My favorite drink: tea

My absolute favorite drink in the world would be tea. There are so many styles and flavors, that I think there is a right tea for everybody. I prefer tea over coffee any time. Especially because the only coffee I’ll drink has to be Starbucks. I simply refuse to drink any other coffee. I used to like coffee for a while, and then I hated it again, but tea has been a constant in my life. When I was a kid I would drink it with sugar and milk. Now, I like different infusions and have built quite the collection over the years.

I’m drinking tea as I write this. I drink tea when I have a lot of work to do. I drink tea to calm me down. I drink tea to keep warm. I drink tea to stay awake. I drink tea after dinner. I drink tea during dinner. I drink tea…. Well, pretty much all the time. And if it’s not tea, it’s water. I barely drink anything else. I actually went all out this week and bought 2 cans of Coke Zero. I hadn’t had coke, or any other fizzy drink in about 3 or 4 months I think. I sometimes drink the occasional glass of buttermilk (but I’ve come to dislike just like milk), and I sometimes drink juice, mostly OJ, but tea is the constant factor. Every single day before going to work, I make some tea, put it in my Starbucks mug and drink it on the train. Then there’s usually another 2 – 3 refills during the day. It’s a great solution to that freezing cold office of mine.

Over the years I’ve tried a ton of teas. I used to only drink the standard English tea blend and switched things up with the occasional Earl Grey or a Rooibos. However, when I moved out for uni, I started to discover more teas and quickly fell in love with different teas and tea brands. The standard brand for tea here in Holland is called Pickwick and at first I stuck with that. But I quickly took a liking to Twinings and the teas I love the most are all by that company. When I lived in the US in 2005, I discovered Celestial Seasonings and Lipton Tea. I’ve also tried Dilmah, Yogi tea, store brands from actual tea stores and many others that I can’t even name. Twinings do have an international online store where you can find all their teas, even ones that aren’t available anywhere but in the UK. The shipping is a bit outrageous, but if you get a bunch of teas at the same time, it is worth it.

I tend to drink my tea rather strong. Read: my Earl Grey has to be as black as possible. I actually sat at a job interview once and someone got me a spare cup because they thought I didn’t know what to do with my tea bag. There’s only a few teas that I don’t like drinking very strong. That would be any infusion with ginger, fruit teas (except for forest fruit) and zoethout (liquorice rout) tea.  For all other teas, I just keep the baggy in my cup and drink it with the baggy still in the cup. Probably not every one’s cup of tea (pun intended), but I like my tea to have a good amount of flavor to it.

My favorite teas are usually green or white teas, with either a fruity or a minty flavor to it. My all time favorite tea would be Twinings Peppermint & Eucalyptus tea. It’s very refreshing and also tastes good cold. I love herbal infusions like star mint or star mix teas as well as Rooibos teas. Rooibos tea has to be straight up though: no spices added, although I do like the occasional Rooibos/ Cinnamon tea. Then there’s black teas. I like standard black teas like Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Golden Darjeeling and English Breakfast tea, however I rarely drink these anymore. Usually, when I drink black teas, it’s some fruity tea. My favorites being forest fruits and lemon tea. I also like cherry and strawberry tea, but I have to be in the mood for that.

Here’s my favorite teas:

• Twinings Peppermint & Eucalyptus (my absolute favorite tea of all time!)
• Twinings Green Tea w/ Mint
• Twinings Green Tea w/ Jasmin
• Twinings Green Tea w/ Cranberry (Pickwick will do as well)
• Twinings White tea w/ Pommegranate
• Twinings Lemon & Ginger
• Twinings Cranberry, Raspberry & Elderflower
• Lipton Tea Gold Tea
• Lipton Tea Forest Fruits
• Celestial Seasonings Sleepy Time
• Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer
• Celestial Seasonings Apple & Cinnamon Spice
• Pickwick Minty Morroccan
• Pickwick Dutch Tea Blend
• Kusmi Samovar tea (very smoky tea, great after dinner tea)
• Rooibos tea (without any additives, but I also like Rooibos Cinnamon) – No specific brand
• Cinnamon tea – No specific brand
• Lemon tea – no specific brand

Here’s some teas I dislike:

• Any type of Chamomile tea
• Any type of Vanilla tea
• Chocolate tea
• Home made Chai tea (I only like Chai Tea Lattes from guess where?)

Pictures of my tea collection. I threw out a bunch of tea a few months ago because it got old or because I didn’t really like it that much.

Left over Rooibos, Dutch Tea Blend, some Celestial Seasonings & Lipton Tea Gold Tea

My mom got me this tea box for Sinterklaas a few years ago.

Rooibos, Strawberry, some standard black teas, more Rooibos, Fresh Start & Evening Breeze,

Forest fruits, White tea & Twinings Peppermint Tea

Russian Kusmi Tea (now made in France)

My current collection of Twinings tea + some random things thrown in.