adding tea to your beer

I am going to do a tiny batch of beer and I was going to "dry hop(tea)" a bag or two of tea for aroma. Anybody ever add tea to their recipe and get good results? if so, when? Flame out? Boil? I really only want a slight tea aroma to go with an aroma of sarsparilla (which will go into the fermenter at 1 week, after being boiled for a few minutes. I'm doing a small 1 gallon batch just in case it sucks

Lastly, I am going to add some hops for bittering and a bit for aroma but I'm wondering how my willamette and simcoe hops will go with the tea and how much I might use in order to balance things out.

Not sure what time of tea you were going to add, but I thought Ealy Grey would add to the flavor profile. I found a couple posts that had some suggestions and or successes

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/anybody-used-tea-leaves-61877/index2.html
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/earl-grey-stout-68183/

I never pulled the trigger but I would be interested to see how your's go.

I think an Assam would be good or if you want to add smoked flavor try lapsang souchong. I would not recommend green tea as those are more temperature sensitive and could turn bitter.

Check out the book "Extreme Brewing". I've brewed up the wildflower wheat which uses a couple ounces of Chamomile for the whole 60 min boil. The SWMBO loves it and one of my buddies is coming over on Sunday to buy me another fermenter(bucket) and all the ingredients because he wants a batch to himself

It's definitely one of the most unique beers I've had/made and it's been a hit with everyone who's tried it, with the exception of a few friends who just don't like wheat beer.

Gilgamesh brewing makes a beer without hops, only tea.

Ok, it's done! We'll see how it went in a few weeks

Recipe for the curious (decided to go 2.5 gallon ):

I'm thinking about using some white pear tea in a ginger "beer" that I will be making soon. I plan on using 1/2 malted barley and half table sugar. From everything I've read it should be ok. Keep us posted on how it goes!

teas can release astringent flavors and bitter oils which can (relatively) ruin your brew, so they need to be steeped at lower temps for a little longer and never brought above 150 - 155 degrees. In general, you use hot water for tea you are going to drink hot, and cold or room temp brew tea you are going to drink cold.

Regardless, tea does not behave like hops. No matter when you add it, it will add flavor and aroma (relative to the amount you use.) tea will steep at any temp, however the lower the temp the longer the steeping time. I say cold brew and steep it at room temp for 2 weeks in the secondary. This way you get all the flavor and aroma and none of the nasty bitters.