Teas to convert the skeptical

Fruit flavoured blacks were the starting point for me, and seem to work for many people. Introducing tea as a form of juice has its advantages if they don’t like bagged and think it all tastes the same. Adding milk or sugar also seems to help bring out flavours for those who think it’s bland. I made Blueberry Jam (from DAVIDS) for one of my brothers which I think of as very strongly flavoured but he said it just tasted like lightly flavoured water. I then thought of Steepster advice and added a grapefruit agave stick to it and he loved it. I only thought it tasted sweeter but he found it changed the composition entirely.

I personally went through stages from fruit tisanes and strongly flavoured pure tea to lighter blends to finally landing at unflavoured blacks as the bulk of my tea (sans additions). This took a few years though. I think the person needs to be willing and interested in trying a few different things, but working off existing interests (blueberry flavours, or spices, etc) can help bridge the gap. Once you’ve got trust, you’re golden.

I see a pattern emerging here. Start with fruity teas, move on to milk oolongs, then…regular oolongs? (Challenge them to find the fruit flavors!) Then maybe on to black tea, or green tea….

I actually used to hate tea up until a little over 2 years ago. The thing that dragged me in, believe it or not was bubble tea. It was a jasmine bubble tea, the jasmine tea was prominent but the milk and sugar made it really delicious. I soon transitioned to fruity/flavored teas, and then onto plain.

Japanese Cherry Bancha won round a lot of the “its just tea” brigade. I work with several people who appreciate good quality leaf tea where as others think im upto some Breaking Bad style side business with some of the stuff I bring in with me.