Irish Breakfast Tea

I usually drink this bagged tea only in decaf, but today called for caf, so I yoinked a bag from my hubby’s stash. (I don’t know how he brews it for 5 min – after 3 it was looking plenty dark enough for me! Then again, he’s a coffee drinker and I am not.)

It was very good with raw sugar and a splash of milk. It definitely has that “chewy,” malty that makes it almost a meal in and of iteself. Very good with outmeal raisin cookies too, btw.

I’m not gung-ho on bagged teas generally, but I was looking for a cheap, decent black tea mainly to try for cold brewing. I had this about 7.5 years ago, and I thought it was O.K. I decided to have a hot cup, and so I did.

Most bagged teas aren’t very aromatic, but I did smell a nice black tea aroma from the box, which stated “Best Used By 2015”. It did smell quite fresh. The cup was a deep brown with a decent aroma too! After cooling, the taste was full and flavorful, but not astringent or bitter. The Ceylon tea seemed to smooth out the more robust Assam character-very nicely I must say. Keep in mind I did carefully watch my steep time and temperature.

Overall, this tea is better than I remember it, and satisfying enough when I need a relatively smooth, hearty cup quickly. A dash of milk could even enhance the flavor if the mood strikes me, and it sometimes does. :)) I will try cold brewing this and posting a review in a couple days.

Cupped: Saturday, June 30, 2012. Reviewed: Sunday, July 1, 2012.

I have KeenTeaThyme to thank for sending me a bag of this. Thank you!

Twinings is a company (or shall I say “are companies”?) that confuse me. It seems like there are two different companies: Twinings and Twinings of London. There are two different websites and they appear to have different teas. This has confused me for several years now.

Anyway… this is from Twinings of London. Since the package in the picture and the packaging of the teabag that KeenTeaThyme sent me appear similar, I’m going to forge ahead with the belief that I’m putting this tasting note in the right place.

This is really not so bad for a bagged tea. I’d certainly prefer loose leaf as I’ve said many times, but, given its limitations as a bagged tea, this one stands up to those challenges pretty well. It is a good, strongly flavored tea. Rich and hints of malt. Sweet caramel-y undertones. And I’m not getting a strong bitterness from it, and I even steeped it for a full 3 minutes which I don’t normally do except that it is a bagged tea and because I have to pour the boiling water into a teacup to steep it (I guess I don’t have to brew it this way, but, it seems the most convenient method of brewing a bagged tea), and the temperature drops when being poured into a teacup even if it’s been warmed (which it hadn’t been), I decided to go for the 3 minutes.

Gah… I feel like I’m babbling. So, I’m going to stop now. This is really quite a decent tasting tea. Not the best I’ve had when it comes to Irish Breakfast blends, but, I didn’t expect it to be since it is a bagged tea. But it is drinkable.

I’m sure I have had this at some point in history. I can’t find any notes I’ve ever written about it. It is one of the half dozen Twinings teas that have always been on the local grocer’s shelves. Thanks to Brett I will finally get to write a note on this. I read all the notes listed under the loose leaf and bagged versions of this. Normally I consider that cheating. Today I consider it good reading material while sipping tea. The comments were often of the punch in the face, kick in the butt, variety. Then there was the wow this is malty comments. Apparently my experience was less exciting.

I left the bag in the cup the whole time. After having tried the Harney and Sons Irish breakfast, this one seems closer to Prince of Wales – Not in taste rather in intensity of the cup. It does have some light malty notes. It is a bit astringent (drying) but not bitter even with the bag staying in it. I enjoyed the cup while sipping but don’t really crave a repeat. Not bad it just didn’t move me.

Hmm, I taste something funky going on.

Lacking a good night’s sleep, I reached for this upon arriving at work with my eyelids still crusted shut. I don’t know if it’s just because I bought my first Brita water filter after returning from a vacation to find the kitchen flooded with dirty water and knowing I can’t possibly make myself drink water straight from that faucet again.

Or maybe it’s because my mind is considering the possibility that perhaps milk marked for expiration today shouldn’t go into my tea, especially since it’s the same milk that was in my fridge when the power went out for 24 hours. Thank you, Hurricane Irene.

Regardless, there’s definitely something funky going on here. I’m not at home, so the Brita water filter would have no effect on this straight-from-the-boiling-hot-water-tap water. And I haven’t even poured the milk of questionable integrity into it yet either. Yet still, funk. What could it be?

I added a little Truvia and it just made the funk more pronounced! Perhaps I need to re-roll this morning. I’m blaming the water quality at my work. What could be in this water to make my Irish Breakfast Tea have an aftertaste like cheese??? I’ll be back…

Whew! What a strong black tea you are!!

This tea is above and beyond one of my favorites. It tastes to me what BPAL’s Mad Hatter cologne smells like. So very a merry unbirthday, to you Twinings. Twinkle twinkle…little bat….

8:30 am class this morning and I needed something with a bit of a kick – so a robust Assam seemed like a good idea. It’s definitely stronger and has more body than Twining’s English Breakfast and I can taste a bit of that characteristic malty Assam flavour. The tea maybe isn’t as flavourful as I might like, but at this hour I’m not inclined to be too picky.

This tea is growing on me – nice, full, satisfying flavor, even with my cold, and no bitterness, even though I oversteeped it. Twinings teas generally seem very forgiving.

Not really sure why I am taking the time to review this, as it’s the kind of tea most people know whether they like or not. Honestly, I’d never buy it either, but someone left a box in my house and I’ve been having a bag daily before I turn to a loose-leaf black tea I like better.

So, now that my snobbery is out of the way, it’s actually not a bad black tea. I have been alternating between drinking it black, and with a touch of vanilla soy milk. This is a good mid-afternoon tea for me (evidence, it’s 2:45PM). I usually start to drag after lunch, and if I want to get a bit of work done in the early afternoon, a cup of black tea definitely helps.

Sometime in late June I became infatuated with plain black tea. I’m normally a bit of a gimmicky-flavored tea drinker, but it suddenly became my favorite thing to drink after I was served it with shortbread cookies one day, and left to drink it slowly on a comfortable sofa.

I’m also Irish-American, so, um, maybe I’m genetically biased towards this tea. Going to try an English breakfast tea next to see if I can tell the difference.

Anyway, I’m careful not to steep this one too long. At 3 minutes it’s a bit peppery, almost like a very lightly scented earl grey.

My mom was trying to be nice… she really was. Before she left for her 2 week business trip she decided to make me some lemonade. I’m not a real big lemonade drinker, but it’s good w/ matcha and in Arnold Palmers… except that she made Crystal Light and not real lemonade w/ stevia which is how I drink it. I can feel my teeth rotting just thinking about it. Oh well. I decided to first try to salvage this by making an Arnold Palmer.

2 bags steeped in 1 cup water just below boiling
1 cup Crystal Light
1 tsp lemon juice

Not as teeth rottingly sweet as I expected. Pretty good.