My tin is getting dangerously low, and I bought the one pound bag! It is almost gone…
It is finally a really cold morning here. I needed some warmth to look forward to after breakfast. Tea is almost always after, rather than with. This one is especially yummy today.
There is a taste and texture I get from some Keemuns and from Teavivre’s Fengqing Black Dragon Pearls. It is almost as if a dark cocoa powder is being dragged across your tongue, and that is a good thing! I guess it doesn’t sound that way, but it is, because it is a chocolate-y but dry but not an astringent feel that is going on. It catches your attention if you are distracted by other things and says, “Hey, appreciate me here!”
This is really hitting the spot this morning.
I haven’t had a breakfast tea in a while! At least, I haven’t had it for breakfast. It was an everyday thing back when I had to have radiation treatments every morning for almost two months, but lately I have been having lighter teas mostly, and drinking them in late morning or afternoon. But today, even though it is hot outside and sunny, something about the slant of the sunght coming in the window has me thinking of fall and warming cups of tea.
At first I thought I would have a typical breakfast cuppa with milk and sugar, but then I started wondering what would happen if I made H&S EB using Teavivre’s usual black tea directions, which call for a much shorter steep time. Would it result in a tasteless, weak tea or a more delicate, complex Keemun that tastes great plain?
I am happy to report that it makes a nice, lightly smoky, fruity, malty, lightly cocoa-flavored Keemun.
I used the normal amount of leaf but I cut my steep time to 3 minutes. Maybe my tastes ae changing, too, because once upon a time I couldn’t drink any breakfast tea plain, and I can really see this being delicious a little stronger and still without additions.
I love that Harney’s English Breakfast is 100% Keemun, and that there are so many breakfast blends to choose from so you can suit any mood.
Backlog from yesterday morning: I had a whole pot of this during geometry. When I first bought it, I drank it with milk and sugar even though I was drinking others teas plain. Now I can enjoy this one plain, too. It is not the finest Keemun, but it is a very affordable, nicely drinkable one for everyday breakfast. I bought a pound last time, but I think in future I will purchase the more expensive Keemun Mao Feng and resteep judiciously. There is only enough left for one more pot, and then I retire that tin.
Wow! My five hundredth tasting note! I didn’t realize it was when I was making my tea this morning, but I think I would have chosen this as the tea to have that honor. And it was particularly good this morning. It is a rather quiet morning with son in summer classes, middle daughter volunteering for the summer reading program at the library, and no one left at home but youngest daughter and Sandy’s dogs, all of whom wanted a plate of cheese cubes. Cheese is so perfect with black tea, as it seems to bring out the natural sweetness of the tea more. This English Breakfast is my favorite. It is pure keemun and has just the right balance of strength and smoothness, cocoa goodness and tea flavor. It was delightful with cheese toast smeared with a bit of mustard.
This has been a busy week, and will continue to be. We picked up my oldest daughter at the airport over an hour away at midnight. She will come over later when she has rested to bring me LOTS OF NEW TEA! There is tea from Paris, Dublin, Budapest, and Nothern Ireland.
In the meantime, this is testing week for my youngest. So as I sit here proctoring ( that kind of sounds bad if you say it aloud…) I will sip away on my good old standby 100% Keemun and fantasize about the new lovelies to try that will be here soon!
This is fairly inexpensive tea but very satisfying with its chocolate notes and rich flavor. No bitterness, no astringency, just a nice, bracing morning cup. This seems to be about as strong as I like to go in a Keemun, though there are others I Iike very much.
When I let the puppies out at 6 am, the stars were still out and it was nearly 70 degrees already. I decided to “carpe diem” on this beautiful morning! That meant having a breakfast I haven’t had in a while.
After taking advantage of the weather to have a pre-breakfast walk, I came home to cheese toast and a pot of English Breakfast on the patio, thanks to the goodness of my youngest daughter who, when asked to do something for me, ALWAYS replies, “I would be happy to!”
This English Breakfast is one of the few that I find drinkable even without additions, which is how we drank it yesterday afternoon at tea. This morning, however, I wanted a fortifying cup with milk and sugar. This is one of the rare instances where I add sweetener to my tea.
