English Teatime

We arrived at Duke Medical this morning for the removal of the skin cancer about a quarter of an inch from my eye. The paperwork had said to eat a good breakfast as most people can expect to stay from three to five hours, and to be prepared to send for a lunch. I had Carnation Instant Breakfast at 5 am and brought a granola bar and bottled water with me. Lo and behold, we get here and there is lovely classical music playing, Panera muffins and bagels, and TEA! That’s right, two wooden chests of Bigelow tea with lots of varieties to choose from and a dispenser for hot water, coffee, and hot chocolate. (Hubby had the hot chocolate and said it was the best he had ever tasted made with hot water. I use milk to make mine.)

This was my first tea. It was a good, solid, English style tea. I chose this nstead of the breakfast tea because even though additions were available – heck, they even have cream cheese for the bagels – I wanted to take it straight.

I won’t pretend this is fine tea. It didn’t make me swoon. But for something you could plop in a cup of hot water and drink in a waiting room, it did a nice job. Now on to the Bigelow Green…

Oh, the nurse says they got it all on the first try! Soon, Pottery Barn and Tin Roof Teas! :)

My tea strainer is gone from the office, whether it was stolen or misplaced I have no idea. :(

Anyway I decided I would have a teabag of this today, it has caffeine it it and that’s good but otherwise it is a fairly unremarkable black tea in every respect.

I guess I will be looking for another tea strainer from home to bring in!

Yum! This may be a plain black tea but I really like it. It is a nice tea to have while focusing on other things because you don’t feel guilty about not noticing all the special extras about the tea…there isn’t any. This is the tea I grab when I can’t decide what tea I want. I think I have one more bag and then I’ll most likely buy a box of this.

OK, it was dark and my retinas were scorched by looking at (literally) four million Christmas lights—we had our traditional family day at Silver Dollar City yesterday—but I could have sworn the bag said “English Afternoon.” One of the freebies I got from the Bigelow promotion. But I can’t find an “afternoon” anything on the Bigelow website.

Long day, bone weary, but it was a good tired; pit-stopped at a McDonalds and ordered hot water to pop the bag in. (Always carry your own :). I may still have had a nose and mouth full of leather flavor from the leather shop we visited at the park, but in in the dark car on a a drizzy drive home, it tasted lovely and leathery like a darjeeling.

It can be Christmas now. We’ve seen the lights, ridden the train, listened to Grandpa tell the Christmas story to the accompaniment of Mannheim Steamroller’s Silent Night, and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with my child giggling and grinning together all through the Christmas Carol stage show. I cry every year. And it’s not because of the musical :)

A review of English Teatime by Bigelow Tea

Company: Bigelow
Tea Name: English Teatime
Tea Type/Varietal: black
Region:
Steeping Vessel/Amt. Leaf: cup/ tea bag
Plucking Season:
Liquor Color: darkish red/ mahogany
Leaf Characteristics:

1st Steeping:
Water temperature: 200 Fahrenheit
Time: 5 minutes

This tea belongs to my mother-in-law yet, I help myself to a cup of this tea every now and again, as she takes notice of the tea bags missing. I take one tea bag and put it in my cup adding the boiled water to it. Tea colors right away to a pinkish dew, not dark red but more like mahogany; rose-wood red and smells very robust as fine black teas tend to. When sipping of the tea it is malty with creamy texture. This is a fine cup of tea and I don’t need to add a thing to it.

In all, this tea has a lovely color and aroma of a freshly brewed cup of tea; robust in texture and body with an invigorating aroma to waken or refresh one’s mid-day drawling of sobering thoughts. This is an ideal cup of tea for all occasions.

I am pleasantly surprised by this tea. It has a bold, malty character that I didn’t expect – I was expecting something fairly mild and “tea-baggish” – but I didn’t get that here… this is really very good… one that I think the English might consider “moreish”

ETA: another THANK YOU to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me this tea to try!

I’m bumping up the rating on this tea. It’s really good this morning; soothing and smooth. Will definitely have to invest in a full box sometime.

I went to Disneyland’s Club 33 a couple weekends ago. It’s a really fancy dining room with dress code and exclusive to members to enter (with insane yearly fees). It’s the only place to serve alcohol in the park.

Anyways, my husband’s work treated us there. The food was good, dessert were fantastic. Tea? Geeeeze, they serve me this bagged stuff?! They should of at least gave me some Disney wonderland tea!
It was astringent and papery tasting. However, they served it in a really lovely tea pot set with actual boiling water.

Lots of pictures of Club 33, the food and tea at my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/oolong-owls-disneyland-club-33-experience/

Wow, this is surprisingly tasty. No additives yet it is smooth and a little sweet. Very malty. I’m actually pretty impressed!

First of all, on the back of the packet, it says to only steep this for 1-2 minutes. Only 2 minutes for a black tea? I’m lost.

Anyway, I mostly grabbed this because I was in a hurry this morning and didn’t have time to prepare a loose-leaf tea. (But after a long night of drinking, I was craving tea as soon as I woke up.) Upon first sip, I was glad that I let it steep the normal amount of time.

It did get pretty strong, but the flavor is nice. It’s a keemun, I think, and just tastes like your standard breakfast tea. It’s good, but not really noteworthy. I wouldn’t turn it down, but if there was something else, I’d probably leave this one behind.