Chamomile is my definite go to if i want non-caffeinated tea. Green tea for hot. Oolong for cold. There are so many sweetened tea drinks in China that are amazing. I miss them.
I didn’t see it said “herbal” until I got to the forums, and now I have all this pointless rage about “Earl Grey” not being an option and nowhere for it to go.
@flynnski I didn’t care. I just wrote my favorite teas. My real opinion is the idea of herbal tea is stupid. If you want to make the distinction it should be called “not technically tea”
Jasmine green tea, but in leaf form. Had it on a trip overseas and it was literally the first tea I ever had and liked. Teavana had a dragon jasmine tea that was pretty close, but they are gone now.
My wife makes a cinnamon tea (from cinnamon sticks) when people complain of a sore throat. Its not as sweet as you’d think and it does the job.
@Dweezle I’d agree with the hibiscus, especially the Hibiscus Spice from Ten Ren. It is better with the black tea mixed in and they also add sweet chrysanthemum. They helped break a friend’s Pepsi addiction after he sampled it in the store. I mostly prefer real teas though and have so much that it took over a cupboard.
I like a herbal infusion of hops, heated with a bit of malted barley for antioxidants and complex carbohydrates. And after it has cooled a bit, a little yeast, for B vitamins of course. Then a lot of waiting. But it’s worth the wait.
Green tea with peach.
Iced tea with just a little Earl Grey.
And this fruity thing with apples and strawberries… I’m not sure what herbs are in it other than the fruit bits.
Also coffee. Roast your own!
People who say they don’t like tea probably have never had tea sweetened to their taste. I drink tea with one or two packets of Sweet N Low. I very much notice if I forget to add sweetener; it’s undrinkable and flat. I would hate tea too if all I had ever had was unsweetened black or green tea.
Also, worrying about steep times is nonsense. 3, 5, 30 minutes, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t like tea scalding hot, so I usually let it steep until I forget I made tea.
@Coldrice If you didn’t dump a bunch of artificial sweetener in your tea, you’d probably taste the difference between tea brewed for three minutes and tea brewed for thirty.
I am not a connoisseur at all. From what other people say about food and drink, I believe I probably have below-average taste sensation. But I can taste the difference between, for example, black tea that was brewed 4-5 minutes and the same tea where the bag was left to soak for 20. It does become more bitter. I’ll still drink either.
If I’m making sweet tea and going to be dumping a lot of sugar in, the difference does not matter as much.
@Limewater I only use one packet, that’s hardly what I would call a bunch.
I don’t think herbal teas really get much more bitter by steeping longer. Herbal tea generally has a lot less tannin than black tea. Black tea certainly gets more bitter, and stronger by steeper longer. I’ve heard not squeezing the bag helps prevent additional tannins from being released, so I try to take it out as carefully as possible haha
There are a few reasons I steep for so long. I don’t really feel like setting a timer for tea. I prefer warm, tepid, or lukewarm tea. Sometimes I take the bag out early and let the tea cool alone, but I usually don’t bother.
I have some really cheap black tea that tastes kind of gross, and smells a little fishy, but it tastes and smells great if I add some lemon.
@Coldrice In your original post, you said one or two! I think that’s a tremendous amount, but I guess that doesn’t matter.
I agree with you about waiting. I can’t handle hot drinks. I always burn myself. So I end up waiting a long time after pouring coffee or tea to drink it.
I’ll mention, though, that some herbal drinks really do call for long brew times. Licorice Root calls for fifteen minutes!
I don’t know if I’ve ever had an herbal tea that I’ve liked. Is oolong herbal? I only like that with a million sugars.
Don’t really drink tea unless it’s black tea with a bunch of sugar and a splash of cream. I try to avoid it because of the caffeine, and sugar. Occasionally I’ll have some if I need a pick me up because caffeine actually works really well when you hardly ever have any.
@RiotDemon - Oolong is produced from the same tea plant as black, white, and green teas, it’s just fermented differently (so not technically ‘herbal’). There are lots of different styles of Oolong - taking Oolong with a lot of sugar is like taking tenderloin with a lot of ketchup! If you’re just taking it for a caffeine hit, though, I guess you can do it any way you like!
@RiotDemon Hey, that’s fine, use as much sugar as you want! Don’t let people tell you that you shouldn’t be adding tons of sugar. They like it their way, and you like it your way.
There’s no reason to be ashamed of the way you like tea. I think that’s one of the worst things about “tea culture”, there’s always someone telling you what you’re doing “wrong”.
Ketchup with tenderloin is fine too! I like the taste a ketchup more than the taste of steak anyway haha
@Coldrice@RiotDemon I think the point with the tenderloin and ketchup comment was that tenderloin is crazy expensive. If you’re going to douse it in ketchup, you probably won’t notice the difference between it and a much cheaper cut of steak, so you’d be better off saving your money.
