Your tea story...

[TeaFanatic]

What caused you to start drinking tea? I'm interested to see what caused everyone to become interested in tea...here's mine.

My switch from being somewhat of a coffee drinker to a complete tea drinker started back in the summer of 2003. I went to a Spanish Camp (yes I know that sounds nerdy), and I was introduced to yerba mate by some of the Argentinian counselors there. After that summer, I got online and purchased over 8 kilograms of the stuff, including Cruz de Malta, Rosamonte, and Aviva. In 2003,though, I never caught on to other teas like green, white, etc.

In 2004, I headed back to the same camp (mostly for the yerba). When I got back home from camp, I emailed some of my camp friends to see what was happening and if they were still drinking yerba mate. One of them replied to me that they had actually started drinking many different types of tea including green, white, and rooibos. I was intrigued. I did not know that their were so many different types of tea.

The next day, I headed out to my local wild oats (I figured they would have teas), and I bought a few different varieties of bagged green tea (some from St. Dalfours, Numi, and Tazo). Although these tea bags were ok, I never really was very impressed and I continued to go back to yerba mate.

One day in class at school, I mentioned that I drank yerba mate. Immediately, one of the class clowns spoke out and told me that his dad owned a tea shop in town that sold mate. So one day I headed out to check this place out. I happened to (and luckily) pick a japanese cherry sencha. It was strong, but it's strength reminded me somewhat of yerba. I started to get interested in loose leaf tea. I was still missing something though, and that was trying to find an easy way to make loose leaf. To me, tea bags seemed so much easier (I didn't know how poor quality tea bags were at this time) and so I went back to tea bags. I stocked up on so many different types for so many different brands.

That is when I stumbled across adagio teas. On the front page was a picture of the ingenuitea teapot. Wow, it was finally a simple way for me to make loose tea. I gave the green tea set a shot, and now I am hooked on loose leaf, and have been for around 3 months now. I only drink tea bags now to get rid of what I had leftover (sees such a shame to just throw it away). And that's my story, I hope it wasn't too boring.

Let's here everyone else's.

[Al]

I've kinda mentioned this before, but I've only really been at this for a few months. I tried to kick my soda habit over the summer, and found myself drinking a lot of crappy powdered ice tea mixes. I went out and bought one of those electic Mr Coffee ice tea makers and just used run of the mill Lipton bags, figuring they would be better.

Once the weather got colder, I started experimenting with hot tea in the mornings and discovered a bit of Twinnings English Breakfast in the morning with milk and sugar was right up my alley. I went out and bought a couple of different blends/varieties and decided to start reading up on the best way to brew a cup, how many bags to use, what to sweeten with, etc. Everything I read said "ditch the bags and get the loose tea, moron!". I began looking up places to get loose tea in Milwaukee, and didn't see a whole lot until I discovered Rishi Tea is based here in town. I saw once of the local coffee chains served loose Rishi Tea, and was at said establishment later that morning, blown away by how good the cup of Ceylon I had was.

I went back home and started scouring the net for more adive...how to brew, how much to use, what to get, etc. That's how I ended up here at Tea Chat. I read many of these posts and felt I was properly armed enough to jump on in. Naturally I went to Adagio, bought some samplers and an Ingenuitea, and I was hooked. By my third order I had purchased a Trinitea. I don't know how I ever managed without it.

So far my faves are Ceylons and Assams, and I love Adagio's Golden Monkey like a toothless prospector loves his golden nugget. I've tried a few greens and am not quite sold on them yet, but I'm in the embrionic stages of my tea affair. I'm also starting to get a major jones for rooibos. The mango Adagio variety is un-friggin-believably-good.

So there it is. I'm a newbie and I look forward to many more years of obsession. I threw away those 4 or 5 boxes of Twinnings dust the second I got hip to this loose tea jive.

Cheers.

[mijako10]

Teavana was what got me hooked. I've always loved tea in tea bags but when I tried the Jasmine Pearls I knew I would never go back.

