Bewley's

I have a feeling that this tea bought at one of my local independant grocery stores was brought back while on a vacation in Ireland, because the packaging is not like the other bewley’s teas the store sells. Its in a cute octagonal red tin with a print of their iconic Grafton street shop on the top. So I bought it, partly because the tin brings back memories.

This is a loose leaf blend of several grades of Darjeeling. The dry tea smells of raisins, hay, with a spicy floral note. It brews to a slightly redder tone of deep orange and smells of a spicy sweet, floral, hint of hay, almond, muscatel, and a hint of malt.

The tea tastes of almond, apricot, prune, grape, with a slightly powdery cooler floral, bitter vegetal, and malt notes. It is moderately astringent. It has an aftertaste of spicy floral,
apricot and almond notes. The tea is much sweeter if brewed at a lower temperature and becomes more lemony and astringent when brewed at boiling.

Great breakfast tea, however I would never drink it without milk/cream and sugar. It goes well with both. Thanks to Amazon this can be one of my staples

I purchased this loose when I found out that one of my tea shops no longer carries Bewley’s Clipper Gold, which I love, in either loose or bag form. I saw that this was African tea as well, so I thought I would give it a try to see how it compares to the Clipper. I would call this Clipper Gold with a twist. It brews up a deep orangey color like the Clipper Gold (and the color develops quickly, like the Clipper Gold as well). Also, I can taste similarities to the Clipper Gold, but I taste a more earthy and musky flavor to this one. I would say this is a nice tea, however, my tongue still prefers the Clipper Gold. I guess I will have to order Clipper online from now on.

My second pot of tea today. There is not much else to do when your snowed in so I might as well keep drinking tea all day to keep myself warm. Plus it’s giving me time to wire wrap some gemstones.

http://tinypic.com/r/309o4so/6

I love lazy days.

The land of the living.
Toward the middle of the night on Saturday it hit me like a Semi Truck.
This started my nearly 48 hour migraine.
I have not had one this bad in awhile.
My darling sweet husband took care of me the entire time.
I lay in the dark bedroom.
Husband quietly bringing in cups of tea, water, juice and bits of food and pills, leaving them on the bed table where they sat barely touched.
My pets never left my side.
Last night, when I finally ventured out of my cave and husband promptly asked me what I wanted.
I said “A cup of tea”
He made me a cup of this.
I have had this tea for awhile, but have not logged it, because it is the tea that I grab when we are up long before normal people should arise and are out the door into the cold.
I bought this initially because Husband said he was interested in drinking more tea, but there was no way that he could make himself a cup of loose leaf tea at the shop.
So, I got this and I have ended up drinking most of it, because it surprised me with its delightful full flavored malty-ness and bracing spirit yet convenience of a quick cuppa.
It also is one of the only teas I have tried with a bit of milk and sugar, it seems to bring the malty-ness out even more.
They come in a cellophane wrapped box of 80 bags.
Have a tin ready to place the bags into, because they are not individually
wrapped.
Husband has made himself a cuppa of this and also when he makes me a cup of tea he grabs this, because its right by the kettle in a large tin that reads “Tea Bags”
So, last night when he handed me a mug of this, you would have thought he gave me a million bucks, I snatched it from him and inhaled while wrapping my hands firmly around the mug.
After I had nearly finished the mug of tea and he coaxed some peanut butter toast down me, he looked at me and said “there you go, looking better babe”
Then he went on to tell me how these last couple of days I looked like something that crawled off the Walking Dead filming set.
A little later catching my image in the mirror, I saw what he meant.
But, this morning, I am among the living and having another cuppa of this tea.
I am weak today, as I usually am after one of these episodes.
I want tea, but want it easily without thinking, so I think today, I will go through some of the bagged tea samples I have.
Maybe you will see more of me on here today.

Sorry for my lack of posts for the last few days, I have been in London on a short holiday and promised by husband I would leave my laptop behind. I do plan on making up for my lack of tea blogging by having a ’tea’athon this weekend. I have been thinking all morning of what to have as my first tea and then petitecanuck posted about Irish Afternoon Tea by Bewley’s and that’s when I knew what to have.

I have some of this tea left from a few months ago when my mother brought me some back from Dublin. This tea is lovely, on par with Twinings in my opinion. It tastes black and slightly malty with a solid medium strength (meaning it’s not strong nor weak but the lovely evening combination it claims).

A splash of milk and a 0 calorie sugar is all it takes to make that perfect afternoon ‘cuppa’.

This is an excellent alternative to breakfast tea! You can definitely taste the similarities between the Irish Breakfast and Afternoon but this one is a little more mellow. I generally leave the teabag in the entire time I’m drinking a breakfast tea, so I did the same with this tea- great choice!

