Tea, A Crash Course | Taming Knots

Every once in a while, folks I know will reach out to me asking for recommendations for this, that, or the other with regards to tea. While coffee lovers are a dime a dozen, especially in the US, the tea-loving community tends to be much smaller, though I have also found tea lovers to be a lot more interested in sharing their passion, rather than gatekeeping others. In that spirit, I want to put basically all of my tea knowledge down to paper, as it were, in order to share the love that I have for the breadth and depth of what at first appears to be a remarkably simple beverage.

Before we begin, however, I need to impress upon you, dear reader, that I am not the be-all or end-all of tea knowledge or any sort of a taste-maker. I am not some refined palate who can pick apart all of the component flavors in a cup. I simply like what I like and enjoy trying different things enough to make a few recommendations. I also am not, and never have been, a coffee drinker, so I don’t have specific advice for the lover of tea’s sister-beverage. I’m also coming at this from the perspective of an American so my resources may not be as helpful, though I do hope that they can begin to point anyone in the direction of a good cup of tea.

So, where should we start? I could expound upon specific distributors, growing locations, brewing methods, or equipment, but I think we should start where it is always best to start. At first principles. What is tea? At its most basic level, tea is a beverage brewed with leaves from Camelia Sinensis, or the tea plant. Tea grows in southeast Asia and India, with two major varietals, C. Sinensis var Sinensis and C. Sinensis var Assamica. There’s a couple other varietals, but these are the major two you will see. Like many other types of plant, the location and conditions for growth and processing can drastically change the flavors found in tea, which we will explore soon. For now, it is worth knowing that in this article, if I am talking about tea, then I am talking about tea made from Camelia Sinensis.

The tea plant is typically farmed in long rows. They look mostly like little shrubs, which is exactly what tea is. Farmers will trim the shrubs, plucking tea leaves from them. This is typically done twice a year in spring or early summer. While some larger industrial operations will use machines to speed up the process, smaller farms or farms focused on the highest quality product will do this process by hand. Once the leaves are plucked, they are wilted for around 12 hours. The wilting process is often done overnight. During this time, the leaves will lose a third of their moisture content and begin to oxidize. Once this has happened, the leaves will be torn or bruised to speed up the enzymatic oxidation process. Once the leaves have reached the desired oxidization level. Generally speaking, lighter teas will be oxidized less than darker teas. That’s why lighter teas, like white and green teas taste more vegetal or grassy, while black teas taste more bitter and malty. Once the tea leaves have reached the ideal oxidization, they will be lightly heated to denature the enzymes. This is known as kill-green or fixation. With this done, the tea can be rolled. This is sometimes done by hand, but can also be done by machine. The rolled leaves are then dried, causing them to become brittle and shelf-stable. From here, they can either be pulverized and bagged for teabags, or packaged up for sale as loose leaf tea.

Okay, so what should I drink?

That’s a good question! The first thing you should do, as with any new endeavor, is try a variety of things to see what you like! Earlier, I said that I would only be talking about Camelia Sinensis teas here, but that’s because that’s what I like. Sure there’s a lot of variety within that category, but there’s also whole other categories of “tea” that aren’t technically “tea” like Yerba Mate, Rooibos, and Herbal Teas. I’ll touch on those at the end of the article, but let’s get back on topic here.

If you’ve ever had any tea in your life, it has probably been a black tea and of all black teas, there are a few that show up again and again. The first is English Breakfast. This tea is a black tea that is known to be very strong in flavor, with lots of bitter tannins. English breakfast is typically a blend of teas made from the Darjeeling and Assam areas of India. The other common tea, as loved famously by Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, is Earl Grey. Earl grey is a black tea that is combined with bergamot oil or peels. These bitter oranges give the tea a distinct flavor and aroma.

I’ll confess. I don’t particularly like either of these teas. The Darjeeling style tea especially tastes significantly more bitter and less rich than the Assam-forward teas I like to drink. A common Assam-forward tea is Lipton. Yep, as it turns out, I like the taste of the very cheap plain default black teabags in America when compared to many fancy Brittish teas simply because Lipton uses more Assam tea in their blend. Outside of those three common black teas, you can find some other styles. Your local Asian grocery store might have some smoked black teas. These acrid teas might pique your interest if you enjoy smoked barbecue or mezcal. You also might find Irish breakfast, which tends to be a blend that is much heavier on the Assam tea than its English counterpart.

