Are you new to tea?
You might be, and that’s great news.
Personally, I started my journey by consuming extra sweet iced black tea–southern style. Lipton brewed with twice the recommended tea bags and steeped four times as long, then several cups of refined white sugar before going in the refrigerator. We’d let it come to room temp before pouring the tea into large cups full of ice and a straw. It was the best treat on a hot summer day and we’d drink a gallon a day in our family.
I also loved the canned and bottled teas from gas stations and convenience stores with fruit flavorings and high fructose corn syrup. Between you and me, every now and then I’ll still buy one and enjoy it.
I think it was when I started working as a chef that I started sweetening my teas less. I drank black tea without any sugar, and I put a small amount of honey in my green tea, maybe a lemon. My horizons really expanded when my wife and I took a trip to Singapore and we tried nearly two dozen varieties of bottled green, red, and black tea. When we arrived home I began to search the internet for anything similar to the flavors I now longed for from our journey. I began to get shipments of tea from China, Japan, India, Malaysia, and Korea. Sencha, Jasmine, Oolong, Pu’er, Assam, Darjeeling, and even more were now stocked in our shelves.
I don’t think you need to take a trip to Asia to start experiencing new types of tea. I’m speaking to you from the internet at this moment, so when you finish reading, check out any of the tea varieties or countries I’ve listed above and see what is out there. More and more people are choosing to add tea to their lives, and as they do, more products and accessories are coming to our western markets. If you live in a larger city, try shopping at an Asian grocery store and purchasing a few of the bottled teas from their coolers. I think you’ll be impressed.
I hope that if you are starting your journey you stay adventurous and try everything. If you have been reading this and are already a tea fanatic, I urge you to try any of our original blends to bring back some of the novelty you felt when you first discovered your passion.
Stay bumpy my friends!