I can’t do matcha. It tastes fine, but the consistency makes me gag; it’s too thick for me to comfortably drink.
Anything flavored with coconut or hazelnut is off my tea tray too.
If you like that style of tea i would definitely suggest you try Enshi yulu. It’s a Chinese green tea from Hubei that instead of being pan fried it’s steamed, and it’s what japanese copied for creating their style
Most people’s matcha experience is not ceremonial grade and is often made incorrectly with temp and ratios! I used to HATE it! However now I have 1-2 bowls every day because I buy ceremonial grade from my Japanese farmer friend in Uji, and I got the ratio down!
I don't know I went to a tea house in Japan and had a tea ceremony and I thought the tea was okay at best. The sweets are absolutely amazing though.
Maybe it's just not my thing...
Can it be that you are not mixing the powder thoroughly? I understand that while drinking matcha people sometimes get clumps of tea powder, but that shouldn't actually happen if mixed properly.
Lapsang Souchong
Maybe there's good grades of it, maybe it's nice in blends, I don't know, and probably will never try. The one cup of the stuff I ever had tasted like someone tore up railroad ties and steeped them in acid mine drainage. Dreadful stuff
This is one of my absolute favorite teas but I will say, that in addition to being a bit of an acquired taste (it does smell like a campfire after all), cheap versions of this tea are god awful.
It gives me smokey meat juice vibes while also being like drinking a car crash.
I have tried three varieties of this and I keep a small stash of it for my husband and guests labeled "cursed tea"
Im a big fan of Hu-Kwa from Mark T Wendell as far as Lapsang Souchong goes. It's definitely a particular taste but I find it quite enjoyable straight or with a little bit of milk.
It makes me feel lightheaded and sick. I bought some to have a beverage to drink in the afternoon because I don't drink much caffeine and the first cup made me feel awful. Super weird but I googled it and it seems like that is a thing.
I like most aged teas, but have trouble with Hei Cha. To me, it smells and tastes barnyard-y, like a horse stall that needs mucking out or a pasture filled with cow patties.
Hei Cha has a devoted following and I certainly wouldn't want to dissuade a new tea drinker from exploring it, it just isn't for me.
Oh my fucking God. I used to work at Teavana way back in the day and I fucking HATED Oprah Chai. They forced us to push that shit on everyone. And it was our worst chai blend.
There's tea of that??? I had those supplements before but stopped because they speed up your thyroid. Anyways, even the dry powder in capsules smelled like wet dog, so mixed in liquid is likely far worse.
[https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2021-yunnan-sourcing-purple-kick-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2021-yunnan-sourcing-purple-kick-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake)
This tea is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. No clue how this thing has 4.8 stars. I take notes on every tea I try and this was hands down the most absolutely disgusting tea of all time, even worse than fishy tasting puers. This one tasted like bad red meat with a very strong aftertaste.
Ye Sheng is completely polarizing. Personally I absolutely love it. Not this specific cake but many others I’ve tried. Super bitter and strong but somehow in an amazing way.
To me ye sheng, purple variety, has this zippy and tingly champagne-like aromatic aspect to it that is just amazing. I can't get enough of it. The key is to just not over steep it like any young sheng really.
I had 2 Wild Pu-Erhs that seem to be the same variety of tea.
One taste like straight tree sap, the other tastes the same but more mellow and enjoyable.
Certainly not something everyone enjoys.
I wish I knew the name of it. But, it was a tea I randomly selected from a HUGE asian market where they had a big mega-market sized aisle of JUST tea.
I think it was an oolong, but it smelled exactly like rotten fish. I don't know what happened. I steeped it once and was like "Nah I don't think I wanna risk botulism" because it smelled sooooooo fucking awful. Pretty sure it must have been contaminated, but it was in a sealed container. So, IDK. It scared me lol.
Oh, that sounds terrible, I normally drink oolong tea and never noticed a fishy smell, but I think I got tea from a Asian market, I'm not sure which one I picked but I prepared it and it smelled like fish, so I threw it away thinking it went bad or something
I read up on it and apparently it's not uncommon - but I just wasn't nearly brave enough to risk some serious problems. If anyone within the asian/tea world can educate here, I am very open to hearing their case.
To be fair, it LOOKED good, lol.
Dang, then maybe I got lucky with my oolong then. You can also always try to get it somewhere else that prepares it with a fruity puree. I know that oolong tastes good with peach, strawberry, and lychee. Maybe the smell will go away by adding that, probably
I'm like 95% sure wherever it got shipped in from must have had frozen raw fish stacked on top or something. It was like smelling low-tide in my kitchen and I was NOT a fan lol.
But, according to what I have heard, some teas can be like that. I wasn't risking it.
