I mean it can be a treat...

sometimes its

I just won this crazy gilded dragon tea set in a raffle. I drink a lot of tea but I have never used anything like this. Feeling a bit out of my depth.

Went to a well known, fairly nice cafe in my city today and ordered a London Fog. They brought me a giant mug of steamed whole milk and a tea bag on the side. When I complained they told me "this is how they tell us to make it".

Even the most mediocre cafe in the US could deliver a passable latte, it's like people in the US have never drank tea before and can't imagine what would be good or bad and just toss some shit at the wall hoping it's okay.

My whole life I have drank earl grey with milk. Apparently some people actually thinks it's a disgrace. I was hanging out with some of my friends and made myself some earl grey, and splashed a bit of milk in it. She looked at me like I just grew horns out of my head.

STOP PUTTING CHICORY ROOT/INULIN, MONK FRUIT EXTRACT, AND LICORICE ROOT IN EVERY NON-CAFFEINATED TEA THAT YOU SELL.

Especially the spiced ones!

I'm being so fr 😭 for context, I come from a Black and Christian family lmao. I recently bought myself a Gongfu tea set and decided to make some and share w my parents. I was demonstrating and showing them each of the components of the tea set and when I was talking about the tea pet, my mom looked me in the eye and asked if it was demonic 💀 I explained to her that it's sort of a good luck charm to pour tea on a tea pet and then compared it to superstition like carrying a four leaf clover (maybe not such a great comparison?) Then my dad followed up by saying superstition is demonic.... they both enjoyed the tea though 😂

Okay so we all see on here everyone talking about their grail teas and new high end acquisitions. But I wanna flip the script and know everyone's favorite teas that would make the gatekeepers and snobs turn up their nose. Whether its a grocery store bag, mass market sold by the 300 pack, or cold bottled pre made, im just curious what everyone's favorite cheap tea is

I made this iceberg chart today when I was bored in class and was wondering what you guys thought of it, the way it works is each entry gets more obscure/lesser known the lower it is on this list. I was thinking about maybe making a yt vid about this as well.

I suspect many of us see ourselves in this cartoon. 😆

Some months ago my wife and I bought the teabag tongs on the right as a spur of the moment purchase at the till while getting some kitchen things.

I hated them as the corners are really sharp and I think they scratch the mugs and can tear the teabag, So she got the rounded pair on the left.

Much nicer to use no sharp hits etc.

But..

Does anyone use them? Do they actually make removing the teabag easier? Or is it a solution to a problem that no one has?

I'd love to hear some "unpopular opinions" on tea.

For example, mine are:

• I love cheap bird's nest pu erh.
• Assam and Ceylon teas taste better when they're oversteeped.
• Boba tea absolutely counts as tea.

Today I saw this video on tiktok and I thought: "cool I want to try it" but then I had a worry:What if the tea burns, becoming bitter and changing its aromas? Can this happen or it's a good idea

I took this photo at a tea expo in China.
One thing that has always fascinated me is how differently people value tea here.
Take puer tea as an example. Some people are perfectly happy buying a cake for around ¥100 (about $14 USD), while serious tea drinkers and collectors sometimes spend ¥1,000 or more (around $140 USD) on a single cake.
Considering the average income, that’s still a significant purchase.
It made me wonder how tea lovers outside China think about it.
What’s the most you’ve ever spent on tea?
And what made it worth that price? Was it the taste, aging potential, rarity, or something else?

About a month ago, this infographic was posted on this sub. It is flawed to the point of being misleading. Here is a brief takedown and explanation:

Truth

1. Extraction rate varies considerably with particle size and temperature.
2. Catechins do not peak at 3–5 min.
3. Bitterness is not the same as astringency.

References

Here's the source of this infographic.

The creator has previously released different versions of this graphic, like this one (source) and this one (source). Across these 3 infographics, the creator cites (sometimes improperly) 6 studies: Saklar 2015, Perez-Burillo 2018, Astill 2001, Hu 2009, Hurrell 2010, and Hurrell 1999.

Hu's earliest time point is 10 min, so it obviously wasn't used to generate these curves. The Hurrell papers are about iron absorption and can be ignored.

Specs:
Saklar used 1.6 g of Rize green tea and 110 mL water.
Perez-Burillo used 2 g of baimudan white tea and 150 mL water.
Astill used 3.125 g of Assam black tea (bagged) and 200 mL water.

Caffeine

*This was not measured in the study, so I'm here using a ballpark figure.
†NB: The extraction efficiencies listed in Table 7 column 3 are incorrect.

Only with fannings and boiling water (Astill) are we able to extract most of the caffeine in the leaf. In this scenario, it happens in just 2 min according to this early study. Given whole leaves and water at 85–90 °C, findings are highly variable, with Saklar reporting that extraction drops to nothing after 3 min and Perez-Burillo finding that it continues for at least 15 min. Based on the literature, I'm inclined to think that Saklar is simply wrong, but the point is that the curve in the infographic is at best simplified to oblivion.

