Flavor Vs number of steeps

[Vulture]

One of the things that has come up for me is that these flavored teas change slightly between each steeping. It seems like one part of the flavor might lighten while the others stay strong. Is anyone else having the same thing? I found that the second steep of any Flavored black teas to be better than the first.

[Victoria]

First let me preface by saying this is not a criticism - I love your
enthusiasm for tea!

You know what I think? I think you need to try a Darjeeling.
(Or oolong, of course)
From what I am reading it seems you, in most cases, are
trying to reduce the strong bitter black tea taste by additives
or chocolate. Keep in mind that flavored teas typically don't use
the best quality tea to start with because they know the flavor
will help mask it.

There is nothing wrong with flavored teas per se, I just think there
is a whole world of quality tea out there and you are trying to make
the lesser tea taste good, rather than seeking better tea.

That is all for today, Grasshoppa.
.

[Vulture]

First let me preface by saying this is not a criticism - I love your
enthusiasm for tea!

That is all for today, Grasshoppa.
.

Thanks. I do need to try different teas but I am taking one thing at a time. I don't want to push off my blacks/flavors until I search the dark corners of the room. Once I am satisfied with that I can move on to other tea's. When I first started I just ordered a bunch of random teas. That isn't the best thing to do when trying to learn which teas you like as you end up getting lower quality teas.

And part of my enthusiasm for tea is 1. learning something new in general that is interesting and 2. I have a lot of free time at work.

[neowolf]

In my experience flavored teas in general tend to go down in quality with resteeping. The oils added to alter the flavor seem to have really high diminishing returns for me.

However I have to agree with Victoria heavily. If you find the change in flavor and complexity that happens in these flavored teas to be fascinating then you're going to be awestruck by what happens with each steeping of a good oolong, or any other higher grade tea for that matter.