Do you know all about teas? Tea is the second most drinkable beverage in the world.
Tea drinkers from all over the world drink it traditionally or occasionally. The variety of tea allows us to choose between different flavors and aromas.
Today we have several best tea brands that people love to buy from. These tea companies work with farmers who are picking the most quality tea for their assortment.
Best tea brands follow quality and other standards to satisfy the customer’s needs. Below you will get to know different kinds of tea and brands in detail.
Different types of tea
These are teas varieties that you can choose from.
Real teas
Real teas are the most drinkable among teas. Some people like green, and other like black tea.
Green tea is most drinkable in Japan, meanwhile, black tea is popular in America and England as a morning drink.
All real teas come from the Camellia sinensis plant. It is used for the production of green, black, white, oolong and Pu-erh tea.
What is the difference between these teas if they come from the same plant?
Tea brands use different processes to make real tea varieties. Each real tea is made with different procedure.
They contain caffeine
Do you know which tea has the most caffeine? Real teas have one thing in common. Camellia sinensis is a plant that contains caffeine. This means that all real teas have it, just in different amounts.
Black tea contains the most caffeine levels, green tea follows. These teas have a lot of antioxidants and other active substances that are beneficial to our health.
Nevertheless, some people who are sensitive to caffeine should watch out on the caffeine dosage.
Loose leaf tea vs tea bags
We can also distinguish between loose leaf tea and tea bags. In general, loose leaf tea has better quality than herbs from tea bags. It has more flavor and aroma.
People start to taste loose leaf tea regardless of its higher price. It is more expensive due to its quality.
I should also stress out that you can use loose leaf tea several times.
This is because of the quality of the leaves. On the other hand, tea bags also have their advantages as they are easy to use and remove.
Where does tea come from?
Anyway, where does tea come from? It is no secret that tea comes from Asia. Different legends talk about the discovery of tea.
We have Chinese, Indian and other legends that are claiming that they discovered tea.
Well, we don’t know who discovered it but we can be happy that this drink is making our day easier and more joyful.
Japanese tea
Japanese know tea for more than 4000 years. Their tradition of drinking tea spread in every single home. Japan grows and produces the best green tea in the world.
Their green tea differs in taste, aroma, and color. They have regions in the north that are appropriate for growing tea.
Rich soil and moisture from the mountains enable growing conditions of the tea.
Tea has a big impact on Japanese culture. It is involved in religion, philosophy and other life areas.
Other tea types
We also have other teas like herbal, fruit and spice tea which don’t contain caffeine. Each of these teas comes from one plant. For example, chamomile tea comes from a chamomile plant.
Herbal teas are meant for enjoyment as well as a home remedy. Herbal, fruit, and spice tea has active substances from which we can benefit. These are great with some diseases and their symptoms.
Best tea brands
Get to know the 5 best tea companies in the world.
Celestial Seasonings
We have tea brands that produce the most delicious teas in the world. Celestial Seasonings is a well-known tea brand in Colorado, U.S., which sells more than 1.6 billion tea bags per year.
They have a rich history. Their products have an interesting design that many people are attracted to. Their teas contain over 100 ingredients from 35 countries.
Bigelow
Bigelow is a family tea company that is in the tea market for more than 72 years. They have a variety of 120 teas that you can choose from.
Constant Comment is their first tea that became famous. Tea herbs are hand-picked from high-elevation gardens.
Yogi
Yogi tea brand also deserves to be on my best tea brand’s list. They produce delicious herbal and spice teas that are based on unique Ayurveda recipes.
Their story began in 1960 when Yogi Bhajan came to the West to show people his teachings.
When he was teaching, he served his aromatic spice tea blend. The students liked his tea so much that they named it “Yogi tea”. Fist Yogi tea was sold in Europe 10 years later.
You can enjoy among 80 organically grown herbs and spices and 44 varieties of Yogi tea.
Tea Forte
Tea forte is another global tea company that pleases tea drinkers. They have many tea collections and types of tea.
Their tea bags are unique due to a pyramid shape and a green leaf on the top of the teabag. Their teas are drinkable in 35 countries and in some luxury restaurants, hotels and prestige resorts.
Numi
Numi is a U.S. tea brand whose purpose is to inspire people by drinking their organic teas. They have environmental awareness.
The company produces 100% organic teas without additional flavorings, perfumes or fragrances. Their teas are gluten-free so people with gluten intolerance can drink them without worries.
Their teabags are first that received the Non-GMO verification. They are a purchaser of Fair Trade CertifiedTM tea and thus protecting the workers by giving them fair wages.
The best green tea brand
If you want to know all about teas, you should know the best tea companies out there.
