Tea flavours: loose tea, tea bags and matcha

Loose-leaf tea, tea bags or tea sticks?

Loose-leaf tea gives the leaves room to unfold as they steep, and many of our blends contain visible pieces of fruit, herbs and flowers. You need a filter, infuser or teapot, and you can make it stronger or milder by using more or less tea. Our loose tea comes in 100 g packs under the Café du Jour name, with a few gift sets of several flavours.

Tea bags are quicker and tidier: one bag, one cup. Sunleaf and Tea of Life come in boxes of 25, and both have assorted displays for an office or guest room. Royal-T tea sticks sit in between: tea in a perforated stick that you stir through your cup and lift out, 30 sticks to a box.

Types of tea and their flavours

• Black tea: fully oxidised, with the most body. Assam, Ceylon, English Breakfast and Earl Grey, as well as flavoured blends such as Vanilla and Crunchy Apple Pie. Takes milk well.
• Green tea: not oxidised, fresher and more grassy. Chun Mee, Green Gunpowder and Jasmine are the classics; other blends add lemon, ginger or fruit.
• White tea: young leaves and buds, lightly processed and delicate, such as Bai Mudan.
• Oolong tea: partly oxidised, between green and black. Try Black Dragon or Rose Romantique.
• Pu-erh tea: aged, fermented tea with an earthy flavour, pure or blended with mint, cacao or forest fruit.
• Rooibos: from a South African shrub, naturally caffeine-free, with a sweet, rounded flavour. Pure, green, or blended with orange, lemon or spices.
• Herbal tea and fruit tea: infusions of herbs, flowers or fruit, such as chamomile, citrus and verbena, Mango Mambo or Strawberry & Kiwi.
• Hemp tea: from Dutch Harvest and Café du Jour, pure or blended with herbs, fruit or turmeric.

Water temperature and steeping time

Most disappointing cups come from water that is too hot or leaves that steep too long. As a starting point:

• Black tea and rooibos: freshly boiled water, 3 to 5 minutes.
• Green and white tea: water of about 70 to 80 °C, 2 to 3 minutes. Boiling water makes green tea bitter.
• Oolong: about 85 to 95 °C, around 3 minutes; good leaves can be steeped more than once.
• Herbal and fruit tea: boiling water, 5 to 8 minutes, so the fruit pieces have time to release their flavour.

For loose tea, use roughly a heaped teaspoon per cup, a little more for large, open leaves such as white tea.

Matcha and chai lattes

Matcha is finely ground green tea from Japan. You whisk the powder into water instead of steeping it, so you drink the whole leaf. We sell matcha powder in a 50 g pack, a Matcha Latte mix, matcha sets and starter kits in the Aurora and Wasabi versions (the starter kits include matcha tea), and a bamboo matcha spoon.

For a chai latte, the chai latte mixes (East Indian Spice, Vanilla and Rich Spice, 340 g each) go straight into hot milk or water. Prefer to brew it yourself? Nature Chai and Green Chai are loose-leaf blends with spices.

Where to start

If you drink your tea with milk, start with a black tea such as English Breakfast, Assam or Ceylon. For a cup late in the evening, look at rooibos or a herbal or fruit tea. Unsure which flavour you like? The Alternative Rooibos set has four rooibos teas of 100 g each. For teapots and other brewing gear, see tea equipment.