Don’t give up on the flavour, there is a massive range of Chinese tea that’s indescribably amazing. I mean, duckshit oolong, da Hong pao, puerh…

I worked at an American Chinese restaurant that had fantastic oolong tea. Whenever I bought it from Asian supermarkets it was literally the worst quality tea I’ve ever tasted, below the Lipton tea that’s for making sweet tea.

Part of the problem there is that the domestic market consumes most of the best grades of all types of teas. But it's possible to get really amazing Chinese and Taiwanese teas from tea importers in the US[1] and EU. Some of them are pricey, but not all (and tea is generally not too expensive per cup, compared with lots of other beverages).

1: https://www.uptontea.com/teas/c/oolong-tea/pgsize/12/filter/...

Buy online, check out the /r/tea wiki [0] and specifically the user vendor list [1]

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/wiki/faq

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/wiki/vendors/page_01

Look for "Tie Guan Yin" (Iron Goddess of Mercy) Oolong. It's a lovely starting point. Usually good across most brands. Medium-light and naturally floral/fruity quality to it. The amount you use and the temp and time for brewing are also different for Oolong compared to black teas.

I've found Pu Erh tea is a great transition as a coffee drinker. It has that strong earthy/malty flavor, even if it doesn't have the caffeine.

Just make sure you buy it from a brick instead of the loose leaf (which tends to be lower quality imo).

Pu Erh is great but you have to be careful with it if you have low blood pressure. I learn't the hard way after I once brewed some after having a beer and straight down passed out in the kitchen, like fell to the floor passed out. I do have low blood pressure and usually took Pu Erh while sitting down but after that I just stopped taking it allover.

A study of teabags sold in British supermarkets in 2011 found that the teabags containing the most L-theanine per cup (24 mg versus 8 mg per cup) were the lower-quality brands containing black tea, with a supermarket brand of black tea having the highest theanine content. The study demonstrates that brewing time is a major determinant of the amount of l-theanine extracted. Addition of sugar and small quantities of milk make no significant difference, while larger quantities of milk reduced the measured theanine content.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine

Hm, i ask myself if the reduction in measured theanine is just by dilution or if the milk reacts with the theanine.

Or put some pure theanine powder in your coffee. I use this brand because there is no cellulose or other non-soluble ingredient in the powder that ends up floating on the liquid:

https://www.iherb.com/pr/metabolic-maintenance-l-theanine-20...

I twist the capsule apart, then pour its contents (the powder) out. Buying the powder inside capsules is a convenient way of measuring out a very small quantity of powder.