Pyramid Teabags

Amidst all the Celestial Seasonings teas, I was surprised to see this tea in my grocery store. I’ve heard a lot about it and I see even Mark T. Wendell sells it so I thought “England’s #1 Tea” was worth a shot. Fortunately, I still have my tea bag tongs.

The Kenyan tea in the blend is what makes this different for me-never had Kenyan in an English/Scottish/Irish blend.

PG promises 50% more room in this pyramid bag, but it seems pretty small as far as pyramid bags go. If you don’t unfold it carefully, you have mainly a basic teabag. This brews a nice, dark mahogany cup in only two minutes, and is probably really loaded with caffeine. The flavor is strong and brisk-it tastes much like Upton’s East Frisian Blend. There is just a slight bitterness on the finish-doesn’t bother me.

I enjoyed this cup. Not sure that I would have this as anything but a breakfast tea, but it’s flavorful and wakes me up. I like it.

I have been drinking tea for 40 years. This is the first time I have sipped PG Tips! How is that even possible? This is what English Breakfast tea is supposed to taste like in my mind. Instant eye opener. O.O Stout enough to kick the butt of even the manliest of teas in your collection. The inside of my cheeks are still tingling. I now understand why people add milk and sugar. I never add milk. I almost did this time. taste mellows a bit as the cup cooled. Love the intense aftertaste.

Steeped 1 teabag in 9 oz boiling water for 1 min; added 2 tsp white sugar and one tsp evaporated milk. Strong, drinkable, slightly astringent but not to the point of being bitter. I’m VERY glad I read the notes first before steeping, as my typical 4-5 min black tea steeping would have rendered this undrinkable. Even after 30 seconds it looked dark enough by my normal standards.

I surely didn’t need to buy this tea, but I’ve been curious about it, and it was BOGO at Harris Teeter, and therefore half price for one 40ct box. $2.50 seem like an irresistible price based on the prices I’ve seen elsewhere for one box ($5-8, I think?). It will probably be a good base for cold brewed iced tea too if I can get the steeping time/# of bags right. (Actually that will be a project for DH as he’s the sweet tea maker of the household.)

Hi all! Long time no speak! Since I last did a tasting note, I’ve gotten a new job, so it’s been pretty hectic around these parts. I haven’t been drinking much tea (mostly because my apartment doesn’t have AC and it’s been hot as heck in Chicago), so I haven’t been on Steepster much.

Last night a fellow tea-loving friend gave me a few bags of his PG Tips. He loves PG Tips so, so much. It’s his everyday tea and has been since he lived in England for awhile. He had already told me he loves strong, bitter black teas, so I knew that’s what this would be. And honestly, it’s better than I thought it would be. Definitely bitter, but I could see how it would be warm and comforting on a winter’s day.

Perhaps more importantly, this bad boy should be arriving at my house today: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003DTLNI8/ref=oss_product. I’ve been wanting a nice iced tea pitcher for ages now, so I now I’ll be able to drink tea all summer!

PG Tips in pyramid bags taste better than PG Tips in regular bags. I have no idea why. The pyramid bags are also strong enough to make two cups of tea. I like to take milk and sugar in mine, but others like to put in lemon juice. This is a good tea to wake you up. I’m convinced that PG Tips has more caffeine in it than other brands, but I can’t prove this. Sadly, pyramid bags are not available in my part of America. They are one of the teas that I miss about my years in the UK. Went really well with a bakewell tart, too – which you also can’t get in America.

I’ve become rather bored of Twinings English Breakfast every morning and decided to switch to this instead. Maybe I should start alternating my weekly morning black teas because I seem to get tired of the same taste quickly.

I like this tea. I was surprised to find it at my local supermarket and bought it because I hear it’s England’s “official tea” and since I love British things, I had to try it.

Although I rarely add cream to my black tea, this one is definitely best with cream. Just one mini moo will do. Add some honey and it’s pretty tasty. I’d say it’s a good, classic, solid tea. I also really needed the strength and boldness of it today as I am very tired from staying up most of the night with a poor feverish fellow of mine.

OK, so I’m rating this higher than what are obviously better teas, but it’s just cause I feel like this tea really is a good representation of basic English tea. I only steeped one minute at 185 to ward off bitterness since I knew I was starting out with tiny leaf particles and not the best quality tea. BUT, there is something satisfying about having a regular old cup of tea now and then. I had one sip straight out of curiosity, but the rest I drank with soymilk and sugar. It will do on a hurried morning when I have to wake up fast. Luckily I don’t have many of those. ;)

Kind of curious to try Typhoo when I run out of this. Haven’t seen it around here, though, and hate to pay shipping on cheap tea!

Decent tea with a fairly malty smell and rich taste. Definitely bold enough to wake me up!

The loooong search is over for my breakfast tea! This will do quite nicely, thank you. I do prefer to add milk and sugar to cut through the wee bit of bitter, but with a short brew time of 1-2 minutes, the bitter is barely noticeable. I was glad to read the other reviews about the second infusion on the pryamids. Good to know.

This tea is really dark so I decided to smooth it out with some cream! I love how creamy it became! It’s really foggy and chilly today and this tea was so nice and warm! This tea is a lot stronger than what I usually drink but I really like it! ❤❤

I’m not going to rate this one quite yet. I drank half a cup today, mainly because I messed up on the steeping time. The pyramid bags are quite cute! But because of their shape, they probably release a lot of juicy, tea flavor at a much faster rate. Well, I sort of wasn’t paying attention, and I let my bag drift around in the cup for a good five minutes. The resulting brew was extremely bitter! I could barely drink it.

