Cream Irish Breakfast

From the queue

Prior to my recent swap with Courtney I was asked for requests as one does. I was attracted to Butiki’s Irish Cream Cheesecake, and while reminding myself what Courtney had thought of that one, I noticed a mention of her finding it quite similar to this one. Therefore, I said I would like to try a sample of either this or that, but one of them would be fine if she didn’t have enough to share. Luckily for me, she had enough to share of both of them, so now I get to see for myself if I find them very similar too.

I started with this one because it’s morning, it’s the first tea of the day and it’s a breakfast blend. That’s fairly straight-forward, isn’t it?

It smells quite strong and also a bit creamy. Mostly though I’m finding it to have a very strong strawberry-y note. Peculiar. Was the pot perhaps not rinsed out properly from the Queen of Berries last night? I thought I was pretty thourough with that. Or is it the cream that does it, maybe? I think I can also detect something quite malty underneath the cream and the mysterious strawberry, which adds to the impression of it being quite strong. Husband didn’t think it smelled like strawberry at all, so perhaps that’s just me.

It is indeed a good strong blend, this one. It’s also quite smooth and fairly malty with a good buildup of aftertaste. A sort of oaky note there, I think, and quick flash of something a little more harsh. Like it’s a generally well-behaved blend, but showing teeth now and then to remind you that it’ll only be nice to you so long as you are nice to it.

I’ve had a cream flavoured black once which tasted pretty much just like a generic black with some cream poured into it, which, when you are not accustomed to adding anything to your tea at all EVER, wasn’t particularly pleasant. I was a little curious about how the cream note would behave in this one, but not sufficiently scared away by previous experiences to not give it a go.

I think the cream flavouring adds to the smoothness of this blend, but it’s really quite subtle. It’s there more in texture than in flavour and then I get a little swish of cream on the aftertaste. This is infinitely preferable to my previous experience. It is, in fact, very very nice.

I’m glad I asked Courtney if she could spare a sample of this for me. And once again, I find myself sort of wishing I hadn’t shared it with Husband as that means less of it for me.

Me, who had never ever been a breakfast blend lover, am now finding myself really interested in breakfast and morning teas. Which is a fun development, so many tea varieties to discover. I think the fault is Mariage Freres´s American Breakfast though sadly that is a tea I can not rebuy locally, or not without massive internet charges. American Breakfast, I love you and you became my staple.

Ah, but this tea instead, it was from a swap with Courtney. She was interested in swapping a lot of breakfast type things, a very tempting proposition in my current mood. I had mentioned to her this recent infatuation of mine for breakfast blends and she kindly added plenty of other teas for me to try. Including 2 irish breakfasts, really seasonal as well! Thanks, Courtney.

Now I had this at breakfast and I am not at my best before breakfast, I just did my usual, not even being sure what tea this was. I used lots of leaf, sweetened it a bit and a lot of milk. I taste it and OMG it´s Bailey´s tea. The cream flavouring, particularly when I had sweetened it and added milk made my mind authoritatively categorize it as Bailey´s tea. And that is not a bad thing at all. Though it was a bit surprising as a breakfast tea, I am sure I could get used to it instantly.

Teabase, I can not say much because of the milk, sugar, and also strong flavouring, but it was strong enough to stand up to the rest. In all a lovely tea.