Okay, so sometimes you can’t take the time to brew tea. Sometimes you can’t get out to your favorite tea store of choice. It happens. Sometimes the bills come in and you can’t justify spending $15 or even $8 on your standard favorites. Sometimes you want to give tea to someone who refuses to drink loose tea.
Trader Joe’s Irish Breakfast Tea is a solid well balanced tea that is a little on the bitter side. It tolerates a wide range of brewing times (from 1 – 4 minutes or so) and tolerates very warm to boiling water.
This tea lacks the bright floral notes of, say a Lipton, but compared to other bagged teas the flavor is rich, having earthy and woody tones. Buy a box, throw it in your cupboard, and keep it around for emergencies. It also has a maltiness to it, as described by GREEN TEA TV here on Steepster.
I tend to drink this tea without adornment, but it can be enhanced with a small amount of sweetener and even a small splash of low fat milk. I don’t usually recommend low fat milk specifically, but anything more rich that 2% quickly overwhelms the tea.
This is a very sensible analysis—I’m with you on every element of Paragraph 1!