This is the feed of all reviews of English Breakfast on RateTea.http://ratetea.com/style/english-breakfast/43/http://ratetea.com/review/7103/http://ratetea.com/review/7103/Wed, 23 Jul 2025 02:05:28 ESTWhen I think of what an English Breakfast tea should taste like, after having a few good-quality loose and bagged brands early on, most others have fallen short. However, this one hit the spot right away at a motel, and a few days later at home too, living up to the standard. It left me wanting to try more of both this one and others from the same company. The tea brewed up dark and thick-looking, quickly. The aroma was rather mild, so I expected the usual motel-obtained, bagged EB tea. However, the...http://ratetea.com/review/7091/http://ratetea.com/review/7091/Wed, 04 Jun 2025 17:03:40 ESTSurprisingly, this was one of the smoothest and most pleasant flavor experiences I've had with bagged black Ceylon tea, and perhaps Bigelow's best in that category. How much of that resulted from a baseline of lower expectations? Admittedly, most of the "Steep" line hasn't impressed me much, especially considering the negligible difference in taste relative to price for similar non-Steep teas in their portfolio. Regardless, Bigelow should keep the supply line wide open to whatever estate(s) produce this...http://ratetea.com/review/7049/http://ratetea.com/review/7049/Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:00:58 ESTAnother 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 I found for the "value" rating, which is not great, even for a such a nice bagged tea. $12-17 for any 24-bag box of tea seems high. Still, I can see this being a favorite easy-access EB tea...http://ratetea.com/review/6983/http://ratetea.com/review/6983/Sun, 04 Feb 2024 10:58:34 ESTWhittard 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. For a mass-produced teabag, it's a worthy member of the genre. The dry aroma stood out, and was clean, straightforward, unpretentious, and fresh as a black-tea with a hint of sweetness. The f...http://ratetea.com/review/6972/http://ratetea.com/review/6972/Sun, 24 Dec 2023 00:32:07 ESTGiven 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-bag aroma actually exists (their other teas I've reviewed would betray that statement). Moreover, it smells like a good-quality dry tea. The in-cup aroma and flavor each have a distinctive...http://ratetea.com/review/6954/http://ratetea.com/review/6954/Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:10:16 ESTI am very happy with this so far. Upton has a number of good, reasonably priced breakfast blends, and this is one of them--so far, I have very positive feelings about it. The aroma is fresh and sweet, and reminds me of pipe tobacco. It is a medium-bodied blend, with a nutty, bready flavor. It is pretty smooth overall, and does not get too bitter. Like all UK or Irish breakfast blends, it is meant to be served with milk and no sugar, and having it that way hits the spot. However, this is a versatile t...http://ratetea.com/review/6900/http://ratetea.com/review/6900/Sun, 01 Jan 2023 13:31:32 ESTAs 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 bottom of the 30-sachet tin revealed the original sticker price of $10.25 retail, since inflated to $12.89 on Amazon as of this writing. As my grown kids' former teen peers might have said,...http://ratetea.com/review/6889/http://ratetea.com/review/6889/Tue, 13 Dec 2022 15:07:31 ESTThis is a perfectly nice, reasonably priced English breakfast tea, offered at a good price too. The Assam and Ceylon teas blend together well, and create a mellow flavor with a dash of butterscotch. I had this with plant milk; English breakfast teas are meant to be served with a little milk. http://ratetea.com/review/6858/http://ratetea.com/review/6858/Mon, 17 Oct 2022 14:31:51 ESTOne-litre pot at home, made from a mixture of leaves of various broken black teas. Pours clear dark brown (against white china) with no sediment. Clear aroma of leaves, with malty and slightly spicy touches. Bitter, leafy and malty flavour of black tea, most probably including some varieties of Assam and Ceylon. Astringent palate with a malty and leafy aftertaste and spicy touches. A reasonable blend of its type, although nothing really special. Fair price (€4.30 per 100 g), but not very cost efficient p...http://ratetea.com/review/6845/http://ratetea.com/review/6845/Mon, 