The cranberry tea I got from Upton smells great in the bag. It has a
rich, pleasant fruity smell. But then when you put it in hot water, it
smells exactly like incense and it tastes like it too. It's not very
nice. Am I doing something wrong?

On Dec 21, 4:56*am, Rich Billionaire >
wrote:
> The cranberry tea I got from Upton smells great in the bag. It has a
> rich, pleasant fruity smell. But then when you put it in hot water, it
> smells exactly like incense and it tastes like it too. It's not very
> nice. Am I doing something wrong?

Probably, you're not doing anything wrong, except having bought it in
the first place. But a lot of people like perfumy tea mixtures,
especially around Christmas time. Toci

On Dec 21, 7:32*am, toci > wrote:
> On Dec 21, 4:56*am, Rich Billionaire >
> wrote:
>
> > The cranberry tea I got from Upton smells great in the bag. It has a
> > rich, pleasant fruity smell. But then when you put it in hot water, it
> > smells exactly like incense and it tastes like it too. It's not very
> > nice. Am I doing something wrong?
>
> Probably, you're not doing anything wrong, except having bought it in
> the first place. *But a lot of people like perfumy tea mixtures,
> especially around Christmas time. * *Toci

Yeah, nothing you did... just bad to start with. It's all part of the
learning curve. The best way to try flavored teas is to pick ones that
have only one flavor and the tea: Jasmine green tea, osmanthus oolong,
Earl Grey, etc. One personal exception is ginger peach black tea.

To start off you would be best served by buying 2-3 tea samples
(unflavored) in each category. It is only a dollar or two from Upton
apiece and you will quickly learn what you like and do not like. Then
explore more teas within that area and fine tune your likes and
dislikes. You'll then find your tastes will probably change and many
of those first disliked teas are more enjoyable. Keep up the search
and then branch out to new vendors and specific teas.

The categories to start with: Green tea (a Chinese like dragonwell,
and a Japanese like sencha), Oolong (pick a more green one like Tie
Guan Yin, and a roasted one like Shui Xian and or Oriental Beauty),
Black/Red (keemun, ceylon, assam, darjeeling), and if feeling
adventurous try a loose sample of Puerh and maybe a White tea.

All of that in samples will probably only cost $10-20 shipped from a
place like Uptons and be a much better introduction and basis for your
journey.

- Dominic

On Dec 21, 2:56*am, Rich Billionaire >
wrote:
> The cranberry tea I got from Upton smells great in the bag. It has a
> rich, pleasant fruity smell. But then when you put it in hot water, it
> smells exactly like incense and it tastes like it too. It's not very
> nice. Am I doing something wrong?

Try lighter infusions, but flavoured teas very rarely work out
well. The only good thing about them is that they stand up
well to food, so you might keep it just for drinking with
sandwiches or a croissant.

Generally in china they would use jasmine or pomelo or
osmanthus, and also rose flavours. These will not
overpower the scent of tea, but even then you have to
be very careful - many jasmine teas have too much
jasmine.

Another thing is that usually they would take a lower
grade tea to use with a flavour additive because the
tea's taste will be hidden anyway.

Sometimes vanilla flavour works well with an earl grey.