Me and my friends at school love tea... although I have been designated as the "tea nut," bringing a thermos of tea every morning which is mooched off of me through 1st and 2nd hour classes. Of course, I'm happy to share.

Just recently I looked for a forum to talk about tea and here I am. I got my first order from Adagio yesterday and since then I've been drinking tea constantly day and night. The ingenuiTEA just makes it so amazingly convenient.

[Parelle]

I honestly never drank anything stronger than hot chocolate until I went to college (ie, 4 years ago). Habit, I guess. Three things happened my freshman year: I got a hot water pot for my room, my roommate drank copious amounts of Liptons, and one of my good friends from home, while we were in college, began waxing eloquent about tea - loose tea. From Adagio, no less. She was, to say, a bad influence.

The summer before my Junior year, I bought a teapot and teacups. What on earth I was thinking, considering that at this point I didn't drink that much at all, I have no idea. Chai mix and hot cocoa then. My family's moving to Japan probably had an influence as well - really, there is alot of tea, though I still wasn't the greatest fan of greens. It wasn't until I went up to Tealuxe in Boston that actually had my first two tins of loose: their Copley Square Vanilla, and the Vanilla Earl Grey. At this point, I emailed home to Japan for a proper teapot, and a constant drinking of tea began.

Frankly, I've gotten much, much worse Having disposal income at the beginning of this past summer has started me on a slipperly sloop towards buying more tea. Oh what trouble I'm in!

As a side note, I've also had a bit of British mania. It battled with Franophilia, but usually won. And consider I have no head for wine... I think this works out alright in the end!

[rhpot1991]

My first experiences with tea came from family vacations. My family often stayed in hotels with the continental breakfast, so my brother and I would rook a few tea bags and leave them in our hotel room to drink later. From that point on I would drink flavored tea bags loaded up with sugar. After graduating college and getting a job, I got sick of pumping $0.65 into the coffee machine for a tiny hot chocolate or capacino, so I started picking up tazo and stash green tea and making that.

Shortly after starting to drink tea in the mornings at work, I was tested for diabetes (which turned out OK) and acid reflux (didn't escape this one). Doctors recomended cutting caffiene and carbonation. So I stoped drinking soda all together and started drinking iced tea and fruit juices instead.

I was introduced to loose tea on the inetnet, I was looking to buy a case of tazo iced tea and came across a tin of loose leaf china green tips, and decided that I wanted to be different and not use tea bags anymore. From there I ended up ordering a loose tin of stash's fusion green & white (which still may be my favorite tea). Eventually a friend found adagio on some cooking website and was telling me how much better (amount, comes with the tin, etc.) the samplers were than stash's. Now I drink 2 liters of iced tea (mostly herbal) and ~4-6 cups of hot tea a day.

On a side note, I have found that drinking a cup of hot herbal tea before I go to bed greatly helps my acid reflux when I wake up in the morning, moreso than my Prilosec OTC even.

-John

[TeaFanatic]

awesome, keep the stories coming guys. These are the reasons that people switch to loose tea.

[vbguy772]

I started drinking tea as a child many years ago. My mother made a sweet iced tea from bags and then mixed it with lemonade. After college a friend got me hooked on iced tea without the lemonade and no sugar. I loved it and only drank that until this past summer. It was made from Red Rose tea bags. Then another friend introduced me to Red Rose Canadian Blend - far better, but still tea bags.

This summer while walking through the local mall I walked past a tea shop that had samples on a small table in front of the store. It was my introduction to Rooibus and I really liked it so I walked inside and started learning about tea leaves. I walked out with samples of about 10 different kinds of tea and the ingenuiTEA.

A week later a friend visited from New York and we got to chatting about my new experiences with tea. A week after she left a package arrived on my door with about 20 samples of tea from one of Adagio's competitors. My knowledge grew.

Next I went on the internet and typed "tea" in a search engine and found the Adagio site. That was in August. I started buying samples and found many that I liked.

