Why did you make the jump to loose leaf tea?
I got into it when I was living in China for 3 years. Some of my friends owned tea business over there and often invited me to drink tea.
I made the jump whenever I worked at a weight-loss clinic. I wanted to find an alternative to soda for my clients, so one day I went to Central Market and bought some lose leaf on a whim! I’ve been addicted ever since.
Two trips to China were part of it, and also travel to Japan and Laos, buying tea in those places on visits. I was running across Thai oolongs in grocery stores too, and kept trying those. One main turning point related to visiting a coffee farm in Laos and also picking up tea there; odd it worked out that way. That coffee was really interesting and the tea was so-so, probably not really well processed, but it helped with one thing leading to another. If the tea had been great and the coffee so-so it probably would have shifted up the timetable for the switch-over by a few years.
Giving up coffee due to high Caffeine, low L-Theanine. Was drinking roobois first, then just my passion for finding out as much as I can on a given subject led me to try different teas like sencha and Oolongs, Darjeelings, which led me to steepster.
Funnily enough I always liked how basic oolong tastes when I was a kid but never explored it further than some store bought stuff. (not sure I could have pre-internet anyway)
I moved in with a friend who was a total tea addict and enjoyed her delicious tea so much that I started buying my own!
I am curious about this in the sense that I am not totally clear on all the advantages of using loose leaf instead of bags. What are all the advantages?
The only 2 I am aware of are:
1. You can choose exactly how much tea you want to use per cup.
2. This increases the variety of tea available to you since many teas do not come bagged.
What are other advantages?
The shape of the tea leaves add beauty to the experience, and their appearance can tell you many things about a given tea.
The way that the leaves are shaped affect the infusion rate, so taste is different than if it was just tea powder. Two tea leaves with a different rolling process taste different and have a different aroma.
Bags are not good for the environment, it’s sort of a waste. An infuser works just as well.
Loose tea is better for the environment. Loose tea also tends to be higher quality, whereas bagged tea is more for mass consumption. Loose tea is also very versatile because you can use it in recipes. It is also easier to steep more than once.
It tastes better! Often (though not always) the tea that comes bagged is poorer quality, broken leaves; whereas the tea that is sold in loose leaf form is the top-grade unbroken leaves. And even if you do get full-leaf tea in bags, it doesn’t have as much room to unfurl, expand, and release its flavor if it’s confined to a bag. Just try a cup of Lipton Earl Grey next to a cup brewed from loose leaf Earl Grey from your local tea shop; I can almost guarantee you’ll taste the difference!
i started off with Stash peppermint tea bags and liked the feeling of drinking it. that lead to teavana/davids tea, and so on. it didnt take long to have the epiphany that i was just on the tip of the iceberg. i was already (and still am) into various sorts of coffee, so why wouldnt tea be just as expansive.
I grew up drinking tea, so I made the switch when my mom discovered loose leaf. Though at this point I have gotten deeper into tea than she is, I have her to thank!
I started off with teabags, but once I tasted a couple of good loose leaf teas there was no going back. Plus, being able to steep loose leaf teas multiple times made them more economical than teabags.
My family mostly drank loose leaf, it didn’t seem like a jump to me. The jump was getting better tea that wasn’t from the Asian grocery store.
>The jump was getting better tea that wasn’t from the Asian grocery store.
Amen to that
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