I’m an earl grey with honey man, but if I’m being honest, I’ve never really tried much else.
Earl Gray. Hot.
I found two Earl Gray’s that I really enjoy. Earl Gray Cream and Lady Grey. Both good, savory flavors.
I love any and all earl greys. Can’t go wrong with ‘em.
It’s Earl Grey, named after Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey. I don’t think a colour can be an Earl.
Liber Tea!
I’m more of a bone apple tea myself, but I hear liber tea keeps the bugs away!
Never heard of it. What’s it like?
It tastes like freedom and democracy. *It’s a pun about liberty.
managed democracy
Like Freedom Fries I guess.
TL;DR
- Green: Gyokuro
- Black: Darjeeling
- White: Pai Mu Tan (Bai Mu Dan)
- Yellow: Yinzhen
- Pu-Erh: Sheng over Shu
- Misc: Yerba Mate (Instead of Coffee)
I’ll just boldly split that answer into some categories :D
Black teas: As my personal favorite I prefer Darjeeling teas, because of their flowery and mild taste.
As for my daily driver I mostly find myself drinking stronger black teas, like english breakfast or ceylon teas.
Green teas: My personal favorite for green tea is the Japanese Gyokuro, because of its strongly present umami flavour and general taste. This green tea gets its flavour from being hidden from the sun by huge black tarps some months prior to harvest. This procedure stops bitter substances from forming within the flower.
But because Gyokuro is a very pricey tea I find myself buying a Chinese green tea called Pi Lo Chun. It’s nothing like the Gyokuro that I love, but it has a flowery flavour to it.
I also love drinking and preparing Matcha. You shouldn’t waste money on cheap Matcha, only if you like to drink Matcha Latte.
Whites: For white teas I love to drink a tea called Pai Mu Tan (sometimes called Bai Mu Dan). It tastes somewhat fruity sometimes.
I’ve also tried a more expensive white tea called Silver Needles but I couldn’t really make out a difference to other white teas I’ve tasted. But that might also just be an error of mine.
Oolong: I really like Da Hong Pao. I haven’t tasted many other oolongs.
Yellow teas: It’s been a while since I’ve had my last yellow tea, but I remember buying a Yinzhen. It had a malty taste, that I really enjoyed.
Pu-Erh: I like the earthy taste of a good Shu Pu-Erh. Riper Shu Pu-Erh might even taste like chocolate. But when first drinking a Shu you might connect the taste and the smell to fish or algae.
Sheng Pu-Erh is more like a conventional green tea. With time passing, this tea will ripen and unlock new flavours.
I prefer Shengs over Shus.
Misc.: When talking about other kinds of tea I like substituting coffee with yerba mate. It keeps you energized longer and when drinking it correctly you can also drink it for quite a long time. My longest session was about 4 hours long before the taste vanished.
I’m no huge herbal tea guy, but I do like my camomile tea in the evening to calm myself.
I think I got three recommendations you might enjoy.
- Green: Yutaka Midori No1 - slightly cheaper alternative to Gyokuro; deep green and very aromatic cup, sweet, slightly astringent but no bitterness ( shaded for about a week before harvest)
- Oolong: Thai Ruby Red - more on the fermented side, very aromatic red cup with flowery notes reminiscent of Darjeeling, no smokiness like e.g a formosa
- Black: Benifuuki Black - a very intense and complex black tee with a nice sweetness ( usually made into a high grade green tea)
Edit: My personal daily drivers are: Darjeeling Ambootia Second flush (Strong, nutty, with some flowery notes) and a Korea Sencha from a local shop (sadly no info on the garden, quite green and surprisingly sweet) both organic and still quite affordable.
Green, don’t really care about specifics and I have tried dozens of boutique varieties. There is a variety called “gunpowder” that is fairly robust, I like it. My daily driver is Bigelow with pomegranate. Usually straight but sometimes I use local honey.
I used to pride myself on my tea snobbery, sampling green tea varieties from the farmers market and using a ceramic infuser.
Then one day I stopped having time for all that and found that Constant Comment was actually quite lovely and available everywhere.
Black tea with orange zest and spices. Simple, but everything I really want from a tea. Lady Grey is good too.
Maturity
I live in a hot climate so my favorite teas are iced.
Iced oolong sweetened only with some lychee chunks is the only thing close to boba I can stomach. I also like a good iced jasmine green tea. Or just a strong green tea hot or iced.
High mountain oolong tea from Taiwan. Taste like sweet light leafy vegetable tea
2nd is dong ding oolong. Taste like literal boba balls
My go-to hot tea is Twining’s Irish Breakfast, stronger flavor than your typical English Breakfast. I prefer it with half-and-half and sugar, but can go with full cream or milk depending on what’s available.
As a southerner, I also like sweet iced tea (“sweet tea”) but was shocked to find what they serve at Chipotle is my favorite. It turns out the tea they use (S&D iced tea blend) comes from a provider in Concord, NC (just outside Charlotte) and they used to sell it for people to brew at home as well, but the company was bought out and don’t anymore. After some trial and error I discovered the secret was to put about half as much sugar in as I normally would. The tea blend itself is excellent, though, much better than you find in grocery stores.
Spicy chai latte
I always forget chai is actually a tea. I’m so used to western teas, I guess.
Funny, if you ask me about tea in general, I think of it as essentially an asian thing with a couple “regular” or “plain” western varieties. I guess it’s marketing doing justice to history for once?
Spicy chai with a touch of vanilla flavoured oat milk, I have 2 cups a day at least.
I used to mostly drink regular tea, and also enjoy earl grey, and especially if I’m not feeling well and want to avoid caffeine - jasmine (probably my favourite non-tea tea), chamomile, mint, and a few others, but the chai has beaten all others and become my staple.
Ginger. But only because I refuse to call yerba mate “tea”.
I found a tea that’s literally just turmeric and ginger. It’s a very rooty tea. I recommend checking it out if you like ginger.
Ginger with turmeric? Now that’s something I need to try. Thanks for the rec!
Scottish Breakfast is my new favorite I put just a touch of oat milk in it. (no dairy for me)
I enjoy a good Irish breakfast, not sure what specifically is the difference between that and a traditional english breakfast. Just tastes smoother to me.
It has a different blend of teas.
Jasmine is top tier imo but I also enjoy chai
My wife and I have been experimenting with making our own. So far, my favorite is chamomile, lemon balm, elderberry, and a little stevia.
I tried a new one last night that might take the lead with some tweaking: nettle, lemon balm, ginger, and cinnamon. Gotta get the proportions right, but the combination was pretty good.
I’ve dabbled with growing my own tea leaves, but it didn’t go very well. I definitely have a brown thumb…
Ah, we’re not quite adventurous enough to grow our own, but we buy the raw ingredients (aside from plantain, which grows wild where we live).
