Irish Afternoon

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’.

Added a touch of honey and 1 oz Baileys Irish Cream. Heaven in a cup….

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!

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.

This tea was purchased in Dublin by my daughter a day before she left Ireland. I had tried the Clipper Gold and it was quite strong, so I was a little afraid of this one at first. I needn’t have been! It behaved quite well, and is a lovely cup of tea. I drank it first without milk or sugar, and it was very smooth and flavorful, a nice accompaniment to our afternoon Pim’s. The second cup had the addition of milk, which smoothed it even more, and then sugar, which it also handled well. Not what I would consider to be a gourmet tea, but a lovely cup just the same. Only steeped it for 2 minutes, because it is CTC.

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.