This Keemun has nice chocolate notes, thought they are not as strong as they are in a Hao Ya A or in Emperor’s Red. Still, I enjoy this very much and keep it on hand as an inexpensive breakfast choice of which I can make a whole pot and not think twice about the cost of the leaves. Delicious!
Feeling adventurous yesterday, I decided to try this one as a cold brew iced tea. It is….the same tea only cold! What surprised me most is how the smokey flavor is just as strong. I always take my hot breakfast teas with milk and sugar, and after tasting it plain, I decided to try this one iced with milk and sugar. (My father started adding milk to his iced tea – he called it “tilk” – when I was a teenager because he got ulcers. HEY WAIT! It wasn’t my fault! The timing just hit me…)
Anyway, it isn’t terrible, but I definitely prefer this one hot. It is smooth, just strong enough, and comforting while bracing you for the day when it is prepared as a hot tea.
So far our favorite for cold brew iced is Vanilla Black by Harney, followed by Tower of London.
I felt like a squirrel in the highway this morning as I tried to choose my tea. Rose Scented? English Breakfast? Rose Scented? It was especially important because it was the inaugural cup of tea for my new tea cup. I have been looking for the Old Country Roses true breakfast cup for five years, but they were always way too expensive and I am a bargain hunter. I finally found two on eBay that were quite inexpensive and the postman dropped them off this morning. Since it is a breakfast cup, I really felt I should make my beloved stalwart 100% keemun English Breakfast, but the roses enticed me to Rose Scented. Finally I compromised!
Jacqueline said she read that Rose Scented had keemun and Ceylon, so why not mix? I did my usual three teaspoons of English Breakfast for my 22 oz. pot (which is a little less than tea standards call for) and I added one teaspoon of Rose Scented. Delightful! That small amount of Rose Scented really softened the keemun and the Ceylon came through brightly. As it cooled, the rose became more prominent, though at no point was the rose too strong for me. It just added a certain flowery delight to my after breakfast cup of tea. I added milk and sugar as always for morning black tea. It must have been pretty good. I already finished all 22 ounces. Oof.
And if you were wondering….I thought the breakfast cup would be about the same capacity as the regular cup, maybe a tad larger but shorter and with a broader top to allow the tea to cool faster so one could get on with one’s breakfast and get to business. This cup is big enough to be a soup mug! LOL! I could nearly have cereal in it! I do love it, though, and I don’t regret the purchase!
For the first time I can remember this year, it is COLD! The weather channel says it is 47 degrees with a wind chill of 39F, but I swear it feels a lot colder than that. I was barefoot, and it was 7:15 am, and we have had some 70 and 80 degrees days lately so no wonder.
This made me crave a nice hot tea for breakfast, and my mind always goes to two choices – this one and Queen Catherine. Because I am short and the tins are up high and my tall daughters were still asleep, I chose the one I could reach! :)
I take my teas without additions, except for these two at breakfast. It makes a nice hearty cup with roasted notes and a hint of chocolate. It went well with my toast and Nutella. It is very inexpensive, too. I just noticed that they sell an organic version and I am thinking of giving that one a try.
Oldest daughter – living with grandma. Check.
Son – moved to Chapel Hill. Check.
Two youngest daughters – having a sleepover with Sandy’s dogs at Sandy’s house. Check.
HALLELUJAH! First an evening alone with hubby and now Saturday morning with the house to myself! Bagel with chive and onion cream cheese, and a whole pot of this to myself in the stillness and quiet. Happy sigh! Roasty and bold without being bitter or brash, this is lovely with any breakfast foods and very fortifying.
I adore adore adore my family but twenty years of homeschooling means one is rarely ever alone! I relish these moments!
It is a little chilly today. Breakfast at the tea table was extra special with the lovely aroma of this pure keemun to gently get me awake and moving. Sugar and milk added, as I always do at breakfast. A very nice cuppa to go with my cheese toast smeared with a little mustard. Does anyone else do that, or was that just something my mom did? It adds a nice little bite to your brekkie when you need it.