The popularity of green tea is spreading very fast. Best green tea brands are spoiling us with their collection of the invigorating drink.
Davidson’s Organics
Davidson’s Organics produces a green tea that has USDA organic label. This means that spices and herbs weren’t exposed to pesticides, fumigants, and herbicides. Their green tea is GMO-free.
Twinings
Twinings is a tea company that produces organic green tea that is strictly monitored from the beginning to the end of the production process.
They get tea leaves from carefully selected tea gardens. International certification agencies are checking their tea production in other countries where they produce tea.
Stash tea
Stash Tea is a brand that is one of the largest tea companies in the U.S. They have premium 100% organic teas.
The company is environmentally aware since they produce teas with green energy. You can choose their green tea that comes from China, Japan, India, South America or Sri Lanka.
Celestial Seasonings
Celestial Seasonings offers steamed and pan-fried green tea. Japanese use steam to get green tea and the Chinese use a pan-fried method for green tea.
Their green teas have additional Vitamin C. The company has a comprehensive line of green teas that come with inviting flavor profiles, caffeine, and decaf varieties.
Taylors of Harrogate
Taylors of Harrogate is a family tea company that is based in the historic spa town of Harrogate in England. Their green tea is monitored by experts who have years of experience.
They are founding members of the Ethical Tea Partnership and strongly connected with the Rainforest Alliance.
Spiced tea with Tang
Have you ever tried a spiced tea? Indians love spices. They use spices daily in their food but also in their drinks.
Turmeric
Turmeric is a yellow color spice that is extracted from Curcuma root. It is an amazing spice that is getting popular.
It has many healing effects and it helps with the digestive system, liver and gallbladder problems, and it cleans the blood.
Curcumin is its main active substance that will stimulate the function of the liver and gallbladder. It has also a positive effect on hepatitis.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice that many people love to use in desserts and drinks. Cinnamon tea is an excellent drink for preventing flu and cold.
Hot cinnamon tea will stimulate blood circulation and make you sweat more, so it is recommended when you are ill.
It could also help with influenza and respiratory infections. Cinnamon tea will also help if you have a cold already. It will eliminate inflamed nasal mucosa and fatigue.
Cloves
Healers in the past quickly recognized the positive effects of cloves. They can be used for intestinal parasites, liver treatment, kidneys, stomach ulcers, and inflammation in the oral cavity.
It is a strong analgesic. If you have a toothache or headache, try to chew cloves. Tea from cloves will help the throat and gastrointestinal tract.
Tang drink
Tang is a popular highly energetic fruit-flavored powder drink. It comes in many flavors. Tang has an interesting story. It became popular with astronauts who drank it on their way to the universe.
This drink will make your spicy tea more drinkable in case that you don’t like strong spice flavors.
Spiced tea with tang is a drink that will provide you vitamins A, C, E, and vitamin B6, riboflavin, calcium, niacin, and other benefits from the specific spice that you will use in the tea.
Does Oolong tea have caffeine?
If you read the article till here, you already know that oolong tea contains caffeine. Do you know all about tea that is known for its diet effect? It belongs to real teas so this means it has caffeine.
Oolong tea is a traditional Chinese tea that is the most popular in China. We still don’t know how it got its name. This tea is known as Wu-long tea. “Wu” means black and “long” is a dragon.
Health benefits
It contains a lot of antioxidants (like all real teas), catechins, polyphenols, vitamin E and C, amino acids, and selenium. It will help you with losing fat. It has the ability to stimulate metabolism.
It was found that oolong tea could increase metabolism by 250% more than green tea. People from the University of Tokushima also found that it could increase fat burning by 12%.
Caffeine levels
Other researchers found that drinking this tea 4x a day can significantly reduce stress.
It will decrease cortisol levels (stress hormone). Caffeine levels vary from different types of oolong tea.
One cup of this tea has 35-45 mg of caffeine. Tea region, plant age, length of growing and soil nutrients affect caffeine levels in oolong tea as well.
Which tea has the most caffeine?
Are you one of those people who don’t know which tea has the most caffeine? It is important information, especially if you are a tea drinker and sensitive to caffeine.
All real teas contain caffeine. Each type of real tea has different amounts of this invigorating substance. Camellia sinensis is the plant from which real teas are made. It has 5-6% of caffeine.
Caffeine effect
Caffeine has the ability to increase metabolism, so it is a substance that helps with weight loss. It decreases bad cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Scientists proved that two cups of real tea a day could prevent a heart attack by 50%. It also increases the immune system.
Caffeine can depress the appetite, accelerate thermogenesis, activates the central and sympathetic nervous system, and improve muscle stimuli.
