a report on tea drinking

In early May, I decided to give tea a try. I’ve enjoyed herbal teas over the years, but I grew up never drinking actual tea (or coffee, which I still have never tried), so this has been a new(ish) experience for me. Over the past two months, I’ve acquired a couple of tea infusers as well as a variety of different teas that I’ve been trying, and tonight I felt like writing about some of the teas I’ve tried so far:

• The Republic of Tea Vanilla Almond Black Tea: This company’s Coconut Cocoa herbal tea is hands-down my favorite herbal tea, so when I saw this at the World Market where I picked up my first few things of tea, it was an obvious first choice. This was an early favorite, and I still like it a lot.

• Twinings Lady Grey Tea: When at World Market to pick up my first teas, I happened to run into a colleague—and in the tea aisle no less. She recommended this Lady Grey, so I picked that up as well. The Vanilla Almond Black Tea came in teabags, like I was used to, but I picked up some loose Lady Grey to practice using an infuser. That’s taken some getting used to—as has the taste of black tea that isn’t drowned in vanilla and almond flavor—but with a few weeks practice, this has become another favorite of mine.

• Bigelow Toasted Coconut Almond Bark Black Tea: My spouse picked up a box of this for me, thinking I might like it in the same way I like Vanilla Almond or Coconut Cocoa teas. I do like this a lot, though the flavor is more subtle than the Vanillla Almond tea, so I’ve been slower to make my way through this box.

• The Spice & Tea Exchange Crème Brûlée Tea: A couple of weekends ago, I went with kiddo to a church camp while my spouse went to visit her parents in Knoxville. She’d previously spied out this local tea shop, but we hadn’t had a chance to go during our previous trips to Knoxville, so she came back with a Father’s Day gift of some of this tea along with a mug/infuser kit that I’ve really enjoyed using. I’d tried a couple of one-off bags of green tea before at someone else’s house, but this was my first real adventure with it—and it’s amazing. I really like the crème brûlée flavor, and I like the experience of the loose green tea. I’ll have to be careful not to go through it too fast!

As an herbal tea enthusiast for many years, I really enjoyed trying new and different teas to see what I liked and what I didn’t. Branching out to actual tea has opened up new possibilites, as has picking up infusers so that I can try loose leaf teas. I’m looking forward to seeing what other possibilites are out there!

• tea
• Mormonism
• Reunion
• coffee
• Father's Day