I was discussing earlier with another blogger who has in the past been very much anti-tea, not as in wanting to burn all the tea plantations but in terms of never being a fan of it as a beverage and they set themselves a challenge of trying tea to see if they liked it. However the end result didn’t change their mind and I’m wondering how much of that is down to drinking poor quality tea as opposed to the actual beverage itself.
Now some of you readers are pretty clued up, some of you may be new but it is a given that loose leaf tea wins hands down over anything in a tea bag. So logical must dictate that if you are open to trying tea again to see if you like it, then inferior tea or tea that hasn’t been served properly is really not going to help.
I noticed one of their images to be a pot from a UK coffee chain, a nice big pot of hot water with a single lonely solitary teabag for company. That in itself is going to have a huge influence on the end result and I have a real personal issue when buying tea to find one bag is used irrespective of the size of the cup or the pot. Lets be honest, as a chain it must cost mere pennies for a teabag but one isn’t going to suffice for a large amount of hot water.
My other concern is the quality of supermarket tea. The vast majority of which is pretty decent in itself even though I don’t drink that much bagged tea these days however having a bad experience with a brand or tea also will not help. I remember going to Florida a few years ago and all I could buy in Walmart was imported PG Tips or a big box of Lipton tea. As the PG tips was silly money I opted for the Lipton choice, how could you go wrong with such a big brand anyway.
No matter how much time I spent brewing it or how many bags I used, the contents of my mug still resembled a tramps bathwater and in fairness didn’t really taste much better either. For the rest of the holiday I drank coffee, even at Dennys they served a cup of hot (not boiling) water with the teabag on the side, milk and lemon.
This is why I like doing what I’m doing, passing on a little bit of wisdom and thoughts on a good brew. However there is a real danger that those that come back to tea after years of drinking coffee may be put off by what they find as being readily available. We shouldn’t accept inferior tea or wrong brewing methods.
MBT – Keep It Simple
morebloodytea 
My opinion of tea did change over the month I tried tea (from dislike to indifference), and has improved since (to occasionally really enjoyed).
One of the reasons I tried to “make” myself like tea was for social reasons, given that it seems a little rude when someone offers you a tea or coffee to ask for water. I wanted to drink “normal” tea, because if I only ever drank the superior stuff, I would quite possibly find myself not liking the “normal” stuff. Were that the case, if someone offered me tea, the chances are it would be from a fairly standard teabag, and I would be refusing it.
Part of my thinking is also that if I learn to like tea first, then try superior teas, I will be able to appreciate them more. Time will tell if that technique works!
But thank you for your blog. It’s great to read an expert’s take on things, and I’ve been enjoying reading your blog and I’ve picked up a few handy tips!
Oh I’m no expert 🙂
I just like a good brew