After sampling over 50 different kinds of teas I have narrowed my stash to a total of 16 teas. 13 of them are from Adagio. The other 3 are rooibus macadamia, Masala Chai and Tiffany's House Blend - all from my local tea shop. The Tiffany's House Blend is made of 11 different teas - a blend of rooibus, white and green teas. It is my personal favorite ( sorry Adagio.) It's fairly expensive so I save it for special times. Anyone interested in trying it can link right to their web-site here in the Adagio TeaMap section. Go to Florida and look under Tiffany's.

I'm so glad I found loose tea and Adagio. I still have several hundred tea bags that I'm using up. I'll be so happy when they are gone.

My Adagio selection consists of White A Cappella, White Blueberry, White Pear, White Tangerine, White Peach, Irish Breakfast, Darjeeling #22, Keemun Encore, Black Mango, Berry Blues, Golden Monkey, Rooibus Vanilla, and Rooibus Orange.

Happy sipping...........

Ron

[Guest]

Since childhood, I've enoyed the occasional cup of hot tea w/ sugar on cold days. When I got sick and had a sore throat is when I comsumed it the most- with honey and lemon. Iced tea continues to be a summertime favorite.
Since about the time I was in high school, I've been a pretty hard core coffee drinker. Not necessarily for the caffiene. I like the way it taste and feels. To this day I look forward to my morning cup of joe. (But I wouldn't mind finding a strong, full-bodied tea as an occasional replacement. Any suggestions?)
It's only recently that I've started getting into herbal and loose leaf teas.
I think my interest in tea actually stems from my interest in honey and needing a conduit for trying it in and my husband's interest in beer and homebrewing. As much as I enjoy beer, I wanted my own hobby. I was also looking for a nutritious, flavorful alternative to water. To encourage me, my husband bought me a yi xing teapot. It's beautiful and I look forward to many years of enjoyment w/ it.
That brings me to where I am on my tea journey today. I've traded in the sugar for honey (only in my herbals). I'm looking for loose leafs instead of bags and trying new herbal blends. I enjoy making tea- smelling it, feeling the hot cup in my hands, the steam, new flavors- it relaxes me. It forces me to stop for a minute and concentrate on something delightful.
Thanks
PlantFan

[Jing Cha]

Even before I could speak, I wanted tea in my sippy cup.

As a child, I had a hand-me-down toy range, oven, and kitchen set which included a pink plastic kettle with a big smiley face on it. I loved the play house and pretended to pour tea for myself from the kettle.

My grandmother and my mother always drank tea, mostly Lipton or Red Rose or whatever other hermetically sealed teabags were on sale that month. When we went out for breakfast, my mother and grandmother would always specify, "Tea with bag on the side." They didn't like their tea too strong and wanted to control how much strength would be in their cup directly.

Once, a confused waitress brought my grandma a freshly made cup of Brand X, teabag in the cup, with a little brown sandwich bag on the side. Maybe she had seen how other patrons had reacted to drinking that swill and, taking a cue from the airline industry, took preemptive measures to prevent the need for mopping which otherwise might result.

When my grandma left a tip, she would make sure to clasp it directly in the waitress' hand and say, "na chai." I doubt anyone understood what she was telling them but I knew even at a young age that expression meant, "for the tea." I guess in Russia, you didn't expect courteous, prompt or respectful service and instead tip based on the offering or hospitality of tea.

My grandma had a beautiful samovar which she managed to smuggle out of the German work camp after the war. Just imagine her landing on Ellis island clutching a samovar in her arms. We kept the samovar in the closet because it was simply, "too much work." Welcome to America.

When company came over the house, we ALWAYS made tea, even if nobody drank it. It's just what you did.

One day, my mother and grandmother were talking in the living room. I was three years old and already wanted to be a grown-up so I could try some tea. Innocently, I asked, "Would you like some tea?"

