Milk and sugar in tea

If you are using genuine fine teas, adding things to them covers the original delicate tastes so that’s wasting the tea. Some people say milk and sugar neutral down the anti-oxidative ability of tea so that is wasting the health benefits. 

Interestingly, there is another such discussion in another internet tea group. I think Amadeus is right that adding things to tea muddles the original fine taste. However, if your tea is not so good to start with, there is nothing wrong in putting things to it to make it taste better. 

It depends on how the tea was designed to be drunk. For instance, Assam tea, grown, processed, and brewed to British tastes, is basically undrinkable without milk. With milk, however, it transforms into a unique and special beverage. Mongolian brick tea was selected for its ability to perform well after clotted cream was added as is the custom there. On the other hand, adding milk to a delicate Chinese green would obliterate it. Adding it to a tarry Lapsang Souchong would lead to the flavors constantly fighting with one another.

The same is true for sugar. A white tea is naturally sweet, and the delicate flavors would be taken away from with extra sugar. On the other hand, Ceylon teas destined for the Middle East are designed to stand up to sugar, because it is customary to add a generous amount there.

So really it just depends on what sort of end consumer the tea-maker had in mind.

tibetans and mongolian drink tea with yak milk or cream and salt and other things because that when they began drinking tea many many many centuries ago adding things to tea was a custom in all china. an because tea traded to them was of very poor quality. because they dont have vegetable or fruit good supply, they need tea very strong. poor quality brew very strong not good taste. so they add many things to it to make it taste better.

i forgot. leo have very good essay about history of dark tea in tea guardian. in should read.

They serve gunpowder green tea with loads of sugar and mint in North Africa. Sri Lankan (Ceylon) black tea brewed so strongly in Hong Kong with condensed or evaporated milk and white sugar. It is not about how a tea is “designed”, but rather how a product is adapted for use by the local mass culture. 

Tea farmers always want their teas to fetch a good price. It would be foolish of them to not try to adapt their teas to the buyer’s tastes.

Think of tieguanyin oolong; the old style had a heavy roast, but lighter oolongs are now selling better. So now many tieguanyin oolongs are made with a lighter roast. It did not just happen, but was a modification to help the teas sell. Darjeeling tea in India was originally a very heavy tea like Assam, because British tastes demanded it. When British interest in Darjeeling declined, a German importer suggested that a lighter Darjeeling tea would suit German tastes, and the producers gladly followed, making the Darjeeling tea of today.

> Betty, Wuyi Shuixian was initially the exported tea that most Europeans were drinking before mid 18th century. Leo has a great article about it in the black tea story in Tea Guardian: https://www.teaguardian.com/nature_of_tea/red_origin.html