Reviews of Black Tea
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Organic Darjeeling Estate from Mighty Leaf Tea
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India85 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 8th, 2025
Finally, after trying several Darjeeling teas, I think I've finally found one that expresses how they're supposed to taste. Most of them, in my relatively limited experience so far, have been "off" in some way: flat, or metallic, or weak, or muddy, or "old" tasting, or just ordinary and nothing special (like a lot of...
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Regenerative Organic Darjeeling from Tazo Tea
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India58 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Mar. 30th, 2025
For starters, I don't know the current availability status of this tea, or if it is the same as the original Tazo Darjeeling, which was not called "Regenerative Organic" and which has been retired for several years, at least. It apparently made a comeback or new beginning in this form, and clearly is in contemporary T...
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Yellow Label Tea from Lipton Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend50 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Feb. 18th, 2025
I got this tea at an eatery in Bangkok, and also from my daughter who lives there, and brought a bag home to try on the same well water in which I've reviewed other teas here. I'm not convinced it was worth hauling back its couple grams of dry weight in the suitcase.
In every way, this tea struck me as essentiall...
Morning Storm Tea from TWG Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend75 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Feb. 11th, 2025
This is the first of a handful of loose teas I purchased, for somewhat of a high price (even in the otherwise favorable baht/USD conversion), at TWG's nicely done Emporium Mall store in Bangkok. Now that I'm home, they'll be rotated in behind teas being used up.
Admittedly, I got Morning Storm mainly for the name, ...
English Breakfast (tea bags) from Teavana
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend75 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 3/5
Nov. 12th, 2024
Another bagged offering arrives from Teavana's latest comeback push, which finds its teas (including this one) in late 2024 in online stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, and even Staples (where the price was lowest as of this writing, but still around $12 for a 24-ct box).
I used an average of the retail prices ...
Coronation Blend from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend84 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Nov. 9th, 2024
Here's the latest in a long line of Murchie's teas commemorating assorted milestones in the modern history of the British royal family—in this case, the ascension of Charles to the throne. Is this a tea worthy of a king? While not their best such black-tea blend, I'd wager His Highness would be satisfied to drink t...
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Himalayan from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Nepal80 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 19th, 2024
My first Nepalese tea was a pleasant experience, but only after a little trial and error. First, the aroma: a good bit milder than the flavor, but pleasant, earthy, and floral, as if in a freshly watered flower garden with just a few active blooms of marigold or carnation wafting their scents airborne.
The first...
Extra Strong from PG Tips
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????78 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 17th, 2024
PG Extra Strong is a no-frills but robustly flavored black tea that delivers a nice punch of tea for about 10 to 11 cents a bag (from an 80-ct box). This British tea (now under the Lipton/Unilever corporate umbrella) was on sale at the World Market where I bought a big box of Typhoo's same-named tea a few years ago. ...
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Organic Assam Black Tea from Trader Joe's
Style: Assam – Region: Assam, India81 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Jul. 24th, 2024
Trader Joe's teas seem to fall into two bins:
1. Very good, which at their typically low prices for bagged tea, makes it quite a strong value, even if not nearly the best of its type, and
2. Mediocre to poor, as one expects from most store brands.
Fortunately their organic Assam offering lies squarely in the fir...
Original (Black Tea) from Red Rose Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend59 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 27th, 2024
Seldom have I sampled a tea with such a gap between aroma (or lack thereof) and taste. It's a vast chasm, really. The Grand Canyon might be a good analog with another several million years of erosion, widening and deepening.
This was a motel pickup somewhere out on the Great Plains. I don't recall where. I had a...
Darjeeling Black Tea from Rituals
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India79 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 23rd, 2024
Here's another new Rituals tea for me (and this website), also first sampled at the Days Inn in Hays, KS. As usual, and even though Hays water isn't bad, I also hauled a bag home to try on my well water for fair comparison with other ratings.
Upon ripping open the foil-lined package, the smell that greeted my nos...
Organic Irish Breakfast Tea from Equal Exchange
Style: Irish Breakfast – Region: India61 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
May. 28th, 2024
My review here is decidedly mixed. Since this isn't a bad tea, folks who are interested in the fair-trade/organic aspects may find this a good alternative to the relative dearth of such certifications among Irish Breakfast bagged teas. Being less refined, more of a troglodyte, I just want tea to taste good regardless...
