English Breakfast

This is a hearty, strong, bold tea blend – a great AM wakeup cup. I have a hard time judging black teas because they often taste similar to me – plain, or unflavored. So this is good, definitely better than your average run-of-the-mill grocery version, and does its job of waking me up – but other than that, it’s typical. Good, but not something I’d regularly stock as “stellar” from David’s Tea.

Since I have a midterm tomorrow, I am s̶t̶u̶d̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶ taking a longer than necessary break on Steepster. I was pretty sleepy before I started (funny how that always happens when you have to do something you don’t want to), so I wanted a straight black tea with a bit of muscle to get the job done. This is the first plain black I’ve tried since bags, so I’m no expert, but it’s simple and good. At first sip it just tastes like a basic black, nothing special, but on the second part of the sip I can detect some nuances in the flavor, which becomes even more apparent as it cools down. By the end of the cup I realize it’s tastier than I originally thought. Overall it’s a good basic black tea, and pretty inexpensive compared to most of their other offerings. I think I’d like to try a few other varieties before deciding whether to restock this. And also, I’m still sleepy. Hmm…maybe a little nap will make me more productive?

Now, I’ve managed to go my whole life without ever having a tea classed as an English Breakfast, so I’ve got nothing for comparison. So far, in my experience with plain blacks I prefer Chinese ones for their innate sweetness and general deliciousness. This tea has more of a hearty flavour, with none of the sweetness I find in the China blacks. It’s not bitter, it’s just definitely more plain.

I can see how this would be more of a “wake me up” tea, if tea worked for me like that. However, caffeine, etc seem to have no effect on me so I just drink what I want when I want it. I think this tea would be more of a “buck up and get through it” sort of tea for me. I’m not sure that I’ll re-stock it when it’s gone as nothing about it leaps out for me, but it is a change from my currently beloved China blacks. A perfectly respectable tea, and one of the cheapest in my neighbourhood, if cost factors in. ($4.50 for 50 g)

This started off ok hot. Just ok. but then as it cooled, I got notes of yunnan(I really don’t like yunnan) so I figure the girl gave me the organic and not regular EB
Well… I won’t be doing that again!! all the agave, milk and luck couldn’t save this baby for me.
That said, it was very drinkable for the first five minutes.
EDIT: Now that I’ve tried the regular EB, 80 is the score I gave that one. This one had a 72…

I’m a bit underwhelmed. It’s tasty enough, and if I were the kind of person to have a straight black tea every morning to wake me up, I can see how this would definitely be first choice. However, I much prefer their Orange Pekoe (and not just because it reminds me of our cat). I have about a cup’s worth of leaves left, but I don’t think I’ll restock when it’s gone. Still, I did enjoy this cup…there are just too many other teas out there that I prefer.

Another sample that I got and haven’t logged yet.

I’m starting to find that I don’t care for the English Breakfast teas. This is the second one I’ve tried and I just think it’s not really my thing. I prefer an orange pekoe as it’s a bit milder. I think I just find the English Breakfast teas to be too much. They are quite strong and I don’t really enjoy them the way that I would want to. Gonna leave the last bit of my sample for my hunny to try. He said he tried some this week of a different brand and seemed to enjoy, so he might like this one.

This has been my tea of choice the last few weeks (actually it’s been my tea of choice forever, but much more so in the past few weeks). It’s exam time and every morning I’m up before the crack of dawn at my computer. I love black tea and this one seems classic to me. I add a drop of milk and begin my studies. A great morning tea (although I’ve been drinking it all day lately), and a wonderful start to the day. Once my exams are over later this week I’ll be off to DavidsTea to refill my stash. Definitely a keeper!

First, thank you to Courtney for sending me a sample of this.

It was very un-tea-like of me, but in my haste to get ready this morning, I completely forgot about this pot of tea and it brewed for up to 10 minutes. It still turned out wonderfully! It’s strong with pleasant tannins and no bitterness. It stayed really good even when it got cold. This is a nice English breakfast tea, nothing standout about it, but it’s very good.

Waking up in my house surrounded by Snowy Landscapes.
While listening to this song : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrBZeWjGjl8

The music and this tea goes along perfectly.
A perfect balance between the light ambiant/flowery tones of the Sri-Lanka leaves
and the energic/spicy beat of the Assam leaves.

In fact, this blend goes just along with my morning.
I love so much Sri-Lanka tea that I couldn’t make a bad review of it…

Seriously worth the money.
It’s a pleasant decent cheap tea.

