[EagleRiverDee]

All tea made from the tea plant (I'm not including herbal beverages that are often called tea) have caffeine unless they've been decaffeinated. My understanding is green tea has the least, naturally, though.

[Mikkijoe]

Traditional Tea, like Liptons, or green tea, etc has caffine in it. Herbal teas usually dont unless they have a tea leaf base.

8 ounces of green tea has 15 milligrams of Caffine
8 ounces of black tea has 40-60 milligrams of Caffine, import being on the higher end
8 ounces of coffee has 80-135 milligrams of Caffine

And the Dr Pepper has 41 grams of caffine in 12 ounces.

So your tea is pretty much replacing the same amount of caffine as the soda.

Be careful of some of those wonderful sounding teas, some of them have sugar actually coating the tea leaves (the ones like 'warm almond biscotti', or the Snapples ones sometimes too)

Stash makes alot of nice teas, and I dont think I have come across one with the "cane juice granuals" in it.

Find someone with fresh mint and throw it in a pot of hot water, makes fantastic tea iced or hot.

[oodlesofnoodles]

I used to be a total teatard but I'm better now. In my opinion, cheap tea is like cheap coffee. SOME teas are cheap AND good, but not usually. I like Tazo tea for flavoredish stuff. They have a vanilla apricot tea that's really good, but everything I've tried from them I like (except the orange stuff, hate orange). Harvey and Sons make realllly good tea... I like their Blue & Yellow tea, which is also good for calming down at night before bed. It's sold at Barnes and Noble and some other random stores. My favorite ever black tea happens to be cheap though, and it's from Trader Joe's. It's their english breakfast tea. It's so good, and only $2 for a ton of packets. I make a huge teapot of it and stick it in the fridge and drink iced tea all day.

Anyway, experiment, see what ya like. If you're drinking crappy tea it may be why you don't like it. It's good!

[oodlesofnoodles]

Originally Posted by EagleRiverDee

All tea made from the tea plant (I'm not including herbal beverages that are often called tea) have caffeine unless they've been decaffeinated. My understanding is green tea has the least, naturally, though.

Yup, that's right.

[tea leaf]

Actually, white tea has least amount of caffeine (also the least amount of time to brew, and the lowest water temp. to brew it in).

I'd recommend something like yerba mate (unsmoked, the flavor takes some getting used to) for the times that you need to stay awake but don't want caffeine. Green teas like sencha and hojicha tend to be milder and easier to brew - very forgiving if you tend to leave the leaves in too long or use water that's too hot (this is called "stewing" and the result is a bitter, awful tasting tea). Genmaicha is my favorite green tea, especially after large meals - it has puffed rice in it that gives it almost a savory, grassy flavor. (tea brands like two leaves and a bud, rishi, stash, and republic of tea are good quality for the price).

Darjeeling is also a wonderful pick me-up, but be careful - it's just like champaign - darjeeling somes from Darjeeling, beware of knock offs.

Tisanes are all of the herbal teas - I'd recommend brands like traditional medicinals or yogi teas for any of your calming/soothing/ready to go to bed moments...and also celestial seasonings has a sleepy time tea that is just plain tasty.

sorry to "geek out" on you all about it (I plan to open my own tea shop someday!)- but i figured I'd put my two cents in Hope this helps

[WebRover]

Mmmm. I love Constant Comment. I could just sniff the packets.
Also Sleepytime is nice at night.
And Earl Grey has a distinct flavor that I like.

I drink them all plain, no sweetener, no milk.