• Echo5@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 months ago

    Thing is, I like both but much prefer unsweetened hot tea to black coffee. Unsweetened cold tea is horrible though. Sweetened & hot? I’ll swap between.

    • Enkrod@feddit.de
      0·
      9 months ago

      Then it’s not tea, it’s an infusion or decoction.

      Tea is made from a specific plant, the tea shrub (Camellia sinensis).

      These infusions might be called tea, but they are tea in the same way as a hotdog is a heated companionable mammal.

      Except if you talk about Kukicha, then it’s made from the stems of the tea shrub. The important part here is the tea shrub. Without tea in it, it just ain’t tea.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
        0·
        9 months ago

        Asian cultures called various hot beverages tea 茶 before some Westerner decided that they are wrong. Sure there is green tea from that plant but Asian cultures also had mint or chrysanthemum tea using the same 茶 character (pudina chai in India for mint tea).

        If anything, the Westerner who decided that beverages made from only that specific shrub is called tea was the wrong one. Broader uses predate your definition.