Flower water is best water. Hibiscus tea with optional dash of your preferred sweetener.
As an enthusiast for both leaf soup and bean juice, it seems like most coffee drinkers think of cheap, old, dusty teabag tea, overboiled to taste like bitter vegetables in sewage water, while most tea drinkers think of pure dark overroasted burnt coffee, preground too finely (or as the worst kind of instant coffee), tasting like acid in an ash tray, like those are your only two options.
Both coffee and tea can be so terrible and also so wonderful. I guess my favorite coffee takes quite some preparation and my favorite tea cost me about as much as a junkie’s crack addiction. But both can be really nice if you spend a little more money on a quality product and take the bit of effort to prepare it properly.
Ok but would you rather have a bag of an aged Da Hong Pao or whatever the coffee equivalent is?
I’d like to taste the coffee equivalent but that one time I splurged on some DHP was magical. So velvety and rich and nutty.
Yeah I drink coffee for the stimulants, but it can be good. Tea is a sometimes drink but when done decent is usually excellent and has a very high ceiling
Especially when you get good tea from quality suppliers, it’s excellent. I’m part of a tea club and get sent boxes of tea from a specific vendor i really like. Some of the tea is probably more than a year old, but I’d just as happily tear open the bag and make a delicious pot of tea. high quality tea is not as expensive as people think and it’s absolutely wonderful. it is softer than coffee though and takes some time for your palate to adjust.
ETA: I pay $40 every other month and get over an ounce of loose leaf tea, carefully selected with love by the vendor. they’re a small operation with direct ties to tea farms in China and source from family and friends. And if you’re in the right communities, you can talk to them directly and discuss the tea with them. the world of tea is very inviting and open and you’d be surprised how cheap really good tea is, especially in bulk.
I think tea is actually way more approachable which is what makes it less snobby.
You have to be educated about what makes it good and how to prepare it but at the end of the day all you need is the tea, some hot water and a cup. You get fancy with filtering it and how but it’s unnecessary to enjoy.
You shouldn’t need to filter high quality tea, it should speak for itself. A little leaves at the bottom are just snacks. if you prefer it filtered thats fine, just totally unnecessary. Really the limiting factor is actually water quality, but there are people experimenting with water recipes to make the best tea. And they usually share their recipes and the majority of the minerals are widely available and it’s just a lot of distilled water. The equipment is what’s most expensive, but a cheap gaiwan or even a small bowl and you’re good to go.
I always thought that a good cup of coffee needs to taste like shit, that’s part of the charm. I enjoy coffee, but it’s not, like, delicious.
Tea is a fickle mistress, too. It’s very easy to make an overly bitter cup of tea, and tea bags tend to taste awful no matter how you prepare them. A good cup of tea takes effort and good quality loose leaf. God I love tea.
I’ll stick to my Lipton English Breakfast Tea then.
SMH y’all just making water worse. Pure, undiluted water with just enough crap in it so that it doesn’t literally strip your ions or something and kill you. That’s the best drink.
I don’t know… nothing cools me down on a hot day quite like liquid methane.
I heard it’s waxy in consistency once and have wanted to swim in it to confirm ever since.
Coffee and tea are both delicious.
Energy drinks, on the other hand, taste like battery acid and bile. That’s where your scorn should be directed.
Exactly, why limit yourself to only one source of caffeine. Coffee and tea are both awesome!
What else would give you energy if not literal battery juice?
Pure uncut methamphetamine.
You’re goddamn right.
I drink both. But dunking Chocolate Digestive biscuits can only be done in a mug of Tea 😋
You underestimate my power
Oh yeah? Mixing with hot chocolate can only be done in a cup of coffee
Clearly there’s something wrong with British people…We already know they all have speech impairments that they call an accent.
The problem is that the widely available tea brands (at least in America) are usually shit, and people not knowing how to make it right and end up using scalding hot water when making green tea or microwaving the water with the bag in. I get my tea from tea shops and use an electric kettle to get the brewing temps right, and now a lot of grocery store teas are disgusting to me.
I like good coffee too, but when I have it I often feel sick later and the caffeine content sometimes sets off my anxiety.
Coffee also messes with my digestion and if I’m not careful makes me anxious. These days I avoid coffee and get my morning caffeine fix from yerba mate. It tastes better and is easier to enjoy than coffee.
You can have my “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot” when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
“Fingers, Dead, Cold”
Tea and coffee both taste mostly horrible. I unironically do believe that. Sometimes I find some good tasting stuff, but it’s mostly additional flavour providing agents, otherwise it’s bleh
You haven’t had good tea or coffee then. The quality of the tea or beans, water temp, steep time, water quality, brew method can make or ruin any cup of coffee or tea. Get yourself to a nice local roaster or tea shop and have them brew you a cup. Can’t speak thoroughly on tea but for the best coffee order a pour over (chemex or v60 if they offer options) of a single origin bean (usually on their specials menu) that has tasting notes that sound good to you. Alternatively get an espresso of a single origin bean if you’d rather get punched in the face with coffee flavor. Guaranteed it’ll be unlike any coffee you’ve had before
Can’t stress the last part enough: if you have a really good cup of coffee, it tastes actually fruity and complex. Like the good parts of wine and tea combined.
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Tea quality really matters. Almost all of the supermarket stuff in ultra fine bags is literally the leftover dust from actual tea making. (Looking at you, Tetley)
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Steep time and water temperature. Oversteeping make it bitter, which is unfortunately how most older people grew up serving it. Some teas need 5 minutes at 95C(Rooibos); other need a minute at 80C(most greens)
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Both are good
A least I don’t drink thin bean soup.
That’s the problem. Your bean soup should be thick like mud. Tastes awful that way, but MAN WILL YOU FEEL IT IN YOUR HAIR FOLLICLES!
Don’t bring soup into this. This is an argument between soggy leaf juice and burnt bean juice.
Roasted bean juice, thank you very much. It’s only burnt if it’s from starbucks
Bean mud
I prefer the term dirty bean water
I tried tea for the first time a couple years ago, I was surprised how bad it tastes. I’ll stick with water.
That’s like saying I watched a movie once, and I was surprised at how bad it was, I’ll stick with books.
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the secret ingredient is love
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