As we become accustomed to higher-quality teas, we naturally tend to set the bar higher. The same can be said for coffee, wine, beer, and just about anything else. After having spent so much time trying things like Chemex-brewed coffee and smoked beers, I can’t go back to more mass-produced versions. If you’ve been drinking high-quality loose tea for a while now (and I assume you have), can you drink bagged tea anymore?
I find that bagged tea is one of the things I am still able to drink. It’s not exactly good, mind you, but whereas I can’t choke down “break room” coffee or most light beers, I can still drink (and sometimes enjoy) lower-quality teas. This is I think due to the fact that most conventionally-marketed tea in the West is very mild in flavor in comparison to things like coffee and beer, and in this case, it’s to its benefit.
If my previous ruminations on things like Dunkin’ Donuts’ experiment with loose tea are any indication, I don’t hold high opinions on a lot of teas sold in places like DD or McDonalds. But I can force myself to drink subpar tea because it is still preferable to a poorly-made cup of coffee.
Before I got into tea, I couldn’t bear to have to drink a cup of bagged Lipton. But now, and God knows why, I can drink it just fine.
But is this just me? Are you able to drink bad coffee just because you’re used to it? Is bad tea just “hot leaf juice” as my father likes to put it? I’m curious to see what everyone else thinks.
Well I’ve never been into coffee but I started drinking loose leaf tea about 5~6 years ago. If I go to work I now take a special tea bottle with me so I can use my own tea’s, so I can say I’m a bit spoiled about using tea bags. I’ve had some that were okay but those were from Dilmah so it was better quality than say a standard Pickwick or other European brands tea bag.
For me it is not really the taste, okay bagged tea is not that tasty but most of the time I have to add some sugar because only then it will taste somewhat like tea to me. If I have to add sugar to the tea it kind of defeats the purpose why I started drinking tea’s namely stopping with drinking something with a lot of added sugar.
If the social situation allows it I’ll just take my own tea with me for example to my work but if I’m a guest at someone’s home I’ll just have to drink some bad tea and add sugar. It really depends on luck if you have some drinkable tea I’ve had times when there was only black tea in weird fruit flavors, if you get lucky you can have a green tea with no added flavors.
I have found that bagged tea by Smith Tea is actually very good so it’s always in my bag for when I’m out and about. I enjoy it and feel glad that I have something that is easily portable to take with me. I cannot however drink Lipton. I’d rather go without. As I’m not a coffee drinker, I can’t speak to that but in my experience, serious coffee drinkers won’t tolerate sub par coffee.
Sometimes it helps to think of a product as a completely different thing, to change expectations, and then it can be acceptable, even if not on-par based on having the same type of characteristics. When I drank coffee I could drink instant coffee, even though it’s not comparable to brewed versions. Then again I wasn’t really a purist, even though I did get into cappuccinos and lattes long, long ago. Related to tea I can drink ordinary loose versions, mid-level quality teas, but I try to avoid tea bag teas, at least anything commercial based on ground up tea. I tried a powdered tea someone left in the break room (from Myanmar–strange) and it was ok, quite decent, as close to Ovaltine as to tea though, but I’d be ok with never trying another.