I added a bit of milk (a teaspoon, literally), and the tiniest pinch of sugar, but it was still very, very bitter. I could taste some interesting, complex notes, but I really couldn’t get a good read on them, because the entire thing just tasted overcooked.

How long should I steep these guys? There really isn’t much information out there. I’m thinking more like 2 minutes, tops…

Funny story, I drink this tea almost every day and have done so for about 7 years now. It’s odd to review it for a couple reasons: first, it’s not the most glamorous tea to start off with and second, it almost feels like judging an old friend. Nevertheless, I imagine my familiarity with this tea makes it a perfect candidate for my first review.

Preparation:
195 degree water
1 tsp sugar
1 dash of milk
3ish minutes steeping

For all of my time drinking this tea, you’d think I’d treat it a little more nicely than I do. However, one of my favorite things about PG is that it’s hard to over steep. This of course is a virtue of it’s being a bag tea without those fabulous little tea LEAVES to burn. I usually add my tea bag and sugar to the steeping receptacle and then water and let it steep while I’m getting ready to leave for work in the morning. On the weekends, I’ll leave the tea bag in the cup. A note: this tea CAN be oversteeped and it will taste like a mouthful of liquid brass.

I like PG because it has FLAVOR and BODY. I imagine this is because it’s an English Breakfast tea that English people actually drink. The American interpretations of this staple often end up tasting like crappy, tarry unsweetened sweet tea. It’s great with and without milk and is even good cold. You can definitely tell that the blend has a fair amount of assam given the red wine-like flavor and it’s reddish liquor. It’s very smooth and not overly sweet. It leaves a nice tannin-y after flavor, which of course, is not for everyone.

It’s expertly blended. In my times as a tea hawker, I tried to find a loose black tea that could replace my dirty little tea bag secret to no avail. The keemun was too weird, the assam too sweet, the darjeeling delightful, but not the same.

In all, I love PG Tips. There’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular teas in Britain. It’s reasonably priced, easy to make, and more flavorful than most bag teas. It’s obviously not the finest or highest grade tea, but for everyday consumption, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather drink.

Just a quick note on my experience of this tea.

I do enjoy this tea. It is similar to America’s Lipton but stronger in character and flavor. This is definitely a morning cuppa. This tea is malty and assertive; it has a full mouth feel and lingers awhile as an aftertaste. PG Tips can most certainly handle milk and sugar even though I do not use either (may try it someday). This is one tea that I will reuse the teabag knowing that it can stand a second infusion. I feel the next time, the flavor will mellow somewhat but none less enjoyable.

The color of the liquor is a deep amber brown.

If you like your tea strong and want something to wake you up in the morning other than coffee, than PG Tips is the tea for you. I would recommend this tea.

It’s tea. It’s quick, and it’s easy, and it’s brown, hot and wet.

My Political Science teacher was kind enough to give me a sampler of this fine tea (about five or six bags, I believe). The tea itself was quite good. I brought the water to just under a boil, and poured about 350ml into my glass (which conveniently, was a beaker). I allowed the tea to steep for approximately 45 seconds or a minute. I was comfortable with the look even around 30 seconds, this tea doesn’t take long at all to reach readiness.

The bag’s design is quite interesting, and is part of the reason why steeping takes so little time compared to other teas I’ve experienced. I found this tea to be quite enjoyable (I did add a bit of sugar, but that’s just my standard routine). Very good!

My paternal grandmother is an English lady and she turned me on to this tea. This is my everyday tea and WOW is it ever good. I like my tea strong and this stuff is very strong. With some sugar in the raw and splash of milk…mmmmmmmm
If you want a good British cuppa, this is it.

This is my favorite basic black tea. I use it for morning breakfast w/ milk, sun tea with herbs, and anytime I need to add a black tea to a drink. Being from the South (US) and having grown up on Lipton and Luzianne, I get flak for drinking a commercial English black tea. However, it is superior in many ways. It makes great sun, iced, or hot tea. There is no other basic black tea like it.

This is your basic everyday black tea, and it’s darn good! Introduced to me by some part of my family I don’t quite remember but who obviously remembered me, I’ve been having this tea for about 9 years and it hasn’t let me down not once! For the last 3 months or so we’ve been having it with breakfast, and it goes along very well with about anything you can muster from your kitchen. Highly recommended – don’t leave home without some bags! (WHo knows what alien teas are at your hotel room? shudder)

Also, if you’re cutting it with splenda (which I recommend you try), go for 3 minutes to get it a little on the bitter side. Otherwise you’re better off going with a shorter steep – say 2 minutes. Bitter + sweet = amazing.

I first tried this from my friend, whose English boyfriend converted her to a tea drinker (but then again, she didn’t like coffee all that much so maybe it’s not so much of a conversion). This is his daily morning tea with a splash of milk, and now it is hers too.

While this is not my favorite morning cup, it is quite affordable, and feels… sturdy. It’s strong, a little bitter when straight, but with the addition of milk it makes a hearty cup. I also like that the pyramid tea bag infuses better than standard ones, and that it has 3g of tea as opposed to 2g. Overall, I wouldn’t mind having a 40 count box on my cupboard.

I needed a little pick me up before starting my massive of work load today.
I love PG tips with milk and sugar otherwise it’s too strong! I like to make some in a travel mug to take with me to a long meeting so I can sip it during the meeting.