My mother and grandmother both thought this was quite cute. "Oh yes, yes, please, we would love some tea!"

Of course, they thought I meant pretend child tea. But I meant grown-up tea.

Standing on my tippy toes, I pushed my pink plastic tea kettle with the happy face onto the electric range in the kitchen all by myself. I was going to make tea! I had seen both my mother and grandmother make it before: you put the kettle on the burner and then twisted the knob up high on the stove. Even on my tippy toes, it was hard to reach that knob up high. So I stretched and hopped and jumped and knicked the knob just enough to set the heat on High.

I was making tea! Finally, I was going to taste what this tea stuff was! Yay!

"Holland!" My grandmother shouted out. She said this whenever she was mad or startled or scared. I once asked her why she yelled out, "Holland!" and she replied, "Because it's not nice to say Cholera!"

Everyone ran to the kitchen. There was lots of smoke. "Holy Maria, it's a fire!" On the stovetop, my precious pink plastic tea kettle lay half-melted into the burner, the happy face dissolved into two eyes and half a nose.

My grandma grabbed a broom and began beating the stove, not just where the kettle was, but all over in random motions. "Holland!" she was shouting. My mother quickly turned off the stove. I like to forget what happened next: Punishment.

I tried to explain this wasn't my fault. I had asked them if they wanted tea and they said yes, yes that'd be lovely. If they didn't want me touching the stove, why'd they say it was okay to make tea? And how come my kettle is all melted?

"Because it's made of plastic!" That's the day I learned that plastic was something that melted.

In the end, my mother gave away my play range and oven and kitchen set to my cousins down the street. I wasn't allowed to play with it, even when I visited them. And I didn't get to make or even try a sip of grown-up tea.

I would need to wait many years for that.


Will Gladly,

Jing Cha

A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

[nala1128]

I am a recent tea convert.... but my TriniTea has replaced the coffee pot on my counter top!

I was at the mall shopping, and in need of a hot beverage, the line at Starbucks was too long to stand in (especially with my 4 year old son!) so I decided to skip it. As I was walking around, I approached TeaVana, and went in and had a hot Masala Chai. I was intrigued with all of the cool stuff in there, so I took some info and started to investigate tea a bit more.

A friend told me that she saw the cast iron Teapots in Marshalls for half of what they charged in Teavana. I picked one up and went back to Teavana and bought 2oz of various teas.

Since I got my TriniTea, my kids are hooked too. They enjoy watching it work. Berry Blues from Adagio is their favorite (just remebered I need to order mor of that!). My daughter is used to drinking Lipton, but is getting converted too!

[AnnaAult]

I started drinking tea in 1990. I was 15 years old, and had gotten my very first "real" job, working in the kitchen at a local chinese restaurant. One of my jobs, in addition to general kitchen helper stuff, was to keep the electric urn topped off with fresh water for the tea for the front of the house, and for the staff -- we had to pay for any soda we wanted, but we could have as much tea as we liked at no charge -- we made a lot of iced tea with way too much sugar!

To this day I have no idea what kind of tea I was drinking, other then a general suspicion that it was some kind of oolong -- it came packed in bundles of 100 tea bags, loosely wrapped in plastic, and bound around with a paper label all in chinese. We bought the stuff by the case (10 bundles to a case), and used about 3 cases a month. For years afterwards, even after I stopped working there, I would go in and buy a bundle from the kitchen for four or five bucks.

The only other thing I know about it is that it was a fairly high quality tea bag -- I broke several open over the years, and they contained chopped tea leaves, a little more coarse then what you get in a canister of twinings loose tea -- not dust or fannings at all.

I don't really remember when I started drinking whole leaf teas -- well into college, I think, or later. I went from tea bags to matcha first, and only got into whole leaf teas later. I have a continuing amateur fondness for the tea ceremony - that's what my sig is from.

