Irish Breakfast

Sample from a TTB. This one is pretty enjoyable. It’s mostly biscuity with hints of maltiness and raisins. I enjoyed it sweetened with milk, and though I wouldn’t order it, I’d drink it again.

UGH! I brewed this in the worst possible way. First I used boiled water, but left the top open on my teapot to compensate. Then on the second steep I got distracted and brewed over my 3.5 minuet mark by a good bit. Both steepings where combined in the mug.

That being said, this came out good. The assam definitely helps soften the persnickety ceylon, which I could taste coming through crisp and a little bitter. The assam brings a starchy and malty sweetness to the tea, while the ceylon has a crisp, metallic, and vague citrus notes. Nothing to write home about, but it is a good teabag replacement tea. At least now I know what it tastes like when I use it in blends; and that it is overstepping friendly.

Discovering Adagio teas, episode #1 (out of 12).
Recently I made my first order at Adagio Teas (UK). I liked their tea selection and the fact that they sell 30 g samples. I definitely prefer small packages, because they allow me to taste more varieties. 50 g bags are fine, 30 g bags are even better. I’m planning to avoid the tea shops that sell only 100 g packages or bigger (hear it Denmark!).
So my first pick is the only large tin from my order, Irish Breakfast (blend of Ceylon and Assam black teas). Filled above the rim, so it’s not easy to scoop the tea without spilling, but I’m not going to complain.
Lovely dark brown-red colour.
Distinct wet cardboard flavour, typical to Assam teas. As a beer judge, I would find it a sign of oxidation and an off-flavour in beer, but here it’s different, of course, and expected. Apart from that, the aroma is rich, dark, malty, woody.
Very smooth taste, with only trace of astringency (I steeped it strong), slightly sweet and caramelly.
Very good tea, in my opinion much better as a blend than just a sum of its parts. Looking forward to my other Adagio teas.

This was nice, not bitter, and very mild.

Tastes like a black tea, but still distinct

I have a sample, but I don’t know if I’ll repurchase.

Adagio’s Irish Breakfast is a masterful blend of high quality, whole leaf Assam and Ceylon teas from the well regarded Meleng Estate in India and Kenilworth Estate in Sri Lanka respectively. A four minute steep at 212F produced a wonderfully complex breakfast tea with enticingly rich notes of malt, honey, baked bread, sweet fruit and a tiny bit of spice.

Some Irish Breakfast teas are in your face, brash, uncouth street ruffians with bad language, bad breath and B.O. that slap you awake! This is not one of those teas! Adagio’s Irish Breakfast is an urbane and handsome gentleman’s gentleman who graciously draws open the drapes and courteously announces in his soft, sweet, Irish accent that it’s time to awaken.

This smooth tea is quite easy to drink without additions, but is great with milk and honey too! Although a breakfast tea, this Irish blend would certainly work deliciously well at afternoon tea to revive one….gently. Naturally, it stands up to any food – savory or sweet. It was just right with my homemade, organic macaroni and cheese bake.

Adagio’s Irish Breakfast is an exquisite Irish Breakfast with real panache that has become my favorite go to tea. It’s enough to make this Anglo-Saxon Anglophile shout Éirinn go Brách!

I need to brew up some of my black tea/sage hair rinse and since I’ve cleared the crappy Lipton out of my cupboard (good riddance), it’s time to start using up the strong breakfast blends I rarely drink. But unlike bagged Lipton, I’ll still at least have a cuppa of my nice breakfast loose leafs first while the leaf is still around. So, breakfast first, shower after.

This generously came from Meowster’s cupboard de-stash, thank you Meowster! The brewed cuppa is a nice coppery color and smells properly malty and just a little sweet, too, like molasses or brown sugar. It’s a really nice aroma.

I admittedly do try to hold back a little on my breakfast blacks compared to some (I used 2.4g of tea to 350ml 200F water steeped for 3 minutes) and this one wasn’t quite as scathing as I was expecting, being a blend of Assam and Ceylon, which is pretty much my two most disliked blacks for their tendency toward bitterness and astringency. The black tea was full-bodied and highly malty, with a touch of breadiness, and medium astringency after the sip. The astringency was a bit much for my palate, so I did have to add a bit of local Farmer’s Market honey, which was quite nice.

This tea is a tea tea. If you are a person in the West (or indeed I suspect many other places) and you imagine tea, this is what you are thinking about. And if you want to have some of what you are thinking about, you could buy this tea.

To be fair, it’s very smooth- and very strong. It’s also very plain- an asset to people who like a huge rush of caffeine in the morning and don’t like flavored tea. Unfortunately, although I thought myself perhaps among the plain black-tea drinkers, I’m apparently not one of them. Who knew?

I received this as a sample from Adagio last weekend, and figured it’d be the perfect tea to kickstart my St. Patty’s Day celebrations. This morning, I went to Mariano’s (one of the grocery stores in Chicago) and bought some of their delicious soda bread, along with some Kerry Gold butter (I rarely keep butter in my apartment, so this was a treat) and decided to enjoy them with some Irish Breakfast tea as soon as I got home.

This tea is pleasantly malty, and stands up well to cream and sugar. Nothing about it sets it apart from other Irish breakfast blends, but I wasn’t expecting it to.

I didn’t think I would like this tea, as I’m a wimpy girl and usually prefer the sweeter, “dessert” teas. But this one really surprised me. Yes, I took it with almond milk and sweetener, but it was still MUCH more delicious than I expected. Nothing fancy or unusual about the flavors, just a yummy black tea that had me feeling sad when my mug was empty. I will definitely buy this one again.