Next to these, you will probably find green teas. These are much more grassy in flavor and are lighter. They’re less bitter and tend to blend better with other flavors, which is why many pre-bottled green teas are bolstered with artificial fruit flavors. Green teas also tend to come in Chinese and Japanese styles. Chinese greens tend to have a little bit more oxidization, while Japanese green teas come in several flavors all on their own, from the bright and extra-grassy sencha to the earthy and bitter matcha to the unusual popcorn-like taste of genmaicha.

Sometimes in the grocery store, you might also see oolong teas. Oolong is kind of like a bridge between green and black teas, with more of the tannins and malty notes from black teas while retaining some of the slightly more vegetal qualities of green teas. The combination can make them taste almost nutty in flavor. That said, the variety in oolong teas is extremely wide, with various regions making unique varieties that taste unlike any others.

As tea has grown in popularity, white teas have also started appearing. Extremely light, these teas are delicate and floral, with almost no oxidization at all and an airy quality. The light oxidization also means they’re less overly bitter than black teas, but they don’t share the extreme vegetal taste as green teas.

There’s two more categories of tea that I cannot speak to at all. Pu’erh tea is fermented, pressed into bricks and left to age. Its flavor is often described as earthy or dirt-like. Yellow tea is the other one, this tea is cooked green tea that loses some of its green color as the chlorophyl in it decays. It’s not as oxidized as oolong or black teas, but it loses some of the vegetal notes due to the yellowing process. It’s also notably not roasted. When yellow tea is cooked, it’s held around 100 degrees F.

When you’re just starting out, I’d recommend getting one box each of English breakfast, green, and one of the mass market teas, like PG tips or Lipton. If you’re feeling adventurous and can find some, try Earl Grey, Oolong, and white tea too. The brands here don’t matter a ton. The big thing you’re trying to do is figure out what you like out of the major categories. Think of it like trying apples, oranges, and leafy greens. There’s major differences between varieties of apples, citrus fruit, and leafy greens, but knowing which categories you want to explore further can help you build a vocabulary to look for your next exploratory purchase. There’s another section down below with recommendations on specific places to go get tea once you have that vocabulary.

Okay, I have some teabags. Now what?

Great! This section is really straightforward, I promise. Now that you have tea, it’s time to make it! Each box should have brewing instructions, but there’s also a basic set of rules for brewing tea. It’s really easy. First, do not boil your tea. Always pour your hot water over your teabag or tea leaves in another heat-safe mug or teapot. If you maintain a boiling temperature while brewing the tea, it will come out tasting burned and bitter. Second, don’t leave the tea in the mug after the brew time is over. The longer tea steeps, the more stuff leeches into the water. The good flavors come into the water in the first couple minutes. By the fourth or fifth minute, you’re just getting nasty extra-bitter flavors. Thirdly, don’t let your tea sit too long, even after you take out the leaves or bag. Tea leaves and teabags contain a lot of tea dust that continues to strengthen and change the tea flavors after you remove the bulk of the leaves. While this doesn’t make your tea turn immediately, it can give the tea off flavors if it sits for a few hours. Generally speaking if it gets so cold you want to reheat it, you might as well dump it out.

Many people across the world drink tea completely without adornment, but I’ve found that a splash of whole milk and a little sugar go a long way toward my personal enjoyment. I like sweet things, so the sugar is a given, but the milk does a lot to reduce the drying effect the tannins have on my palate and taking the edge off of the bitterness. This is especially true in black teas. Tea is a lighter, less bold flavor than coffee, though, so if you’re a big latte drinker, maybe start with less milk and if you normally use half and half or cream in coffee, maybe downgrade to milk instead. Any sweetener you like is fine, and any non-dairy milk is fine as well, just experiment a bit to figure out what you like best! Just don’t pour your milk into your mug before the boiling water. Douglas Adams was definitely wrong on this one.

As far as equipment is concerned, there’s a lot of misinformation out there. First of all, the microwave is totally fine for heating water. You just want to be exceptionally careful. If you heat your water too much, then disturb it, it can flash-boil causing burns. You can also absolutely use a pot to boil water on your stove or hot-plate. Just be careful when you pour.

A good first upgrade for a new tea lover is a good kettle. You can get one to heat on your stove top, but a much better option is to use an electric one. It plugs into the wall and heats the water directly inside the kettle with electricity. A common misconception here is that electric kettles are slow in North America where our mains voltage is only 120 volts. While it’s true that a kettle in many European countries with 240-volt power will boil water faster, a 120-volt kettle is still much faster than a stove top kettle. Mine even boils faster than a pan on the “rapid boil” 240v burner on the stove with the same volume of water. IF you’re concerned about plastic touching your boiling water, all-stainless steel models do exist and are relatively affordable. If you like green, white, or oolong teas, I recommend getting a variable-temperature one so you can set a specific temperature to brew at.