@Limewater Yeah, I get that. I guess some people are into steak. A little sweetener in tea can really bring out the flavor, which I guess is a bit different than ketchup and steak.I just don’t like get shamed into eating/drinking the way other people think is correct.
For example, I was in Hawaii last October, where most coffee plantations there have lots of free samples of different blends/flavors. However, only one had milk, or creamers of any kind, available. At all the other plantations you had to deal with scalding-hot black coffee. They would always mumble something about “not ruining the flavor by adding milk”. But what’s the point of a sample if I can’t try it the way I normally drink it?
I went through a Teavana phase, after I was gifted one of their plastic brew pot thingies and a few varieties of tea.
At peak, I had a cupboard full of various loose teas.
Then, I got over it, hard.
What I was left with was a preference for Rooibos, which I now get in bags.
To me, it doesn’t taste fruity or flowery or perfumey like a lot of herbals do, it just tastes like tea; except it has no caffeine, which is important to me.
@DennisG2014 Rooibos seems to be very much an acquired taste. I love it now but didn’t at first. Most people I know that love it didn’t love it at first. Took about 3 cups for me to start liking it.
My parents tried it once when they came to my house… Complained it tasted like dirty dishwater and wouldn’t try it again.
Anybody have a line on a supplier for Mate Vana tea? I used to buy in bulk from Teavanna, but apparently Starbucks bought them out & closed all their retail stores.
After trying Mate Vana for the first time, I remember thinking of a certain pair of individuals from the 70’s “That’s Some Good ST Right There Man!”
I drink everything hot… Start every morning and end every night with a cup of dark roast coffee. (I metabolise caffeine very quickly so doesn’t impact me… Coffee actually helps me sleep… On flip side… I don’t get the boost most people do).
I drink different hot drinks all day long even in summer… Tea, yerba mate, Rooibos, turmeric tea… You name it… It’s in my cupboard at one time or another.
Where I regularly hike in the woods, there are great patches of a wild herb that has a pleasant, sweetish aroma. I always thought it might make a nice herbal tea, but for a long time I couldn’t find any similar pictures online to identify it. When I finally did find a match, I was shocked to learn the mystery plant is wormwood (of absinthe infamy). Glad I didn’t try it in tea, since it contains a neurotoxin.
My favorite tea us one that contains tea. It is more accurate to call hot chocolate coffee than to call chamomile or peppermint tea. At least hot chocolate is caffeinated and brown. Herbal infusion is the correct term.
I think my new favorite herbal tea is Teavana Pineapple Berry Blue. I just had some for the 1st time earlier today and it was awesome. When I bought it the other day I wasn’t sure if I’d like it very much so I only got 1; now I wish I’d bought more.
I don’t like coffee and I don’t like tea.
@jst1ofknd You probably don’t like the Java Jive either, then.
Chamomile is my definite go to if i want non-caffeinated tea. Green tea for hot. Oolong for cold. There are so many sweetened tea drinks in China that are amazing. I miss them.
Plain, boring iced tea for me, please
@stardate820926 you tea’d off ?
@stardate820926, which is typically black tea.
No Bengal Spice???
Red Zinger is pretty good cold too.
I didn’t see it said “herbal” until I got to the forums, and now I have all this pointless rage about “Earl Grey” not being an option and nowhere for it to go.
@flynnski Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
@flynnski I didn’t care. I just wrote my favorite teas. My real opinion is the idea of herbal tea is stupid. If you want to make the distinction it should be called “not technically tea”
@evilstan60 @flynnski Call it tisane then. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tisane
@Aracos Woah. How have I never heard that word before. I really like new words. Thanks!
@evilstan60 - You just haven’t watched enough Poirot.
I don’t like tea. I tried it once and it was not good. Then I put sugar in it and it was better, but I still didn’t like it.
@lakertaylor13 I also don’t like coffee either, same as @jst1ofknd.
Just like coffee, vodka, whiskey, beer, and gin, I don’t drink tea.
(Since I’m assuming Snapple doesn’t count.)
@PlacidPenguin
Long island iced tea?
@jst1ofknd
Nope.
I need to put about four tea bags in one cup otherwise it’s just drinking hot water.
Can tell you which one it’s not… lapsang souchong.
Jasmine green tea, but in leaf form. Had it on a trip overseas and it was literally the first tea I ever had and liked. Teavana had a dragon jasmine tea that was pretty close, but they are gone now.
My wife makes a cinnamon tea (from cinnamon sticks) when people complain of a sore throat. Its not as sweet as you’d think and it does the job.
@Ozzie2191 Green tea is not technically “herbal” tea - it is tea. Jasmine Green is a favorite of mine, and this is one of the great ones:
Jasmine Dragon Pearls Green Tea
I use an electric kettle to bring the water to 170 degrees (not boiling) to make the tea.
