comfort tea

Mary,

If you've been drinking black tea all your life (like I did until a few years ago); you'll want to work your way up (or is it down?) to white tea. I first tried white tea about 10 years ago, when I knew nothing about tea except for grocery-store teabags (Red Rose and Tetley were/are my favorites) and the occasional "treat" of Twining's loose tea. I thought the white tea tasted like... nothing. I realize now that I needed to learn about the range of flavors contained in different teas. Now, I LOVE white tea (especially Silver Needle). In fact, I recommended white tea to a friend who drinks nothing but green tea from a teabag. This past monday he told me he stopped into our local tea shop (Seven Cups in Tucson), bought some Silver Needle, and loves it.

So, my advice is to work your way from black (what the Chinese would call red), to Oolong, to Chinese green, to Japanese green if you'd like to try it, then to white.

You should also check out the FAQ for this group. TONS of good info in it.

And I'm with you on the "comfort food". My parents are Scottish, so I grew up drinking black tea with milk and sugar. That's my drink of choice when I'm feeling like I need something comforting. Otherwise, I drink tea without any additions (something else I had to learn over time).

Happy Drinking!

Alan