I LOVE tea... Ive purchased over the years from many many many different companies, and MANY teas if not most can be used to make really lovely Iced teas, which you make by letting them sit in the purified water in your fridge covered for a few days, so I believe then it would still be considered raw...well, unless you use an Oolong or other similarly processed tea... But on the site I go to, they have this wonderful Moroccan green mint tea that is AMAZING iced... the site is www.upton.com
they also have a decent selection of certified fair trade and organic teas, and the friendliest and most responsive customer service ive ever met... also the best prices vs quality Ive found in my years of enjoying tea... a far cut above what you can buy in those little bags in your super market, yet far far cheaper as it goes from the growers, to them, to you...

I have never had good tea...just the stuff in bags in a box to make ice tea. I really like that so I would imagine really good quality tea would be awesome.

I am addicted to tea; it's one of the few cooked things I still consume, though organic only. No true tea is raw--the leaves are processed with heat, but a lot of raw foodists brew up tisanes using sunlight, unboiled water, and airdried flowers and herbs. I'm going to pick mint from my garden and hang it up by the window to dry and try this. I expect it will taste lighter than the brewed kind.

no, i do not like it. i will very rarely have a cup and think its good but mostly i'm just asking myself why am i drinking this stuff? now wine... but that's a different story .

hmmm? most tea isnt processed with heat, unless you count sunshine as heat... white teas are the least processed, greens close second, blacks are processed with the most heat for the longest, but once again, thats all heat from the sun, oolongs and other roasted teas are processed at higher temps, part of why they have that smokey flavor...mmmmm...

Coco, I used to be the same way when I was younger, then found out through research that I had been brewing tea completely wrong, plus the tea you get at the store, even the best varieties in tea bags, happen to be the worst quality tea available, although can still be pretty pleasant if brewed correctly, still not much reason to drink them considering quality loose leaf teas are far higher quality, and much cheaper, than the box teas at the store...

No, it isn't heat from the sun, per se. Tea is fermented, or smoked, in the case of oolong, using a partly mechanical process. Even the most "rustic" commercial manufacturer doesn't use sunlight as the sole method; it takes too much time and that is too costly. This is the main reason old school raw foodists, who might otherwise eat true sundried tomatoes or true sundried dates, typically eschew tea. : (

I have been looking for a couple of years for a processor that makes tea the super old fashion way, with a sunheat ferment(which is still very hot), and haven't found one yet. I suppose I could go to the mid Hymalayas and pick my own camellia and rig a set-up on my hotel balcony when it's sunny, but that's not likely to happen : )

This is just like the seaweed debate--unless you harvest it yourself on the beach, assume it's been heat processed. This is just an industry standard practice for so many things.

I dunno, I was under the impression that almost all of Uptons teas where produced with a sun ferment... especially their nicer white teas, where they often specifically state it... if you want a good source of camelia sinensis seeds or trees I know some good ones

oh dang, their website is shut down. nooooo they where the best source of tea plants and seeds in the world, the seeds they only shipped out shortly after harvest, so they would be at their most viable and they had tons of great varieties, including some of the indian assams that can get over 30 feet high...

Edit: woohooo!!! I found it, their website just changed, thats all yay

[www.camforest.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2010 10:35AM by Curator.

I checked, they only have a few varieties of tea at this time produced completely by hand the old fashioned way, but hey, at least its easy to grow your own tea

Oh, I've had tea from all over the place. Tea houses in China town with 12$ cups, my sister has been living in Hong Kong and brought home the "proper tea pot and cups" and brewed top quality tea the "proper way", I've had it at Fancy Indian restaurants, etc etc etc. I've had a LOT of tea. I just don't really like it. I mean, the best ones I sometimes enjoyed but let's face it, I'm not going to spend 20$ on a package of 8 servings of tea just to drink it 'cause I feel like it.

No, I can't say that I like tea much at all. I still drink it but I ask myself why midway through every cup! Ha.

oh, and its ok if yo udont like tea, im not trying to convince you to like it or anything,lol... we all have different tastes, it just seems to me like you may have been a victim of tea snobbery,lol

yikes, I take it back, their top like 5 most expensive teas on that site come out to around $2 a cup, although thats much higher than previous years, and far far far higher than 99% of the rest of their stock,lol... but dang thats some expensive tea... not my cup O' tea i say...lol

Nubster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have never had good tea...just the stuff in bags
> in a box to make ice tea. I really like that so I
> would imagine really good quality tea would be
> awesome.

