foodpickle question: decaf tea

Quick! Your favorite non-gross decaf teas that are actually made with tea!

asked by Sami about 24 hours ago
Category: Technique



7 Answers

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3 Likes

lavenderblue says: I like Stash decaf black chai tea. This would be a cozy nighttime treat with a little sugar and milk.

Answered about 23 hours ago

1 Like

Ophelia says: I like Twinings decaf English Breakfast and Earl Grey (except bergamot gives me leg cramps). They have a slightly richer flavor than the Stash equivalents.

Answered about 20 hours ago

1 Like

mrslarkin says: Twinings.

Answered about 20 hours ago

1 Like

pierino says: What's next? Dericeified Rice? Green tea is pretty low caf to begin with. I like to begin my day with genmaicha, which is green tea with toasted brown rice. Lovely aroma. But could we just stop taking the good parts out of everything?

Answered about 15 hours ago

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Sami says: pierino: I totally agree-- except that even small amounts of caffeine have been setting off my panic attacks and keeping me from sleeping since I started grad school, and I needed someone to point out actual tea that doesn't taste like crud that's lacking in that stimulant!

Answered about 14 hours ago

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mtrelaun says: Are you looking for a decaf version of some type of Builder's tea? I love PG Tips decaf. When I can't get my hands on that, I drink Barry's decaf, Typhoo decaf or Tetley's decaf (though this is a last resort tea as it's a tad toothless in the taste department.)

Answered about 3 hours ago

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ninadora says: i love decaf layt gray, its my favorite. All the Twinings decaf teas are good. I also love Yogi teas decaf chai, its a real treat with milk and sugar.

Answered about 2 hours ago


Read more: http://www.food52.com/foodpickle/543-quick-your-favorite-non-g#ixzz11K8o003r

wishlist: Chai Tea Jello

Maybe I'll try this one first; I'm much more likely to try something experimental with tea. And I do so love chai... In my head, it tastes like the one from Big Train, which is what my local cafe sells; I wonder if I could make it like a solid Big Train?

From: http://www.bakingaisle.com/2010/04/chai-tea-jello/#more-107

Chai Tea Jello

• 1/2 cup cold water
• 4 packets unflavored gelatin
• 2 cups boiling water
• 6 chai teabags
• 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk

Thoroughly mix the gelatin with the cold water, and let sit on the counter.

Make the tea - put the tea bags in the boiling water, and let sit for 5-10 minutes. You want very, very strong tea.

Remove the tea bags, and stir the hot tea into the gelatin mixture until completely dissolved. Add the sweetened condensed milk and stir.

Pour into an 8-inch square pan, lightly greased or lined with parchment paper. Chill for 4 hours or until set.

Golden Moon Tea No.1: Sugar Caramel Oolong

The website doesn't have a decent picture; I'll come back later with one of my own.

I just discovered Golden Moon Tea through a friend's blog post, I since they have tiny samples for 99c and I am both poor and in search of new tea sources, I ordered a few that sounded good, and I'll be posting the reviews as I work my way through them.

The first I tried (really, the reason I bought enough to make shipping worth it) was Sugar Caramel Oolong. I love oolong. It's my fav of all the ways of oxidizing tea that I've tried, perfectly between green and black, with the best of both flavors without the strangeness of mixing the two, and with far more variety than you'd think. This one was my first ever flavored Oolong. It did not disappoint. The tea bewed up light and fresh, with no bitterness at all and enough assertiveness that the scents of toasted sugar and caramel didn't everpower the fact that it tasted like tea. There wasn't much flavor of either of these scents, but the scents were strong enough to make up for it, and if I were the sort to sugar a light tea (which I'm not), I think it'd take it just fine with the delicious dessertiness of the scent already there. I drank a cup fresh, then put the rest in a bottle and took it to work, and even with the leftover lychee scent of the juice I took to work two days before, it was nice hours later when I drank it. It didn't get bitter as it cooled off, and it blended nicely with the fruit flavor of the bottle.

I'm so buying this on in full size as soon as I get more monies.

