English Breakfast (High Grown)

I’ve been using this for iced tea, sometimes plain, sometimes as a base to blend in other berry or citrus tisanes. It was really good with the Lemon Youkou. Anyways, today, for the first time, I decided to try this hot. I was considering tossing the tea, because I was downright sick of it iced, but thought it needed a chance hot first.

My oh my is this a good breakfast tea. I added 1/2 teaspoon of german rock sugar and would have added milk, had I had any. This is mighty fine. Many more steps up from traditional lipton (thank goodness). I could see myself drinking this as a daily cup. It’s a nice pick me up. This tea may be just what I need to get into unflavored black teas. I feel another Harney order coming on! (black blends here I come)!

This is a tea of the month for August on the Classic Plan. I am so behind in my tea drinking that I still haven’t tried all the July ones. Ugh. Things continue to be crazy around here. Getting the house painted on top of the usual work trauma and the start of the school year. What I wouldn’t give for some quiet time to catch up on my tea drinking.

In any case, these dry leaves smell very earthy (a bit like soil, actually) and a tiny bit leathery. They look like their picture, so I won’t dwell on that. Steeped, it’s a deep reddish brown. Very pretty. Not the russet of many Ceylons, but more of a cherry wood color. There’s a fruity aroma. Berry-like, really.

The flavor is strong and malty. What I think of as stout. It’s pretty close to some of the Scottish Breakfasts I’ve tried, more that than English to me. It’s not overly sweet, as some malty teas are. And I’ve had smoother teas than this. It has a little grab at the back of the throat on some sips.

It’s better than average, but it doesn’t send me over the top. I have a whole slew of black blends that I quite like, and I don’t think this one is different or special enough to require a place in the finals, or even the semi-finals. I would not pass it up if offered, but I don’t feel compelled to put it on my must order list.

I’m brewing up a simple black tea this morning for breakfast as well as for kombucha. I’m behind on my brewing and I need to get back on the booch! I think I’ll make lemon ginger, sour cherry, and strawberry mint with this brew batch. My friend recommended the strawberry mint combo and I can’t wait to try it. If you’ve never brewed your own kombucha, I highly recommend you give it a try.

I’m hoping this tea will makeup for that last cup of terribleness! This is a pretty basic tea, so I figured it would be an easy one to prepare. This one surprised me, in that the tea aroma is very earthy. I suppose I’m used to a sweet maltiness from breakfast blends, but this one has more of an earthy quality about it. The flavor is very full, and has earthy and oaky notes. There is a light maltiness that comes in with the aftertaste. This is a complex flavored tea that keeps me sipping to try to taste all of the flavors. In one sip it seems very sweet, and in the next sip I get a heavy woodsy taste. I think I still prefer my strong, malty-sweet black teas, but this one is a nice change! Thank you, Serenity, for this sample!

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell softly malty. Tea liquor aroma is earthy.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium orange brown color.
-Full earthy and oaky flavor and finish. Light malty aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Good tea. Heavy earthy and oaky flavor with a hint of sweet maltiness.

I really thought I already logged this one but it’s been a very long time since my last batch of this so that’s ok. I was out of town over the weekend and visited the Teavana at the Galleria (Walden Galleria Mall in Niagara Falls/Buffalo) and had the best Teavana experience to date…I know many of you have had not-so-good experiences at Teavana shops but this one was a nice visit!!!! I ended up getting 4 teas while I was there and try a few others. I hope to be logging them today and tomorrow.

As for this tea I will be adding additional notes in future cups but I had about 5 cups of this this past weekend. It’s a goodie! Nice and bold!

Goodness, it has been a while since I’ve logged anything. My summer tea drinking has been banal to say the least. Pitchers and pitchers of iced tea, and most of them have been made from Teavana’s English Breakfast.

I tried this tea hot and found it disappointing because it tasted rather bland. However, as an iced tea it’s nice. It takes on other flavors such as mint or lemon very well, but it is also good on its own. When cold brewed it is smooth. When hot brewed it has the tiniest hint of an edge. It’s not bitter, but the smoothness that comes out in the cold brew is missing. Adding a bit of simple syrup or a lemon wedge helps to balance things out. That and sitting on the porch in the evening watching my son catch fireflies. Somehow that always makes iced tea taste better.

After a string of disappointing tastings from Teavana, it’s time to try something that should be relatively easy: English breakfast. Blend a few fine black teas together and ensure they are energetic and tasty in combination. Easy right? Ehh, not so fast.