That was tasty! I want MORE

Excellent news! There’s loads of places to get excellent tea these days. The biggest tea upgrade you can make after investing in a good kettle is upgrading the quality of the leaves you’re using. Teabags, even the fancy pyramid ones, use tea that has been crushed and broken up so much that the tea brews very quickly and it’s difficult to dial in that perfect level of flavor. The quality of leaves in teabags is also often just not quite as good. That’s where loose leaf tea comes in.

Loose leaf teas might need some special brewing practices. For example, it’s a good idea to rinse your leaves with boiled water once right before brewing them. Basically pour enough water to cover them, then dump out the water before brewing them normally. This washes away some of the smaller particles and dust that you don’t want to keep in your cup.

Matcha is powdered, so it requires a little bit of a unique process as well. Sift your matcha into a bowl or mug, then add water. Mix it vigorously to build a foamy head at the top. A milk frother is a good shortcut, but don’t overdo it. The more agitation you do, the faster it will brew.

My first major recommendation with regards to loose leaf tea is to support local businesses as much as you can, especially if they have good relationships with tea farmers that they work directly with and aren’t just repackaging and reselling bulk tea that they are buying from other sellers. These shops can be useful for trying a lot of varieties quickly, but aren’t always forthcoming with their sources.

After that comes specialty grocery stores. These sometimes directly import tea from other parts of the world that are harder to find locally. Asian grocers often have sizeable selections. Some stuff to look out for in this category are

Ito-en Sencha - Ito-en is basically the default green tea supplier in Japan. A huge amount of green tea you find in japanese vending machines is Ito-en, but they also sell teabags and loose teas internationally. The loose sencha is quite good.
Maeda-en Matcha - The more expensive the can, the better the matcha will be. One of the few things in tea where the price per cup of the finished product is tied directly to how good that cup is.
Yama Moto Yama green tea bags - Also a japanese green tea, this time in bags. Not quite as common as Ito-en stuff, but I like these teabags better than Ito-en’s teabags

If you can’t find a specialy store with tea to try, your local grocer might have some variety. Try anythign that catches your eye. Even if it’s the same style of tea, diffrerent brands do things slightly differently, so it’s worth experimenting to find what you like. Some stuff to get your started:

Celestial Seasonings Green Tea - The basic Celestial Seasonings green tea is actually extremely good. While Celestial Seasonings specializes in herbal teas that are, strictly speaking, not tea, they do have some good stuff.
Lipton tea - Yep, the super cheap boxes of 100 teabags that are my most commonly drunk tea are these bad boys. The decaf tastes weird. Don’t bother.
Twinnings Irish Breakfast - A more assam-heavy variety of English BReakfast, this tea is strong and malty and tastes even better with milk in it.
Bewley’s Irish Breakfast - A tea I haven’t ever found in the US, but is like the Twinings Irish breakfast, but better.
PG Tips - A tea I know more by reputation than anything else. The only one in the entire article I name but haven’t yet tried, but the recommendation is so ubiquitous, that I figure it’s worth giving a try.
Bigelow Constant Comment - an earl grey adjacent blend with black tea, orange rind, and sweet spices.

For Chinese teas of all kinds, my favorite source is Yunnan Sourcing. There’s a global site, where orders ship directly from China. They create and maintain relationships directly with farmers and are very reasonably priced. They also maintain a US warehouse and separate US site for domestic orders. The US site naturally has faster shipping, but the chinese site sometimes has a wider selection. Some of my favorites from this seller are

Yunnan “Black Gold Bi Luo Chun” Black Tea - Yunnan Sourcing’s best seller and work horse, an excellent black tea with a strong assam flavor profile and a pleasing gold color. This is one that basically lands in my cart every time I make an order because of how reliably excellent it is.
Honey Orchid “Mi Lan Xiang” Dan Cong Oolong Tea - My wife’s current favorite, floral and nutty, with a slightly matly aftertaste. Goes well with milk and honey.
Premium Grade Dragon Well Tea From Zhejiang Long Jing Tea - My favorite chinese style green tea. This one is a little bit darker and fuller-bodied than the japanese green teas, but still with a light, grassy flavor.
Feng Qing Classic 58 Dian Hong Premium Yunnan Black Tea - My runner up for best black loose leaf tea from this seller. A rich, full flavor that is moderated slightly with some floral notes.