Black tea
Black tea has the most caffeine among real teas. A cup of black tea has from 23-110 mg of caffeine. Green tea, oolong tea, and white tea follow. You can decrease your caffeine intake if you want.
Pour the hot water over the tea leaves and then pour the water away after a minute.
Boil fresh water again and pour it over the same tea leaves. Caffeine is released with boiled water, so this is a good method to decrease it.
How to make your own loose-leaf tea?
If you are a nature lover and love drinking home-made teas then I will tell you how you can make your own loose leaf tea.
Maybe you have some herbs in your garden and you want to prepare a tasteful cup of tea for yourself and family members.
Basic rules
You should know information about the herb that you are going to pick for tea. If you will harvest herbs in nature, you should follow some rules. You can find these basic rules on my site.
The most basic rule is that you know how the herb looks like.
There are many cases where people don’t know the herb very well but they still pick it. You must be sure that you are picking the right herb.
Time for harvesting herbs
What about time for picking herbs for tea? The weather should be dry. The best time to pick herbs for tea is around noon. If it rained, wait for 3 days and go pick the herbs at dry weather.
Drying process
Drying herbs is the next step. Dry them in clean and airy space like the attic. Herbs must be dry before the storage.
How can you know when herbs are perfectly dry? Pick herbs in hand and try to ground it in the dust.
If the herb is grounded without troubles and feels dry then you have a perfect tea. If not, dry them a little longer.
Dry herbs won’t get moldy in your tea container. This is the reason for getting those herbs totally dry.
Storage
Store your tea in tightly closed tea containers. Sun shouldn’t shine on the tea, so it is best to store it in the dark containers. Use stored tea in one year.
Japanese teas list
Japan has the most amazing tea gardens in the world. It is the most northern and coldest tea growing area.
The best tea growing regions in Japan are those which are a hundred meters away from the sea.
Mountainous areas near rivers are perfect for growing tea. The fog that occurs from rivers gives the best conditions for growing tea.
Shizuoka region
Shizuoka region with Kawan and Shimizu production areas is the most famous area for growing tea in Japan.
This is the place that gives the most delicious varieties of tea thanks to consistently warm and humid climate.
Shimoyama region is the most important for growing biological tea in central Japan.
Nishio region
We also have Nishio which is one of the oldest agricultural regions in the world.
People from Nishio are producing tea for more than 850 years and are mainly specialized for the production of Matcha tea.
Matcha is made from grounded tea leaves of Camellia sinensis.
Popular Japanese teas
Sencha, Kukicha, Gyokuro and Matcha tea are typical Japanese teas.
Sencha
Sencha is the most recognizable and most popular. It has a very strong aroma and taste. This tea has high caffeine levels and a lot of antioxidants. It is appropriate as a morning drink.
Kukicha
Kukicha tea has 10x less caffeine than Sencha tea. It has a sweet flavor reminiscent of hazelnuts. You can drink it at any time due to the low amount of caffeine.
Gyokuro
Gyokuro is another quality Japanese green tea. This tea is produced in little amounts in comparison to Sencha.
It is distinctly green, cloudy, full-flavor tea that is not so bitter than other Japanese teas. Japanese drink it on special occasions.
Matcha
Matcha tea is a special sort of green tea that is drunk on special occasions.
It is a green tea powder that you cook with a special tool to prepare tea. This popular tea contains vitamin C and 5x more caffeine than coffee. It has a special nutty flavor with a slightly bitter note.
Who discovered tea?
Are you curious who discovered tea? If you want to know all about teas, then you should know who discovered this amazing drink. We know some legends that talk about discovering it.
Sources indicate that the tea plant came from Assam, India to China in the 4 century. Still, it is an interesting fact that Chinese people know tea for thousands of years.
A legend from China
The most known legend comes from China. The Chinese emperor Cheng-Nung was sitting on the soil and boiling water to drink.
The wind blew some tea leaves into the emperor’s hot water. When he raised his cup of water to drink, he smelled a seductive scent from the magical concoction.
A legend from India
The second legend comes from India. An Indian monk Bodhidharma sailed to China for his nine-year meditation. He became very sleepy on the trip so he closed his eyes for the moment.
Suddenly he wakes up and cuts off his eyelashes with a knife. A tea bush grew on that place where eyelashes dropped.
This is how Buddhist monks started to drink tea to stay awake during their long meditation sessions.
The elixir of immortality
Lao Tze, the founder of Taoism, described tea as the elixir of immortality in Chinese writings from the first century B.C. Japan saw first tea leaves in the early 9th century.
They started to drink this immortality drink after a strictly prescribed ritual that is still present in their homes today. Tea spread also in Arabia and Europe with trade merchants.
Where do tea leaves originate from?