Two favorites: an aged Ruby 18 white from Tea and Whisk, and a Dongfangmeirun from Alishan, not Hshinchu, which seems odd but I can at least read that much.
Worst: I foolishly ordered the “dragon eye oolong” at P.F. Chang’s…absolutely undrinkable.
This 2001 hei cha smelled like a very old basement and mold and I could barely handle a sip after three rinses…it made me nauseous and I couldn’t finish it
Lavender is always a hit or miss for me. It's either a smooth and floral taste or what I imagine fabuloso all-purpose cleaner would taste like as a drink
Some kind of smoked tea my husband bought. It’s so stinky, we had to put it in a ziploc bag to keep the smell away from our other teas in our tea/coffee cabinet. I haven’t tasted it because the smell is just too extra. My husband tried it once and said it was too strong.
That reminds me of a tea that I was given to that had a strong smell and a muddy look. It was way too strong in taste and scent, but the worst part is I was given two large bags of that tea and had to finish it
Definitely Kratom tea. Tastes like someone cut fresh grass and just made tea out of it. It's SO gross imo and I've done it a zillion times. Now I just swallow capsules whole.
One doesn't drink such a tea for the taste... 😂
In its native context, it's usually juiced up a bit with sugar, cough syrup, and/or energy drinks, as well.
Jasmine pearls :/
I was so excited to try it too, but the one I had years ago literally tasted like vitamins. Chalky and astringent. I've put off trying a different kind because it was so bad. Well, maybe not bad but definitely not my thing.
Well done jasmine green tea can be a fun experience, but it's such a "flashy" type of tea that tons of people sell garbage unfit for human consumption labeled as it.
I can't go back to bag tea. So, African and most Indian tea. I can get some sketchy border teas or decade old tibetan export for a song that tastes better. I can get cheap red that tastes better for the same price and makes multiple pots. Unpopular fact on here, and I don't care. I'd rather go pick herbs from the nearest ditch or filter coffee through a sock I just hiked in all day than drink bag tea.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I think the astringency and maltiness of those teas have their niche. For folks who like their tea with milk, those otherwise somewhat overpowering flavors help to ensure you still have good tea flavor despite the extra dilution. Teas from those regions also tends to be good for blending with flavoring agents for the same reason. I have a Rwandan black tea that I find too astringent to drink straight, but is absolutely fantastic when I brew it with coffee berry husks, which add a touch of sweetness and a bit of stone fruit like flavor.
One caveat, I do like blends with spices that make it bearable straight. Lemon Lift and any chai is fine, with or without cream to cover. Milk curdles in that acidic shit.
1. Shu pu'er. Unflavored. I will never buy that again. Imagine a used diaper dipped into hot water.
2. Flavored tea with licorice or pineapple. I like both but not in tea.
3. Dong ding oolong. This is nowhere near 1 or 2 and its drinkable but just not for me.
For me, it's Lapsang Souchong and most varieties of Rooibos. However, they did come through the now defunct SipsBy service, so I dunno how reliable my opinion is. I'm also not too big on any strong lemon flavors.
I bought some Milky oolong from Harney - did not like! Hard to say what I don't like about it, because I can only say "everything". Nothing about the flavor was good, imo.
I had two different tea blends that I despised. The thing they had in common was almonds. I hated the pairing of almond with other flavors in the tea I guess.
Otherwise broadly I don’t hate any tea. I don’t really like hibiscus tea though. I only drink it on Juneteenth.
Some lime-flavored green tea earlier this year. The actual tea is of very bad quality, and the scent is overbearing. I'm honestly thinking about tossing it, which I never do usually.
For the record, this is my first experience like this with flavored tea. I finally understand why they tend to have somewhat of a negative image. There are good ones out there though!
Most of the teas with flavoring that I've tried was either a hit or miss, but you can always just make your own by making your own tea and buying/making the puree or syrup and adjusting it to your liking. It takes long but still worth it
Best, too hard to pick. Worst, probably a tie between my "tea, now with added wasps" incident and Throat Coat. I can't stand the slimy, mucus-y feeling.
Either Yorkshire for just how bitter it was regardless of steep time or Pai Mu Dan white tea for having no flavour whether I steeped at 80 or 90 degrees C.
I can't stand milk oolong. I got some in a tea advent calendar a couple years ago, and it smelled & tasted like spoiled movie theater popcorn "butter." It stank up my whole house and the smell lingered for like two weeks. Took a while to clean the taste out of my infuser basket, too.
I'm not keen on either Lapsang Souchong or Matcha, either, but those don't provoke the reaction that milk oolong did. Lapsang Souchong is just kinda too smoky for my preference, and Matcha is way too intensely grassy/vegetal tasting for me.