These days I drink mostly Adagio whole leaf -- I found them online a few years ago, and really love the quality of their teas. I feel a little guilty about ordering from them, because my local tea shop carries many of the same teas --- but Adagio's quality is soooo much better! My favorite Adagio teas are the Yunnan Gold, and the dragon pearl Jasmine. I also still use some bagged teas -- Red Rose is the best bagged brand, imo, and the twinings tea bags - particularly their Lady Grey and Prince of Wales blends - are also decent. Bag tea I find tastes best when brewed with boiling hot water for a scant two minutes.

And that's my tea story. Then there's the tea pot story, in which I attempt to explain why one solitary tea drinker needs six tea pots in varying sizes......

But no one's asked about that one.

Anna

[Kai]

TEA.

Where to begin... I don't really remember being introduced to Tea at any particular age. Maybe I was just lucky in that we grew up with it down here in South Texas. Although, my tea experience is probably different in a sort of ethnic way. I'm 3rd-generation Hispanic, so our tea usage was more of the herbal medicinal variety. Manzanilla (chamomile) for an upset stomach and Yerba Buena (mint?) for everything else. Then there was Canella (cinnamon) for enjoyment. I still have no idea what Yerba buena is.



I've recently heard of using Cenizo (Texas Sage) as a tea to fight infections, but I don't have any direct experience with it. I think down here in the ethnic south, tea is viewed from a more Herbalistic approach, than a genuine appreciation for Camellia sinensis. I too remember having tea, mostly doused in Honey & Lemon, when I was sick. But for some reason, I never got tired of drinking tea. My favorite tea in my teens was something like "Mandarin Orange Spice" or somesuch. I'd load it with sugar tho, but it was still fantastic. Sadly, I grew tired of it, mostly because spice in teas has gotten a bit revolting to me. I think it's that I've had some teas where it's just a boatload of cinnamon or other spices... or maybe I've finally had it with Canela and it has extended to spiced teas.

What got me into green tea was chinese food. My mother and I loved going to eat at a local chinese restaurant where the ownwer was super nice. She'd come over and sit with us and chat. Heck, she even gave my brother and I "Lucky Money" for the Chinese New Year one time! Sweet woman. Anyhow, we really liked their teas there. Granted, they were plain old bagged restaurant tea, but they were so different from my Orange Spice tea. Oolong was too strong, but I fell in love with Jasmine and to a lesser extent Green tea.

So, about '98 or '99, my girlfriend and I were trying to find Matcha or even regular green tea. It was almost impossible at the time to find any "good" tea that matched what they had at the chinese restaurant. Being the sweetheart that she is/was, she tracked down a tin of loose Jasmine Tea at the local asia mart.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/...

She was curious about it too, so she bought a little tea ball and made some for me. It was FANTASTIC. It was about 100g or so and it's lasted us until now. (Jeez, I guess that's at least 6yrs or so.) We only really had it on special occasions. Being that it's so hot about 3/4's of the year down here, it's not usually thought of to drink Hot Tea. Granted, we still drink coffee like mad down here tho.

We never got really into loose tea tho. It was a bit more pricey and less convenient than teabags, especially down here. But, I did get some good Green Teas here and there and eventually came to really enjoy them. Someone had hooked me up with some Stash or some other really good bagged Green tea. And since our initial fruitless search, it's made it's way more and more into the market down here.

(this post is way too long)

More recently, I've discovered Bubble Tea and got back into loose tea with some really awesome High Mountain Green Tea stuff that this adorable asian girl sold me. *^_^*

I've enjoyed many different bagged teas over the years, and it's only recently that I've gotten really educated in the world of tea. Thanks to a coworker whose lady friend hooked him up with an ingenuiTea and samples, I've found Adagio, and more importantly the Wealth of information that is here. I think Chris' book "A Guide to Tea" is a brilliant primer on the world of Tea. I'm now in the process of educating myself on different teas and teaware. And for some reason, I'm totally fascinated by Herbalism and will more than likely be playing with different things in that arena.