Aaaaah, it is going to be a better day. The ironing is done, the clothes are put away, school is underway, and I made a Christmas card this morning that only took me…um….an hour and a half. (Blush – lest you get the wrong idea, I am not that GOOD at it, I am that slow because I don’t know what I am doing but I enjoy it! It takes me that long to get results that don’t look like I am 5!) This delightful cup (well, the whole pot, actually) was my treat for getting the ironing done – not one of my favorite jobs unless it is ironing my old tea linens. What a treat it was, too!
Celebrating being two-thirds of the way through radiation with a pot of English Brekkie and an Everything Bagel! Harney’s English Breakfast is not the same as their Royal English Breakfast. Both are good, this one is my favorite. English Breakfast is 100% keemun while REB has assam blended in it.
I like this one with milk and sugar. It has nice cocoa notes and is soothing, smooth, and fairly light. On a “rough” morning it isn’t quite strong enough for me, and I have Queen Catherine instead. But I like this one well enough to buy it by the pound!
Upper back stiff and painful. Drinking this until I can get on floor with heating pad. Quite bracing. Oh so thankful for Keemun tea!
Taken with milk and sugar, though this is one of the few breakfast teas that I find palatable without. I am trying to enjoy a pot of this pure keemun this morning in spite of realizing that I haven’t heard “my” birdies today and I can’t remember hearing them yesterday.
Oh, Canada! Must you take them ALL back in the summer? The little white-throated sparrows make me smile every morning with their sweet, breathy, reedy song as they scratch the ground ’neath my feeders and toss leaves about. Their adorable little striped heads and yellow lores will be sorely missed, but their return is one of the few things I look forward to about winter. They have rescued many a low morning just by singing outside my window.
Meanwhile, my pot of English Breakfast will have to brace me for this busy day. Hmmmm. Maybe I should have made Queen Catherine. She is the most consoling and bracing!
It is gray and rainy again – too rainy to run to the tent outside to read our book. (We are on page 120 of Children Of Green Knowe, JacquelineM!) English Breakfast to the rescue! This is a nice, full-bodied tea with just the right hint of smoke. I take it with milk and sugar, though it tastes good even without additions. What could be better on a rainy day than a good book, a great daughter to read with, and a pot of good tea?
Mike Harney says some new teas are coming soon that have not been sold outside of China before, too! Exciting news!
This is my second morning opting for this one. Sometimes I am on a Queen Catherine streak, sometimes an English Breakfast one. I was so disappointed, but not with my tea! I arrived at work this morning and found myself seated beside a REAL LIVE BRITISH PERSON complete with accent. She was drinking a diet coke. At 8 am. And didn’t bat an eye when I ummm’ed and ahh’ed over my HOT TEA thinking we would stike up a conversation and become tea buddies. Oh Brit! You have betrayed both your countrymen and my hopes!!!
I am so glad I made a pot of this to go with my Everything Bagel today. (Well, just half a bagel because I was splitting with hubby.) We spent FOUR HOURS in the surgical office and diagnostic center for preparations for Thursday’s surgery and my tea and bagel had run out well before we left. I was threatening to eat the plant on the corner table, figuring if it was a poisonous one I was in the right place….a good tea to start the day.
Father’s Day breakfast at hubby’s favorite greasy spoon with son joining us. Then church, then home to a pot of English Breakfast on the patio, giant Sam’s Club fan blowing, and iPod going…it’s going to be a good day! More tea to come….
I love this Pure Keemun tea! Light cocoa notes with plenty of roasty warmth, it is a nicely fortifying first cup of the day. There is no pucker at all.
Today it is paired with Pumpkin Walnut muffins. The recipe is from The Fort restaurant in Denver where Clinton held his summit, the event for which Harney and Sons was requested to create a special blend. They made Eight At The Fort in honor of the occasion, a delicious tea! Be warned, this is double pumpkin compared to many recipes, but you get about sixty muffins. We used sixty ounces of pumpkin and over five cups of freshly ground soft white Southern wheat flour. I hope they freeze well! I knows the recipe says they reheat well, so…here is hoping!
