Worst Tea-Related Experiences?
Not completely sure if there’s another thread like this, but I thought it might be interesting and informative.
Basically this thread is to share your worst tea-related experiences, maybe to act as a kind of “beware this …” thing. You could also just add humorous tea-related experiences that seemed pretty bad at the time. It can be anything from low-quality teas that were particularly bad, to companies that gave you a hard time for whatever reason, to teaware that broke upon the slightest impact. I only ask that if you do mention a Steepster-related teaswap, please don’t mention the username of the person involved! I prefer we avoid that altogether though.
I would have to say my worst tea-related experience mostly comes from being a novice (more than I am now). I had bought my first maccha, probably culinary grade, but I was so excited. I had maccha before in my Japanese class, but we had it in milk. So I decided to try and reproduce that. In short, without a whisk, directions, or water, it turned into some wasted maccha and I learned that, for whatever reason, the tea does not like to dissolve into milk very well. At least not pure milk. It is a small experience, but still taught me a lot!
So from bad brands to novice mistakes, share away!
Bumping because this is an amusing thread…but I don’t have any stories that I can share:)
I had a person accept a swap under false pretenses and never even thanked me or anything. In fact after she received the package she blocked me on Instaqram as a thank you.
D:
I wish there was a way to tell who are bad swappers so they dont scam others on steepster but you can give bad feedback on the vouching thread.
I have avoided doing that because I am quite certain the person would come up with some inventive lies about me.
It happens. There is a user that kept a box about a year ago but pops up for one post every few months and then disappears when someone points out that she is not a trustworthy swap partner.
Buying 100g of a horrible David’s tea blend that smelled good at the time… I still have it 3 years later :c
Hm… when I was working at a tea shop we tried to make the grossest possible drink. Eventually, we landed on Lao Cha Tuo brewed with a cherry green tea, over ice, whisked a scoop of matcha in, added milk and, of course, boba. It tasted strangely like iced coffee.
My actual worst experience was probably from a YOLO Aliexpress order a buddy did for “aged” puerh. Some were visibly moldly.
Probably a tie:
1) Growing up in a house where Lipton tea bags were bought in bulk so they’d “last a while” (like a year) and stored in the open box in the cupboard. I learned to hate tea from an early age … my, how things have changed!
2) Recently ate at a top notch sushi restaurant in Orlando where they flew fish in fresh from Japan a couple of timer per week. I asked for green tea, expecting some nice Japanese loose leaf, and got a Lipton Green Tea bag with a pot of hot water. I took two sips and sent it back.
I once had an awful generic, no name brand tea. It was complimentary in a hotel. Tasted like bog water yuk!
Far too many to recount I’m afraid but here are a few off the top of my head:
- Falling for the hype and winding up stuck with 120 grams of awful Amazon matcha (note: there are some good brands of matcha on Amazon but far too many sub-par ones and it’s often difficult to distinguish them)
- Getting suckered into buying $80 of tea gear at Teavana despite having no intention of buying anything when I walked into the store
- Paying $12/oz for jasmine tea at Teavana back in my tea-noob days. I cringe whenever I remember it
- Buying an economy size bag of Numi loose gunpowder tea from Amazon because it was more cost effective than teabags. It’s a good tea and all, but after 1 year I’ve used maybe 3 tsp from that massive bag which is about the size of a sack of rice. I have to keep it in a closet because it’s too big to fit in my cupboard.
- Attempting to make a traditional chai on the stovetop using sencha. Not sure what I was thinking when I did that.
- Trader Joe’s Matcha Latte mix. Blech
- Trader Joe’s Salted Caramel Chai mix. Double blech.
My most abysmal tea experiences was dutifully drinking black tea made by a friend with her Kuereg from a black tea K-cup (burnt bitter cardboard water). Just as I managed to get through the last sip, she rewarded me with tea made from a green tea K-cup. I’m not sure what bong water tastes like, but I imagine it to taste very similar to this concoction which I stealthily ditched in her kitchen sink.
I had decent luck mixing 8oz K-cup earl grey with 4 oz K-cup green tea as a “waiting for an oil change and hey, free K-cup drinks!” thing. I had terrible luck with a pink English Breakfast K-cup in a hotel.
It would probably be better to use the K-cup machine for plain hot water onto one’s own tea bag/leaves/etc.
When Husband and I got married there was one of those machines in our hotel room. As it was there and all we thought ‘why not?’ One of the worst cups of tea I’ve ever had. You couldn’t give me one of those machines. I would almost give money to not have one.
K-cup tea is the worst. I tried a couple of different ones at hotel I stayed at recently, Bigelow green tea and Celestial Seasonings I think. I had to chuck them after a few sips because they were both undrinkable.
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