All kinds of real teas come from one plant, Camellia sinensis. We know more than 50 different types of tropical and subtropical shrubs and low tea trees.
Camellia sinensis is a Chinese plant that is the most vital in tea production. This plant originates from South and Southeast China for thousands of years.
However, it is also grown in other countries as India, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.
India
Which are the countries that are top leaders in tea production? India is the largest tea production country in the world. Indians produce all kinds of tea in different regions.
Darjeeling is a well-known tea growing area that expands in north-eastern India, in the foothills of Himalayas. Indian Assam is the largest tea cultivation area in the world.
Japan
We should also mention Japan as one of the top leaders in tea production. Their tea harvesting differs from other harvesting around the world.
They have mechanized the entire process of tea production.
Japanese have perfect conditions to grow tea due to foggy mountains that are close to the rivers. They specialized in producing green tea.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has 3 important regions for growing tea, Uva in the east, Dimbula in the west and Nuwara Eliya as a third area where the first two connect.
Nuwara Eliya gives the best and the most aromatic Ceylon teas for us to enjoy.
Can you overdose on herbal tea?
Do you love to drink herbal teas? Which one is your favorite? Herbal teas can be a great helper with some diseases, however, the overdose can harm you or provoke some unwanted conditions.
People want to know if they can drink too much of herbal tea. At first hand, we could say that there is no limit in the amount of the herb tea. Is it true?
No caffeine
Herbal teas don’t contain caffeine so you shouldn’t worry about caffeine overdosage. These teas are like natural remedies.
They have a weaker effect on your body than medicine but still bring the effect. It is crucial that you know the effects of specific herbal tea.
Medicinal teas
You should also know which tea is medicinal tea. This tea should be drunk only for healing specific diseases or health conditions.
Always read the manufacturers instructions for the consummation of this type of tea and don’t cross the dosage. You should pay attention to some medicinal herbs that can be found in herbal teas as well.
Is there any caffeine in chamomile tea?
I am sure you know chamomile tea and that you drunk it already. It is an herbal tea that helps with inflammations and diseases of the digestive tract. Now let me clear this question above.
No herbal tea contains caffeine. Caffeine can be found in real teas like green, black, white, pu-erh, matcha, and oolong tea. If your tea comes from Camellia sinensis plant then it should have caffeine.
Chamomile tea comes from chamomile plant so it doesn’t contain caffeine.
This herbal tea has essential oils that are mainly composed of chamazulene, alpha-bisabolol, and spiroether.
It also contains flavonoids, luteolin, quercetin, patulitrin, and apigenin.
Health benefits
A cup of this herbal tea has derivatives of coumarin – umbelliferone, hernainin, amino acids, and waxes.
It helps people to relieve crams, helps with stomach or intestines disease, diarrhea, inflammation, bloating and many other health situations.
You can drink it for treating these diseases just don’t overreact with it (learn about chamomile). I don’t recommend drinking it if you had vomited or have a sickness.
What is the closest drink that taste like coffee?
Did you know that you can make yourself a tea that tastes like coffee? If you are interested; I will tell you how you can make it. Acorn will make your tea taste like coffee. Surprised?
Acorn tea is a healthy coffee substitute that our ancestors made in the past. These kinds of beverages were very popular because people didn’t have large amounts of coffee at that time.
No caffeine!
This tea is caffeine-free so it can be a good substitute for those people who are caffeine sensitive.
You can use acorns, chicory, peas, figs, dandelion root, and cereals like barely to make a tea that tastes like coffee.
Acorn tea benefits
Let’s take a look at acorn tea again and find out which health benefits it has.
The tea decreases blood sugar, prevents Borrelia and regulates thyroid function. It can be used for external and therapeutic purposes for disinfecting and shrinking tissue.
If you have fungal infections; suppress them with this tea. Gargling it should help with the inflammation of the oral cavity.
And what gives this tea the ability to mimic a coffee taste? The secret is in roasting the nuts. You can pick some acorns and follow my procedure to make a cup of acorn tea or you can buy it.
Let teas to inspire you
As you see, you have many reasons to know all about teas and different kinds of teas. I must say that I wasn’t a tea lover before. I loved coffee and cocoa but I avoided tea.
Time changed and I started to drink herbal teas that are bitterer. I got used to bitterness and also stop consuming sugar.
This was one of my healthiest life decisions. I never use sugar in herbal teas because it would suppress the healing effects of the herb.
Then I tried green tea which I fell in love with. I also expand my collection and bought green tea with aromas. This way I made a healthy habit of drinking teas that help my body and spirit to relax.
Real teas have many health benefits and you should try them too (if you didn’t already).
Experiment a little bit and try a variety of different tastes and flavors. Enjoy your cup of tea and also strengthen up your health.