A whole pot with some Swiss cheese cubes to celebrate a beautiful day! Harney’s English Breakfast is 100% keemun, and having just had a cup of their Hao Ya A I can really tell it! This has very nice cocoa notes and great body and flavor. It is smooth and lovely and while it is considerably less expensive than Hao Ya A it has all the attributes of keemuns that we love.
The wind is blowing billowing clouds of yellow pollen around, so my earlier washing of the car is already undone, but I don’t mind – it was too pretty to stay inside! The dogwoods are so heavy with flowers they are almost blinding, the tall pines all around me are releasing puffs of yellow, and there are five speckled blue eggs in my fern thanks to the little house finches. It’s a good day. I’m taking the tea tray outside!
Trying this iced again, and again I was surprised how very smokey it tasted. I didn’t add milk or sugar this time. Once I told myself to forget about the syrupy Southern sweet tea of my youth and keep an open mind, I decided I rather like this! And it got even better when I started licking the beaters from the creme de menthe filling I just made for our iced brownies. Mmmmmm. Somehow the two flavors went together very well! Now I am making the chocolate topping and can’t wait to try it with that! :)
I was going to have Queen Catherine this morning as it is raining, chilly, and I am hunched over a computer for hours again cruching numbers. But ALAS! I opened my tin and there wasn’t quite enough. I almost mixed it with this, but decided I couldn’t sully Catherine with ANYTHING, and besides, I do really love this one on its own.
Harney’s English Breakfast is 100% pure keemun. It smells rich – cocoa and a little smoke blend together so sweetly in this. I always add milk and sugar in the morning, and this one takes it extremely well. This is a bright and bracing cup. It doesn’t knock you over the head like some English Breakfast teas I have had – things like Bewley’s Clipper Gold – EEP!
This is a lovely, refined breakfast drink that isn’t too strong but is perfectly full of flavor. And at the price – an amazing value. I buy it by the pound loose.
Though I haven’t been logging it, I had this tea almost every day this week! I have been busier than usual, and found that it was an extra special treat to take a JoeMo of this along with me to radiation. It makes the wait for getting zapped a little more pleasant, though I must say our local cancer center is very nice – almost spa-like in the section I have to be in!
This tea is lightly smokey and just right for me in the mornings when I am not having Queen Catherine, who is a bit more assertive and a truly lovely lady! I take it with milk and sugar as I do all my breakfast teas.
At lunch today I noticed a pot sitting out and it was some leftover tea from Friday morning. It made a delightful cup warmed up to go with my meal. Now that I have admitted to drinking tea that has been sitting out for two days (and that is my limit!) I am curious. Do you leave tea out and reheat it? And how long do you feel it is still drinkable? Of course, if there are any dregs it would probably become bitter in that time, but two days has worked for me. If a pot sits around for three, which only happens because we have three tea drinkers making separate pots daily and the counter is always covered in tea pots, I would toss it!
Thanks to darlin’ daughter who always cheerfully makes my pot of tea for me as I get ready to rush out the door! You may be seeing her on steepster soon with her own reviews!
Nice quiet morning (for a change) with a pot of this and an Everything Bagel. Aaahhhhh!
For some reason I just didn’t feel like eating breakfast this morning, and I ALWAYS eat breakfast! I made do instead with a pot of this. A whole pot. There is a tiny hint of smoke in this 100% keemun tea, and it is dee-lish-us! I must confess that after drinking a whole pot by myself followed by 4 teas at the tea party, I sloshed by late afternoon!
Very nice tea with my asiago bagel! This is a great English breakfast, though milder than some if you are accustomed to the newer British style breakfast teas that have a lot of assam in the mix. It has just a bare hint of smoke that is just right for me in the morning, and when I need a little more “oomph” to my tea I reach for Queen Catherine!
