About r/tea
In its own words:
Tea! This subreddit is for discussion of beverages made from soaking camellia sinensis leaves (or twigs) in water, and, to a lesser extent, herbal infusions, yerba mate, and other tisanes.
Community guide
r/tea (#970, about 1.1 million) is for drinks made from Camellia sinensis leaves or twigs, plus herbal infusions, yerba mate and other tisanes—not meme “sip tea” rooms or vendor-grievance threads.
What belongs
Tea talk and photos (about 43 posts/day; text with images and galleries). Rules limit self-promotion, merchant deep-links, affiliate or referral shorteners, surveys, sales pitches, vendor or user grievances, and drug-seeking; health-benefit threads are separately restricted, and low-effort posts are cut.
Versus SipsTea and BoneAppleTea
SipsTea and BoneAppleTea are joke or reaction spaces that share the word “tea.” This community stays on brewing, leaves and tisanes.
Practical pointers
Skip storefront links, coupon dumps and vendor complaints; ask about the leaf or the brew itself.
The community was created on Dec 19, 2008, which makes it 17 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 2,473 subscribers (+0.23%). It sits just behind r/UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG (#969) and ahead of r/Instagram (#971) in our ranking.
What sets r/tea apart
For its size it is unusually busy: about 39.1 new posts a day per million members, more than 80% of the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 1.00% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 93% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (11:00 UTC) sees about 4.0× as many posts as the quietest (04:00 UTC).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/tea went up from 1,085,162 to 1,096,036 subscribers (+10.9K, +1.00%). That is about 247 new members per day. The chart shows 9 weekly subscriber counts.
What r/tea talks about
Across 262 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 4), the words that come up most are “cup”, “teas”, “green”, “grey” and “black”. Other frequent themes are questions, help, earl, good, stories and chai. Recurring phrases include “earl grey”, “cup daily”, “daily discussion” and “discussion questions”. By format, 44% are text posts, 25% are images and 20% are galleries.
Popular post flairs: Photo (73), Question/Help (71), Recommendation (26), Discussion (21), Video (7), Review (6).
Activity and best time to post
r/tea gets about 43 new posts a day. The public archive holds 185,253 posts and 1,875,479 comments in total, about 10.1 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Tuesday (51 posts) and the quietest was Thursday (29). Posting peaks around 11:00 UTC and is lowest around 04:00 UTC.
Rules of r/tea
The moderators of r/tea list 10 rules. In short:
- Self-promotion
- Health benefits and concerns
- Be respectful of each other
- Low-effort posting
- Direct link to merchant
- Survey
- Drugs and Drug-Seeking
- Affiliate, referral link, link shorteners
- Sales and discounts
- Grievances regarding vendors or other users
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/tea and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many members does r/tea have?
r/tea has 1,096,036 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #970 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 10,874 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
How old is r/tea?
r/tea was created on Dec 19, 2008, so it has been around for 17 years. The oldest post in the public archive is from Jan 10, 2009.
How active is r/tea?
Very active: r/tea gets about 43 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 185,253 posts and 1,875,479 comments. In a sample of 262 recent posts we counted 222 different authors.
When is r/tea most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Tuesday and the quietest Thursday, and most posts arrive around 11:00 UTC, with the fewest around 04:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/tea about?
The community describes itself as: “Tea! This subreddit is for discussion of beverages made from soaking camellia sinensis leaves (or twigs) in water, and, to a lesser extent, herbal infusions, yerba mate, and other tisanes.” Recent post titles often mention cup, teas, green, grey and black. Most posts are text posts (44%).
Is r/tea safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/tea as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/tea?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/tea accepts both text and link posts, with images, videos, galleries and polls enabled. It has 10 posted rules, starting with: “Self-promotion”; “Health benefits and concerns”; “Be respectful of each other”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/tea?
Communities with similar topics include r/SipsTea (4.1M) and r/BoneAppleTea (1.3M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/tea.