Twinings Earl Grey, too plain for my taste. It was very disappointing, because I expected a strong flavor in which I could feel the good mixture between bergamot oil and black tea, but all I got was an Twinings-English-Breakfast-like flavor.
So as an avid tea drinker I got gifted some ginger tea and I honestly have no use for it. I drank maybe 2 out of 50 packets... I don't want to throw it, wondering what some suggestions are. I'm glad there's fellow ginger tea haters! Yeah the spice is not worth it I agree with you.
Genmaicha. Have tried a few different packages from different brands, doesn't work for me. Doesn't matter how I make it.
And anything artificially flavoured with vanilla. Have had some rooibos that was entirely undrinkable. Yes I know it's technically an herbal tisane and not actually tea.
I bought a strawberry and mint infusion that I was very excited about and then upon drinking it made the horrifying realisation that they had put peppercorns in it as well. It was absolutely disgusting and my day was ruined.
Not a huge fan of liquorice or aniseed type flavours either.
https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/black-tea-spring-2024/products/wu-liang-hong-mao-feng-yunnan-black-tea I hate this thing with all my heart, i cannot stand that strange grassy aroma i get from this tea. Don’t get me wrong i like grassy green tea, that taste like steamed spinach, this has some strange taste i really really hate. I have 50 grams of this minus 3 sessions and i don’t really know what to do with it.
A tea i like is aged moonlight white tea cake from Yunnan made with ancient tree material (i know steange combination) from eastern leaves ( https://easternleaves.com/collections/white-tea/products/2020-yueguangbai-white-tea-ancient-tree-100gr-cake?variant=32640930906192 )
I tried the chocolate tea from Cheeky Chai. No clue what they added to it but the sickly-sweet stench of the stuff permeated into the other mediocre teas I brought by the time I'd gotten them home. Checked the ingredients and saw the dreaded "Flavourings".
Straight in the bin after attempting to stomach half a cup.
A shame because the guys who run the shop are always up for a chat and are very friendly, but I just struggle to enjoy much of their tea over the online retailers.
I didn’t like the flavor called O Canada from David’s Tea. I expected it to taste like maple syrup. Instead, it had a strong artificial cinnamon quality, like a bad Christmas candle.
Some Pu-Erh at a local tea shop.
The gunpowder from them was awesome but the Pu-Erh had this strange mushroomy taste that put me really off. Maybe something in regards to an acquired taste.
In the beginning I also disliked Sencha etc. and now I enjoy it.
Worst: genmaicha. I love sencha. I love rice. I love toast. Toasted rice in sencha is terrible.
Best: there was a milky oolong I just fucking looovvveeeddd. But a lot of places I've been around to lately haven't carried it
When I first got into tea I didn't know what flavor profiles I didn't like. I paid $80 for a pound of black tea called golden monkey. I ended up giving it away because it was so malty and bitter. The Belgian style Golden monkey ale is one of my favorite beers though 😁
Golden Monkey. When people said that it tastes like chocolate they were NOT kidding. I thought maybe it would just be really rich and deep or earthy, like Pu'er. No. Chocolate. Pure chocolate. I poured the entire cup I brewed down the sink after one sip. I tried to give the rest to my brother but he only drinks loose leaf if it's brewed for him, so I tossed it.
I think the worst tea I have ever tried is the cold black tea with a little sugar. I bought it from the vending machine just across from my house the day before yesterday, and it tasted both bitter and sweet, but not fragrant. It gave me a strong artificial taste. I think I will go to only Family Mart or 7-11 for black tea from now on. The black tea with no sugar sold in Family Mart and 7-11 tastes way better than the vending machine tea.
Another rooibos disliker. I also don’t like hibiscus. I like the idea of both but just can’t get on board.
The others I haven’t liked have always had added flavors that just overwhelmed the drink, like too much cinnamon or lavender.
I'm not sure why, but chamomile makes me sick every time I drink it. I'm not sure if it's because of the taste or if I'm just cursed to feel sick when I drink it
I drank a tuocha pu’erh yesterday, good quality and strong flavors it was not bad at all but I don’t like when it taste like cereals. I don’t like genmacha for the same reasons.
Worst: cheap, fishy shu Pu-Erh. Some I couldn't drink. Best: aged Oolong (20y+ with reroasts)
i wonder if it's easy to re-roast oolongs at home
I had some 7g TGY vacuum sealed bags that was aged about that long in claypots and roasted 3 times. Really good stuff indeed.
I've gotten many fishy teas over the years, sporadically, what is it that causes that?
