Edinburgh Scottish Breakfast Tea

Another surprise from the Easter Elephant. A nice bagged morning blend (EE knows that mornings are always a rush and it’s easy to ruin good loose tea). Not as strong as I had anticipated. I’d place it just past Yorkshire Gold on the plain hot water——>PG Tips left to stand 30 minutes scale.

This tea really surprised me. I was expecting a very strong tea as the leaf was very broken and small. The tea does have a kick but is much milder than expected. My tea sense is getting better as I can detect assam, ceylon, and kenyan tea in this blend. (Much more Kenyan than the others). The tea is lighter in color than an assam would be and is not bitter at all. There is a little astringency but not enough to bother anyone. I really enjoyed drinking this tea. The tea was very inexpensive as I found it at T.J.Maxx for $5 for 125 grams.

I was starting to get a little bummed out. I hadn’t had a new tea to taste in a good while. But, thanks to Santa Claus and my always wonderful and thoughtful wife, I now have two new Scottish teas to try out!

When I snipped open the bag of loose leaf tea inside the well-designed hinged tin, my sniffer was immediately slapped with an aroma similar to Rooibos tea. Perhaps that is because the leaves were grown and produced in Kenya. The leaves were very short and had a consistency almost like ground coffee.

Other reviews that I read about this tea seemed to be unanimous in their assessment that this was a milder breakfast blend. Since I prefer potent black teas, I opted to steep this selection for the maximum recommended brewing time of five minutes at 212 degrees.

The brewed liquid had a reddish gold color. The smell was like a light but standard black breakfast tea.

The first sip produced a slightly sweet malty taste. It was quite pleasant but still mild, even after five minutes of steeping.

With subsequent swallows, I started to experience a flavor kick with this tea. It was not bitter but it lingered to form the basis of a malty, African black tea blend aftertaste.

This is a very nice tea. I enjoyed it straight up without milk or sweeteners, which is how I drink all of my teas. It was also a fantastic complement to the terrific Scottish Empire Biscuits that my lovely wife baked for me for Christmas.

I don’t think you could go wrong with this tea at breakfast or in the afternoon. I look forward to sampling another tea by Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company…TOMORROW!

The Mr.Coffee Mug Warmer I ordered from J&R arrived today in the mail despite the Canada Post rotating strike going on nowadays. I saw in the news yesterday that the government passed a back-to-work legislation that will force the union postal workers to return to their jobs by next week or so. Not sure how I feel about this though because there are people saying that these workers are overpaid with much too generous benefits, pensions, vacations, etc. (Canada Post is a crown corporation BTW for those unaware), but I’m sure that this would be untrue for most of the hardworking people there that would surely deserve what they are getting. Anyways… the mug warmer seems to be working great, except that it’s barely doing anything for this mug I have that has a bottom with its edges protruding out. I tried one with a flat bottom and the tea remained quite warm and even hot near the end of the cup.

I bought this tea quite a while ago, and I was surprised to find that I didn’t log this one. Compared to the recently logged Irish Breakfast, I think it has a much cleaner taste although still maintaining a bold, robust profile. It has a light body with not much astringency, and has subtle notes of malt and wood(I read oak somewhere in a review of an anonymous Scottish Breakfast).

Lovely way to get the morning started! This blend has a bit more kick than the English and Irish versions I have tried. Very full, Kenyan comes through. I prefer to use both sugar and milk with this one, versus no sugar for Irish breakfast teas.