Reviews of Black Tea
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Editors' Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend91 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Nov. 3rd, 2021
Murchie's carries so many different tea blends that it takes a long time—years, at a normal tea-drinking pace—to get around to trying most of them. I wish this one had landed on my porch sooner! This may be the richest, smoothest, fullest-bodied all-black tea blend of theirs, or anybody's for that matter, that I'...
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Diamond Jubilee Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend87 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Aug. 27th, 2021
Another Murchie's mix marches out of the box and firmly into fond appreciation, this one in a traditional but growing group that honors assorted British royalty. The dry-bag aroma is mild but pleasant, offering an honest hint at the smooth and bold flavor to come. This blend tastes, has in-cup aroma and smells in the...
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Scottish Breakfast Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Scottish Breakfast – Region: Blend89 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Aug. 4th, 2021
Somehow, through all the teas I've chugged the last few years, Scottish Breakfast hasn't gone down the gullet yet. Why? Forgive my neglect. I've been missing out. I won't speak for other shops' renditions yet, but Murchie's has a championship-caliber blend going here.
Maybe some of it was reading that many Scott...
Extra Strong from Typhoo
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend81 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Jun. 29th, 2021
Typhoo hard-sells to appreciators of strong tea with what appears to be their newest offering, straightforwardly titled Extra Strong, with this verbiage on the side of the package: "The most hardcore quality teas from estates in India and Africa, wrestled from the plant and blended together. Deep. Bold. Strong. Th...
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Premium Tea Decaffeinated from Bigelow Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend46 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Jun. 13th, 2021
This tea came from a motel. That isn't surprising, considering that the Bigelow website for the product offers 48-bag boxes and cases thereof, as if targeting the food-service market. I've gotten the regular version of this (which is mediocre too) in motels as well as on airplanes.
For a decaf tea, Premium Decaf w...
1894 Select Orange Pekoe Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend84 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
May. 26th, 2021
Imagine if Lipton black tea were actually really good, how it should taste. This is that. 1894 is one of the original Murchie's teas from nearly 130 years ago, first blended by their founder in Victorian-era Vancouver. It's a simple, straightforward, unpretentious mix of good-quality Ceylon and Assam, with both the ...
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Murchie's Afternoon Decaf from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend74 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 3rd, 2021
As decaf teas go, this was about the best I've had. I think I've found a new beverage to chug when I get a hankerin' for black tea before bedtime. Long a big fan of their traditional Murchie's Afternoon (formerly Empress Afternoon), I got this in a variety pack and didn't even open the box for months, afraid of disa...
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Prince Charles Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend87 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Jan. 14th, 2021
Prince Charles isn't among most heavily advertised teas in the large assortment Murchie's carries, but maybe it should be. It was, according to the website, "originally blended in 1981 to commemorate the Royal Wedding of Charles and Diana." Good thing this tea long outlasted that marriage!
The dry bag gave a sharp...
Rocky Mountain Blend from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend72 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Aug. 15th, 2020
Both the loose and bagged versions of this blend have gone down my gullet, and I honestly can't tell much (if any) difference, at least within a reasonably narrow batch-to-batch margin of error. That said, I'll base this review mainly on what I've got right now, which is bags from a sampler pack.
The dry-bag (and ...
Assam Tea Bags from Taylors of Harrogate
Style: Assam – Region: Assam, India73 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 2nd, 2020
Taylor's has/had a "Pure Assam". Does the absence of that adjective here make this one "impure" by default? :-)
Seriously, I don't know if "Assam Tea" is the same as "Pure Assam", repackaged and rebranded, or a parallel offering. It has been a few years since I tried and reviewed "Pure Assam", so I can't compare...
English Breakfast from Lipton Tea
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend54 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Feb. 11th, 2020
I bring news! Whether it's good news or not is up to the reader. This tea, as a brand with the same name, is not retired after all, as of Feb. 2020. Instead, it has found its way to the food-service division of Unilever, Lipton's corporate overlord. I'll upload a photo of its newest packaging separately. I was abl...
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Organic Autumn Harvest Black Tea from Trader Joe's
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend69 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Feb. 6th, 2020
This is not to be confused with the apparently much-better-known Trader Joe's "Harvest Blend" herbal tea, which is a completely different product. Instead, this black tea came in a 10-bag sealed wrapper, tucked into one of four squares of a wooden gift box. The outside paper wrapper of the gift box describes all four...
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Storm Watcher from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend81 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Dec. 17th, 2019
Being in Oklahoma, the name of this seasonal tea intrigued me a lot, even though the storms inspiring it are cold, wet wintertime blasts on the British Columbia coast, instead of southern Plains severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Then again, that makes sense. What would tornado tea be, and would it even matter? The...
