Our friends over at Teaity posed an interesting question awhile ago via their Facebook page. “What tea did you formerly hate, but now love?” I thought it was such a great question. Immediately I was flooded with fond memories of the tea I formerly hated, but now love – oolong.
My tea cabinet, which is currently busting at the seams with oolongs, would lead many to believe that I had a small obsession with this particular type of tea. So how did I turn the corner with oolongs?
Back in 2005, when I first started drinking tea, and specifically loose-leaf tea, I was an avid flavored, black tea drinker. The fruitier, the better. I popped into my favorite tea store in Chicago and purchased an Orchid Oolong blend. I thought I was so sophisticated, although I had no idea what an oolong was. But I loved the name and wanted to jump right into the tea scene with two feet. It was the most disgusting thing I ever drank. Unfortunately, I let that tea steep for six minutes, resulting in an extremely bitter brew. Had I to do it all over, I am sure I would appreciate the cup much more now. However, at the time, I thought this was how all oolongs tasted.
Fast forward two precious years of non-oolong drinking. I was invited to visit an awesome little Victorian tea room in La Mesa, California, and I had the chance to try a roasted oolong. My eyeballs bulged, my mouth salivated. I had no idea oolongs could be so flavorful. I learned a really important lesson that day. Never judge an entire group of teas based on just one cup! I was so sad to realize that I had squandered two years of my tea-drinking life by avoiding oolongs. I have since used that lesson to delve into pu-erhs. Those first few experiences have not been totally enjoyable, but I am working on it.
Now tell me – what’s the one tea you swore off that has since become your favorite???
What an interesting question. I guess this experience is more common than I had thought. My first attempts at trying whole leaf green tea was a disaster. I had used way too much and over steeped it in boiling water for 10 minutes and it was undrinkable. I walked away from green tea for quite some time as a result. Yes, it was lost years.
Today, I would have to say Pu-erhs fit into that category for me. My first few attempts reminded me of mud quite frankly. I just couldn’t understand why the Chinese were spending so much money on it and how it had ever grown in popularity. It wasn’t until I was invited to a tea tasting by a tea master a few years later that I had the opportunity to sample a high grade of pu-erh. I remember actually getting “tea drunk” from drinking so much. It was delicious. I still have to be selective with this category of teas but when I find one that I like…….I really like it. I’m actually looking forward to sampling some white tea pu-erhs that I’ve just heard about. I’ll keep you posted on that!
Herbals. All of them. The stigmatic shadow of chamomile, peppermint, and rooibos lay heavily woven against the growing industry and its demands for increasingly complicated and synthetically chemically flavored teas. The herbal lexicon seemed simply a base for all of these teas to lay against and increase the aesthetic war that was making simple black, green, and oolongs seem pale and dark in comparison. The herbal section also teased out a portion of the public that seemed determined to ‘eliminate’ caffeine and incur some sort of miraculous health benefits. The fervor drove me to seek refuge in finding the complex within the simple, trying to divine and extract the language to woo more people to the gift of terroir. It took many years and a wealth of experiments to draw me back towards the deep multi-cultural history and traditions that are really the defining aspects of the world of tisanes and this has unlocked the world of tea in a whole new and vibrant way.
Michelle, I’m the same with the puerhs as well. The first few I had were muddy and that’s not my thing. I’ve tried really hard not to repeat my oolong mistake so I’ve been trying different puerhs here and there that turned out to be really great so I’m grateful I’m not missing out on good tea. But it’s tough because there are so many teas out there that I really like, it’s hard to take a risk on something I might not like.
Well said Shawn! I didn’t really think about it until I read your note, but I’m slowly finding herbal teas here and there that I enjoy. I had really shied away for years from the herbals because I’m not much of a chamomile/lavender person and I’m not drinking tea for the health miracle, but simply because I enjoy it. I rediscovered a few herbals through cooking and have since added them to my tea cabinet.
I have a love/hate relationship with matcha tea. I first brewed it from a premixed packet of matcha and sugar, and it tasted amazing. I then brewed matcha itself yesterday and I almost gagged from how bitter the taste was. Today, I ended up lowering the amount of tea significantly and now it’s not so bad. I still had to add some sugar. I now think it’s so so, but I’m hoping I can go back to loving it.
I live in a small town and most of the time I can’t find any tea besides black tea and green tea. Several years ago, I didn’t like taste of green tea, but now, I just love it and I can’t spend a day without at least one cup of tea in the morning.