Tea Please!
 

please does anyone know any good/delicious types of tea that ya'll recomend. my family is addictied to regular iced tea and somehow im the only person that absolutly cant stand tea in general and iv been trying really hard to find one that i like./stand. im totally open to whatever so please can u pour some tea for me? much appreciated!

Are you talking about ice tea? Black tea? Green tea? What DO you like?

If you hate tea, why make a thread about tea?

If you hate tea, then perhaps you can drink other things beside tea.

Try South American yerba mate. Or Colombian style fruit juice.

Maybe you could list the names or types of tea you have not liked. There are so many varieties there may be some you like but I'd hate to waste time recommending teas you already know you hate.

If you are anywhere near a tea shop you should know that tea people are generally helpful. The local tea sellers I go to have big vats that you can take the lids off of and sniff and if you like something they will brew you a cup for free. If there are not any tea shops even going to a coffee chain (I would recommend Peets) and asking for help with their tea selection will get you going.

Have you tried adding milk? :rolleyes:

Maybe you also could write down what you don't like about the types of tea you have tried - it will make it easier to find a tea you might like.

I've been enjoying iced tea almost as long as hot tea - my whole family is from the south. But even I will say that it is probably the worst way to consume it, if you are looking for taste. Invariably iced tea can be the most surprisingly disgusting flavor served in a glass if its not made right or the tea itself is not suited for icing.

So give us a starting point. What brand is the iced tea? Is it flavored or not? How is it made - this can make a big difference in even the worst blends available and the best? Also, what do you like to drink?

From the post I am guessing perhaps you are looking for a compromise that both you and the family can enjoy?

Have you tried Genma Tea, it's a Japanese style teablend i think, green tea and golden fried rice blend, got a distinct flavour.

This is kinda useful..

Say you want English Tea in Japan, how would you ask for milk and two sugars?

I don't know if this is the proper way, but I feel like throwing it out there anyway because I'm bored.
Perhaps something like:

ミルクと砂糖を2杯入れてください
ミルクと砂糖を二つ付けてください

But like I said, I don't know if any of this is correct, since I've never said it before.

Or just buy milk tea from a vending machine. Hot or cold, your choice.

Are you kidding me? That carton stuff is NOTHING like proper tea with milk in it. For starters proper tea is made with boiling water, not 100% 'milk', and the sugar isn't that foul reconstituted syrupy stuff. And it's fresh. No, no, no sir. The two do just not compare.

Besides being in a bottle, not a carton, I agree. OTOH, after a couple hours walking around touring, a cold one is pretty refreshing.

But keep in mind that I'm American, and we know nothing about proper tea :vsign:

A bottle? Oh right, vending machines! Our campus shop sold it in cartons. I know a fair few people who really loved it, but to me it just was sickly, unpleasantly thick and slightly chemically tasting.

But keep in mind that I'm British and had to have teabags posted to me the whole time I was in Japan. :D

Poca Poca Lemon tea though? Oh man, can't get enough of that stuff.

Said like a true Englishman!

There aint no vending machines in my host family's house :P

Hahah, it was one of the few sore points about japan. Not enough good black tea. Or cheese. Or wine.

Thank god the rest of the cuisine is utterly delectable.

Vis a vis tea lingo, I do know that if you like your tea strong then thats 濃い味. Darned if I can remember what weak tea is. I'm sure it's not 弱い味 but some more specific word. Maybe はくみ?

The taste of those bottled milk teas vary quite a bit - some I think taste sickly sweet with a dash of detergent, while others are actually quite good.
As for ordering it in restaurants - it seems that in most places if you ask for milk tea, you will be served regular tea with milk (or a side of milk) and sugar sticks/cubes to add to taste. The 100% milk stuff is usually called "royal" milk tea and costs a bit more because of the amount of milk and pain to brew it.

Of course the quality of the tea varies, and there really isn`t much you can do about it as most places don`t really give you the option to order in detail.

You can get some very high quality tea and tea bags at specialty shops. I don`t know about the rest of the country, but Lupicia is one of my favorites.

But then again, I`m not British so...

You raise a great point. Honestly, I was probably so traumatized by a cheap brand of the stuff that I never gave it a second chance, so yeah, maybe I need to try some other sort from a different source. Thinking on it, one of my friends (and a fellow carton hater) had Royal Milk Tea in Tokyo at a posh hotel and he said it was amazing. Several times, in fact, so it must have been good.

The other thing I found with ordering black tea in restaurants was that you could pay about the same price and not know if you were going to be landed with Liptons yellow label (aka cheap salty black scum) or something like Twinnings (aka なつかしい〜). Unless it was super cheap or wincingly pricey. We found a cute little italian cafe that was selling a cup of tea for one at 600yen a pop. On the other hand, you got actual leaf tea with that (no idea what brand, but it wasn't Twinnings i don't think) and it was ~delicious~.

On the other hand, Japan has some of the most amazing green teas. Much more economical too as even the cheap day-to-day stuff can be really quite palatable.

I think that you need to think of it as a separate drink to appreciate it too. Not as tea brewed with milk, but as a sort of dessert drink. Even if it`s not the fancy restaurant type, if you think of the (better) carton/bottled types as a drink of their own rather than a butchered version of something else you can find quite good ones.
The most common carton one that is sold around here is this;
I find it absolutely awful, and it only becomes drinkable after adding much more milk to dilute it. (Still not good though...)
There are a few others that make the rounds, but not only are they overly sweetened but they have artificial sweeteners on top. I won`t even dare try any of them, so definitely understand if that was what traumatized you.

Of course. I laughed a bit at this, as I have no doubt that from a Japanese viewpoint the same thing could be said about the UK. "It was so hard to find good green tea there - you could order some for the same price and get really crappy stuff or decent stuff in different places. They just can`t tell the difference. But I have to say, you can find some of the most amazing black teas there! Even the cheap day-to-day stuff can be quite good!" :mtongue:

That's an interesting way of putting it. I know I like black tea purin, so yeah... maybe I just haven't had a good cup of it yet!
I don't recognise that particular one. I can't find a picture of the stuff that was always sold near us, but there was definitely a lipton brand carton and a dumpy sort of bottle with a brown/clear label.


hahaha, it is so absolutely true. Especially as a lot of the cheap green teas tend to be flavored with something. I remember one of my Japanese friends being horrified at the idea of green tea and blackcurrent. Not that I blame her, it's foul. It's getting much more popular though. A couple of years ago it used to be you had to hunt out a health food shop or order it from london to get a) ~japanese~ green tea rather than chinese and b) something tasty. Now Whittards tea people have a reasonable selection, and there's about 6 more brands dabbling in green tea. You still can't get the large packets of cheaper loose-leaf green tea in supermarkets though. Or matcha.

Mmmm . . .Tea . . .The only one I've tried was this one tea that my friend had me try at her house, it tasted so awsome!! Almost excactly like milk does in a bowl that had Fruit Loops in it. ( I know, a rather insulting way to describe tea . . .but that's the only way I can describe this one!) It actually looked like the picture Nyororin posted . . .But the girl looked like she was from the Mid-East (She wore one of those head scarves) Stereyotypical, and it still doesn't rule outthe possibility of it being from Aisa . . .