Discontinued. Similar tea available.
“There is reason breakfast teas are called such. Bright. Strong. Smooth. Still has to be one of my favorite English Breakfast teas.” Read full tasting note
“This goes surprisingly well with chicken noodle soup for breakfast!” Read full tasting note
“I’m really starting to develop a liking for teas that were too strong for me just weeks ago. Go figure. Drinking this one “black” this morning, and it’s pretty good.” Read full tasting note
“I had an ounce of this left, and decided it would be best put to use in making a gallon of iced tea. (I like to make tea by the gallon – it seems like so much but it goes fast enough when you’re...” Read full tasting note
Full-bodied infusion with malty and oaky undertones
This hidden treasure of royal lineage raises this most beloved morning black tea to new heights. Each sip unfolds to reveal the complexity of the high grown full leaves. Feel like royalty with this elegantly time-honored classic and add a majestic nod to every cup.
Ingredients: Black tea
How To Steep
2 Perfectea Scoops – Scoop loose leaf tea into infuser.
205°F – Heat fresh (preferably filtered) water.
8 fl oz – Pour water over sachet in cup.
3 min – Stay close to this steep time for optimal flavor.
3-5 steeps – Use again and again, you can steep this tea 3-5 times.
Blends Well With
Earl Grey White Tea
Honeybush Vanilla Herbal Tea
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.
This isn’t terrible as iced tea but it’s not nearly as good as what I made yesterday. Perhaps because I didn’t let it cool down in the fridge for very long before getting impatient and making myself a cup with ice cubes. Same amount of sugar this time, but I think since the tea quality is lower, it might need more. 5 heaping tsps of tea to 1200 ml. 7 spoonfuls of sugar.
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.
I am back to my EBT this morning. This is a familiar taste. I have been experimenting quit a bit lately with different teas, it feels good to start the day out with a solid tea. From the last time I drank this tea, I have tried a Yunnan…it was not what I had hoped for…although it was a good cuppa while drinking the Yunnan, the headache that came afterwards was horrible. So I have retired the Yunnan to the storage shelf. I wonder, will I ever find the perfect breakfast tea? Or is this a life long search for that perfect morning cuppa?
The search may never be over. I can’t ever stick to one tea in the morning like I think I can.
This made me think about the tea from Adagio that I really want to try. I think it’s just called “Cream” (black tea). Sounds like a yummy way to start the day!
@Rabbysmom, yeah it’s just called “cream”. All of Adagio’s black based flavored teas, which they simply call “flavored”, are just called by the flavor that they are. I’m not a black tea fan, but their Cream is a very good cream flavored black tea. If you haven’t ordered from them before, send me an email (regular, not a steepster PM), and I’ll email you a $5 coupon code off your 1st order:)
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.
Unfortunately this may be intentional on Teavana’s part, so they can upgrade their customers to a $15-20 black tea. However I don’t care much for English Breakfast in general, so I can only speculate.
You may be right. My experience thus far with Teavana hasn’t been good. I first off think their teas are overpriced. Secondly, of the 5 or so teas I’ve tried, they have been mediocre to poor.
I agree with bravedave’s tasting notes – “cheap” was the word that came to my mind too when I first drank this. And I think Autumn may be on to something – this English Breakfast IS one of the cheapest teas and they are definitely driving people to buy the more expensive teas.
Agree with the comments about a mediocre, less-expensive tea and the desire to get customers to “upgrade” to a better blend. Wish they just charged a little more for this and made it a better tea, instead of seemingly using it to prove how low-quality the cheaper teas are.
2009-11-22 7pm
Preparation Details:
Zarafina Tea Maker: Black, Loose, Strong, 2 cups water
-second steep of 2 scoop English Breakfast, 1 scoop Lemon Youkou (Teavana),
-half scoop of fresh leaves of each type added
Sweetened with 1/4 cup raw sugar, then iced and water added to make 1qt tea.
It’s weaker than the tea my husband had, with far fewer fruity notes. Still an excellent tea, but not an OUTSTANDING one.
I like this tea a lot! It isn’t as sweet as most English Breakfast teas but it has a beautiful floral note that compliments the tea well! The caffeine level in this is PERFECT for morning time! if you have a sensitivity to caffeine dont drink after noon! ;)
I love Teavana’s Masala Chai tea, when they had it. They have discontinued alot of tea latly :( i wonder if i has anything to do with Starbucks buy the company?
I have noticed that… and they are coming out with a lot of interesting blends. did you see the new chocolate orange spice tea they just came out with?
I’m a loose tea newbie, and this is my very first experience with REAL black tea. I figured it would be best to start with black tea, since that’s the only thing I have to compare when transitioning from Lipton bags to loose tea. My first whiff of this tea confirmed that this was going to be veeerrryyy different from the tea I’ve been drinking for 27 years. The leaves smelled earthy, and I could actually tell that the tea came from A PLANT! (Whereas with Lipton, there’s really no other way to describe the smell other than “dusty tea bag.”) First, I tried it hot, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. But, the more I sipped, the more I became intrigued by the complexity of flavors. I kept sipping just trying to taste all the flavor notes that are non-existent in cheap black tea bags. Today, I made a 1/2 gallon of lightly sweetened iced tea. I steeped 15g. in 4 cups hot water for 3 minutes. I poured it over 3-4 cups of ice and added 1/4 cup sugar. I’m addicted! I was unsure of how exactly to describe the flavors that are so new to me, but reading words like “malty,” “oaky,” and “earthy” in other reviews sound right.
I gave this an 85 because I know there’s something out there that I’ll like better.
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).
How do you make your kombucha? Although I’ve tasted it before, I’ve never actually brewed it myself.
It’s actually pretty easy to brew. You’ll need a scoby culture to get started, and I’d be happy to send you one of mine with a little starter kit. I bloged about the brewing process here: http://bit.ly/jhPfCJ . I can send you a list with specific measurements if you like. The first brewing process can take from a week to a month depending on your taste. Then you can add flavor if you like in a secondary fermentation that I explain here: http://bit.ly/jhPfCJ Someone was kind enough to get me started brewing kombucha, and I’d be thrilled to pay it forward if you’re interested :)
CRAP! Please disregard the second link in my post above. This is the real link to the secondary fermentation process: http://bit.ly/9GRhWr Sorry about that.
Mmm… fat Elvis donuts… I don’t think that’s the link you intended, but it sounds like the right link to me! ;) I am interested in trying this. I usually buy kombucha at Whole Foods, but sometimes it doesn’t taste so great.
Ha! Okay, so I’m having some problems with my URL shortener today. If you click on one of the crazy links, just go to recipes and seach for kombucha and the posts will pop up. Homebrew is far better tasting than the store bought versions in my opinion because you control the flavor. Say the word and I’ll happily send you a scoby and a starter kit :)