You can choose your favorite type of tea from the hundreds of teas available. Finding out about tea and its many varieties is fun and educational as well when you are learning to make tea. Tea can be a healthy substitute to the drinks that you are now consuming. Tea needs very little getting used to since it is a natural and delicious drink.

Here are five ways to make tea a part of your day, everyday.

1. Early: You can start off your day with a cup of tea. If you are used to adding cream to your breakfast coffee, try using cream in your cup of tea. The taste is delicious.
2. Morning: Your mid-morning break can be a glass of iced tea. Add a slice of lemon and feel the instant energy rip through your body. If you like a cup of coffee and a donut to dunk for a break, try a cup of tea with cream and dunk a delicious large cookie. Your taste buds will come alive and the sugar will be a quick picker upper.
3. Lunch: Use tea for lunch if you are accustomed to drinking coffee. If you eat lunch out, ask the waiter for a pitcher of hot water and put your tea bag into the pitcher. Have as much tea as you like with or without sugar.
4. Afternoon: Make a pitcher of iced tea and keep it in the fridge. You will find yourself healthier since you will be replacing artificial chemicals found canned colas and bottled drinks with a healthy fresh made pot of tea iced to your specifications in tastes.
5. Evening: Like a cup of hot coffee at night but afraid that the caffeine will keep you up? Try a cup of hot tea with a teaspoon of honey and a twist of lemon. You will find yourself sleeping like a baby.

For the rest, especially those of us with fond childhood memories of sun tea served with honey over ice, its still nice to know how to make. Sun tea takes time, but not attention and sun, but not as much as you’d think it might.

The basic idea of sun tea is that you place your tea and water in a glass container where the sun will shine directly on it. The warmth of the sun will bring the water to a nice temperature for slow steeping. Sun tea is something you can set and forget if you have a good space for it. Just don’t leave it in a place where it might be knocked over! (another childhood memory)

How to make sun tea:

• 3.5 cups of water
• 5 tea bags (fruit teas work beautifully)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• Quart jar with lid

Put tea and water in jar, cover and place in sunny spot for 4-5 hours. Remove tea bags and add sugar. Pour over ice and get your sun tea freak on!

But no matter. If there’s tea to be had, there’s tea to be enjoyed with loads of sugar and perhaps a dash of lemon if you like. Here’s a rough draft:

• 2 cups of boiling water
• 2 cups of sugar
• 6 cups of cold water
• A pinch of baking soda (you’ll be glad you did — classic)
• 6-8 regular tea bags or actual loose leaf if you can get it because nobody has ever regretted making sweet tea with loose leaves.

Get the boiling water and the tea leaves together for a bit. They’ll enjoy each other’s company but not too much or you’ll see things end up bitterly. (See? Making tea has a lot of parallels to other parts of life!) Once the hot water and tea leaves are separate, add the baking soda and a little more than half the sugar. It should dissolve pretty quickly with a stir or two. Now add the cold water and hot sugared tea together in a pitcher and take a quick taste to test. Add more sugar if you must.

Then pour your sweet tea over ice cubes in tall glasses and sprinkle a bit of sugar into each glass. A squeeze of lemon and a slice on the glass are a nice touch, too.

It isn’t so very hard to make sweet tea. The trick is to know how sweet is sweet enough, too sweet, or what’s not even coming close to your side of the sweet highway. Once you find your perfect balance, sweet tea will become an art form in its own sugary tea right.

What some others have said about sweet tea:

• The Kitchn
• Grits
• What’s Cooking America

I saw this from Yellow Spruce Photography and started laughing! Delicious?

If you can’t read the image well, here’s the recipe for spruce needle tea:

1. Pick green spruce needles until you have a handful.
2. Add spruce needles to two cups of cool water and bring to a boil.
3. Lower heat to a simmer and add a teaspoon of spruce sap.
4. Strain spruce needles from your tea and add honey to taste.

It will taste like the forest has leaped into your cup. Thinking about going for strolls and collecting things for tea reminds me of a time I did just that for mint tea with an Amish family.

But I’ll save that one for another time. Enjoy your spruce needle tea and know that you’re blessed.

More information on the spruce tree and making tea from it:

• Norway spruce
• American Bushman
• Wiki Spruce
• Coolhemp on spruce
• NativeTech – Spruce for coughs

Okay, let’s bring this back to tea, and quick!

It's more fun knowing green tea once lived in a place like this!

I’ve spent the icy months exploring green through teas. If you’re unfamiliar with green tea, it doesn’t taste like grass or green smoothies or any of the other green things you may have tried, broccoli included! What green tea does taste like, if I may be so bold as to paint with a truck-sized brush, is a lighter and thicker version of black tea.

By “thicker” I mean the sense of viscosity I get when drinking the stuff. It may just be that the darker taste of black tea makes it seem thinner but I’m convinced that green tea at least tastes thicker. It’s still bitter, especially if you let it brew for too long!

[box type="shadow"]Check out these tips on how to make tea so you get a perfect batch of tea every time! [/box]

I had a nice time trying different green teas, including a few brought by a friend from China for my birthday! Looking out my office window at the snow, I’d lift cup of green tea and imagine I was visiting its home. I’d typically imagine myself about a third of the way through the plane trip before I’d be interrupted and have to move on with my work. But I still found an escape into green tea.

I’ve tried a bunch of green teas but I’m only one me and you might like very different things. To that end, I suggest you hit up a nice tea shop near you or buy a quality sampler of green teas online. Make sure to read the reviews because all teas are not made alike.

Green tea leaves with some puffed rice and popcorn to add a toasty note

Of the green teas I tried, I’ll share two favorites from China and two from Japan.

• Longjing – From Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and one of the most popular Chinese green teas, it’s on the lighter side with a bright taste and is very nice to drink piping hot. I wanted
• Chun Mee - Also from China and with what looks a bit like dust on its leaves, Chun Mee is one of the green teas that I can be convinced to mix with a touch of honey or raw agave nectar. George Orwell would have my head for it but I think I can still be a tea enthusiast and add a bit of sweetener sometimes.
• Guricha – A wonderfully tangy, fruited and almost nutty aftertaste make this Japanese green tea a favorite for its depth and general niceness!
• Gyokuro – One of the more expensive teas I tried recently, Gyokuro is a lovely Japanese green tea that is given shade for the last 20 days of it’s growth which gives it a much lighter green color and what seems like a sweeter taste. It also smells a little more “leafy” than some of the deeper green teas.

Of course, green tea is always better served up in your favorite tea cup. I find that a thinner porcelain cup seems to do better justice the flavor nuances while a big mug seems to muddle things up. If you must have something sweet with your green tea, go with some honey, agave syrup, or even a bit of maple syrup if you’re more interested in mixing tones than just experiencing the magic that is, as I’ve found it to be, green tea.

Some further insights into green tea can be found on these sites:

• On types of green tea
• Wikipedia on green teas
• University of Maryland Medical Center on green tea

Images by Josh Kenzer and iAreef

We’re just getting started here but get ready for some thoughtful ideas, tips, and inspiration on how to make tea a part of thriving in your life.

All the best!