Lately, I've switched from coffee to a nice, soothing cup of tea.

Put a tea bag in a mug of coffee.
I tried switching to black tea a couple of years ago because I realized that coffee was making my anxiety worse, but fucking hell did tea give me the jitters. I think I just have a bad reaction to tannins in general and apparently black tea is super high in them.
- I had that, and still get it from time to time, but found that if I wait until I've eaten to drink tea that it feels fine.
  Coffee on an empty stomach is nothing, but strong tea on an empty stomach has me feeling like being assaulted at a molecular level
- Give white tea a try sometime. It has almost no tannins and less caffeine than black tea. The flavor is much lighter and more fruity
It makes you less jittery because it does not, in fact, have a lot of caffeine in it.
I thought tea had way less caffeine than coffee.
Checked and on average black tea seems to be about half. It can get "up to" what a normal cup of coffee has.

This green tea I'm sipping made my mind sufficiently relaxed and agile to see that punchline coming from a mile away.

I didn't understand why tea is so hated in America then I went there are it was by far the worst tea I have ever had. Like worse than I could make at home if I tried to make a shit tea. Worse than I thought possible.

I used to disagree with the death penatlity in America but if they dragged the Liptons board of directors out and shot them it wouldn't be undeserved.

But how its brewed, how it's served, what it's served with, what the tea is it is all shit. I talked to a friend when I was there and he said "yea I know I brought a 50 pack with me from home. I've been here before" haha. The only place you can get a passable tea in America is on a BA flight out of the country. Even then it's a shitty airline tea but it's much better than any cafe, restaurant or pub in the country.

I don't get me started in the fucking Guinness.

I tried tea in the UK and didn't think it was very good either tho. I think I just don't like tea that much.
Ironically the best coffee I ever had was a cappuccino in London. Which I paired with a full English. Still one of the best breakfasts in my life, that shit was dank
- Some day I'll get to have a full English breakfast I've always wanted to try.
- There are regional differences. Chinese tea is completely different. Indian tea has some differences, as well.
What's some good tea to look out for?
- Yorkshire tea is in my opinion the best. Nothing difficult needs to be done just follow the instructions add full fat milk, you can check colours online to see how much milk to add and add sugar if you wish.
  PG tips and Tetley are also good. Weirdly tea I've had with "English breakfast" hardly ever tastes like British tea.
  Green tea is super hit or miss. (No milk in this one) Sometimes it's too weak and other times it's a bit bitter. But I don't really have a brand in mind for that.
  A mid range Jasmine tea is probably the best for consistency, in terms of a no milk green tea.
  Oolong is also good. Actually thinking about the best place to get green tea in America would be at a Chinese restaurant or Chinese store.
  Oh and don't microwave water. No idea why, it tastes weird. Also heat the water then add it to the cup, don't heat cold water with tea in it.
If you are in a cosmopolitan area there’s plenty of access to tea houses serving loose leaf Japanese and Chinese tea that would satisfy the most demanding tea enthusiast. That doesn’t begin to count the non-traditional items like boba, tisanes, etc.
The USA doesn’t have much of a British style tea tradition, but that’s mostly because it’s a diverse nation and British tea and food is mostly crap to begin with. Why would the US drink British tea when there are so many alternatives that are actually good?
- You can straight up buy loose leaf Chinese tea like oolong in the US from basically any Asian/international grocery store. I don't like tea very much, but that's the best tea I've had including the English black tea I've tried, which wasn't that good imo.
I'd like to invite your thoughts on the sweet tea they make in the South
- It tastes like something a child would make and give to there mum on motherday and the mum would have to drink it because the kid is really proud that he used 10 spoonfuls of sugar.
  That's not a drink for adults. Why you guys so scared of water?
I do believe it all started with the Boston Tea Party. Drinking coffee as an alternative was hip and it just kinda stuck around.
- Coffee in the US (outside of specialty shops) is always piss poor and IME thin cups of dark-ish water without much actual coffee flavour.
Tea in America is fine. There are plenty of brands to buy and orange pekoe is perfectly okay, as long as it's not Lipton. Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings are both America brands of tea that are perfectly fine and have large offerings.
I mean, if you're that particular, just buy some PG Tips or Yorkshire Gold in the grocery store and brew it yourself.
- As a massive tea drinker... I don't think I've ever seen PG Tips or YG in the grocery store. I have to order them online. The best we get in store near me is Bigelow and Tazo, both of which are pretty mid.
- I think the problem is that practically every place that serves tea serves Lipton, which does suck. You have to go out of your way to get quality black tea in the US. We just don't care about tea at all here, unless it's sweet tea, which is basically sugar water

Black tea to me feels like the sledgehammer, whereas coffee is this smooth slightly syrupy beverage, that feels much more delicate. Case in point for me, I prefer my coffee black, but I would have a hard time handling a cup of tea without at least a bit of oat milk.

