Twinings

(decaf) wanted tea w/ breakfast, didn’t want to think about it. Probably should have had full caff, but I save that for my hubby. My box of decaf is a throwback to when I didn’t drink much regular black tea b/c the caffeine seemed to affect me very strongly. I seem to be over that now.

got this in a swap on http://swap-bot.com/

Very nice – I love that it’s just black tea and pomegranate, without any hibiscus! Most fruit flavoured Twinings blends all come out purple-red and tasting the same. This has the juicy sweet-tart flavor of pomegranate and the expected natural red-brown color. A nice relaxing fruit tea.

I’d never tried Darjeeling tea before, but I’ve wanted to for a while, so when I saw this on the shelf at the grocery, I had to pick it up. I figured that I could count on Twinings for my first Darjeeling experience, as this company has never let me down before. I found it a little bitter with just sweetener, but I really enjoyed it once I’d added a bit of milk. I’m so glad I picked this one up!

This was an impulse buy the other day. I’ve been craving Lapsang for a while now and saw this at the store. Score!
Very much enjoyed this smokey tea :)

Apparently I’ve discovered my love of Irish breakfast tea, and this one isn’t too bad, and gets the job done. Good with just milk, I don’t need to add sweetener.

Nice to find a local Bob Evans that serves a selection of Twinings instead of food-service-grade stuff. This was nice, even though the metal carafe couldn’t keep the water hot as I would have liked. Nice balance between the black and the “juicy fruit filling.”

Earl Grey tea is, without a doubt, my favorite tea. To drink a good cup of Earl Grey is to experience nothing short of full body euphoria as smell, taste and texture combine to create an experience tea drinkers long for. It’s because of this I almost take personal offense at Twinings lumbering attempt at capturing the taste of a great tea.

I’ll go on record as saying I generally despise everything Twinings produces and that I rate their tea products right up there at the lofty heights alongside cask wine, instant coffee and sweaty gym socks.

I’ve given them a 15 due to the fact that they’ve at least shown effort and offer different blends rather than sinking to the lows of Lipton’s nameless blend of swill. However if the site was capable of listing negative scores, this would get a 0 allowing Lipton, Tetley’s and friends to dwell in the negatives.

Good plain black tea. Nothing special, but still good.

The best thing about having to boil water on the stove because I don’t have a working french press is that it gives me an excuse to clean the kitchen while I wait. I didn’t have enough milk to turn this into chai this morning, so it is just a regular cup of tea with some milk. It isn’t as delicious as it was yesterday, but it is still warm, cozy, comforting, and gets me ready for the day.

Sometimes, you just want and need a really good cup of chai. I love making my own since I get to control the spices even if the only spices I have are cinnamon and clove. Using whole milk also makes me feel super decadent since I normally use 2%.

This blend brings in such a nice malty caramel note that I don’t quite understand why I never thought of using this tea as a base for my chai before. Luckily, making a single serving takes about ten minutes or less, so I was able to make and drink this before running off to work.

Last bag of my box! I’m excited to be finishing up teas. I’m not sure if I would buy this again because I found a tea that I like drinking in the morning better. But it is good. I just think I’m tired of it.

Hot with a drop of soy milk.

I haven’t been liking this tea very much lately, so I decided to do something different. I brewed it for three minutes and just put a splash of soy milk in it instead of brewing it for five minutes and trying to drown it with soy milk.

It tasted better. It still woke me up fast, but instead of being a “kick in the face” it was more like a “roughly shake you awake while yelling in your ear”. Much nicer.

I decided to do something different with my Irish Breakfast today. I used two tea-bags and brewed it up strong. Then I added my very vanilla soy milk. What do I get? A milk tea that still tastes like Irish Breakfast with the creamy milky goodness with a hint of vanilla. Good for relaxing in the afternoon before my second work shift.

Edit: Ok, apparently I have a massive sweet tooth today. Drank half of my cup then added a full tablespoon of honey to the other half. I’m spoiling myself today apparently.

I woke up late today, but I didn’t want to give up breakfast. So I managed to brew and drink this tea in less than 10 minutes. I think I brewed it weaker, but I put a bit of coffee creamer in it to both cool it down and make it smoother.