Bottled Tea: Inko's Blueberry White

This is a keeper. A little sweetened, but not with High Fructose, and so free of that pervasive too-sweetness that most bottled teas have. The white tea is light and not bitter at all, and the blueberry tastes like blueberry without any of that metallic weirdness blueberry can get if it's too concentrated. The price is pretty good, too, a little over 2$ a bottle at WinnDixie, which is the only place I've seen it in town. I first tired it at my mom's house in Raleigh, and it was about 4$ a bottle at the Harris Teeter, so I'm counting this as a deal. It's fresh, refreshing, and it doesn't taste like vitamin C-- it's in there, as a preservative like all the other bottled teas-- but it's not harshly sour at all, just a teeny bit as would be appropriate to the fruit involved, and somehow manages to simultaneously not taste watery like alot of these new white teas do.

This is a good one. I just wish WinnDixie would carry more of their flavors. Like Cherry Vanilla? Or Honeysuckle? Or, the one I mourn not finding the most, Lychee?

Today's Tea: Genpi-Cha and Cinnamon Sunset

I drink a lot of tea. I mean, really alot. It's not unusual for me to drink an entire pot as part of breakfast, and then make another that I nurse all day long, hot and cold. I'm a fan of teas I don't have to remember to take out of the pot because of this fact. Since I drink so much, I've got a really huge collection, and I start combining them when I get bored.

Today's tea is Genpi-Cha Diet Tea from J-List and Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Sunset.

The Genpi is a base of nice oolong, which is my favorite level of oxydation, and is spiked with barley tea (mugi-cha) and various japanese herbs meant to help with weightloss and energy. The H&S is black tea with cinnamon and orange, and smells kind of like Big Red-- or like every grocery and craft store this time of year.

I've had them both separately, and I like them both, but the Genpi starts tasting more roasty and chicory-ish they longer it sits, and starts taking on more and more of the barley tea flavor that I'm not all that fond of-- it tastes to me like tea that's been made with a poorly-rinsed coffee machine, and I don't like the flavors of tea and coffee together. When I drink it alone, I keep adding fresh water to it to keep that flavor minmized. The Cinnamon Tea is STRONG. On it's own, it just takes over everything, and all you taste is the cinnamon, which tends to make it kind of flat and one-dimensional, so I usually only drink this tea with something else to minimize and mitigate it.

Together, the two teas counter eachother's weak points and make a nice aromatic tea that doesn't get bitter, warms you a little without burning your face off, and has the dietary goodness of the Genpi and the sugar-level-balancing of the huge dose of cinnamon. It makes a nice red-brown tea that smells and tastes like fall.

Fruit-Topped Waffle

For dinner last night, I made waffles on our ancient but sturdy second-hand Belgian waffle maker. Apparently, waffle irons have gotten bigger since that was made, because the recipe that the box said should make 4 came out as 8, so there were leftovers for breakfast this morning. Usually, I eat waffles with butter and jam or with peanut butter and honey, but today I wanted something more substantial. This is what I wound up with.

The fruit topping is 1 red pluot that I've had sitting in the fridge for almost a month (we won't even start on how scary it is to have fruit last a month like that) that needed eating and a handful of frozen cherries. The pluot was a little hard, a little bland and poorly ripened, and starting to dry out a bit in the fridge, so I chopped it into the pan and added a tablespoon of butter and a few tablespoons of brown sugar-- less than a quarter cup, just eyeballed in. I cooked it all together until the pluots had softened and the cherries had almost dissolved, and then dumped it on top of the toasted waffle.

Yum! Way better than the fresh pluot had been! It came out a little tart, a little plummy, just sweet enough (which is nowhere near as sweet as pancake syrup), and a little buttery. The pluots were tender without being mushy, and the sauce was almost like a home-made fruit syrup. I was going to add cinnamon and ginger, and didn't even have to-- there was enough flavor already. This combo would make a nice jam. I think it would work just as well with peaches, plums, nectarines, all cherries, pretty much any of the drupes. It'd be good with nuts. And I keep wanting to throw herbs in, but that will take more testing-- maybe fresh thyme? Basil? Anise would be good...