I have also had good luck with the Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company Some stuff I’ve liked from here has been

Red Jade Black Tea - Like the Black Gold, but even better. It brews to a bright red color and tastes incredible, malty and thick, like it’s coating your throat. Even better with milk.
Formosa Assam Black Tea - My runner up to the Black Jade. Sits somewhere bretween the Classic 58 from Yunnan Sourcing and the Black Gold from them. Has a slightly fruity flavor to it when you add sugar.
Yushan High Mountain Oolong - Nutty and malty, with a strong savory flavor. Definitely a fun tea to try to see how different an oolong can be from green and black teas.
Four Seasons Oolong - A little dusty, since it’s picked with a machine, but reasonably priced and easy to brew. Has a vegetal flavor, but stays away from the overwhelmingly grassy notes of green teas.

For japanese tea, I find it hard to go wrong with anything sold by Ippodo. It can be a little pricey, but they ship worldwide and the quality is very high. Recommendations here are

Ummon matcha - A full, earthy, savory tea with very little in the way of grass flavor. Brews a deep dark green. Add a little sugar and it’s accessible to basically anyone.
Hosen Sencha - a light, fragrant tea with less astringency on the aftertaste. A great one to start with.
Kaboku Sencha - a green tea that tastes almost sweet all on its own, with floral flavors and a fresh-cut-grass scent.
Kanro Gyokuro - A slightly sweet and savory green tea, with a complex flavor. The manufacturer also recommend brewing it cold for a different experience, which is unusual in tea.

Okay, so the tea is good, but my mugs are lackluster…

This is the secret true reason to love tea: The teaware! You can find amazing teaware everywhere, from the asian grocers I mentioned in the last section, to the online tea sellers, to specialty shops that only exist to sell you another teapot, even though you already have four and this one is too small to really be useful anyway, but it’s so damn cute. I don’t have a problem. You have a problem. That problem is you don’t have enough teaware.

A couple notes, though. Due to the international love of tea, most capacities for teaware will be labeled in mililiters. It’s worth looking up how much that is in your local units so you can get an idea. I absolutely have a teeny tiny 120ml teapot that is barely big enough to do anything with because I didn’t read the description well enough. Here’s some fun things to look at

Ippodo’s Yakishime Kyusu - An 8-oz teapot in the kyusu style. Kyusu have a handle perpendicular to the poouring spout and are meant to be poured completely one-handed. The hollow handle ensures the pot stays cool while you handle it, even if it’s full of deliciously hot tea.
Forlife’s Extra-fine tea infusers - Some teas are jsut going to be made of smaller particles. An extra-fine infuser is agreat way to not need to chew your drink. I use mine basically exclusively for the japanese sencha that is more shredded than mos tof my other loose teas.
Hario teaware - Hario’s teaware is made of borosilicate glass, which is heat resistant and beautifully clear. I use this ChaCha Kyusu Maru Tea Pot all the time. I don’t know why they call it a Kyusu when basically all other kysus have the perpendicular handle.
Teaware.house - A great place to find all kinds of teaware. I have a couple pieces from here that I absolutely love. (Edit 5/2025: It looks like Yunnan Sourcing has bought out Teaware.house!)

Beyond all of these, teware is really ubiquitous. Local pottery galleries are almost guaranteed to have interesting cups or mugs for sale. You might even know someone who can throw a classic tea cup or matcha bowl together for you.

Wrapping up

Well over three thousand words later, I hope I was able to give you a little bit more context and some resources for what to look for and how to get started. It’s both an incredibly deep topic and also kind of rediculous to turn into a hobby, but I think there’s a tea out there for everyone and it really isn’t very hard to get started or eventually improve your methods. I hope you have nothing but an excellent time exploring your own taste and preferences in tea.

Hang on what about sleepytime? Mate? Rooibos?

Okay, look. I know I said I’d only talk about real tea here. I’m really not trying to gatekeep or anything. Tea is already such a broad topic that I cannot in good faith address everything with the same depth. Here’s the short version:

Sleepytime tea is made by Celestial Seasonings. It’s chamomile. Chamomile isn’t tea. It’s a different plant entirely. Sleepytime and most other teas made by Celestial seasonings are actually Herbal Teas, basically herbs that can be brewed like tea, but aren’t real tea. Herbals can have wildly varied flavors, brewing instructions, and are naturally caffiene free.

Rooibos is becoming more popular pretty rapidly. This comes from a plant native to southern Africa. It has an earthy flavor reminiscent of tobacco, apparently.

Yerba Mate is a high-caffiene drink from South America brewed from a plant related to holly. It tends to be vegetal and grassy in flavor.

See? None of these are Tea really.

P.S. Like what you like. It’s cool.