I’ve been wanting to take part in Tea Together Tuesday since it started, but due to poor planning on my part, always forgot to get ready until it was too late. Well, not any more (for this week)!

This week’s prompt is: “3 tips for a new tea drinker” and my tips are:

Tip 1: Don’t pay attention to tea bloggers unless their tastes match yours

I was lucky that when I started getting into tea, I didn’t know that there was even an online tea community. This gave me a lot of freedom to develop my own tastes and experiment with tea without feeling like there was a “right” or “wrong” way to do things.

Don’t get me wrong, the tea community is wonderful and supportive, but all the reviews and all the opinions can get overwhelming really fast. How do you tell what kind of notes are in a tea? What if a tea blogger or instagrammer you admire dislikes this tea you like?

While you can judge tea on technical standards, whether you like a tea or not comes down to your personal preference. You may like something with a higher astringency, you may like teas with fruity notes, or you may like something full of umami. No one can tell you what you’d like – that’s something that you have to figure out yourself. And as you figure out your tea preferences, that’s when you’ll start to realise that certain tea people are going to have the same preferences as you, and that’s the people whose will probably recommend the type of tea you like.

But first, drink widely and know your tastes.

Tip 2: If possible, go for a (cheap) tea course/workshop

If you’re completely new to tea and don’t know where to start, I’d suggest going for a simple workshop or course that gives you the basics on tea. Most places (like Parchmen & Co. or Tea Chapter in Singapore) will teach you about the history of tea and, more importantly, let you sample different types of teas. Ideally, you’d be able to try at least one of each type of tea (green, black, oolong, dark, yellow, white) so that you know the type of tea you prefer and a little about how to taste tea.

Caveat: It’s pretty hard to judge the quality of a course without going for it, and you won’t be able to judge until after a while, but I still think it’s worth going for the exposure to different teas. And if you can afford it, go for different courses! See what different people are telling you, and you’ll slowly be able to figure out what information can be trusted and what can’t.

Tip 3: As much as possible, taste the tea before buying

This tip is especially for expensive teas. Tea descriptions tend to all sound really delicious (at least to me) and it’s pretty difficult to tell if you’ll like a tea just by reading about it. After a while, you may be able to get a feel for different brands, for example, I know that Lupicia blends are to my taste and I’d feel more comfortable taking a risk on their teas, but in the beginning, try not to buy too much tea at one time.

If you’re in a physical shop, ask if there are samples of tea (or start from the teas that they’re offering samples of!). If you can’t try the tea, smell the tea! It’s a pretty good indicator, although sometimes teas do smell amazing when dry but turn out way too strong when brewed. Or maybe that’s just me.

If you’re buying online and you’re not sure about that type of tea or brand, buy the smallest amount possible. You can always buy more if you like the tea. If you didn’t like the tea, then at least you don’t have to force yourself to drink so much. (If you do have a tea that you don’t like, I have 3 suggestions on what you can do with it)

These are my top three tips for a new tea drinker. Above all, have fun! There is so much to explore in the world of tea and so much to uncover.

What are your top tips for new tea drinkers?