My first reaction to sipping this tea is: salty. Now, I know there is no salt in this, but that is what my tongue says. On continued sips, I refine that opinion and would rather say that there is a particular bitterness present. A wrongful bitterness. An unpleasant bitterness. A bitterness that derives from poor quality tea. This tea simply tastes old and of low quality. I have cheap tea-bag English breakfast sitting in the kitchen that is many times better than this. While I probably could finish the pot if forced, it’s not worth the stress and agony. Time to dump out the rest of this debacle by Teavana and brew up something else that is yummy.

If you want to start your day off right, avoid this bitter failure.

I’ve had this as my wake up tea for the past 2 mornings with my usual milk and sugar. It’s bold with a fruity overtone. It holds up well to the assault of milk and sugar. It is highly drinkable. A good morning workhorse tea. I got two tasty steeps out of it as well (I didn’t have time to try for a third).

Jeez- I know I drank this a while ago – can’t believe I forgot to log it.

This is a tea that will be great iced. It is a great, simple morning tea, and I enjoyed the smoothness of it. That said, it’s probably not something I would buy again – there are many other options out there, and this is nothing unique. I’ll drink up my stash, but I’d rather have more of Teavana’s Earl Grey Creme if I just have to have one of their breakfast blends.

I’ve yet to actually try this with breakfast, because it’s a bit strong for my early-morning sensitive tummy. Even the smell gives me a bit of a stomachache… Though, it does taste much smoother than it smells. Once I’ve woken up a bit, and had something to eat, it’s a lovely bold pick-me-up. I’ve tried it with milk, cream, soy milk, and almond milk (separately, of course) but I guess milky tea is just not for me. Unless I’m doing something wrong…

This is a brisk tasty tea. I steeped longer to bring out the assam and it surely did. This is a more robust tea than my normal Keemun and I like it much better. I add 1/4 tsp of splenda to breakfast blends. It has a brown amber color to it and you can smell the assam. This tea has a kick to it when steeped longer than 3 min. No bitterness or astringency and I like it.

This is my everyday tea. I love the Assam Gold Rain more, but I chose this for my everyday tea since it is cheaper. (I drink about a quart a day instead of coffee.) I like it strong, so I do 1.5 tsp per cup. I add sugar too, about a tsp per cup.

Either my tastes have changed or the blend has changed (I read a review from a month ago that said this tea is purely African sourced now) but I don’t remember this tea being so blah.

I brewed it up pretty strong with 1.5 teaspoons for about 10-12 ounces of water. I did add milk and sugar, though not much of either, because I generally do with plain black teas. My palate isn’t discriminatory enough to cut out the bitterness I get from blacks without sugar at least.

Anyway back to this tea, I don’t get much tasting notes at all when I drink it. It causes a little bit of dryness at the back of my throat after I think it and there’s some slight malty flavour to it, but all in all it’s a very boring tea. Guess I’ll keep looking for an English Breakfast I like, one with a bit more character to it.

2009-11-22 2pm
Preparation Details:
Zarafina Tea Maker: Black, Loose, Strong, 2 cups water, 2 scoop English Breakfast, 1 scoop Lemon Youkou (Teavana)
Sweetened with 1/2 cup sugar, then iced and water added to make 1qt tea.

This is my husband’s concoction. It’s an excellent sweet southern tea. The black tea taste is mellow and dominates, but there’s still the slight tang of fruit (lemon mostly).

its black tea.

I really like a good English Breakfast tea and was looking forward to having this one from Teavana. Unfortunately, it is bitter and has some kind of weird metallic aftertaste. I’ve tried adding sugar and cream and it still doesn’t help. Today I mixed it with the White Avurvedic Chai from Teavana and added some sugar and that redeemed it somewhat. Will look elsewhere for a good quality English Breakfast.

Oh yes. This is good stuff. Shamefully, I drank this with non-dairy creamer. Well, I take that back. We don’t have milk in my office, so I had to make due with what I had. It’s still good with creamer instead of milk.

Picked this up because It was very affordable. I like this one a lot it’s a great pick me up in the morning. I added a little bit of the Azteca Fire and was quite tasty. A splash of almond milk is delicious in this or by itself.

I made a point of trying out Teavanna’s English Breakfast, and it’s not too bad. Certainly not as robust as I like my standard black teas, but it’s still got a good flavor to it.

Used an extra teaspoon of this today; made for a bracing, full cup of tea. Robust but not too bitter. I brew mine for just over three minutes. Also good with a splash of milk.