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English Breakfast from Revolution Tea
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend63 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Dec. 2nd, 2019
The next entry from a Revolution variety pack delivered one of the strangest experiences I've had with a tea. Sniffing the dry bag (pyramid sachet) rendered an unmistakably familiar aroma that took me many tries to recall its specific origin. "Sniff, sniff, sniff...I know this...sniff, sniff, sniff...where have I sme...
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Yorkshire Tea Traditional from Yorkshire Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend64 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Dec. 1st, 2019
Yorkshire is a basic, moderately strong, reasonably tasty, unassuming black-tea blend—nothing special, but still just bold enough to sneak into the upper 40th percentile of bagged black teas I've had.
The dry-bag aroma and in-cup smell and taste can be described the same way: plain, short on standout notes or c...
English Breakfast Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend64 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Oct. 14th, 2019
This arrived as a member of a sampler pack that I ordered, to try some Murchie's offerings not yet chugged.
While pleasant and reasonably robust, it still is probably the mildest black tea I've tried (loose or bagged) from Murchie's, which says more about the strength of their other teas than any glaring deficienc...
Orange Pekoe & Pekoe Cut Black Tea from Cain's
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????55 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Oct. 9th, 2019
For background, Cain's has a similar-sounding black tea that I've seen sold in stores here in Oklahoma for many years, but haven't tried yet. It comes in large-sized bags for the purpose of brewing a couple quarts at a time to make iced tea, but I don't know if it's the same blend of pekoes as this single-serving, foo...
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Premium Leaf Tea from Dilmah
Style: Ceylon Black Tea – Region: Sri Lanka / Ceylon65 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Oct. 4th, 2019
I'm reviewing the version of their loose-leaf "Premium" that comes in a 400g resealable plastic sack, which I got new/unopened at an estate sale. The leaves are very finely chopped, small, almost granular, as if they were part of a mechanical, one-size-fits-all process for both bagged and loose-leaf offerings. The wo...
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English Teatime Decaffeinated from Bigelow Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????41 / 100 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Aug. 7th, 2019
Caffeine generally doesn't bother me, even before sleepytime (lower-case, not to be confused with the Celestial Seasonings brand of herbal tea). As such, I am still rather inexperienced with decaf teas, outside of 1) a couple of lame food-service brands and 2) a strongly flavored variety that I have loved dearly for a...
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Naturally Decaffeinated Tea from Cain's
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????50 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Jul. 29th, 2019
Finely chopped, decaf, food-service black teas in wax-paper wrappers don't inspire a great deal of confidence, so I guess this offering managed to exceed my low expectations.
I got a few of these as a restaurant and took one home to brew in good water, for fairness' sake, since the cafe was in a town with sketchy wa...
Decaffeinated from Royal Cup
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????57 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 1st, 2019
Since finding their regular bagged tea a couple years ago, I was hoping to run across the decaf version for a taste test too, and also, for a pre-bedtime black-tea chug after another day spent roaming the highways and byways of this land. For some reason, outside of the occasional Bigelow bag, it's hard to find decaf ...
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Darjeeling Black Tea from Bigelow Tea
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India71 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
May. 18th, 2019
We first found this in an estate-sale pantry. Then my wife bought another box, because she enjoyed it as a morning and midday tea, when she didn't want something quite as potent as her favorite Assam or Irish breakfast blends. Loath to pilfer her teas and disharmonize domestic tranquility, I've just had a couple bags...
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Assam Shankar: Finest Second Flush from Fortnum & Mason
Style: Assam – Region: Assam, India58 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Feb. 24th, 2019
My wife's acquaintance's mom, who had passed away recently, bought this tea in London but never opened it. Since we like tea, we ended up with it from her estate sale. It's odd how, since I've started reviewing here, teas seem to fall out of the sky and into my hands through a variety of fortuitous circumstances, in ...
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Awake English Breakfast Filterbag from Tazo Tea
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend68 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Feb. 10th, 2019
After bringing this breakfast tea home from a conference, I tried it at dinnertime while eating a tub of cottage cheese. The tea brewed up very dark, quickly, such that a spoon disappeared from view below about the top two inches of liquid. This wasn't too surprising, considering how finely chopped the dry-bag leaves...
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Devonshire English Breakfast Black Tea from Celestial Seasonings
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend76 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jan. 20th, 2019
"Devonshire" has one of the most full-bodied dry-bag aromas I've gotten from a breakfast tea, and unusually, it nearly matches the flavor for intensity. I detected virtually no difference between dry-bag scent, in-cup scent, and taste, the latter likewise being straightforwardly well-constructed within a nice, dark br...
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