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Festive Breakfast (Teabags) from Whittard of Chelsea
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend74 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Feb. 4th, 2024
Whittard has a single-sourced English Breakfast by name (from West Java), and an entirely different tea more of the traditional EB style—this one—composed of Ceylon and Kenya teas. Unlike the named EB, I couldn't find Festive Breakfast on Whittard's website, but instead, got it as part of a gift assortment.
Fo...
English Breakfast (Teabags) from Whittard of Chelsea
Style: English Breakfast – Region: West Java, Indonesia77 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Dec. 24th, 2023
Given how unimpressed I've been with most of Whittard's offerings so far, this was a pleasant surprise. English Breakfast is their advertised "No. 01" mainstay tea since the Victorian era, at least in loose-leaf form, so presumably the bagged version shouldn't be terribly different.
Though not very strong, the dry...
Darjeeling (Teabags) from Whittard of Chelsea
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India69 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Dec. 3rd, 2023
The photo is from Whittard's website where (as of this writing) 50 round, stringless bags sell for USD $9.50, not too bad for what I presume to be a decent-quality Darjeeling. [They also sell loose-leaf Darjeeling.] Mine came from a 5-bag sampler pack, each bag being of the fold-over type stapled to a string and tag....
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Organic Nilgiri Black Tea from Trader Joe's
Style: Black Tea – Region: Nilgiri, India65 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Oct. 26th, 2023
This was a strange black tea, in that the in-cup and dry-bag aroma differed more from the flavor than the great majority of black teas I've had. As it turns out, that's a good thing, because the aroma wasn't bad—just weak and weird. The smells were reminiscent of something I don't often associate with tea: mild ch...
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Royal English Breakfast from Harney and Sons
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend67 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 2/5
Jan. 1st, 2023
As with their "Green Tea with Coconut & Ginger", I got this at a last-day estate sale for a quarter (proportionate fraction of a bulk pantry buy). Not per bag, but for the entire tin! That's the best value I've had for a good tea. However, you probably can't match that. So how costly is it, for real? A peek at the...
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Platinum Jubilee Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend71 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 5/5
Nov. 13th, 2022
While still good, this was the least desirable of the Murchie's "Jubilee" line I've tried so far. Blended this year (2022) in honor of the late Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, it contains a mix of Darjeeling, Assam, Yunnan and Keemun. Given the strong history this company has with teas of those origins individual...
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English Breakfast Black Tea from Rituals
Style: English Breakfast – Region: ?????63 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Oct. 17th, 2022
Not great, but decent and tolerable: that's how I'll characterize this blend. In my relatively limited experience, many food-service black teas (including English Breakfasts) taste rather flat, hollow, sometimes excessively bitter, or often weak, as if they've either been allowed to sit out in the open for 20 years, ...
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Irish Breakfast (Loose) from Twinings
Style: Irish Breakfast – Region: Blend59 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 27th, 2022
The version I'm rating is from the "American" tin (packed in Greensboro, NC, but presumably shipped over in bulk to parse out for that purpose). It doesn't look appreciably different from the photo I uploaded off Twinings' website.
Dry aroma was surprisingly weak for an Irish Breakfast blend, but pleasant to the e...
Balmoral Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend84 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 7th, 2022
This Ceylon/Assam blend is yet another in a long line of Murchie's teas paying tribute to British royalty in some way. According to the website: "Murchie's Balmoral Blend Tea was originally blended for York House School—a private school for girls which has been an institution in Vancouver for over 75 years. This b...
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Decaf from Barry's Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend65 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Feb. 17th, 2022
My samples of Barry's Decaf came from a motel where the "regular" tea was Lipton. As such, I haven't tried the normal, caffeinated breed of this tea yet for comparison's sake. Both there and at home, I tried it before bedtime, as the website advocated (but without knowing of said suggestion yet).
Dry-bag aroma wa...
Decaffeinated Black Tea from Great Value
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????18 / 100 Aroma: 2/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 1/5
Jan. 1st, 2022
Brought home from a low-grade motel somewhere in southwestern New Mexico, this tea wasn't high on my priority list to try. Cheap motels are that way for a reason—well, several reasons—one being those that do bother to offer tea often buy cheap tea in bulk from Wal-Mart. The nearest Wal-Mart to this place was at l...
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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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