Sweeteners, Milk & More

What about extras?

For the last three weeks, we’ve been helping you brew better tea with tips on water quality, water heating / temperatures, brewing times and brewing vessels. If you’ve been brewing with these tips, you’ve probably noticed a big change in the way your teas taste… and it may have raised a new question for you:

“Should I add milk, sugar and other ingredients to pure teas?”

There are two ways of looking at this. Here’s one:

Green tea with lemon and honey is sooo tasty. So is black tea with milk and sugar. It’s fun to drink tea like this, and tea should be fun. After all, that’s part of what I love about it!

This is a totally valid perspective, and we don’t disagree with any of it. You can even check out our tasty Lemon Honey recipe. We’d also like to offer a second perspective:

When you drink pure teas without anything added, you get the real taste of the tea. The more you drink it, the more you notice in the subtlety and beauty that makes each tea unique. You no longer want your tea to taste like lemon and sugar. You want it to taste like great tea, which is what it always was… it was just hidden under everything else!

Also valid. So what should a tea drinker do? In short, there is no “should”–it’s up to you! But if you want to learn to appreciate the subtlety of pure teas, we highly recommend that you try drinking them without anything added for a while and seeing where that takes you and your taste buds.

Ready for a taste?

Put your brewing skills to the test with our Japanese Gyokuro Green Tea. It’s one of our most rewarding teas to brew well. Remember: filtered water, lower temperature, shorter steep, nothing added. Enjoy!