Tea Lover

[ashmanq]

Ive been drinking tea since I was 12 and just absolutely love the stuff but uptil now Ive been drinking the normal tetley tea or pg tips. Im wanting to explore a bit more and wasnt sure what types of tea to try first since Im scared I wont like them. Can anyone recommend types of tea for someone whos used to the bog standard tetley tea? Also If anyone could recommend any online shops in the UK that would be a bonus.

I just want to say it was a few months ago I came to this forum looking for tips to shaving and from my fusion Ive gone to a DE and then to a straight, something I couldnt have done without the aid of this website! The fact that there is now a place to talk about tea here (my other love in life) is just awesome! Once again thanks a lot badger and blade!

[sphughes]

There are many great things to experience and embrace that the collective happily shares with fellow B & B members. I have discovered a need to have things I wasn't aware of. I am just really, really hoping I don't wake up one morning to read a thread that will crate a Haggis AD for me. That would be a bit extreme for me.

-Scott

[Spacegeezer]

If you're used to teabags, the first thing I recommend doing is switching to a loose-leaf black (properly called red, actually) tea. Dian/tian hong is a good choice. Depending on the quality, you should be able to buy it for anything from $4/100g to $20/100g. Any of them will be a big improvement from drinking the sweepings they put in teabags. Once you're using looseleaf, you can start paying more attention to the temperature and time you're steeping your tea for. Then you get a gaiwan and start working on your gong fu. If you find that you enjoy gong fu cha, then you start trying out the pu erh and oolong and monkey-picked mountain goddess king's pearl emperor flower or whatever else strikes your fancy :001_smile

[adenine]

Check out adagio.com...I've ordered a couple of tins of loose tea from them and I love it!


They have a nice little teapot that you can use too...runs about $20 but it does the trick.


Hope this helps...

[[email protected]]

try fine-t.co.uk, free postagewithin uk:001_smile



Ive been drinking tea since I was 12 and just absolutely love the stuff but uptil now Ive been drinking the normal tetley tea or pg tips. Im wanting to explore a bit more and wasnt sure what types of tea to try first since Im scared I wont like them. Can anyone recommend types of tea for someone whos used to the bog standard tetley tea? Also If anyone could recommend any online shops in the UK that would be a bonus.

I just want to say it was a few months ago I came to this forum looking for tips to shaving and from my fusion Ive gone to a DE and then to a straight, something I couldnt have done without the aid of this website! The fact that there is now a place to talk about tea here (my other love in life) is just awesome! Once again thanks a lot badger and blade!

[toucanlamp]

I know people in the USA and they say adagio is one of the best retailers out there. Here in Canada, over the last year or so, a chain of stores has opened called Teaopia. They are in a few malls and it's just great. They carry only loose leaf tea and have probably 200 different varieties.

Inside the store they have little sample tins of everything set up so you can take a look, smell it, and then you just buy what you want by weight.

You're in the UK so I don't know of any specific retailers there, but I'm sure if you do a little searching you can find something similar to adagio. Lots of those online retailers offer sample packs which give you small amounts of a big variety of teas to see what you like.

My favourite morning tea is one of the Darjeeling blends they have at this place teaopia. Green and White tea are supposedly really healthy, full of anti-oxidants and stuff, I drink green tea occasionally but I don't really like it nearly as much as black tea.

A great thing which isn't actually tea is called Rooibos. It's some bush that grows in South Africa which is caffeine free and is great for the evening.

[Proinsias]

ashmanq, where in Scotland are you?

[ashmanq]

About 20 miles away from Glasgow

Edit:

Thanks for all the help guys those websites came in really handy! I searched the net and came across www.jingtea.co.uk and have bought a gong fu set as well as their tea explorer set (which comes with a tea-iere) and it all came next day! I tried their Organic Tumsong Estate Darjeeling 2nd Flush the other day with a friend (YES I roped a friend into trying it with me) and we both agreed it tasted nice. So far Im really pleased with how things are going and I love my glass gong fu set :) . I plan to try the other nine sampled that came in the explorer set to see which ones Ill re-order. I think Ive done well for someone whos been drinking tea with milk and two sugar up until now.