It is virtually impossible to find good tea in the US. In NZ you can go down to the corner store and buy an inexpensive packet of loose tea and it is delicious. I miss those pots of family tea.
Even when you order from a tea company in the US you cannot guarantee that it will be fresh enough to be nice...

Janabanana check out www.uptontea.com every tea Ive gotten from them has been good, some have been not as good as others, some have been amazing, but even the worst has been better than anything ive gotten at the market here in the U.S., and much better than any other website ive ever ordered from...

Curator,

Thanks for the links, and darned if my rough hedge out back isn't camellia! What are the odds?!

I like the tisanes from Arbor Teas;

[www.arborteas.com]

your HEDGE is camellia? like camellia sinensis? the other types you cant really make tea out of, just sinensis and assamica... and variations of those...

I liked some of arbor teas tisanes as well when I tried them,but in the end, Upton came out victorious as my favorite, Although they dont have a huge selection of tisanes, they have been getting more lately though... they also are allot cheaper than arbor teas if I remember right...

Oh wait, I lied. I LOVE ginger tea.
That's more of an infusion of the freshly grated root though so is it really considered a tea or just a hot drink?

its considered an Infusion, exactly as you stated it, so its not a tea, technically only things made with camellia sinensis and variations there of are actually a "tea" everything else is an infusion, or a Tisane, which is technically an infusion too, but some people are picky...lol... oh, and I LOVE ginger too, although I like it with white or green tea, the herbaceous back note added by the tea is quite enjoyable to me...

My favorite tea over all is St. Dalfour Organic, because it's good quality organic black tea with actual organic fruits added for flavoring. You know those "fruit flavored" fruit teas that are actually chicory with twigs and leaf matter from fruit to amend the flavor. Blech!

Another great one is Kousmichoff, which is very old fashion but also heat processed. And prohibitively expensive. But you won't make a better tasting sunbrewed ice tea.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2010 04:13PM by Tamukha.

yum

I choke down a cup of green tea now and then, blech. I don't know why I drink any of it, habit maybe? Like I nearly made some this afternoon but then I thought of this conversation. I Want to like it I guess.
I did enjoy celestial seasonings Bengal Spice tea but they were bought out by Kraft so it just tastes like corporate bullshit to me now. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth if you kwim .

Ginger tea. With lemon. And maple syrup. Mmmmm.

mmmmmm, have you tried Kava tea?...I love kava tea... also bengal spice is good too, youd probably like the rooibos spice at upton then, plus its caffeine free and really high in vitamin C

I hate rooibos almost as much as yerba mate. Ugh ugh ugh. I'm telling you, my taste buds are freaky. I love bitter foods, endive, dandelion, walnuts, but steeped herbs and flowers? Oh gah. I like the way they smell... they're nice in bath salts .

hate sour flavors too? to me rooibos just tastes sour and fruity... weird,lol

coco,

Ha-Ha! My mom was raised in Argentina so there was always a box of Cruz de Mata Yerba Mate[pronounced Jyerba Mátay] tea around the kettle. My brother and I called it "pee tea" because that's what we suspected pee tasted like!

lolll i ve never actually had reba mate

Ha ha! Pee pee tea! Funny lol.

I like sour. I like salty and sweet and bitter too. Not spicy though and not that after taste from tea. rooibos has some kind of funky after taste that I just can't ignore no matter what it's flavoured with, I can always tell it's in there. It's like banana, I can always tell it's in there even if it's just a smidgen and I hate it. I'm weird, I know.

Yea the first pound was good, the second pound was stale. I will wait the years to return to NZ tea.

Upton Tea has a really awesome return policy, I only got stale tea from them twice, and each time they took the return and sent me a replacement, they will also give site credit, and I dont know if they will just give your money back, cause I never asked, I just ordered something else,lol.

yes, mostly yerba mate made in a device callled a vacumm or siphon pot.