Best Loose Leaf for Iced Tea?

[ambrock]

I'm wondering what the best type of loose leaf tea for traditional Iced Tea would be. I've done some googling and can't quite find an answer. I want to make tea that is like what you would get from the store bags but better. No flavors, no mixes, just regular good old fashioned Iced Tea. Any advice would be appreciated.

[CWarren]

A lot of the teas you find in supermarket tea bags are blends of “black” tea from Kenya, Assam, Ceylon and Qimen. Twinings, Lipton, PG Tips, etc all use some blended form of two or more of these sources. If you want a higher grade taste of those bags you’ll need to play around with these types of teas until you find the flavor profile you like.


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[ambrock]

I'm not necessarily looking for something that tastes like them so much as I'm looking for just plain tea. I've tried looking at all my usual places for ordering loose leaf tea and I can't find just a plain black tea. Am I missing something in the name? Is there a certain type that I'm looking for? The only plain teas that I'm finding are things like Earl Grey or English Breakfast. Nothing that tells me that it's just a plain tea.

[CWarren]

There are countless types of plain black tea from all over the world. Look for names like Assam, Qimen/Keemun, Ceylon or Kenya. Those are the types of tea most known for traditional iced tea. Places like Upton Tea might be a good place to start as they have several varieties of those teas at low prices so you can experiment some.


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[Nefarious]

I'm not necessarily looking for something that tastes like them so much as I'm looking for just plain tea. I've tried looking at all my usual places for ordering loose leaf tea and I can't find just a plain black tea. Am I missing something in the name? Is there a certain type that I'm looking for? The only plain teas that I'm finding are things like Earl Grey or English Breakfast. Nothing that tells me that it's just a plain tea.

Earl Grey and English Breakfast are both blends. That said, if you want ‘ordinary tea’ then you probably do want a blend anyway.

I find that some teas have more flavour when they’re hot (like a genmaicha, for example) while others actually seem to give more flavour when they’ve cooled. I’ve never tried doing it but I strongly suspect that a raw pu-erh would make an excellent iced tea...

[jayinhk]

I'm not necessarily looking for something that tastes like them so much as I'm looking for just plain tea. I've tried looking at all my usual places for ordering loose leaf tea and I can't find just a plain black tea. Am I missing something in the name? Is there a certain type that I'm looking for? The only plain teas that I'm finding are things like Earl Grey or English Breakfast. Nothing that tells me that it's just a plain tea.

Earl Grey and English Breakfast are both blends. That said, if you want ‘ordinary tea’ then you probably do want a blend anyway.

I find that some teas have more flavour when they’re hot (like a genmaicha, for example) while others actually seem to give more flavour when they’ve cooled. I’ve never tried doing it but I strongly suspect that a raw pu-erh would make an excellent iced tea...

I think a raw pu erh would indeed make for a good iced tea. Shou would work too if suitably aged to give it a sweet profile with no funk whatsoever. Chilled bottled pu erh is a thing here but they use low grade shou and it is VERY unpleasant to drink!

Down here in HK, a little shou is sometimes mixed with black tea to give it a rounder profile when used for milk tea/iced lemon tea.

[Aya]

I'm not necessarily looking for something that tastes like them so much as I'm looking for just plain tea. I've tried looking at all my usual places for ordering loose leaf tea and I can't find just a plain black tea. Am I missing something in the name? Is there a certain type that I'm looking for? The only plain teas that I'm finding are things like Earl Grey or English Breakfast. Nothing that tells me that it's just a plain tea.

Actually Earl Grey is flavored with bergamot, so not really a "plain black tea". I assume you are looking for something that best suit your tastes for iced tea

My recommendation for a simple iced tea are Dimbula and Nilgiri. They are both quite "straight" without too much bitterness or wired tastes. Try them and let us know what you thought... then we can recommend some more black tea based on your preference.