British Colonial Tea Empire

ARGH! I knew I should have copied my text before hitting post seeing as I had been poking about with other stuff on the site in a different tab, but I forgot! Starting over then.

I think this was the name of the brand. I asked in the cafe, but couldn’t write it down at the time and I thought I’d be able to remember. Now I’m a bit uncertain and I can’t seem to find anything about it online. So if anybody is familar with the brand, feel free to correct me.

Anyway. My colleague and I finally got to go to Sofie’s Parents, our favourite cafe in the city after work today. You may remember I tried to get their English Breakfast blend a couple of weeks ago and was served a rather disappointing Earl Grey instead. Well, today we did manage to successfully get a large pot of the English Breakfast Blend. The details given about it said that it was a mix of Ceylon, Assam and Kenyan teas. (The latter surprised me somewhat. I thought it was more often Keemun in EBBs?)

You should have seen the amount of leaves used when they made this! It was amazing! I don’t know what they had been thinking when preparing the tea, but something had definitely been going on in the kitchen because they don’t usually try to steep some 25g of leaves at the same time. O.o It was our good luck that my colleague didn’t want to risk it starting to get bitter so we took it up before the time they told us.

Firstly, the scent: Very strong honey note in this one. I like that in English Breakfast, and it’s both a smell and a flavour note that I’ve always associated with English Breakfast. So that’s a big win with me.

Secondly, flavour sans milk: It’s got a touch of smoke. Not as rough as in Lapsang Souchong, but definitely some pricklyness there. We thought this was probably the Kenyan ingredient.

Thirdly, flavour with milk: Still a note of smoke, but the prickly is smoothed out by the milk. I can’t actually decide if I liked it best with or without milk, but I’m leaning towards without.

Fourthly, development: As you know, tea continues to develop even after the leaves have been removed. This turned significantly darker and as it did, the Assam came out more, dominating the (assumed) Kenyan. I liked this. It kept the tea interesting.

All in all, I liked this a lot. (And you should have seen the piece of strawberry cake I had that tasted of real strawberries. OMG Cake Heaven!)

Travelling Teabox Reminder! Don’t forget to send me your address at [email protected] before Dec. 31st if you want to participate. There is a thread at the forum with all the details and guidelines.