To all you tea drinkers out there..

Demerdar

Well, just recently I've started to really like tea. My favorite right now is Black Tea. I've been using these pre-packaged tea bags which is all well and good but I feel like I'm not making tea correctly. I've just been sticking my cup in the microwave and getting the water nice and hot before putting my tea bag in, but I don't think I'm doing it right. My tea, more often than not, tastes like hot water, even after 5+ minutes of saturation.

What the hell am I doing wrong? Is there something I'm missing here?

Everywhereasign

Tea must be made by boiling the water and pouring it over the tea bag. This is usually done in a pot and it is left to steep until the desired strength is reached.

If you want to get more hardcore you need to graduate to loose tea. It's the only kind I drink now.

Nibble

Yeah, any tea other than green tea and powdered tea requires boiling water in order to steep properly. If you don't want to bother with a stove & kettle, you can get one of those electric ones that turns off when the water is hot enough, or a cup-at-a-time coffee maker.

Demerdar

I have a rice cooker that boils water quite nicely, and quickly. I just poured another thing of tea, boiling the water and the pouring the boiling water onto the tea bag, hopefully this works a bit better.

Drag

Also, depending on the kind of tea, the temperature of the water matters a great deal. For black tea you generally want a rolling boil, but for green or oolong you might want it slightly cooler or else the tea will be bitter.

LavaKnight

You should just invest in a kettle. It's simple and useful, and gets the job done the fastest.

There are some pretty good packeted teas out there. Yogi Tea makes some really neat varieties, and Celestial Seasonings has some nice fruity flavors. I'd give 'em a whirl and find out what you like, and then try to find somewhere in town to by a tea ball and loose tea, and try that out.

prawnstar69

So the average American kitchen doesn't have an electric kettle?

I'd be hard pressed to find a kitchen without a kettle here in merry-old-England.

Invest in one, they'll make the tea making process much faster, easier and with better results.

Astns

I'll second getting a kettle, the idea of not having one, well its unthinkable! A basic kettle is gonna be pretty cheap too, no real reason not to pick one up.

Also Everywhereasign speaks the truth, loose leaf tea is the way forward.

Quid

If there's a store called Teavana anywhere near you I highly recommend visiting it and getting advice from them.

Them fuckers are obsessed.

ihmmy

an electric kettle is only like $20, even for a nice one that will turn off automatically and heats up fairly fast. seriously, they are awesome in every way. You want one.

Everywhereasign

Kettles are very useful for so many things, they're also dirt cheap.

Again, if you're hardcore, you'll want to look for one with a hidden element. If you look inside the kettle the walls and bottom are smooth, this makes cleaning really easy and doesn't provide a place for calcium build up that will make your water (and tea) taste funny.

If you get one with a nice wide flip up top, you can boil eggs in it and blanche vegetables for easy skin removal all in less time then it takes to bring a pot of water to the boil on a stove.

Deep Fried

The brits derisively refer to the tea put out by Red Rose (my favorite brand), Tetley, etc, as "tea dust"...which, in fact, it is. They prefer longleaf tea, since they actually like to savor the flavor.I don't make use loose tea only I chug my tea like water. This might be a way for you to go, however.

Astns

Deep Fried wrote:

The brits derisively refer to the tea put out by Red Rose (my favorite brand), Tetley, etc, as "tea dust"...which, in fact, it is. They prefer longleaf tea, since they actually like to savor the flavor.

Would that this were the case, in my experience the vast majority of tea drinkers over here just sling a bag of Tetley/PG tips etc into a mug with boiling water and drown it in milk and sugar. People who actually like tea enough to get loose, leafy tea are definitely in the minority.

ihmmy

I do loose leaf tea for herbal blends, because they're more delicious that way. Regular black tea, to me at least, tastes the same loose leaf or in those packets like Red Rose (which by the way is by far the most delicious black tea I've tasted)
chai is also amazingly delicious, and makes for an awesome latte (though I'm lazy and just microwave the milk for that)

prawnstar69

ihmmy wrote: »

I do loose leaf tea for herbal blends, because they're more delicious that way. Regular black tea, to me at least, tastes the same loose leaf or in those packets like Red Rose (which by the way is by far the most delicious black tea I've tasted)
chai is also amazingly delicious, and makes for an awesome latte (though I'm lazy and just microwave the milk for that)

I can see the appeal when it comes to Chai, but it's really not for me. Cloves make me want to die.

BEAST!

these make the greatest tea evar!

http://www.culinaryteas.com/Green_Teas/SAM-097.html

Corvus

Deep Fried wrote: »

The brits derisively refer to the tea put out by Red Rose (my favorite brand), Tetley, etc, as "tea dust"...which, in fact, it is. They prefer longleaf tea, since they actually like to savor the flavor.I don't make use loose tea only I chug my tea like water. This might be a way for you to go, however.

Some loose leaf tea I've bought has been nearly as small particles as the stuff in tea bags, which irks me. Also, I seem to recall reading that more Brits drink coffee than tea these days.

To the OP, realize that Black Tea is a category, not a single flavour. There are a lot of different varieties out there. Change it up once in a while so you don't get bored. Orange Pekoe is your standard tea, but Earl Grey makes a nice change. English Breakfast isn't bad either.

saint2e

My favourite tea is Chai tea. Mmmm Mmm good. I've actually got some right now sitting here at my desk.

DeathPrawn

Corvus wrote: »

To the OP, realize that Black Tea is a category, not a single flavour. There are a lot of different varieties out there. Change it up once in a while so you don't get bored. Orange Pekoe is your standard tea, but Earl Grey makes a nice change. English Breakfast isn't bad either.

Close but no cigar. Orange Pekoe is not a variety of tea, but rather a designation of leaf size - you could, for example, be drinking an Orange Pekoe Earl Gray, which simply means that the tea leaves are whole leaves of a certain grade. There isn't necessarily a "standard" black tea, but something like a Darjeeling or an Assam is usually a safe bet (these refer to where the teas are grown).

Cycophant

DeathPrawn wrote: »

Corvus wrote: »

To the OP, realize that Black Tea is a category, not a single flavour. There are a lot of different varieties out there. Change it up once in a while so you don't get bored. Orange Pekoe is your standard tea, but Earl Grey makes a nice change. English Breakfast isn't bad either.

Close but no cigar. Orange Pekoe is not a variety of tea, but rather a designation of leaf size - you could, for example, be drinking an Orange Pekoe Earl Gray, which simply means that the tea leaves are whole leaves of a certain grade. There isn't necessarily a "standard" black tea, but something like a Darjeeling or an Assam is usually a safe bet (these refer to where the teas are grown).

Technically you're correct, but unfortunately in a lot of places here in North America, Orange Pekoe has grown to simply mean any variety of black tea. I always wondered that when I was younger actually, because I remember learning one day that Orange Pekoe was a leaf grading, and yet every single typical "tea bag tea" you could find in a grocery store always said "orange pekoe", because people have grown up thinking that referred to a specific type of tea.

Which really highlights that if you truly want to start getting serious about tea, you need to eventually step away from bagged, commercial tea.

reddog

I just picked up this little buddy for my tea drinking needs and now i'm slowly moving from bags to loose leaf tea. I have to say it's a handy little brewing pot for tea (works with bagged tea as well). I keep it by me while playing 360.

On a side note about tea...does anyone find that if you drink a lot of green tea that you get a stomach ache or is that just me?