It was really great to hear from my readers about their tea preferences.  It seemed like all of you loved tea because it is a healthier alternative to coffee or soda for caffeine, or just a healthy option for a delicious drink in general.
One person commented asking me if I knew of any fruit teas to recommend to her.  I'm not a huge fruit tea fan so I said I'd look up some things and post them here, so here they are!

Even though I'm not a big fruit tea drinker, this is one of my favorite teas.  It has a really nice flavor and isn't overpowering if you like pomegranate.

I found this one online and it might be a good place to start.  There's five different types of fruit teas included so you can figure out which ones you like!

Blooming flower tea is made up of tea leaves all wrapped up in a special way so that when it steeps it opens up and appears to bloom a flower.  I'm really looking forward to trying one of these!

I want to hear from you!

This blog is mostly my writing and posts I put together, but this time I want to hear from my readers!  So out of curiosity, how many of you wonderful readers out there actually drink tea on a daily basis?  If you do, what is your favorite kind and how do you take it?  Hot/iced/black/green/mixed with sugar/lemon, i'll hear it all!
Leave a comment and let me know what you guys are into, and i'll try to post more things that are relevant to that.

I don't drink coffee in the mornings, I drink this.  It has a very strong and robust flavor and really is a good tea to wake up with if you're feeling a little slow in the morning, like I am today.

Tea Related Gadgets!

Cool Products for Tea Lovers

This article has some of the most awesome tea related gadgets I've ever seen.  I particularly like the 'Sharky Tea Infuser' and the submarine tea ball.  I don't use loose leaf tea only for the reason that I do not have a tea ball, so maybe I'll hunt one of these down!

What I'm drinking today.  Last semester I was drinking four travel mugs of green tea a day, my friends teased me for always having my travel mug glued to my hand.

Four Basic Types of Tea

Hello all!  I figured the best way to kick off my tea blog would be a brief little rundown on the most basic  types of teas that are out there.  All tea comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant, a shrub that's native to China and India.  

• Black Tea is one of the most commonly known and drank type of tea.  It the more fermented and oxidized than the other types of tea and because of this has the highest caffeine content out of all the different types of teas, with about 20% the caffeine of a cup of coffee.  Black tea is stronger in flavor than less oxidized teas.

• Green Tea is also one of the most popular types of tea.  As opposed to black tea, green tea is heat-treated and steamed to stop fermentation.  Green tea has only 5-10% of the caffeine in a cup of coffee and has been proven to have a wide range of health benefits.  

• White Tea is totally uncured and unfermented, and is the purest and least processed of all the types of teas.  

• Oolong Tea is is semi-fermented, which gives it about 15% of the caffeine of coffee.  The taste of oolong ranges widely among the different subvarieties, but most people recognize oolong tea as 'Chinese Tea' that is served in Chinese restaurants.  

My personal favorite is black tea, with green tea coming up as a very close second, but I cannot say I have had much oolong tea or white tea to compare sufficiently.  Right now I've been drinking a lot of mint green tea and darjeeling tea.  In my next post I'll go into detail about some of my favorite blends of tea, and with that good night everyone, have a happy monday!