What Is Your Tea Preference Trend

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My biggest tea drinking shift has been a move away from herbal tisanes, and move toward drinking tea in the morning instead of at night. I’m all Tea Snobbish now when it comes to tisanes — “that’s not really tea!” ;) I’m less interested in rooibos and honeybush, and more willing to drink something really grassy and vegetal.

I’ve developed an attitude problem when it comes to green tea and am currently snubbing anything that’s not from Japan. My love for oolongs of all kinds and strong blacks has not wavered. However, I have yet to warm up to pu-erh, and I don’t know if I ever will.

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My only real shift in my tea preference has been switching from bagged teas to loose-leaf! I can hardly stand bagged now that I have experienced the glory and wonder of loose-leaf! Also, I can’t go back to just microwaving a cup of water and calling it ready to steep now that I have my automated tea maker! But in terms of flavor, I started at flavored black and have really only branched to oolong. I am TRYING to branch out to herbals, but I really enjoy my caffeine so that is hard for me haha :)

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Erin said

My trend has been very simple & straight-forward

low quality tea > high quality tea
low quality flavoring (“natural flavors”) > high quality flavoring (actual dried fruit pieces added to tea)

I started off preferring strongly flavored teas (added flavor, such as fruit pieces or flavoring, and strongly flavored teas such as black). And I still love strongly flavored teas. But the difference between grocery store teabags and whole leaf teas is just so huge (as everyone here knows).

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1) Celestial Seasoning’s chamomile and peppermint; Twinings’ green tea (blargh) and Earl Grey

2) (While in Kyoto) Introduced to matcha —> get into other Japanese green teas, especially ryokucha and bancha and mugicha

3) While (and after) being a member of my college’s Tea Time Club: “TRY ALL THE TEAS.” Herbal tisanes, blacks, blended blacks, oolongs, and whites.

4) Most recently: rooibos and chai

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I used to drink a lot of green tea, and herbals. Now I mostly drink rooibos (or honeybush), and chai. And I have a lot more loose leaf.

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Teaman said

Thanks for everyone’s share of their experiences. I have most recently been checking out some pu-erh teas. My first experience several years ago was not a positive one. But not long ago a tea shop suggested I try one of their less “earthy” pu-erh’s. I liked it. Since then I’ve been finding myself buying more varietals. The mini-Toucha is quite nice. Now you can get loose leaf types that taste very similar to the Mini-Toucha. This week the TeaZone had a Mandarine Pu-erh that is yunnan leaf that is stuffed into a hollowed out mandarine (leaving the skin unpeeled). Then letting the leaf ferment in that so the oils from the peeling absorb into the puer as it ages. It results in some very nice flavoring in a tea. When you get the wrapped ball home you break it up so that the bits of the dried up mandarine shell remain mixed in with the pu-erh leaf. Interesting concept I must say.

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yssah said

i find myself drawn to flavoreds but desiring to explore unflavored teas tho my tastebuds are not very obliging haha. a tendency toward blacks.

right now, im still in the exploring stage so i dont really get to try my favorites very much but am still delighted by the different teas :)

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Lynxiebrat said

Like most-drank bagged tea for years with a few experiences with loose leaf. Til this past April I got into loose leaf. I instinctively started with the flavors that I liked in bagged tea. Herbals, Earl Grey, which I still like:) Though plain EG doesn’t quite get me much anymore…I’ve fallen in love with Victorian EG and EG Cream. I’ve tried more White then Green teas though I’ve tried alot of teas so far there have been only a few that I would consider close to favorites, (Which everytime that’s happened I get bored of it.) the rest has been ehh it’s ok/I wouldn’t turn down a cup if offered it at a friends…but not what I want to keep in my cupboard. The tea that I have the least amount of taste experience is Oolong, there have been 1 or 2 that I like, the rest I’ve either outrightly hated it, or just did not inspire me.

I have had a few unflavored, and while I can to some degree appreciate the subtle tastes in some of them, so far I favor the flavored. I am hoping that my appreciation grows in unflavored tea but not so much that I am not able to enjoy flavored teas. (If for no other reason then the fact that unflavored tends to be more $$.)

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sandra said

I love green teas above anything else; great fan of gyokuro tea :) and premium senchas.
dislike flavoured teas, and most black teas.
some oolongs are great, but i think i am going to stick to Japanese teas mostly!

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