Earl Grey, hot, straight from the replicator.

Yorkshire Tea

Local loose-leaf. Although I do enjoy Ahmad Tea loose leaf. It’s very high quality for the price.

Brand? The fuck is that?! I pick my tea from the wild and sun dry it at home as any proper tea lover would.

Bunch of fukin posers talking about brands n shit…

I try to buy local loose leaf.

If you are looking for a grocery store recommendations, I love Celestial Seasonings herbal teas. They have an amazing peppermint tea.

Yorkshire tea gold. As demanded by the Spiffing Brit.

I buy it in a tea shop close by as loose leaf. It‘s a day and night difference between loose leafs and prepackaged and processed tea. It‘s also a lot of fun to try so many different teas and find the one you enjoy the most, there is so much variety.

I’m almost always an earl grey drinker. For that, Harney & sons is pretty much my favorite, with Taylor’s being almost the same for my preferences, depending on which is fresher. The key difference that makes Harney better is the bergamot rather than the tea itself. It’s just a tad more aromatic and that matters a lot. However, if it isn’t fresh, Taylor’s matches the flavor profile very closely for me.

Choice organics is a close third place. The tea is just a tad less aromatic, and the bergamot is flatter. Still miles better than the stuff at the grocery store, even if you ignore freshness.

For breakfast teas, the only other hot tea I really drink, it’s Taylor’s mostly. I have some Harney’s on the shelf, but I like how the Taylor’s tastes with lemon better, and that’s how I like breakfast teas.

Iced tea, it’s tetley’s or GTFO if I have a choice. My wife is kinda swinging around to that now that she’s drinking southern style iced tea. She’s a Lipton’s fan, but tetley holds up better at the strength we make iced tea. Lipton gets bitter in an unpleasant way with the strength we brew at. Tetley also holds up better sweetened to the degree that southern style iced tea tends to have. I make mine way less sweet than anybody I know, but it’s still sweeter than my wife or her family ever did it.

Kinda funny. Hot tea, I barely add sugar, just a level teaspoon for a double cup. Coffee I go a little higher, but not much; a heaping teaspoon. But iced tea? It would work out to about 4 teaspoons per cup the way it’s usually made around here, with mine being a tad under 3. You grow up with that thick, strong, syrupy tea, and iced just doesn’t work without high sugar levels lol. Hell, I know some folks that add 3 cups of sugar to a gallon of tea and that’s just barely sweet enough for them.

Hence, we don’t have iced tea often because damn, you can’t drink like that regularly. It’s a rare treat.

But I’m an earl grey guy for the most part now. And I’ve tried something like twenty brands? I used to have a file with my notes in it, but deleted it by accident. I never drank hot tea until my wife moved in before we got married. She’s a tea drinker all day, but isn’t picky. I tried her bigelow stuff and was meh about it. Then I had some at her mom’s house during a visit I yankee land that was Taylor’s, and the experience was totally different.

When we got home, I used some savings to order a bunch of brands, and tried them all over a few weeks, taking notes and all that crazy crap. It just blew my mind that there was that much difference in brands, even knowing that it could be somewhat different in iced tea.

But, yeah, I found a few favourites and stick with them. One sugar, splash of milk and that’s my earl grey. One sugar, splash of lemon for English and Irish breakfast teas.

Arizona.

Loose leaf tea from the middle east and for the most part which are country, region, and type based. As far as brands go, Sadaf Cardamom tea is pretty good and affordable.

We mostly order loose leaf from Adagio. Though I might try Yunnan Sourcing soon. No shop near us sells loose leaf in any appreciable variety or quantity.

I drink all kinds of different tea. At the moment I often drink Keiko Matcha and lots of really beautiful green tea my friend sent me from Taiwan. I love to coldbrew green tea in summer. Greek mountain tea my parents bring me from crete. I also buy fresh mint to make tea from some of the fresh leaves and to dry the rest.

Besides that my favorite brand is The English Teashop in all forms it comes in and Cupper/Clipper.

Clipper

This gunpowder green tea is good for beginners or the lazy because it’s mild and exceptionally tolerant of steeping too long, or in too hot water. Never bitter.

If you already like green teas, try some Taiwanese 10% (nearly green) oolong, more complex than plain green. 0% oxidised is green, 100% is black, oolong is everything in between.

Usually Twinings, but I’ll accept store brand for black tea. Lipton or Tetley for green teas.