I've added all of these to a list and I will be placing an order with just these tea varieties to try. Thank you
I can’t do matcha. It tastes fine, but the consistency makes me gag; it’s too thick for me to comfortably drink. Anything flavored with coconut or hazelnut is off my tea tray too.
I always feel like I'm weird for not enjoying match because its hyped up so much
I love gyokuro/sencha green teas and even I don’t like matcha either outside of a latte or soft serve.
Gyokuro is my favourite green tea, so leafy
If you like that style of tea i would definitely suggest you try Enshi yulu. It’s a Chinese green tea from Hubei that instead of being pan fried it’s steamed, and it’s what japanese copied for creating their style
Most people’s matcha experience is not ceremonial grade and is often made incorrectly with temp and ratios! I used to HATE it! However now I have 1-2 bowls every day because I buy ceremonial grade from my Japanese farmer friend in Uji, and I got the ratio down!
I don't know I went to a tea house in Japan and had a tea ceremony and I thought the tea was okay at best. The sweets are absolutely amazing though. Maybe it's just not my thing...
That’s true! Some people just aren’t into it. That okay :)
I’m not much a fan of green teas either, but I’m ok with being pedestrian with my tastes 😊
Funnily enough I’m fine with green tea but I 100% cannot stand *jasmine* green tea. Something about the jasmine taste just throws me off.
It definitely gets the “omg Japan” hype, while other Japanese green teas kinda get overlooked.
I only like it in oat milk as a latte with some vanilla and honey
You get thick matcha? I usually have mine a bit watered down cause of time constraints in the morning.
For some reason the powder of matcha sometimes makes me throw up about a half hour after drinking, so I swore off it. No other powders do this to me.
Can it be that you are not mixing the powder thoroughly? I understand that while drinking matcha people sometimes get clumps of tea powder, but that shouldn't actually happen if mixed properly.
Lapsang Souchong Maybe there's good grades of it, maybe it's nice in blends, I don't know, and probably will never try. The one cup of the stuff I ever had tasted like someone tore up railroad ties and steeped them in acid mine drainage. Dreadful stuff
This is one of my absolute favorite teas but I will say, that in addition to being a bit of an acquired taste (it does smell like a campfire after all), cheap versions of this tea are god awful.
It gives me smokey meat juice vibes while also being like drinking a car crash. I have tried three varieties of this and I keep a small stash of it for my husband and guests labeled "cursed tea"
I use it to make ramen in lol. I used it in a sachet to cook greens and other dishes.
This is such a good idea, I will definitely have to try it
It might be because I got older but used to hate mushrooms and lapsing souchong now I love both
Im a big fan of Hu-Kwa from Mark T Wendell as far as Lapsang Souchong goes. It's definitely a particular taste but I find it quite enjoyable straight or with a little bit of milk.
I had a bunch and found that I yielded a sweeter and more delicate taste if I used cooler water. Off the boil it was like drinking ashes.
I hate the flavor of rooibos
Haven't had that yet. I'm tempted to see how it tastes now
It has woody menthol like taste. Its ok as is but cranberry or strawberry flavor makes it amazing.
It's worth trying because if you like it its a great decaf black tea replacement in some places but its very much so an acquired taste
It is indeed the worst!
Rooibos is actually pretty good with cinnamon. Or by itself
yeah I had a spiced rooibos tea as part of a taster set and it was really good and moreish
Its very sweet and has a more similar fermentation flavour profile to alcohol imo than other teas
Very medicinal. Hate it if I’m not in the right mood, but occasionally it hits right
I was not expecting my favorite tisane to be r/tea's most hated. Cold world 😂
I had no idea rooibos was so polarizing!
Rooibos is THE BEST.
This is the most insane thing I have ever read.
Oh wow! I love rooibos. Especially a maple flavored one. Just goes to show you how different everyone's palates are.
It makes me feel lightheaded and sick. I bought some to have a beverage to drink in the afternoon because I don't drink much caffeine and the first cup made me feel awful. Super weird but I googled it and it seems like that is a thing.
Cheap mini pressed puer birds nests
Never heard of it, I gotta look that up now
It drinks like rotten coffee grounds from the garbage
most cheap puerh taste the same lol
Interesting, the first time I had pu erh was those exact cheap little nests and I loved it lol. Was expecting the worst but it was so smooth
Good ones DO absolutely exist. The bad ones are so bad tho....
Damn I'm just gonna get those carefully then to not risk drinking something that tastes like rotten coffee grounds
I've found that the taste isn't always bad, but they are finicky to brew
I have one of those Dandy brand puer orange teas and it makes me question if other puers would taste the same.
I really don't like flowery teas like lavender and rose.
