English Breakfast

Second quarter’s investment at the neighbor’s garage sale. This one doesn’t seem to get much love in other reviews, except for the cute packaging.

I’ll be the rebel: I like it. The product description, at least the one posted here, doesn’t mention the varieties in the blend, but educated guess would say lots of Keemun and a little Assam. Sweet and melba-toasty without milk.

Not as strong as my preferred Assam weekday morning teas, but it’s Sunday and I’m blessed with an hour in the patio glider watching Tazo take his morning nap in the sun. I don’t need to be kicked awake today.

Tony placed his first tea order last week, & he included a tin of the English Breakfast for me, as he knows I love my breakfast tea. That was really sweet of him, he’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. (no, he’s not reading this, it’s actually true).

The tea is ok, but nothing to write home about. I’ll drink it when I’m at his house, but it’s not something I would buy.

But he’s still wonderful! I love my Man :D

I bought this for the tins. On Amazon, you can get this in a 4 pack of so-cute-it-oughta-be-illegal little English phonebox tins (not pictured here). I justified the purchase by reasoning that I could drink the tea at work where I still use bags and use the tins at home for tea storage.

Well, the tins are just as cute in person, maybe more so, but my greedy little eyeballs breezed right over the description that they’re also banks. So each one has a coin slot in the top. Sigh.

They come with a bit of tape over the coin slot, and I added a second, bigger piece, and I’ll just put the label for whatever tea it is on top so it looks less wonky.

But why am I spending so much time on the tins? Because the tea is utterly unremarkable. It’s dust in a bag that brews up to an average, slightly tart/sour, english breakfast blend. I have 99 more of these and I’ll drink them easily; it isn’t crap. But there’s not much to say about it. It’s a lot like all the tea I drank before I knew more about tea.

I visited a British store and found this adorable red english telephone booth tin filled with packets of this tea. (I really bought it for the tin, the tea was like a “free gift with purchase” deal.) I’m drinking it for the first time now and it is really good and strong. My new electric kettle boils my water like crazy and it takes about 30 minutes before the tea is sippable afterwards, but I think it really makes my teas crazy strong. I usually just stick with Twinings English breakfast but this is a great alternative.

Somewhat bland compared to Twinings English Breakfast, much blander than Twinings Ceylon, which I just had. Not offensive, but not really great either. Nothing to write home about; not my cup of tea.

Having a cup of this while I write and it is really good! I didn’t have milk with it or honey, just straight English Breakfast, but on my second cup I will try to see if I can introduce some milk to find out if like it less, equally or love it even more.

My first English Breakfast tea & I am looking forward to having this daily!

Airplane tea.

A nice breakfast blend tea. I usually prefer Irish Breakfast blends, because they seem to have more assam. I went out to try this blend. It will wake you up, nice strong flavor. Though I still prefer Irish, I don’t think I would buy this tea again.

Good for post Thanksgiving binge >.<