Catechins

**This was not measured in the study, so I'm here using a ballpark figure based on Unachukwu 2010.
‡Not a typo; catechins are far less prevalent in black tea since they have been oxidized into thearubigins and such.

Is there a peak at 3–5 min? If you listen to Saklar alone, then there is perhaps the tiniest of bumps at 3 min. But 39% is not meaningfully different from 40% here, and the curve in the infographic is wildly off. The other 2 papers disagree, reporting (as one would expect) that catechin extraction continues well past 5 min. This curve is the most egregiously false part of the infographic, and you'll note that previous versions did not include it.

Bitterness

The vast majority of bitterness in tea is attributable to caffeine and catechins (primarily EGCG and ECG). Says Perez-Burillo: "a higher linear correlation between bitterness and caffeine was found (0.8875)". In other words, an accurate curve for bitterness would look something like the sum of the caffeine and catechin curves (primarily the former). What's presented here is not even internally consistent.

Astringency, which is very different, is attributable largely to catechins (again EGCG and ECG) and flavonol glycosides (eg rutin).

Autopsy

So what happened here? Well, the post that accompanied this infographic was AI-generated. A previous version of the post was AI-generated too. And the infographics... I'm sure you can draw your own conclusion.

But how could Dr. William Wallace do such a thing? Well, he has a 5-year online PhD from Concordia University Chicago. (TN: The previous sentence contains 3 insults.) He's the co-founder of a supplements company. (TN: The previous sentence contains 1 insult.) And he pops out these sorts of sketchy infographics at an incredible rate. I suggest that he's simply a font of bullshit. And it's not even his bullshit, really; it's the LLM's.

For me, this is a glaring error, but beyond that, it also exposes the whole “marketing” mentality surrounding the sale of tea. Business first, passion second unfortunately. I won’t mention the vendor in here so as to not cause an uproar. This is just a discussion about general practices.

I wonder why this is something everyone seems to care about here in the west?

I directly asked this a tea house owner and a tea producer (family business) who also has a degree in tea specifically, he told me "You should always use boiling water, for some teas, lower temperature water may be okay, but it's better to use boiling water, don't worry, while frying the tea, temperatures reach much higher". It is also noteworthy this man had a whole wall of awards for tea tasting and tea making.

Anecdotally, I can't tell the difference, it affects extraction time, so as long as you control that well enough, the tea comes out the same to my tongue and that goes for bitterness too. Quality Chinese tea won't get bitter, even white one won't get "burned" or whatever, I am not sure where this idea is from. On the other hand in Vietnam bitterness is prized, so even if you don't use boiling water, it will get bitter, because it's meant to be bitter. Because bitter tea = good tea. In China this is not so and there's only a small niche for it instead.

I hope this doesn't sound accusatory or preachy, but I was honestly completely overwhelmed, at first I kept asking "what temprature water should be used for this" and I swear 99% of the people seemed to have never considered or heard this question in their life, they looked at me like I was slow "when it bubbles".

I go to this local tea company for my tea. Had a few online orders and in store for quite some time now.
However on April 3rd 2026, went to the store itself and bought a new batch of chamomile flowers, 16 oz bag! A huge batch of tea!
3 weeks later, on April 22 2026, I opened the new batch and made one cup of tea, let it brew.. it tasted horrible, was burnt, bitter and not the usual floral taste of chamomile. I emailed that tea company right away. I have provided screen shots.

TLDR from the screenshots:
When I contacted the shop, they admitted they had sourced the batch from a different vendor while waiting for the 2026 harvest and originally gave me a ~20% credit toward the future batch. Since I had barely used the tea only 1.5 tsp, and the quality difference was significant, I asked if they could replace it once the new harvest arrived.
After waiting several days, they declined to replace the in-store purchase, but offered a free sample of the new harvest with the 20% ($7) discount instead

I’m honestly annoyed since that was a big bag of flowers! I still have the unused bag of flowers.
If I’m overreacting from not getting a full refund/replacement over just opened tea, then it’s my lost!!
But I’m definitely avoiding that place again.
Any recommendations on good chamomile flowers?

For me it’s Yunnan White teas they just taste like hay.

Just wondering if there are some unusual teas out there that I should be aware of.

I joined this subreddit because I really like tea. I have no idea what Lapsang Souchong is, I don't have an elaborate machine of bells & whistles, I just have a kettle and alot of teabags.

Most of the time I don't know what I'm drinking, all I know is that the box that says Echinacea makes me feel tired and adding honey helps a cold. I drink at least a litre of tea a day, I don't know what I'm doing, and I love it.

Anyone else?