Or this one that is still available:
Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls Green Tea by Teavana
Simple tastes. Lipton Orange Herbal. Inexpensive, smooth and caffeine free.
Berry flavored Nature’s Way Fortify Gummy Probiotics tea
I don’t drink coffee and I don’t particularly enjoy tea, but I kind of like hibiscus when answering poll questions.
Hibiscus (jamaica) or spearmint. Though either one is better with actual tea than by itself.
@Dweezle I’d agree with the hibiscus, especially the Hibiscus Spice from Ten Ren. It is better with the black tea mixed in and they also add sweet chrysanthemum. They helped break a friend’s Pepsi addiction after he sampled it in the store. I mostly prefer real teas though and have so much that it took over a cupboard.
camellia sinensis, thanks. two sugars and milk if convenient.
Chamomile is the only hot tea I like that doesn’t involve me adding sugar.
Although to be honest, I have yet to find a bad hot tea.
I actually laughed at just coffee answer. Thanks for bringing a moment of levity on an otherwise Meh day.
I like a herbal infusion of hops, heated with a bit of malted barley for antioxidants and complex carbohydrates. And after it has cooled a bit, a little yeast, for B vitamins of course. Then a lot of waiting. But it’s worth the wait.
@mehcuda67
@mehcuda67 haha.
You have an answer for coffee peasants, but none for real tea? I’m ashamed to associate myself with you.
I don’t think it’s herbal, but chai tea in milk is my favorite. I’d always prefer coffee over tea, though.
@JoetatoChip no Chai isn’t herbal. It’s usually a black tea, although sometimes green. Im a big chai fan too.
Jasmine all the way!
Green tea with peach.
Iced tea with just a little Earl Grey.
And this fruity thing with apples and strawberries… I’m not sure what herbs are in it other than the fruit bits.
Also coffee. Roast your own!
Orange Spice
People who say they don’t like tea probably have never had tea sweetened to their taste. I drink tea with one or two packets of Sweet N Low. I very much notice if I forget to add sweetener; it’s undrinkable and flat. I would hate tea too if all I had ever had was unsweetened black or green tea.
Also, worrying about steep times is nonsense. 3, 5, 30 minutes, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t like tea scalding hot, so I usually let it steep until I forget I made tea.
I’m going to stop ranting now…
@Coldrice i make tea by brewing it with my keurig, then i put the bag in my cup and leave it there the whole time i’m drinking it.
and yeah, i only drink it sweet – 1 tsp of stevia. i also like to add creamer, though not to herbal teas.
@Coldrice If you didn’t dump a bunch of artificial sweetener in your tea, you’d probably taste the difference between tea brewed for three minutes and tea brewed for thirty.
I am not a connoisseur at all. From what other people say about food and drink, I believe I probably have below-average taste sensation. But I can taste the difference between, for example, black tea that was brewed 4-5 minutes and the same tea where the bag was left to soak for 20. It does become more bitter. I’ll still drink either.
If I’m making sweet tea and going to be dumping a lot of sugar in, the difference does not matter as much.
@Limewater I only use one packet, that’s hardly what I would call a bunch.
I don’t think herbal teas really get much more bitter by steeping longer. Herbal tea generally has a lot less tannin than black tea. Black tea certainly gets more bitter, and stronger by steeper longer. I’ve heard not squeezing the bag helps prevent additional tannins from being released, so I try to take it out as carefully as possible haha
There are a few reasons I steep for so long. I don’t really feel like setting a timer for tea. I prefer warm, tepid, or lukewarm tea. Sometimes I take the bag out early and let the tea cool alone, but I usually don’t bother.
I have some really cheap black tea that tastes kind of gross, and smells a little fishy, but it tastes and smells great if I add some lemon.
@Coldrice In your original post, you said one or two! I think that’s a tremendous amount, but I guess that doesn’t matter.
I agree with you about waiting. I can’t handle hot drinks. I always burn myself. So I end up waiting a long time after pouring coffee or tea to drink it.
I’ll mention, though, that some herbal drinks really do call for long brew times. Licorice Root calls for fifteen minutes!
@Limewater Eh, some teas need two. I generally only use one. For reference, I use a really big mug, not a little tea cup.
Mmm, licorice root tea sounds good…
I don’t know if I’ve ever had an herbal tea that I’ve liked. Is oolong herbal? I only like that with a million sugars.
Don’t really drink tea unless it’s black tea with a bunch of sugar and a splash of cream. I try to avoid it because of the caffeine, and sugar. Occasionally I’ll have some if I need a pick me up because caffeine actually works really well when you hardly ever have any.
