If you're not in/from Great Britain but love tea, you're allowed in here as well lol.
My wife LOVES her tea, and I would like to level-up that experience for her, if I can. Looking at what she has currently, she likes Twinings and Celestial Seasonings brands. Is there a brand that we might not know about here in the land of the automatic transmission and buckets of soda pop that a lover of tea would appreciate trying?
I pretty much only drink tea, and I get my teas from two places in the US:
thejasminepearl.com
harney.com
Either has specialty teas the other one doesn't, and both have great teas. Harney & Son is on the East Coast, the Jasmine Pearl is on the West Coast and both seem to take about the same time to get teas to me.
For unflavored black tea, Yorkshire Red is my go-to. Apparently there's a "British" and "American" variant, the British bags have more tea and no strings. Those are the ones I use and I buy them in the massive 240ct boxes but they're available in smaller boxes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007NIC6FE . My wife tries it from time to time and says "tea is good, I should drink more tea," then goes back to her coffee. But apparently it's not just me that thinks it's tasty.
I'm not particularly fond of tea myself (despite having been born in England), but my wife (who was born near Detroit) loves it. :)
Anyway, one of her favorite brands is Fortnum & Mason. https://www.fortnumandmason.com
We have a HUGE Asian market here in OKC, that has dozens and dozens and dozens of types of loose leaf tea that aren't all Asian.
Thanks all
Somebody on here recommended PG Tips, and I thought it was bleh! Mostly I drink Taylor's English Breakfast, but I'm no stranger to Twinings. I also enjoy a nice Earl Grey.
PG Tips is floor sweepings.
Taylor's makes a few brands and I haven't been disappointed by any of them. Their Yorkshire Red is a staple in our house, we buy Yorkshire Gold when it's on sale.
I buy Twinings Earl Grey for myself as well but the wife unit says the bergamot makes it taste like soap. Just means more for me.
We keep a big Costco box of Tetley orange pekoe for making sweet tea in the summer but it's not great for normal tea.
Lipton is straight up awful and so is the Red Rose tea that seems to be nearly a religion out here on the prairies.
dculberson said:My wife tries it from time to time and says "tea is good, I should drink more tea," then goes back to her coffee.
This also sums up my experience with tea.
(I really should drink it more often.)
I have an order from the jasmin pearl on the way. I might also get her gift certificates to the others mentioned. She does a lot of stuff for my mom (Alzheimer's) and my sisters (mentally disabled) that I couldn't do without taking time off work. Possibly all my PTO weeks. I can't put the right combination of words together to show her my appreciation, so I'm just trying to do small things regularly.
z31maniac said:We have a HUGE Asian market here in OKC, that has dozens and dozens and dozens of types of loose leaf tea that aren't all Asian.
Isn't all tea Asian? Or at least these days is it grown anywhere else? I've never really gotten into anything other than green tea as hot tea.
In reply to secretariata (Forum Supporter) :
Green tea is pretty much an East Asia thing, but keep in mind that's a processing approach. Black tea is made from the same tea leaves, but it's fermented.
IIRC there are some tea plantations in Kenya as well and I think people experimented at least with growing some tea in the Andes at some point.
ISTR that tea plants were smuggled out of China by the British and planted in India at some point because of that whole silver for tea thing, and we know how the British got that silver...
Remember to buy some proper tea biscuits as well.
Hobnobs are my favourite.
ShawnG said:Remember to buy some proper tea biscuits as well.
Hobnobs are my favourite.
Good idea!!
I'm more of a Lipton man myself. Sweetened appropriately with Dixie Crystals sugar.
Didn't you guys have a hissy fit and toss a bunch of tea in the harbour once? 
ShawnG said:Didn't you guys have a hissy fit and toss a bunch of tea in the harbour once?
Probably. We toss lots of things in lots of places! Unnecessary vowels, for example. What's your point, chief?
No surprise here to them what's already got tired of me a long time ago, but I have no input of value for OP. The only variety of hot tea I've ever enjoyed drinking was labeled Irish Breakfast, and it's a relatively recent discovery for me, so something of a revelation for those times I don't want to get fully jittered up. Granted, I don't know quality from kwalitee, but something about this variety makes it appealing to me. Right now there's a box of Tetley's in the cupboard. The last box was probably Bigelow or whatever lowbrow swill us poors buy when we are too bereft of culture and breeding to know any better.
So, having confessed for like the ninety-third time my considerable ignorance, what should I be drinking instead of whatever I currently am?
Which is vodka, incidentally, but that's outside the scope of this discussion, and far be it from me to derail.
My cousin turned me on to uptontea.com. I quite like their Scottish and Irish Breakfast teas.
ShawnG said:Didn't you guys have a hissy fit and toss a bunch of tea in the harbour once?
Indeed. We did. We might repeat that adventure one day in the not too distant future. I mean we all have more guns than hands to hold them...
Not a tea fan myself but my wife is a tea snob. As much as a midwestern rural bred girl can be. Late last year I bought her a damaged box of earl grey from Lyons Tea Exchange in Australia and she didn't say much but a couple weeks ago she asked me if I would buy her more and that is something she has never done so it must be pretty good. https://lyonsteaexchange.com/
Oh, while The Jasmine Pearl is local to me, I almost forgot another well regarded local tea place, Smith.
I had some loose leaf tea recently, blew me away. A completely different and vastly superior drink to the bagged stuff. I don't know how to make it and don't have the equipment, but it was so impressive I'm seriously contemplating getting into it.
In reply to bbbbRASS :
All you need is an infuser of some sort. I like the basket style, like this one from OXO, but the ball style are fine. Some teapots will come with a fitted basket infuser.
An electric kettle that you can set for specific temps is good, but not critical IMO. What is important is steeping time, especially for black teas. You generally want four minutes; more than that and you start to get bitter compounds (and caffeine) becoming more prominent.
I like a cup of Yorkshire Gold with McVities Digestive biscuits. Of course, I'm not a snobbish type of Brit, more the pork pies and sausage onna stick sort...
In reply to 02Pilot :
Electric kettles are the bomb! Mine doesn't even have temp settings. I use a thermometer to check when it has cooled to the appropriate temp before infusing the tea. It is so much faster than my stovetop.
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