Hey Tea Drinkers! What's you favorite hot tea?

[PondmaninAL]

I'm a Southerner, I was raised on sweet, iced tea.

Scott: My first visit to the South was to North Carolina in about 2001.  While eating at a restaurant I ordered iced tea.  When it was served I did what I always do for a large glass of iced tea and I immediately emptied two bags of Equal into the tea and stirred......   You know the rest..... 

Well Mikey, here's a little advice. If you want a non sweetened tea in the South, you got to order it that way, just like I have to order sweet tea with no lemon here. If you don't say,"No lemon.", you will get lemon. If you ever make a trip around my part of Florida, I'll make sure to have some non sweet tea for you. Southern style sweetened tea has to have sugar added while it is hot, not cold, to get the sugar all dissolved.

[Mikey]

Actually Scott I like sweetened iced tea..... I just didn't know it existed until my first experience with it.  We've been back to the South several times since then but I now know I don't need to add anything to my iced tea when I'm in the South  

[reddad35]

 I have not aquired a taste for hot tea. I have only had it a few times and that was just stealing a couple of packs from my moms stash. I too was raised on iced tea. I have a glass with refill / s everyday at lunch. In the summer my wife and I set out a large jar of water and tea bags in the sun once a week or so. Sun tea they call it. I have to have mine with sugar but the coffee in the morning is black.

 I have too much beer to drink to let some hot tea get in the way. I watched a history channel show on beer. It is amazing that everyone drank beer when the country was settled. Men, women and children. In Europe the beer was considered better for you than water. They think this was because the beer was boiled but the water wasn't. No one ever connected that back in the day. I guess this is the same with their hot tea.

[LeeAnne151]

I knew that iced tea in the South was going to be sweet so I made sure to ask if they had unsweetened before ordering but I was not expecting iced tea with lemon and sugar in Canada. It tasted like an Arnold Palmer: lemonaid and iced tea mixed. YUCK from then on I've ordered hot Earl Grey which they always had and a big glass of ice.

I grew up on sun tea in Arizona but it was never sweetened. Never automatically sweetened at a restaurant either. We used to use Lipton Orange & Spice when we wanted a change. I didn't try most other teas until I was older.

when I moved here from Phoenix Wendy's was the only fast food that had iced tea. Now they all do but most of it is that nasty concentrate from Nestea that isn't really tea. again, YUCK. McDonald's and Jack In The Box both taste like coffee grounds because they brew their tea in the coffee makers but that is better than that syrupy stuff that is in the soda fountain.

[Kittyzee]

I agree with you LeeAnne--I take my tea straight up with lots of ice, lemon too, but no sugar.  I bought one of those iced tea drinks in the bottles a while back and one sip was all it took for it to land in the trash.  Syrupy tea with lemon, abominable!     It used to just be a hot weather drink around here but now everyone has it--some much better than others.

[miguynmkoi]

I do not add sugar to regular ice tea any more...trying to cut the calories somewhere! 

Thanks Mike.  You should also try T.S.Emporium also in Monterey Park and LA (great for all other medicinal purchases too).  Not as fancy as WHF but the prices are a bit better.  I learned in China there are a few quality grades in the tea leaves picked.  First grade are young leaves picked from the first growth in the Spring.  Second grade are the following or older growths after the first picking of the leaves.  Worst grade (not necessarily bad) are the much older and later leaves chosen for teabags.  Naturally big price differences for the different grades.

[Joyce]

I use Splenda. I also discovered a Bigelow Tea called EggNog over the Holidays....VERY good, and 0 calories.

[LeeAnne151]

Splenda gives me an aftertaste just like other sweeteners do so I am lucky that I can't stand sweetened tea.

However, I can't drink coffee without flavored creamer.

[Joyce]

Have you tried Stevia Sweetener yet LeeAnne?
I like it in tea....especially Earl Grey...it actually compliments and enhances the flavor.
It does have a bit of a taste to it, not an after taste but a 'during' taste, is the only way I can describe it.
But it's not metallic of anything like S&L, Equal or Splenda.
It's natural, made from a plant, so it has a very slight herbal taste...many people can not taste it. I can.
 I buy mine at Trader Joe's. Best value out of any Stevia product.

[Vickie]

I drink Iced Tea everyday and drink pop about 2 times a week. I mix my tea with green tea. I like green tea with mango. I started drinking green tea when my dad was put into remission for a blood disease  that was so bad that he had to take blood transfusions every two weeks for years. Then when he started green tea he went into remission from that disease for 14 years with only drinking green tea and no medicine. His blood doctor said he had never had a patient as sick as my dad was get better. Sadly I lost my dad this year Jan 9th.

[Julles]

You guys have inspired me.  I rarely buy anything on-line, but I went to the Baltimore Tea Company / Eastern Shore Tea Company site, and discvered that they DO have my favorite Chai in decaff, and ordered a bag.

Hope it'll be good.  I always enjoyed my Earl Gray on Sunday mornings, so yesterday I brewes up a bag of their decaff.  Not nearly as good as their regular, in loose leaf.  Don't know if it's because the bags are old and in a paper box instead of a cute tin, or becaue of being decaff.

Man, I wonder if that eggnog tea is still available.  I LOVE eggnog!

Added:  I just looked it up, and it IS still available, and on Amazon.com, where my brother gave me a gift card for Christmas.  But you have to buy six boxes 20 teabags, and, at one cup a week, that would sure take a loooong time to work my way through.  And I'm not even sure yet if I will like it.  Hmmm...

[prestongohlke]

I think my fav. right now is Oolong.

Most of you up North have probably never heard of HEB (a local grocery store) but they have a pretty good selection. They also run Central Market (a higher end version of HEB) and they have an even better variety of more exotic stuff.

P

[LeeAnne151]

Julles, send me a private message with your address. I have several flavors of Stash decaf, they are teabags but the loose leaf would taste better not worse. I might not mail right away but I will do it.