@RiotDemon - Oolong is produced from the same tea plant as black, white, and green teas, it’s just fermented differently (so not technically ‘herbal’). There are lots of different styles of Oolong - taking Oolong with a lot of sugar is like taking tenderloin with a lot of ketchup! If you’re just taking it for a caffeine hit, though, I guess you can do it any way you like!
@RiotDemon Hey, that’s fine, use as much sugar as you want! Don’t let people tell you that you shouldn’t be adding tons of sugar. They like it their way, and you like it your way.
There’s no reason to be ashamed of the way you like tea. I think that’s one of the worst things about “tea culture”, there’s always someone telling you what you’re doing “wrong”.
Ketchup with tenderloin is fine too! I like the taste a ketchup more than the taste of steak anyway haha
@Coldrice what kind of ketchup?
@Coldrice @RiotDemon I think the point with the tenderloin and ketchup comment was that tenderloin is crazy expensive. If you’re going to douse it in ketchup, you probably won’t notice the difference between it and a much cheaper cut of steak, so you’d be better off saving your money.
@RiotDemon I usually get Heinz, a pack of three huge bottles from Costco
@Limewater Yeah, I get that. I guess some people are into steak. A little sweetener in tea can really bring out the flavor, which I guess is a bit different than ketchup and steak.I just don’t like get shamed into eating/drinking the way other people think is correct.
For example, I was in Hawaii last October, where most coffee plantations there have lots of free samples of different blends/flavors. However, only one had milk, or creamers of any kind, available. At all the other plantations you had to deal with scalding-hot black coffee. They would always mumble something about “not ruining the flavor by adding milk”. But what’s the point of a sample if I can’t try it the way I normally drink it?
@Limewater I understood what @Coldrice meant. Was just really curious what ketchup was better than a steak.
Linden, a classic among Russians. Has effects similar to chamomile.
My favorite is only available seasonally (fall) at Trader Joe’s. I call it “Fox on the Box” - they call it something else.
I should have included the ingredients: Cinnamon, ginger, hibiscus, chamomile, roasted chicory, orange peel and apple.
@Euniceandrich I would get it for the box alone haha
I voted Peppermint, but Raspberry is a very very close second.
Rooibos.
I went through a Teavana phase, after I was gifted one of their plastic brew pot thingies and a few varieties of tea.
At peak, I had a cupboard full of various loose teas.
Then, I got over it, hard.
What I was left with was a preference for Rooibos, which I now get in bags.
To me, it doesn’t taste fruity or flowery or perfumey like a lot of herbals do, it just tastes like tea; except it has no caffeine, which is important to me.
@DennisG2014 Rooibos seems to be very much an acquired taste. I love it now but didn’t at first. Most people I know that love it didn’t love it at first. Took about 3 cups for me to start liking it.
My parents tried it once when they came to my house… Complained it tasted like dirty dishwater and wouldn’t try it again.
tazo hibiscus tea, we just call it red tea.
i looked it up, it’s apparently described as: “An exuberant herbal infusion of hibiscus, orange peel, rose hips & passion fruit flavors.”
i like it hot with honey or iced with lemon.
Anybody have a line on a supplier for Mate Vana tea? I used to buy in bulk from Teavanna, but apparently Starbucks bought them out & closed all their retail stores.
After trying Mate Vana for the first time, I remember thinking of a certain pair of individuals from the 70’s “That’s Some Good ST Right There Man!”
@tohar1 Nope, but apparently I bought a buttload when it went on clearance. Whisper your address and I’ll send you a couple bags.
Licorice root!
But you can’t drink it if you’re pregnant, and it’s probably a carcinogen. So I drink it very, very rarely.
I drink everything hot… Start every morning and end every night with a cup of dark roast coffee. (I metabolise caffeine very quickly so doesn’t impact me… Coffee actually helps me sleep… On flip side… I don’t get the boost most people do).
I drink different hot drinks all day long even in summer… Tea, yerba mate, Rooibos, turmeric tea… You name it… It’s in my cupboard at one time or another.
Not a fan of Earl Grey or Darjeeling though.
Where I regularly hike in the woods, there are great patches of a wild herb that has a pleasant, sweetish aroma. I always thought it might make a nice herbal tea, but for a long time I couldn’t find any similar pictures online to identify it. When I finally did find a match, I was shocked to learn the mystery plant is wormwood (of absinthe infamy). Glad I didn’t try it in tea, since it contains a neurotoxin.
My favorite tea us one that contains tea. It is more accurate to call hot chocolate coffee than to call chamomile or peppermint tea. At least hot chocolate is caffeinated and brown. Herbal infusion is the correct term.
Earl gray!
I think my new favorite herbal tea is Teavana Pineapple Berry Blue. I just had some for the 1st time earlier today and it was awesome. When I bought it the other day I wasn’t sure if I’d like it very much so I only got 1; now I wish I’d bought more.