So, a big thanks is due to Mom, Kim, my wife, my coworker, Adagio, Chris and his rapier wit, the crew here for answering any and all questions, and of course that adorable asian Bubble Tea Brew Babe.

I love this quote, forgot who has it:
"There are four advantages to green tea... Its beauty, its taste, its aroma, and its health benefits. Learn to enjoy the first three and you'll forget you drank it for the fourth."

-sg

[garden gal]

I could never stand the taste of coffee or sodas (not to mention the major headaches I got from too much caffeine). That left me with water, juices or tea. Mom always made sun tea in the summer, hot tea with lemon or honey if sick, tea with sugar and milk for desert. Then I continued with my kids and added herbal teas for health, chamomile for sleep and tolerated green tea since it was suppose to be so "good" for you.
I boiled the water in a stainless pan, added the bags (was there anything else?) and let it set until I remembered it. I asked my husband for a tea pot for Christmas (I wanted something I could use instead of always having tea is a pan and dipping it out with a cup). He got me a $40 stainless kettle with a tiny spout that I couldn't put the bag in. I took it back and started looking for the ultimate teapot on the internet since I didn't feel like traveling (we live 30" from any store, 2hrs from any major ones). I found the trinitea, read all the reviews, ordered and now am an addict. I am using all the lipton up making sweet tea for the men in the family. I think I'll take the bagged herbals into work because I can never go back. I average 16-20cups a day now. It is amazing what a difference it makes to use a quality tea brewed the right way. Now my mission is to have others just try it. My husband felt bad about the kettle but I keep telling him it was the best Christmas present because if he would have gotten me one that a bag would fit in I would have just used it and never found out what loose tea was like (would have been cheaper probably but not nearly so enjoyable).

[peachaddict]

I don't honestly remember my first cup of tea. I used to drink mocha now and then and sometimes random tea from bags my tea-and-coffee-drinking-grandparents had around the kitchen. Then, I found instant chai in our pantry, tried it, and loved it - I wasn't really a tea drinker then (I'm still not as frequent a tea drinker as I wish I could be), and the chai tasted great (now it would taste odd). I progressed to chai bags and green tea bags.

Now I drink stovetop-brewed loose-leaf chai and loose-leaf green tea. Sadly, I also still drink frequently from bags because I REALLY shouldn't get more tea until I finish the ones of mine (the ones nobody else here would touch, like the chai and green tea - they drink Lipton bags and British Blend black tea). Sigh.

[Jing Cha]

When I began studies at Carnegie Mellon University as a young undergrad poised to take on the challenges of Riemannian manifolds, Abelian integrals, Steiner Trees, and the intriguing allure of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, three very unexpected important things happened in my life:

First, I met Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, that kind, gentle man in the zipped cardigan who taught me what to do with, "The mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite." Yes, the man who had spent years of my childhood inviting me to be his neighbour, was now my neighbour.

Second, I received a student account on the Andrew computer system, giving me access to that then black-and-green world of text now known as, "The internet." Who knows how many hours of my youth were consumed in that aluminum can called Hunt Library, writing e-mail, reading newsgroups, and checking the availability of ice-cold refreshing Coca-Cola on the third floor of Wean Hall?

Third, I discovered loose-leaf tea. My fun-loving roommate and I bought two little baggies of loose-leaf during a shopping excursion at Station Square: Coconut and Jasmine Earl Grey. No, we did not dump the tea into the Monongahela river; rather, we "brewed" it in a Mr Coffee in our little dorm room. When my roommate was expelled one month into the first semester (a bit too fun-loving, perhaps), I was left without a Mr Coffee and invested $1.50 in a teaball. I vaguely remember making tea in a styrofoam cup.

Needless to say, this was not very good tea. Still, it was better than anything I'd had in a bag. And it was certainly better than the all-nighter beverage of choice in my dorm: Mountain Dew.

Let's consider this my beginning. It would take a chance meeting with a giant clothespin and a clown to take me to the next level.

Will Gladly,

Jing Cha

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America.