PG Tips

This is my daily morning cuppa. A strong, basic British tea that’s good with milk, which can be astonishingly hard to find in America at most supermarkets.
It’s not a fancy tea, but in my opinion it’s superior to most readily available teas in the USA. And it’s cheap enough that I don’t have to even think twice about having a cup a few times a day (I’m rarely drink coffee, so this is my version of it).
I buy it on Amazon where you can get two BIG boxes with free Prime shipping. Lasts our household about 6 months, and ends up being cheaper than buying inferior tea at the supermarket!

40 degree temperature drop overnight plus the first day back at work after a lovely week-and-change off…need the heavy stuff today.

As preferences and tolerances change, I don’t consider this to be the strongest tea in my cupboard these days—there are others with more boot and more bite. But it’s sturdy and black; takes milk well and warms your reluctant bones. Who could ask for more.

This is actually my pick two days ago. Normally, it’s a go-to tea when I have a migraine that digs in and doesn’t want to die, for the caffeine and because it’s so consistent. I don’t like to waste better blacks when I don’t have a clear enough state of mind in order to actually enjoy and appreciate them. The beastie marauding in my skull was scoffing at any meds, so I grabbed PG Tips for good, strong comfort to get me through the school day.

Tuesday’s mug, though, was not delightful. It seemed to have an odd undercurrent of taste that was off-putting. I know it wasn’t some kind of carryover from my mug, because I just royally cleaned it to sparkling, and straight water had no carryover taste. After a few swallows, I pitched it.

This morning I’m starting to think the tea was fine, and it was me. I had an odd smell plaguing me yesterday all day, which I finally placed last night…eau de dead bird. I am starting to suspect I’ve got an infection brewing in my sinus, and not a migraine. Time will tell. In the meantime, I’m sticking with non-malty blacks, because they taste truer than PG Tips is.

Some nights a strong brew of PG Tips with too much sugar and more milk than normal is just the way through. Clearly, this is one of those nights.

Not the best tea to have, the taste is not good enough compare to other tea companies with the same kind of tea, just a cheap tea and maybe not bad as an occasional tea.

This isn’t a subtle tea, or a nuanced one. It doesn’t taste like sweet potato or chocolate or freshly baked bread. It just tastes like tea. As others have noted, PG Tips really is England’s Lipton—albeit a bolder, deeper version. It really is quite strong—my general stance is the more kick the better, but this one can be a bit much even for me if steeped too long. This has been my wakeup beverage of choice lately, and it’s just the thing for those fuzzy early mornings (and really, when are early mornings any other way?) when you’re not aware enough to appreciate a more refined (or pricey) tea and just need a serious caffeine infusion ASAP.

The BEST everyday tea on the PLANET. Full of flavour, character and I could easily pick this out blindfolded. Excellent value for money, if you like a strong cuppa or even if you don’t, one bag goes a long long way!

BLERG. My allegies have hit something fierce, even though I’m taking allergy pills every day. A combination of cat and springtime is killing my senses. Ughhhhhhh.

That said, I filmed an episode of Coronation Street on Friday, and it went really well. I do hope they invite me back to reprise my role sometime. I can’t say much more because spoilers, but hopefully I won’t forget to check when it’s on! Anywho. Hoovered about 5 cups of this throughout the day, and as far as basic tea goes, I do prefer it to some. It’s quite strong, so to be honest I only brew it for a minute while stirring my sugar in and then dump the bag. It’s not got that sort of cardboard taste you get with some basic black teas that I find really blech. It’s pretty strong and smooth.

Also, on an almost totally unrelated note, yesterday was Gentleman’s birthday party, and along with the vegetable lasagne and roast and vegetables and salad and garlic bread and everything, I made a Doctor Who Death To The Daleks quarry cake. It was a dark chocolate and tonka bean sponge sandwiched with tonka bean buttercream, enveloped in dark chocolate ganache, and scattered with a cascading landslide of cornflake-marshmallow cookie crumb soil, and the TARDIS and a small army of Daleks dotting the landscape. I’m stupidly proud of this thing.

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https://24.media.tumblr.com/114e6b732a5f0e64be7e6cc3a6e8f579/tumblr_n50pyp9OIk1qcrdsao3_500.jpg
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Yep.

Sipdown. Finally!

There’s not too much that can be said about this – a pretty decent English brew. Drank with green milk and a sugar, and chosen because of it’s plainness as my last cup of caffeinated tea for the day. This was the last bag from a box of 160, and has been the last bag for a while – the box went down a lot quicker initially than it did towards the end, as I expanded my range of loose-leaf teas. Actually, by the end of it, I think my partner drank more of it than I did.

Probably won’t purchase again, unless I’m in a pinch money-wise, because I have (in my opinion) some better teabags courtesy of Rington’s which I choose over these if I want a plain cup of bog-standard builder’s brew.

This particular cup was more earthy than I remembered from plain old PG tips, with a tiny bit of a fishy taste at the end of the sip that I don’t much care for. An average cuppa for an average night, and not a sipdown that I’m sad about.

Eh…my buddy from England raves about how good this tea is, so I stole one of his tea bags while he was gone. I brewed it relatively modest for a black tea. It was ok…definitely a bit bitter, even with a sugar-in-the-raw packet. Nothing special; tasted like a typical teabag to me. Maybe a little better quality than most of the tea bags I’ve had in my time. But still pretty average. Was picking up hints of a napkin-fabric taste…don’t know if it was from the fibers of the tea bag or not..?