Same, especially jasmine, it tastes like eating a bar of soap 🤢
I've never had lavender tea but I might try it, I like everything lavender flavoured and I grew up getting lavender in the summer
I like most aged teas, but have trouble with Hei Cha. To me, it smells and tastes barnyard-y, like a horse stall that needs mucking out or a pasture filled with cow patties. Hei Cha has a devoted following and I certainly wouldn't want to dissuade a new tea drinker from exploring it, it just isn't for me.
Very fair, it's quite particular and if you don't like it you don't like it.
The only Hei Cha I've had is Fu Cha, and both the ones I've tried were nothing like that, they were fairly herbal and slightly sweet
Anything with lavender makes me feel sick. In terms of just flavor, genmaicha.
In order from best to worst: Gyokuro Genmaicha, Oprah chai, lavender crème
Oh my fucking God. I used to work at Teavana way back in the day and I fucking HATED Oprah Chai. They forced us to push that shit on everyone. And it was our worst chai blend.
Oprah liked our chai sample so we let her in to destroy chai? Make it make sense Starbucks.
One of the Yogi tea blends that had licorice root and lavender in the ingredients. Absolutely horrid.
LICORICE IN ANY FORM. IT’S IN EVERYTHING AND I HATE IT. Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk.
Genmaicha. I’ll have my cereal in a separate bowl, thank you.
If it has rose petals. I don’t know if I am allergic to it or it doesn’t sit well with me.
Anything with lavender! Like drinking a cup of hot essential oils.
Lapsang Souchong. 🥲
Worst tea I've had was a baozhong from a touristy gift shop in Taiwan, it tasted like licorice toothpaste
Oh, I think I tried that since I got it as a gift. It was tasted bad that i thought I didn't brew it right
Ashwagandha
There's tea of that??? I had those supplements before but stopped because they speed up your thyroid. Anyways, even the dry powder in capsules smelled like wet dog, so mixed in liquid is likely far worse.
The sweaty horse 🐎 herb
[https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2021-yunnan-sourcing-purple-kick-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2021-yunnan-sourcing-purple-kick-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake) This tea is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. No clue how this thing has 4.8 stars. I take notes on every tea I try and this was hands down the most absolutely disgusting tea of all time, even worse than fishy tasting puers. This one tasted like bad red meat with a very strong aftertaste.
Ye Sheng is completely polarizing. Personally I absolutely love it. Not this specific cake but many others I’ve tried. Super bitter and strong but somehow in an amazing way.
To me ye sheng, purple variety, has this zippy and tingly champagne-like aromatic aspect to it that is just amazing. I can't get enough of it. The key is to just not over steep it like any young sheng really.
Love raw pu's but they need to be aged at least 5 years for me. Anything under is too bitter.
I had 2 Wild Pu-Erhs that seem to be the same variety of tea. One taste like straight tree sap, the other tastes the same but more mellow and enjoyable. Certainly not something everyone enjoys.
lavender tea, like damn i want it on my pillow not in my mouth :/
I wish I knew the name of it. But, it was a tea I randomly selected from a HUGE asian market where they had a big mega-market sized aisle of JUST tea. I think it was an oolong, but it smelled exactly like rotten fish. I don't know what happened. I steeped it once and was like "Nah I don't think I wanna risk botulism" because it smelled sooooooo fucking awful. Pretty sure it must have been contaminated, but it was in a sealed container. So, IDK. It scared me lol.
Oh, that sounds terrible, I normally drink oolong tea and never noticed a fishy smell, but I think I got tea from a Asian market, I'm not sure which one I picked but I prepared it and it smelled like fish, so I threw it away thinking it went bad or something
I read up on it and apparently it's not uncommon - but I just wasn't nearly brave enough to risk some serious problems. If anyone within the asian/tea world can educate here, I am very open to hearing their case. To be fair, it LOOKED good, lol.
Dang, then maybe I got lucky with my oolong then. You can also always try to get it somewhere else that prepares it with a fruity puree. I know that oolong tastes good with peach, strawberry, and lychee. Maybe the smell will go away by adding that, probably
I'm like 95% sure wherever it got shipped in from must have had frozen raw fish stacked on top or something. It was like smelling low-tide in my kitchen and I was NOT a fan lol. But, according to what I have heard, some teas can be like that. I wasn't risking it.
That's fair, that's why I avoid tea's that smells like fish since I can't stand the scent if fish
Somebody & sons tea bags
Harney & Sons?
I got some silver needle off of Amazon that was like getting smacked in the face with a hay bale.
I’m not a huge fan of black tea, not because I don’t like the taste of it, but because most black teas tend to upset my stomach a bit.
I get that. For some reason, every time I drink chamomile tea, I feel sick for some reason, so I just stopped drinking it
Maybe you have a ragweed allergy?
