[masraum]

Originally Posted by jcommin

I wasn't much of a tea drinker until I spent time in China. Those people take their tea seriously. I visited a couple of tea houses where you could sample different types of teas. There was nothing in bags. I bought home a tea set plus a few different types of tea. I quit drinking coffee for about months. When colleagues of mine were going to Asia, I always asked them to bring back tea.

I have serval Assyrian friends who are tea drinkers and I like Erin Gray tea which I buy in loose leaf at Middle East specialty stores.

I do have bag tea and Constant Comment is one of my favorites

Many years ago, I got on a tea kick. I mostly drank Japanese tea, but also Chinese tea. Something that I discovered is that steep time is extremely important, and to a lesser extent, water temp. If you steep tea too long (and per my wife this also is the case for coffee) it gets bitter. For something like Lipton, I'm not sure how important it is, but for high quality teas, it can make a HUGE difference in the taste. And you can often steep good teas 2-3 times, but then the steep times are different.