Marks & Spencer Tea

This is kinda unexpectedly good for the price (comes in a box containing 50 bags).
Fills the whole room with its cheery citrus-y smell. Supposedly an Earl Grey lite, I found it to be rather interesting. It’s sort of different from the Lady Grey. Lighter on the tea, but stronger on the bergamot+citrus flavours. Brews into amber liquor. Really fragrant for an afternoon’s break.

My go to breakfast blend. Nothing comforts a Brit like M&S and this is their finest tea in my opinion.

I’m very surprised at the poor reviews. Have M&S changed the recipe? The bergamot aroma is very strong and nice, and you can definitely taste it in the tea, though more delicately than with other Earl Greys. It is admittedly a bit bitter but I like it that way. Fits my tastes very well.

Raw Notes: The pyramid bag is see-through so you can easily see it’s contents, of which are small pieces of what looks like mixed fruit and flowers. It has a cinnamon apple and waxy orange scent, mulled being appropriate so far.

Steeped Notes: This tisane contains hibiscus and it’s easy to have guessed from it’s colour and sour taste alone. Though don’t let that put you off, behind the immediate sharp hibiscus is a spiced apple and cinnamon after taste that lingers on the tongue. It’s fairly light with some sweetness and it’s mulled spices give it a warming quality. For a caffeine free tisane this is rather nice, a real likeness to mulled wine.

Overall: This was a very nice tisane, even for a hibiscus hater such as myself. The spiced apple was delicate yet distinct and the mulled spices lingered wonderfully. The spirit of Christmas is alive in this blend. This is going to make a wonderful Christmas night drink due to it’s caffeine free nature and warmth.

For pictures and more information please view my blog.
http://www.kittylovestea.co.uk/2014/12/24/tis-the-season-tea-be-jolly/

Surprisingly tasty, more so unsweetened. Very minty with a hint of hay/medicinal taste to it, I could easily drink this all day when not feeling great (like today).

Oh god, no.

It’s like my whole mouth is crying. It might be my own fault for having to use a zip-tap for water at work, or the fact that this is 6 months past its use-by date, or it sat on my desk a minute too long, or something, but ugh. I get that there’s raspberry in there, but mostly I’m getting overriding bitterness. Like, SO bitter. Like a festival of all the tannins in the world concentrated into one cup. It’s everything I hate about white tea. Even 4 sachets of sugar couldn’t save it. Nope, nope, nope.

One thing I noticed about this tea – I only like it with a dash of milk. If I put too much milk, suddenly I don’t like it anymore… I find a similar thing with Yorkshire tea, but that one I still like with more milk, it’s just no as good. This one I just don’t like if I add too much milk. Funny stuff.

This is the tea that made me start drinking (non-chai) black teas. A friend of mine was living in London at the time and she brought me a box of this tea as a present. I thought that it would be a chai-like tea, what with being a Christmas tea, so I tried it and it had the most gorgeous reddish colour… but it tastes like ‘normal’ black tea.

And then, of course, I refused to believe that I didn’t like this tea, because it’s really pretty tea from London, plus it’s from M&S and I kind of love them. So I just kept ‘trying’ the tea, and after a while I got accustomed to the taste and once all the tea was gone I really missed it. And then I bought one of those boxes of a few different Twinings teas and became very fond of their English breakfast and Irish breakfast teas, which then led to more Twinings teas and Barry’s teas and Yorkshire tea…. And that’s how I started drinking a bunch of black tea with milk and sugar, and then branched off into just pure black teas, then flavoured black teas…. good times :)

In any case, I’m living in London now and I was at M&S a few days ago and you can buy Christmas Tea again! It’s been years since I’ve had it, so I was very excited. And it still tastes great. Very assam-y and lovely as a breakfast tea. I’d say this is one of my favourite morning teas, along with Taylors’ Irish breakfast and Yorkshire tea. I remember also being very fond of Twinings breakfast teas, but they don’t have Irish breakfast for the UK market, fascinatingly enough, and the English one doesn’t taste the same. I’m planning to buy a box of each of the international market breakfasts at the Twinings shop/museum one of these days, but I’m trying to not go nuts with tea buying for a while…

Also, one of the things I like best about living in a country for more than a year are all those seasonal things that you notice coming back. Very homey. And yup, I’ve moved around a bit.

And yup, that’s about that.

I used to have this in loose leaf form and it made great iced tea. We arrived at the house we are renting in Derry and there was a box of the teabags waiting in the cabinet. I found a wee metal pot and we have been downing it every morning before going put adventuring.

As long as you keep the steep short, this is okay plain. Take it longer and you will a any a bit of milk. Oddly, I once found strength number 3 to be smoother than 2. Don’t know if I would still feel that way.

Very good option for an strong tea to have with your breakfast, taste similar to the “No3 Strong tea from Marks and Spencer”, if you love strong tea this is a good option for you.

Very good option for an everyday tea, very good taste. This tea is not a strong black tea perfect to have with some biscuits and some cakes.

Very tasty for a everyday peppermint tea, if you have the chance to try it I would recommend you this tea and if you have previously tasted another teas like “Peppermint from Tetley” this one is going to surprise you.

