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Comment by code_duck | Hacker News Reader

My experience making tea from random substances suggested to me that there is nothing special about the flavor of tea. Many plants taste similar when you dry and pour hot water over them. I assume the reason it became a popularity beverage is solely due to caffeine content.

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Originally, caffeine content was probably an important factor. There's a study that showed participants developed a preference for the taste of drinks that were accompanied with caffeine and theobromine. This preference became "highly significant" over the course of 6 tasting sessions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15772863

But consider that tea has been selectively bred for taste over the course of millennia, with different cultivars seeking out different ideals of taste, combined with a history of experimenting to find the tastiest methods of processing and preparation for specific cultivars of tea.

If you're talking about tea bags commonly found in grocery stores, then yes, it could be any drinkable plant with added caffeine, and nobody would notice. But there is definitely something special about the taste of a good sencha or long jing.

There is no “the flavor” of tea, though. There are hundreds of different flavor profiles in the oolong category alone (depending on the mountain, weather, season, tea tree, insect presence, etc.), to say nothing of the vast differences between red, yellow, white, Japanese green, Chinese green, pu’er, and other broader types. Loose-leaf tea can be incredibly flavorful from the leaves alone, though of course the preparation technique matters a lot too.

The flavor of tea is much less pronounced than almost any other herb used to make a beverage.

Have you written about this anywhere (or can you point me toward someone who has)? I've had teas made from myriad wild/edible plants in the Pacific Northwest, and am always interested in learning more about others' experiments.

Look here: https://www.teachat.com/

A blend of certain northwest pine needles can make for something that reminds me of white teas (they served it at my son's preschool).

I’ve purchased a tin of I think fir needle tea while in Oregon. It tastes like... pine.

At work one time, there was a box of quite tasty Lapsang Souchong tea, which had a slight smoky flavor; I drank a few cups of this tea and didn't think too much about it.

Then, on my drive home, it took me a little while to figure out why my mouth tasted like I had been smoking cigars. Something about the smoky-leafy aftertaste confused my brain.

I like that one, and also a tea called Russian or Mongolian Caravan Tea. As smoky beverages they could also be compared to mezcal and scotch.

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