My New Love for Tea

I’ve got it bad, like bad bad. Having completely kicked coffee during my juice fast I began drinking tea. I went from knowing nothing about tea to measuring loose leaf tea, getting the right temperature water and keeping track of steeping times for that perfect cup of tea. I’m searching for tea podcasts, reading tea blogs and, yeah.

I’ve had hot tea here and there in the past but nothing on a regular basis, coffee was always there because I needed it in order to function. After kicking coffee a few days into my juice fast I turned to some sort of alternative, tea!

Right away I noticed that tea tasted so much more clean and pure. The first tea I had was Chai from Tazo. Sarah bought a box at Starbucks that sat in our drawer for awhile. Finally we took a trip to Teavana (mophoblog | Teavana.com | @teavana). I can honestly say I didn’t know there were so many different varieties and ways to prepare tea. That day we bought a few teas. Just last weekend we went back, this time to the Galleria Teavana (mophoblog) and I discovered another tea.

Teavana Teas

My two absolute favorite teas so far are a mix of MatéVana & Rooibos Chai and a mix of Jasmine Dragon & Rooibos Tropica.

Caffeine-wise the Maté is up there with coffee but it doesn’t give you that jittery clean the whole house type of buzz. MatéVana runs $5.80 for 2 ounces and the Rooibos Chai $4.50 for 2 ounces. I’m not all that great at describing tea but it tastes like a mild black tea with different types of flowers, although I’ve never actually tasted a flower :-).

The Jasmine Dragon & Rooibos Tropica is a Green Tea and runs about $12 for 2 ounces. The leaves are flavored with Jasmine flowers and hand rolled into the shape of little pearls. The Rooibos Tropica has Green and Red Rooibos, strawberry, peach, sunflower and cornflower petals, and orange peel so it has a lot of hints of fruit.

Here are a few things I’ve picked up so far on how to make the best cup of tea:

  1. Water temperature does matter. And most teas come with some sort of instructions.
  2. Steeping times DEFINITELY matter. Ever had bitter tea? That was most likely due to steeping your tea too long. Green tea should be steeped anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. I have been steeping my green tea for 1 minute which is plenty. If you want stronger tea, don’t steep it longer, use more tea.
  3. The amount of tea you use matters. Again most of the teas I have purchased give recommended measurements. I’ve found that sticking close to these yields the best cup of tea.

One last thing I didn’t know about tea is that it all comes from the same plant. Did you know that? Am I the only one that didn’t know? The plant is called Camellia sinensis and different teas, White tea, green tea, oolong, pu-erh tea and black tea are all harvested from this species. What makes them different is the level of oxidation (Black having the most and white the least).

More Tea Resources:

If you have any other good tea resources or advice or anything, please feel free to share, I’d love to have your input!