Since I am consistently adding stuff to this tea to make it drinkable to me, I’m going to bump it down a couple of notches. It could just be that I don’t like the taste of assam compared to the gentler ceylon.

Hot with milk. Best way to start the morning: a nice tea that can stand up to unsweetened soy milk and a friend to talk to.

Work was really busy today so I decided to have a pick-up tea for lunch. I really like having this tea around when I need the extra caffeine kick. Hot with a splash of soy milk.

Hot with milk. Still yummy. I had to drink some more tea to get me off of my must-have-more-chocolate-mate withdraw that I was having from my last cup of tea. And it is such a nice way to end a meal.

Hot with milk. I forgot how much of a punch this is. I decided to have a tumbler for dinner and it is strong. The Assam really makes you wake up and pay attention. It was yummy. I will have to make this my breakfast tea on Tuesday and Thursdays.

Backlogging:

No matter how many times I make this tea, it always reminds me of coffee. Had it today with some milk in the morning. It is now officially out.

Final Judgement: I would probably get it again but it wouldn’t be the first tea I reached for unless I needed it to get a punch in the face in the morning. It would be a good morning tea for school.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I like to play with my tea. This playtime came as an afterthought. I was making myself some hot chocolate and in the middle of making it I wondered how it would taste like mixed with some tea. So I threw a teabag in and let it steep for a pretty long time so I could get both flavors since my family’s hot chocolate is rich and strong.

Mocha. Mocha? Mocha!

It tastes like the best mocha I have ever had. Ever. Yummy!

Backlogging:

This tea makes a great bowl of oatmeal. I made the oatmeal with a little bit more tea than I did last time so the consistency wasn’t as gluey. Just drizzling the agave over the oatmeal tasted much better than stirring it in too. I think I finally broke my addiction to using tons of butter, cream, and brown sugar! This way is much tastier and better for you without all of that butter and sugar.

I had to explain to mom what I was doing. She was making faces at me when I was making my oatmeal.

I had the rest of the tea with a little bit of milk. It is definitely a punch you in the face kind of tea. I don’t see myself drinking this all the time but I could see myself getting different samplers of it to see how it tastes from different companies.

Do not forget this tea when you are making it. I came back to pick it up and it was strong! Good but strong. I made this using the extra water left over from having tea with mom. I also added 2 tablespoons of our family’s cocoa mix and a splash of milk in it. It was really good. The tea and the cocoa just blended together. The cocoa didn’t overpower the tea at all.

I think I get hungry with the time. I know my body isn’t telling me to eat because I just ate two hours ago and I’m still full. It is physiological. So, I break out the tea.

My brother came home from school early (half day) so I offered to make him a cup of tea as well. He chose Tension Tamer from Celestial Seasonings. I’m actually surprised anyone in the house likes it.

I got water ready and decided it is time for some Irish Breakfast. I picked out a bigger cup than usual so I might have had twice as much water than what I normally use but I don’t think it is much of a problem for this tea. It is really bold. It really reminds me of coffee and smells a little bit like my dad’s decaf JFG coffee to me. It would be really good first thing in the morning.

I put a little bit of milk in it with some agave nectar. It smoothed out the flavor a bit into something a little bit more low key for right now. Not by much though since I didn’t put that much milk in it. I had my brother try a little bit of it and he likes it. In fact, if I can get up early enough, he would like to have a cup before school. I think I would make it with a little more milk for him. Possibly only a 3 minute steep too so it would help him wake up better but not be too strong for him. He normally drinks herbal tea.

I do like it right now but I’m not really sure what to think about it. I think I would have to drink it a couple more times to really get an opinion on it. I do know one thing, I would probably get some packets of this to help me wake up in the morning at school. It would help wake me up since I am not a morning person and actually help me stay awake. That would be a good thing considering that I have an “early” class at 9 for next semester. And one of them actually requires thought while the other requires I be awake because it is physical activity.

I really like this tea in the morning. Peaches are my favourite fruit and black teas are (usually) my favourite type so it is a good combination for me. It’s quite a strong peach flavour and has a fairly decent amount of caffeine in it so I think it is great for waking up.