese tea should carry something similar. The tea salesman at Red Blossom specifically pitched it to me as, “If you usually add milk and sugar to your tea, try this instead, and you won’t need to.”
Bug-bitten teas are quite nice due to their honeyed aroma. On a related note, we recently made some cold brewed iced tea with our Heavy Roast Dong Ding Oolong and it had this amazingly sweet, robust flavor. I would bet 9/10 people would guess it was sweetened, even though it was just leaves and water.
Hey! Apologies for being late to the thread.
Hope you found some teas that you are enjoying without sugar. As everyone has already mentioned quality loose leaf teas really don’t need sugar and are truly best on their own.
If you are looking for some alternatives, feel free to check out our herbal blends.
They are all hand-blended and are naturally sweet thanks to the dried fruit pieces.
https://pathofcha.com/collections/herbal-blends
Best of luck!
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