A yummy pot of tea with my bagel this cold and rainy morning! It was quite good, but I think Queen Catherine would have been the better choice to go with my asiago bagel. I hadn’t had one before – our Panera is new, always packed, and usually sold out of LOTS of stuff unless you go really early. The asiago bagel tastes almost identical to my homemade cheese bread, so now I really really want to make homemade cheese bread…
A good morning, even though my Everything Bagel was stale! If I skip a week or so having this tea I forget that it has a touch of smoke, and when I make it next I fall in love with it all over again. So glad my one pound bag came – I don’t want to be without this one!
Tired. Sore. Usually have Queen Catherine but in the mood for something different today. English Breakfast. Aaahhhhhh. Nice, 100% keemun. I am going to the living room alone and pretend I have shrunk myself r-e-a-l-l-y small so I can get in my teacup and sniff the lovely aroma and soak away my cares….
I am drinking this one almost every morning, but haven’t been logging it – shame on me! I think I will be switching back to the stronger Queen Catherine soon, though this one is a really lovely tea! It is full-bodied and delicious with milk and sugar.
Oh yum! My hubby just shook his head today when I had to get out the new pound bag to refill my tin. I go through this one and Queen Catherine at an impressive rate!
As always, this is 100% Chinese black keemun tea, and as always, it is a delicious morning boost. Today it is going with Hobbit Breakfast. The girls and I cut up apples, carrots, and sometimes cheese cubes and have second breakfast in true hobbit style. First breakfast is just whole wheat toast (from homemade bread and we grind our own wheat into flour fresh each time we make bread) and chocolate milk, so sometimes we like a little extra something to get through Algebra class. Ay-yi-yi! Both of the youngest kids now in algebra!
Chilly morning, so…..cardigan over jammies, afghan I made last year in lap, scrambled eggs from the 70 year old tiny skillet, and hot buttered grits with a pot of English Breakfast. THIS is Saturday morning! Good tea! We decided today that we need the one pound bag.
It is gray and rainy but not too cool outside. Gracie had a pot of this waiting for me when I got home from radiation, and I had a cookie left from yesterday which my sweet eldest daughter brought me from Panera. It made a very nice morning break!
Delicious, as always! The best English Breakfast I have ever had. I had the two ounce tin from the tea chest and bought the 8 ounce tin to refill it. I have almost cleaned that out already, so I think it is time to admit I just need to buy the pound bag of this one, too. :)
I got my new supply of this tea in! Hooray! This was my first morning cuppa today, with Margaret’s Hope on the way. This is very lightly smoky and has nice full body. I think if I put Harney’s breakfast choices on hand in order, I would say they go English Breakfast, Queen Catherine, Supreme Breakfast, in terms of body and smokiness. The last two may need to be reversed – I should try them side by side! (An excuse to drink more tea!) But all of these are only lightly smoky compared to Bohea or Lapsang teas. Excellent….
I had this one for the first time in a while today. After drinking Queen Catherine for frumpled mornings and trying my first light lapsang, I now know that tea is barely, barely smoky, but it is there! It is a sweeter smokiness, though, and I now know that I will HAVE to keep it around for those mornings when I want something a tad lighter than Catherine. This was delicious with a little sugar and the tiniest bit of milk. Sometimes I don’t use the milk at all. Much, MUCH smoother than some of the Keemuns I have tried. Don’t even compare this to Keemun Hao A! It is a completely different taste to me! And I like this one better…..for now. Who knows how my tastebuds will grow up in the coming year? :) I steeped for four minutes, and I think five would have been better.
Sooo good. This is pure keemun tea and has wonderful body. I take it with milk and sugar. This was a nice break in between vacuuming, hanging out clothes, and teaching geometry this morning!
What a great tea! This really has nice body, and if there is any smokiness it is ever so light. I made little humming sounds as I drank this one today, and apologized to it profusely for neglecting it for so long. I start trying new teas and forget to go back to my pets….
I must be growing up! When I first started drinking tea I didn’t know the difference between astringency, bitterness, and smokiness. I loved smooth Ceylons and other teas that had very low astringency best. I thought I didn’t like most breakfast teas, but now I am beginning to like a little smokiness in the mornings to buck me up for my day. This one has that touch of smoky flavor, but is still smooth and satisfying. May have to get a refill for this tin after all…..