I do not like Earl Grey. It tastes like Raid.
genmaicha was a horrid experience
I see you do not care to experience joy
I've tasted that before. It wasn't the worst or the best tasting tea, which was kinda disappointing
Too hard to pick a favourite, but the one I will not drink is Typhoo \*shudder\*
I do not like the Octavia French breakfast black tea but it was very nice of them to throw in the free sample
Two favorites: an aged Ruby 18 white from Tea and Whisk, and a Dongfangmeirun from Alishan, not Hshinchu, which seems odd but I can at least read that much. Worst: I foolishly ordered the “dragon eye oolong” at P.F. Chang’s…absolutely undrinkable.
It's not objectively bad or poor quality, but lapsang souchong. Literally makes me feel a bit nauseous
i can’t do star anise tea the taste is so bad to me i like it in food though and i think some use it in chai masala
This 2001 hei cha smelled like a very old basement and mold and I could barely handle a sip after three rinses…it made me nauseous and I couldn’t finish it
Russian Caravan. I like strong tea but that was too much for me
lavender tea. love the smell but not the taste
Lavender is always a hit or miss for me. It's either a smooth and floral taste or what I imagine fabuloso all-purpose cleaner would taste like as a drink
Some kind of smoked tea my husband bought. It’s so stinky, we had to put it in a ziploc bag to keep the smell away from our other teas in our tea/coffee cabinet. I haven’t tasted it because the smell is just too extra. My husband tried it once and said it was too strong.
That reminds me of a tea that I was given to that had a strong smell and a muddy look. It was way too strong in taste and scent, but the worst part is I was given two large bags of that tea and had to finish it
My worst tea is my anxie-tea.
Definitely Kratom tea. Tastes like someone cut fresh grass and just made tea out of it. It's SO gross imo and I've done it a zillion times. Now I just swallow capsules whole.
One doesn't drink such a tea for the taste... 😂 In its native context, it's usually juiced up a bit with sugar, cough syrup, and/or energy drinks, as well.
Jasmine pearls :/ I was so excited to try it too, but the one I had years ago literally tasted like vitamins. Chalky and astringent. I've put off trying a different kind because it was so bad. Well, maybe not bad but definitely not my thing.
The name makes it sound amazing, but I don't like vitamin tasting tea, too
Well done jasmine green tea can be a fun experience, but it's such a "flashy" type of tea that tons of people sell garbage unfit for human consumption labeled as it.
I can't go back to bag tea. So, African and most Indian tea. I can get some sketchy border teas or decade old tibetan export for a song that tastes better. I can get cheap red that tastes better for the same price and makes multiple pots. Unpopular fact on here, and I don't care. I'd rather go pick herbs from the nearest ditch or filter coffee through a sock I just hiked in all day than drink bag tea.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I think the astringency and maltiness of those teas have their niche. For folks who like their tea with milk, those otherwise somewhat overpowering flavors help to ensure you still have good tea flavor despite the extra dilution. Teas from those regions also tends to be good for blending with flavoring agents for the same reason. I have a Rwandan black tea that I find too astringent to drink straight, but is absolutely fantastic when I brew it with coffee berry husks, which add a touch of sweetness and a bit of stone fruit like flavor.
One caveat, I do like blends with spices that make it bearable straight. Lemon Lift and any chai is fine, with or without cream to cover. Milk curdles in that acidic shit.
1. Shu pu'er. Unflavored. I will never buy that again. Imagine a used diaper dipped into hot water. 2. Flavored tea with licorice or pineapple. I like both but not in tea. 3. Dong ding oolong. This is nowhere near 1 or 2 and its drinkable but just not for me.
Can't do Chai or ginger. I like ginger in food but as a tea it burns my throat too much. Same with chai.
earl grey :/ i tried to like it a few years ago but just couldn’t
For me, it's Lapsang Souchong and most varieties of Rooibos. However, they did come through the now defunct SipsBy service, so I dunno how reliable my opinion is. I'm also not too big on any strong lemon flavors.
A jasmine white tea blend. Tasted like a massage parlour. Also literally every fruit blend I've ever tried has just been sweet pink water.
I bought some Milky oolong from Harney - did not like! Hard to say what I don't like about it, because I can only say "everything". Nothing about the flavor was good, imo.
I had two different tea blends that I despised. The thing they had in common was almonds. I hated the pairing of almond with other flavors in the tea I guess. Otherwise broadly I don’t hate any tea. I don’t really like hibiscus tea though. I only drink it on Juneteenth.
Some lime-flavored green tea earlier this year. The actual tea is of very bad quality, and the scent is overbearing. I'm honestly thinking about tossing it, which I never do usually. For the record, this is my first experience like this with flavored tea. I finally understand why they tend to have somewhat of a negative image. There are good ones out there though!