A wonderful night for a good Irish blend, Christmas music, and house cleaning.

bitter, even in a mug mug and at the minimum brewing time listed. No biggie, since I was planning to add Bailey’s anyway. 2 tbsp smoothed it out nicely :-)

When my parents asked what I wanted from Ireland, I asked that they bring me back some tea. This is what they brought and I truly enjoy it. One of my favorite loose leaf teas from the Tea Spot in Defiance is the Irish Breakfast and this is very similar. Mom says she can taste the peat in the tea, so it truly tastes like the country it comes from.

A present from my mother who just returned from a visit to Dublin.
Served with a little milk, this tea tastes like your bog standard black morning tea. It’s adequately strong tasting and somewhat fresh and all in all it does the job nicely. A little bitter but not to the point of being too much and the milk mixes nicely to make it slightly more mellow. I truly don’t think anything is unique or special about this tea but pre bagged black is always handy.

Perhaps the more I try it the bigger a difference I can taste but right here right now it’s just normal black tea.

Thick fog this morning. Me and the weather. (Right now, any weather phenomenon that involves moisture is serious atmospheric news.)

So a kick out the door was in order. This did it, although, due to my kitchen sloppiness, I picked up a little bit of yesterday’s Marco Polo in the cup as well. Delicacy with hobnail boots. (Yeah, I know, WASH the tea strainer, don’t just rinse it. I will. Tomorrow. Maybe.)

The only flavor descriptor you need for this one is STRONG. No chestnuts, berries, hibiscus, or scented blossoms wafting on a gentle breeze. Uh-uh.

Stealing a quote note from my friend ashmanra: “If you want a tea to kick your fanny out the door and remind you to eat your veggies OR ELSE, you can stop looking.” Oh, yeah, how I needed it this morning. Eyes won’t open and I list to one side after zoot-suit swing dancing with my kids in music class yesterday. Strained thigh muscles from doing that goofy thing where you wiggle your knees back and forth and cross/uncross your hands at the same time (and, might I add, loving every minute of it).

Pretty basic Irish Breakfasty tea. Sometimes I drink it plain if I have something sweet or I add a little milk. A good brisk morning tea.

I quite like this as a simple tea, though not quite as much as my Red Rose. However, somethign interesting to note, perhaps, is that this tea place is so old, and so Irish, that it is mentioned in James Joyce’s novel “The Dubliners”!

Anyway, this is your basic breakfast tea, nothing too special, but very good. My only issue is that I love to re-steep my teas once or twice, but if you do that with this one, you somehow get a fair bit of flavouring from the bag its in, which is really odd. But I’m sure that isn’t a deal breaker for anyone!

This time, I let Clipper Gold just barely shake hands with the water (2 min), and it was still sharp and wakey-uppy, but I could taste the subtler notes (burgundy/fruit) and my tongue wasn’t numb ;)

Shorter steep time is a plus when you oversleep and you’re dashing around to get out of the house, huh?

(The sequel)

This stuff has a mind of its own! Left to its own devices in my fridge, it darkened three shades to dark walnut and strengthened three notches as well. I think this is going to be a go-to iced tea at our house.

For hefty tea lovers only…oops, I meant hefty tea lovers, not hefty tea lovers. I’m medium and I like it just fine.

In the tin, this looks almost identical to PG tips loose leaf…tiny, crumbly, and dark. Ashmanra advised that all you need to do with Bewley’s is “show the water to the tea.” I let the introduction linger for a little under three minutes, and wow! What a nice, stiff-upper-lip morning wake-up! First flavor equivalent that hit me was “dark wheat toast.” Hefty enough to be breakfast on its own, and by lunchtime, I believe the pot will be strong enough to walk itself to the refrigerator.

Looking forward to trying some on ice after some manual labor.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

A co-worker of mine is originally from Ireland and she brought me a few bags of this to try.

This tea is packaged in the traditional white, circular filter-paper teabag. The fragrance is light but definitely creamy with notes of pepper.

Upon adding the boiling water, it was immediately black which foreshadowed the strength of this tea. It was highly astringent with an underlying malt. I don’t normally add anything to my tea, but this one needed a little sweetener and cream to get through.

The power of this tea took me off guard at first, but it grew on me. If anything, it will wake you up!

Bought this in Dublin not long ago and was pleasantly surprised. Full body, bitter aftertaste just as I like it.. very good smell. Recommended!

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 teabag
Water: hot carafe water, paper cup
Steep Time: 2 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: black tea, toasty
Steeped Tea Smell: black tea, toasty
Flavor: thick, dark
Body: Full
Aftertaste: bitter
Liquor: opaque dark brown

Post-Steep Additives: white sugar

Not the most fabulous tea, but it was very good at waking me up during the meeting I was in. I think the tea might have been a bit better had there been boiling water. A surprisingly good teabag.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/11/bewleys-coffee-and-tea-company-teabag.html