Just not your cup of tea?

[Richard Kilgore]

Tastes in teas - just like tastes in wine, cocktails, pastry and just about anything else culinary - vary widely.

A recent post in the "What teas are you drinking today" topic had me thinking about this overnight: I did not care for a particular tea hot, but then tried it iced and liked it a lot.

But over the long haul it has been Earl Gray - just too much bergamont in my face. (Add to that a lot of Scented and flavored teas.) However, I have found blends that are not a traditional Earl Gray with less bergamont in them that I enjoy.

Any that are "just not your cup of tea"?

Any that you did not like at first, but developed a taste for later?

[kitchensqueen]

I don't care for green tea or darjeeling at all. And I didn't used to like jasmine, but now I love it - especially as an 'apertif' drink.

[tsquare]

Never found a chocolate tea that I liked unfortunately. Really not too fond of most flavored teas though I like herb teas in the right moment.

Still not convinced about lapsang souchong, though I bet someone could come up with a brew I like. I'm not a big smoke fan in general, (ironic if you know what my life has been like for the past 8 months.)

[prasantrin]

I've written about this before, but Mariage Freres carries a particular variety of lapsang souchong that is the smokiest tea I've ever had the displeasure of trying. I think it would be a nice complement to savoury foods, but it sucked when matched with MF desserts. To top it off, the spout of the teapot containing it was pointed directly at me (it was my friend's pot of tea), so the aroma kept wafting over in my direction. It turned my lovely chocolate tart into a barbeque chocolate tart!

[Peter the eater]

I drink tea everyday but I don't mix it up very much. I honestly don't think I've ever had a variety of tea I didn't like, as long as it's been prepared with a little care. I'm sure I'll eventually find one that's not my cup of tea. I'll be reading along.

[Yajna Patni]

I love the smokey and strong... the more tarry and smokey the lapsang, the more i love it.

i really don't like flavored tea. I do like Herbal tea, but dont really think of it as tea, and don't really like weird ones with all kinds of silly flavours like tropical melon peach etc. straight up mint, rooibos or chamomile for me. And flavored balck tea just is unleasant for the most part. I can deal with jasmine in small quantities.

I don't like earl grey much either. It was my grandads special occasion tea (my grandma's and mom was the Lapsang), so it has a certain sentimental thing to me. I think i might like it if the bergamot was a lot less strong.

Not really a fan of anything that has a note that might be described as "sweet" or "vegetal".

Not fond of anything that tastes "weak" to me. I do not for the most part like green tea although i am really looking forwardto the upcoming tasting, and learning some more about them. Nastily, i love green tea "flavored" ice cream bubble tea etc.

For the most part, I find iced tea nasty. It just seems wrong to me... kind of like eggplant strawberry jello or something

damn.. i have a lot to say about what i dont like.

[ruthcooks]

Whatever that stuff was that I ordered for lunch a few weeks ago. It's name had a "tropical" in it, so I expected something kinda fruity. The waitress told me to "let it marinate" a while. I peeked in at the tea strainer which sat in the top of the pot of water and it looked like science fiction. Puffy little yellow things in it which resembled soaked torn nuggets of styrofoam.

I tasted it. Yuk. Put in some sugar, still yuk. But I had to taste it once more because I remembered the smell/taste from somewhere else. Eureka! It smelled and tasted like the stuff the dentist used to rub on my gums before he gave me an injection for pain.

Oh, the humanity...I drank water.