I don't know where tea gets this "gentle" PR from but I find it highly dishonest and honestly I'm tired of keeping my mouth shut about it so there now I've said it

Hey it's okay, your opinion is valid, no matter how objectively wrong it is :)
- Thank you, no one has ever accused me of looking at a situation objectively and I'm not about to start now, anyway now everyone sign my petition to put warning labels on tea
Don't hold back! Tell Big Tea what you think!
(I personally like Green Tea and lighter varieties but I have to be... in the mood. I'm always in the mood for coffee on the other hand.)

There's stimulating tea too.

Since I switched to shroom tea in the morning, I’ve been much more perceptive.
- Hey, my DMTea is also great for that!
I enjoy tea. Issa joke.
- Fuck tea.
Tea is stimulating. All kinds of tea have caffeine in it. (As long as we're taking about camellia sinensis, the tea plant, and not something like herbal tea.)

I enjoy tea, but I like coffee more for most situations. Im more likely to enjoy an evening cup of tea than a morning one. Also the tannins in black tea can make me literally throw up if I havent eaten yet. Whereas a strong cup of coffee will make my digestive tract relax.

Fucked up how the British originally swapped in tea for their beer common at every meal. I would have been pissed

What's wrong with having a beer with your tea?
What's this now?
I'm British, I still have a beer everytime I go out to eat.
- Ye but it's for recreation now not just a standard water style beverage lel

Black tea has more caffeine, but you can get pretty close to that with light roast coffee. Dark roast is weaker but sold as "strong" because of the bitter ass flavor profile. Light roast tastes much better, even tea like and has more oomph.

Light roasts taste different, not necessarily better, and dark roasts aren't necessarily excessively bitter. And the difference in caffeine due to roasting level is minimal, it is much more affected by type of bean and how it's handled before roasting.
It all comes down to what you want from your coffee...if you want floral and fruity with higher acidity, go for the lighter roasts. If you want chocolate, caramel and nuts with lower acidity, go for the darker roasts. I personally dislike the floral profile of many lighter roasts, it gets a bit "soapy" IMO, which is the same issue I have with most tea.
- Dark roast in America almost always equates to a burnt arabica flavor. There can be good dark roasts, but you tend to have to go specialist coffee to get them.

They're clearly drinking the wrong kind of tea.

I dont know much about coffee but I stopped drinking alcohol lately and I was afraid of missing the taste part of drinking (the nice taste of a good whine or beer). Coffee doesn't have the same depth - or at least I didn't explore it yet. Then I discovered tea and all its variety. Tea have been around for thousand of years, which means there's a lot of variety and different process per regions. There's even tea you can age, with millesime, for extra-fancy.

It's just that teabags just aren't good. They crush the whole tea plant using machines. Kinda like instant coffee just isn't that good most of the time.

I don't really drink, but my family loves a little bit of a drink. When my partner and I go for dinner at my parents now my Mum always has some non-alcoholic wine/champagne/cooler for me and it's nice for when I want a flavoured drink that's cold and isn't soda water or really sweet. She also had been liking it for nights with friends where she still wants the taste of another glass of wine, but not more alcohol.
But also, a total tea snob who agrees with you on tea bags being terrible.
- Now I still have a sweetspot for the barry's ones they taste in ireland, for sentimental reasons :3

Yeah, I've tried to switch a few times. Tea literally does nothing for me.

Try holly.
Tea has only a fraction of the amount of caffeine that coffee has, so you have to drink a lot more to have the same effect. The hollies, on the other hand, have comparable amounts of caffeine: yaupon, yerba mate, and guayusa.

I'm trying to cut out coffee and tea is one of my weaknesses. So soothing...

But the whole point for me is to avoid caffeine entirely, so resist I must. And if I may quote the comic,

IT FUCKING SUCKS

There are plenty of "teas" (other infusions) which don't have caffeine. I swapped out black tea for rooibos, it's not exactly similar but it hits the spot.
Have you found a non caffeinated alternative? Also weaning yourself off caffeine works so much better.
- So I've been told, but I've always done best with brutish force. I'm very habitual, so I don't want to put myself into a position where I may end up drinking more coffee.
  I had a sip of some non-caffeinated coffee once and it tasted bleh so I haven't bothered looking for alternatives. I'd rather play mental gymnastics in my own gym, if that makes sense.
If you are Caffeine Sensitive, and Like Coffee...
There are a few brands out there that make a really good Decaf Coffee and some roasters and Coffee Suppliers are actually giving more of a shit about their Decaf offerings. It does get a little pricier per bag of beans, but - might be worth shopping around if you have some independent shops/roasters around you.
There are decaf black teas if you want that. Or plenty of herbals.
I avoid stuff with hibiscus, which limits the herbals I can drink since it's so prolific, but there are plenty of them.
- I thought it would be awful but I briefly had to cut caffeine to check if it was a trigger for something and I got a bag of loose-leaf decaf earl grey and it was absolutely fine which was encouraging (and good that i could tell my Dad now that he has had to cut it for the forseeable future).