Don’t expect a very unique flavor here.

Have a good day my friends!

A relatively standard black tea. Everyone knows this one. A guy that I was dating really loved this tea and was nice enough to give me 10-15g. It was one of my to go black teas for a while. I liked it.

Here I am, nearly 4 years later trying this tea out again from DAVIDsTEA. I don’t notice a huge difference in terms of taste/quality than the bulk barn version that I was given. I get some floral notes in taste, accompanied with some bitterness. It’s an OK tea. I still enjoy it, but I have come across other black teas that I enjoyed much more (Nepal Black and Wild Black Yunnan).

I will try resteeping this with shorter steep time and see what I get.

I really love this as a morning/breakfast tea, better than their Orange Pekoe actually – sorry aisling (and aisling’s cat)! ;)

I kept going through different straight black teas and blends trying to find the “perfect” breakfast blend for me .. not thinking that it might just be the cheapest one that they sell, lol! I will definitely stay stocked up on this blend and enjoy it on a very regular basis. To me it just has the right blend of floral and sweet/malty notes, without being smoky or bitter. But anyway, to each his/her own!

Now, don’t get me wrong, my absolute favourite teas are hearty, robust English Breakfasts. But neither of DAVIDsTea’s attempts managed to do it for me. Their regular EB was much better than the Organic EB, probably because there were more Sri Lankan leaves in the blend. The Organic tasted….just… meh. Incredibly uninspired.

The worst part of it is that both of them were as fresh as they could have been, too. The sales girl was pouring them from their delivery bags into the canisters when I came into the store. Because of that, I got 100g of each so I’d have the tins to keep them extra fresh.

I tried valiantly to like these, really, I did. I steeped each of them at a regular strength, re-steeped those leaves, and tried them at double-strength with fresh leaves. I tried it plain, with cream, with sugar, with milk and sugar, and with lemon. There just isn’t anything I can do to make these teas drinkable.

After trying to love these over the course of a week and a bit, I actually broke down and went to my Sri Lankan grocery and bought a pound of imported fannings. So much better.

I’ve only had bagged English Breakfast teas before, so I saw this and said I’ll try it. It’s very similar to the bags just with the higher quality and better flavour that comes with loose leaf. It’s got a deep flavour similar to that of an earl grey with a bit of a twist. But, it’s just a straight black so nothing extremely flavorful, but still good with breakfast or anytime of the day. Alright straight up, but much more enjoyable with a little milk or cream and a spoon of sugar.

Day 68 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge. Catching up on the backlog!

1.5 tsp in my tea ball, brewed in-cup.

As a tea-drinker brought up in the English tradition, this is pretty much of the basics of the basics of the basics. So, understandably, I was interested to see how DAVIDsTEA handled it.

First cup was had clear. Interestingly, I liked it a lot hot, but found that the flavours became less enjoyable as it cooled.

I had my second cup with milk, and found that helped a bit.

As I normally have my black tea with milk, or milk and sugar, I can blame this on my own tastebuds. Still, a good black tea that requires no additives is my ideal. So, not bad, but not as excellent as I’d perhaps love.

This tea makes me want to quote one of my favourite movies. “I know you can be overwhelmed, and I think you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be . . . whelmed? — I think you can in Europe.”

Well this one left me whelmed. Nothing stood out for me, and nothing made me dislike it. It was the quality I expect from a looseleaf brewed cup of black, but it wasn’t memorable at all. I guess since it is a staple tea of choice for most people, that’s a good thing? Myself, though, I like my blacks a wee bit more distinctive.

High-grade type English Breakfast taste yet fair price. Lower the steep time if you wish to drink it black and longer steep will be much better with a dash of milk.

This is a nice version of plain english breakfast.

I find it comparable to Twinnings in flavour – I haven’t tried loose twinning’s EB but the bags. I prefer the David’s to the bagged twinnings but considering the cost difference, I will probably not repurchase.

Still this is one of the cheapest teas at Davids and is an honest plain black

Solid, but not my thing.

I love english breakfast tea. And for convenience sake, I purchased it at David’s Tea. I must say – theirs tastes a bit watered down and flavourless compared to others I’ve tried.
But still, it’s english breakfast, hence the good review.

I’m docking points because of the really subtle taste, but other than that – it’s ENGLISH BREAKFAST. YUM