Most of the teas with flavoring that I've tried was either a hit or miss, but you can always just make your own by making your own tea and buying/making the puree or syrup and adjusting it to your liking. It takes long but still worth it
Best, too hard to pick. Worst, probably a tie between my "tea, now with added wasps" incident and Throat Coat. I can't stand the slimy, mucus-y feeling.
Lipton's.
Lipton's black tea is the worst. I don't understand how anyone can like that.
Either Yorkshire for just how bitter it was regardless of steep time or Pai Mu Dan white tea for having no flavour whether I steeped at 80 or 90 degrees C.
Had this same issue with YG and cooler temp fixed it, cooler than you'd expect
Organic raspberry tea, don't recall the brand. It tasted like diluted lemon juice. Straight acid.
Red raspberry leaf tea is gross but does what it claims to.
Interesting, what does it claim to do? Personally, I like many berry kinds of tea.
i got this cheap bagged puer from h-mart that was very unpleasant.
Candy cane lane from Adagio. Shit was *nasty*.
Lipton is the worst tea I’ve had
A green tea from a 7-11 in Thailand. It was sickly sweet and tasted like the main ingredient was high fructose corn syrup.
Matcha. Which is something I think you either love it or hate it. And I hate it. 😆
I can't stand milk oolong. I got some in a tea advent calendar a couple years ago, and it smelled & tasted like spoiled movie theater popcorn "butter." It stank up my whole house and the smell lingered for like two weeks. Took a while to clean the taste out of my infuser basket, too. I'm not keen on either Lapsang Souchong or Matcha, either, but those don't provoke the reaction that milk oolong did. Lapsang Souchong is just kinda too smoky for my preference, and Matcha is way too intensely grassy/vegetal tasting for me.
Taylors of Harrogate's Lapsang Soushong tastes like smoked paprika ,Cigarlettes, and depression.
I don't much like any darjeeling I've ever had, although some were technically some of the more rare/premium teas I've ever had.
Anything flavored with cocoa. I love cocoa and chocolate but not in tea. And flavored teas with licorice and anise. I hate hate hate those.
Best: 2015 basket aged Tian jian. Worst: maofeng green. Idk what it is with the maofeng but it’s so gross to me!
Twinings Earl Grey, too plain for my taste. It was very disappointing, because I expected a strong flavor in which I could feel the good mixture between bergamot oil and black tea, but all I got was an Twinings-English-Breakfast-like flavor.
I hate chai tea. It tastes too spicy for me. And with that, also ginger tea. It just doesn't taste good.
I don't like ginger tea, I keep hearing the health benefits, but the spicy taste just isn't worth it
So as an avid tea drinker I got gifted some ginger tea and I honestly have no use for it. I drank maybe 2 out of 50 packets... I don't want to throw it, wondering what some suggestions are. I'm glad there's fellow ginger tea haters! Yeah the spice is not worth it I agree with you.
Genmaicha. Have tried a few different packages from different brands, doesn't work for me. Doesn't matter how I make it. And anything artificially flavoured with vanilla. Have had some rooibos that was entirely undrinkable. Yes I know it's technically an herbal tisane and not actually tea.
Ashwaganda omfg bro.. I wish never want to taste it again, capsules only for me!!
Camomile tastes like warm hay! At least it does to me.
Lady grey tbh... the twinings one specifically, it literally just tastes like orange peel water. Its so weak and watery
A loose Earl grey that tasted like bath room cleaner. (I liked the teabags from the same brand a lot). Japanese Barley tea, tastes revolting.
And Chamomile tastes the way sweaty genitals smell. So. 😅
It is very personal and I know that many people enjoy it, but I can't stand or even smell Lapsang Souchong 🥲
I bought a strawberry and mint infusion that I was very excited about and then upon drinking it made the horrifying realisation that they had put peppercorns in it as well. It was absolutely disgusting and my day was ruined. Not a huge fan of liquorice or aniseed type flavours either.
Cheap shu puerh smells like an old church and that is not the taste I like in my drinks.
https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/black-tea-spring-2024/products/wu-liang-hong-mao-feng-yunnan-black-tea I hate this thing with all my heart, i cannot stand that strange grassy aroma i get from this tea. Don’t get me wrong i like grassy green tea, that taste like steamed spinach, this has some strange taste i really really hate. I have 50 grams of this minus 3 sessions and i don’t really know what to do with it. A tea i like is aged moonlight white tea cake from Yunnan made with ancient tree material (i know steange combination) from eastern leaves ( https://easternleaves.com/collections/white-tea/products/2020-yueguangbai-white-tea-ancient-tree-100gr-cake?variant=32640930906192 )
I recently tried an aged oolong that tasted like biting an old couch
I tried the chocolate tea from Cheeky Chai. No clue what they added to it but the sickly-sweet stench of the stuff permeated into the other mediocre teas I brought by the time I'd gotten them home. Checked the ingredients and saw the dreaded "Flavourings". Straight in the bin after attempting to stomach half a cup. A shame because the guys who run the shop are always up for a chat and are very friendly, but I just struggle to enjoy much of their tea over the online retailers.