I made two gallons of this iced a few days ago to keep in the refrigerator. I put it in the Pottery Barn dispenser. Guys, if you buy a dispenser, get one with a real metal spigot and not a plastic one. You will pay more but it will last years longer. Just ask Pioneer Woman. It is worth it not to have to clean up from those leaks all the time, and I love having enough on hand for guests.

Anyway, yesterday a neighbor was walking by with her wee dog and stopped a moment to chat. We have been neighbors for over twenty years but hardly know each other. I asked if she wanted to see my chickens and we called them to the gate. She said she wanted chickens, for a long time, badly!!! And now she swore she would get some. She lives four houses away but didn’t realize I had chickens before.

Today I got a text that someone was giving away five laying hens. I walked to her house to ask if she wanted them. Yes! Yes! She and her hubby came over to see my coop so they could build theirs, and….they had tea. Her husband said this was the best iced tea he had ever had in his life. His wife promised to come learn how to make it if he would get the coop built! We also gave them blueberry muffins and kefir.

The wife was very interested in my tea wall and wants to try puerh, so we are going to schedule a tea tasting soon. She said it smelled horsey but she could tell it would taste sweet and creamy.

I also found out that she has tried making kefir several times and was never successful. Thanks to Mercuryhime , I am now a kefir maker myself! So she is also going to learn to make kefir and when my grains make enough babies I am going to share them with her.

Tea makes friends. Friends make tea.

Apparently this tea does not exist. It came in a box but the box got a bit flimsy so I put it in a good tin and labeled it as Marks and Spencer – Keemun. And I have had it for a while so it should have already been in my cupboard. Now I find that it isn’t on Steepster and when I google it I can not find that it ever existed. I am pretty careful about labeling my tea, though, so it really should be the right name. Maybe it is just discontinued?

Anyway, I have been making it in large batches as good old sweet tea, Southern USA style. I use about four tablespoons steeped for three minutes in a pot of 212F water, then pour it over two cups of sugar which has 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda added to keep it from going cloudy. Then I add water and ice to bring it up to about five quarts of tea in my large glass dispenser that is kept in the refrigerator.

The leaf particle size is better than dust, but is not whole leaf. I would say most of it is about the size of gunpowder green tea. It makes a decent pot of hot tea but it is really shining cold. It is very, very dark, though, which I thought the family might find off putting, but nope.

Everyone is guzzling it, so I guess I will have to try to get some more when I ….wait for it….GO TO IRELAND THIS FALL! Yes, indeed, I, who have never even been on an airplane, am supposed to go to Ireland in October! I expect I will be coming back with some new goodies from Gurman’s, too! And O’Connail’s chocolates, which you really must try if you ever get a chance.

Maybe I can find out if this tea really exists while I am there…

This is what Engllish breakfast tea should taste like. Warm flavour and delicious notes of cherry. Could drink all day. Wonderful.

I received this in a swap from adagio breeze a long time ago, and I finally got around to finishing this generous sample! In other words, I had about 10 servings before finishing this up!

This is a great breakfast tea. The leaves are CTC and fine. There wasn’t too much dust. It is very strong and brewed VERY dark brown and needless to say, this brew needed sugar and milk to tone the bitterness down a bit. I am not sure which black tea is in this, but it must be a mix. I am assuming there may be some Ceylon and Assam. This would be a great base tea for chai.

I’ve been having weird tooth pains ever since I got a bit of apple stuck between two of my teeth at a Starbucks in Westchester while we were on holiday. It got REALLY bad Sunday night, with my gum all swollen and my teeth feeling all tender when I try to eat stuff. So… soft foods, and because I seem to recall cloves being beneficial for tooth pain, an easy chai I could take a few bags with me to the office.

It’s still a good, solid chai, this one. The spices are balanced and the base is solid and not bitter at a 4 minute steep. I can tell there’s clove in there, and it’s cozy along with the other spices. I like that the package actually tells you by percentage how much of everything is in there. Made properly milky, this is a solid everyday drinking.

And my tooth is feeling WAY better. Careful soft foods for the next week or so and if it stays fine, I think I can get away with not seeing a dentist! Yippee!

Good ol’ value range unsweetened soymilk. Not the classiest, but then again, I’m skint. It’s half the price of the name brand stuff. Value range all the way, baby!

That being said, I suspect this chai would be even more delicious if it had been made with better soymilk. As it is, it’s nicely balanced with a pleasant warmth from the ginger, and not too sugary. And for the price (cheap!) I genuinely can’t complain.

And it’s given me enough of a boost that I feel mildly motivated to finish writing a small stack of cover letters and work on a few new t-shirt designs. I calculated it out, and if 200 people bought shirts from me every month, I’d be able to pay my rent and bills. I’ve sold one shirt this year. I’m going to starve to death soon. How long can a person live on nothing but tea?

My vife visited Oxford and bought home the Luxury Gold Teablend, liked a lot the taste of this Tea, strong and tasteful, great choice..

I was actually hoping this would be a weaker version of M&S’ extra strong teabags because my system can’t take it. However this was pretty similar to their Gold blend, actually. It’s smooth, but just not my cup of tea (har..har… okay I’m sorry). I’ve had a friend tell me she liked it, but I personally prefer their extra strong teabags for the malty taste. I do wish they’d sell these in smaller packs, I had to give most of it away because I couldn’t possibly finish 80 bags.