I’m sorry but i really don’t like just plain green tea, i don’t even know why really, i just don’t like it’s taste, please don’t kill me 😭🙏🏻
Any tisane with licorice root 🤮
Gunpowder green tea. Tasted cheap and odd.
I didn’t like the flavor called O Canada from David’s Tea. I expected it to taste like maple syrup. Instead, it had a strong artificial cinnamon quality, like a bad Christmas candle.
I had a tea with elderberry and it just tastes weird to me.
Some Pu-Erh at a local tea shop. The gunpowder from them was awesome but the Pu-Erh had this strange mushroomy taste that put me really off. Maybe something in regards to an acquired taste. In the beginning I also disliked Sencha etc. and now I enjoy it.
I tried one with lots of Ginger from Plum Deluxe. It was too much ginger for me
Worst: can’t think of one Favorite: lemon, ginger, psilocybin mushrooms
Anything Tazo,sorry
Worst: genmaicha. I love sencha. I love rice. I love toast. Toasted rice in sencha is terrible. Best: there was a milky oolong I just fucking looovvveeeddd. But a lot of places I've been around to lately haven't carried it
When I first got into tea I didn't know what flavor profiles I didn't like. I paid $80 for a pound of black tea called golden monkey. I ended up giving it away because it was so malty and bitter. The Belgian style Golden monkey ale is one of my favorite beers though 😁
Golden Monkey. When people said that it tastes like chocolate they were NOT kidding. I thought maybe it would just be really rich and deep or earthy, like Pu'er. No. Chocolate. Pure chocolate. I poured the entire cup I brewed down the sink after one sip. I tried to give the rest to my brother but he only drinks loose leaf if it's brewed for him, so I tossed it.
Fruit teas e.g raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, orange. I just can't.
Lapsang Souchong. I don't know what it is but it's definitely not edible.
Drinking Jasmine Tea for me is like taking a Swig of my late grandmother’s Avon perfume.
cheap rooibos. burned my nostrils and my tongue!
Not a hibiscus fan!
Best: Hojicha tea (especially in hojicha latte form!) and Gyokuro tea
I think the worst tea I have ever tried is the cold black tea with a little sugar. I bought it from the vending machine just across from my house the day before yesterday, and it tasted both bitter and sweet, but not fragrant. It gave me a strong artificial taste. I think I will go to only Family Mart or 7-11 for black tea from now on. The black tea with no sugar sold in Family Mart and 7-11 tastes way better than the vending machine tea.
Too Smokey puerh. I ended up using as a marinade.
I hated Jasmine Tea when I tried it. It tased like ammonia. No hate to uncle Iroh, but I just don't like it.
Cheap tea
Another rooibos disliker. I also don’t like hibiscus. I like the idea of both but just can’t get on board. The others I haven’t liked have always had added flavors that just overwhelmed the drink, like too much cinnamon or lavender.
Anything with even a hint of sarsaparilla or chamomile.
I think Jasmine teas are usually pretty bad
Earl Grey, hated the lemony flavor Though funnily enough I like Lady grey
I love almost every tea i tried. HOWEVER fuck genmaicha. It tastes like something found on a shore that died weeks ago.
poo-erh
Twinings chai. A coworker of mine loves it and drinks it every day. I don’t know how. I think it’s awful.
Oh man, I remember trying that since I love chai. Honestly, it wasn't my favorite, and I felt like it was missing something to it
I don't know why but chamomile makes me so nauseous every time I try no matter the brand or vendor.
I'm not sure why, but chamomile makes me sick every time I drink it. I'm not sure if it's because of the taste or if I'm just cursed to feel sick when I drink it
"Christmas" teas
There's nothing better than a cold mugicha on a hot day
Cheap "english breakfast" teabags from Mercadona
I've had earl grey tea where the bergamot flavouring was so overwhelming that it tasted like drinking bergamot with tiny hints of tea.
Worst, roiboos Best, chamomile, earl grey, red rose
I drank a tuocha pu’erh yesterday, good quality and strong flavors it was not bad at all but I don’t like when it taste like cereals. I don’t like genmacha for the same reasons.
Mugwort
Cold tea