17 Oct 2022 01:02:20 ESTNot 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, or dug out of the dregs of some automated processing machine and sold to the lowest bidder. Almost all have feeble dry-bag aroma. So does this one, but that's where the "Here we go again!" s...http://ratetea.com/review/6788/http://ratetea.com/review/6788/Fri, 25 Feb 2022 12:39:03 ESTWhen first opening the tin, the tea smells earthy and dusty, very much like an inexpensive Yunnan black tea. The leaves are quite large for loose leaf tea at this price, but there are more than a few twig fragments among the leaves. This also matches my experience with inexpensive Yunnan black tea. While brewing, the aroma is consistent with my initial impression. Earthy, faint cocoa, oak leaves. The tea has a nice flavor, but it's light and the tea is thin-bodied. There's an unexpected bitterness an...http://ratetea.com/review/6646/http://ratetea.com/review/6646/Sun, 28 Mar 2021 10:11:11 ESTOne-litre pot at home, made from a mixture of fine, curly dark brown leaves of Assam and Ceylon. Pours clear lightish copper brown (against white china) with no sediment. Clear, malty aroma of Assam, with milder, leafy notes of Ceylon. Bitter, leafy flavour with some malty notes. Astringent palate with a malty aftertaste. A decent, if unpretentious English Breakfast tea, quite well-balanced and definitely enjoyable. Fair price (40 DKK per 100 g). 7 3 4 69 11 g / l; 100 C; 4 min. Review #172 http://ratetea.com/review/6590/http://ratetea.com/review/6590/Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:48:24 ESTI find it a bit weird, but I often like the taste of a good decaf better than the taste of the same regularly caffeinated drink. They can have a nice savory mouthfeel without bitterness. This decaf is solid, especially for a teabag. For those expressly wanting a non-caffeinated bag tea, this is a strong choice!http://ratetea.com/review/6581/http://ratetea.com/review/6581/Tue, 29 Dec 2020 12:05:50 ESTThis tea is pretty good for a bagged tea. The flavor is strong. Just don’t oversteep it, or it will become bitter. I brewed it for four minutes and that worked well. Also, I usually prefer my tea plain, but this one was tastier and more satisfying with a bit of milk added. I could definitely see someone using a tea like this to switch from morning coffee.http://ratetea.com/review/6468/http://ratetea.com/review/6468/Mon, 28 Sep 2020 10:26:17 ESTHere is a middle of the road English breakfast offering from Upton. It is pretty smooth, with some malty notes and tannins. It is not too heavy, nor too light. The aroma is woody and a little cardboard-like. This is meant to be served with milk, and that works nicely. I tried it with lemon also, but that brings out more of the bitterness and the flavors clash a little. I did not get excited over this, but it is perfectly drinkable and very reasonably priced.http://ratetea.com/review/6436/http://ratetea.com/review/6436/Sat, 08 Aug 2020 21:13:40 ESTNot bad, considering this is a teabag. It tastes like a basic but not bitter black tea, and I do notice some raisin-like notes as well. It’d be a good at-work tea.http://ratetea.com/review/6379/http://ratetea.com/review/6379/Mon, 04 May 2020 09:58:20 ESTEach bag contains 2.5g of what looks like ground up CTC pellets. There's very little scent from the dry tea. It smells faintly woody, like a new newspaper. This tea brews up dark. Before I've finished pouring the water, the tea is already darker than most black teas end up. By the time brewing's done, it's a deep brown-red. The aroma is richer than I was expecting and reminds me of a hardwood forest after a rain. It smells earthy and tannic, like damp oak leaves. The flavor is crisp, mildly astringen...http://ratetea.com/review/6355/http://ratetea.com/review/6355/Thu, 02 Apr 2020 04:43:47 ESTClassic English Breakfast tea but I expected more from Twinings here. You aren't hit by this tea (like by Typhoo). I like a bit of a stronger note in taste. This one is unspectacular. I really tried to find something special in this tea but didn't find anything. http://ratetea.com/review/6350/http://ratetea.com/review/6350/Thu, 02 Apr 2020 04:26:10 ESTA classic English breakfast tea. Not too strong, nothing extraordinary, no tea to disagree with. But no tea to get hooked on!http://ratetea.com/review/6299/http://ratetea.com/review/6299/Mon, 02 Mar 2020 14:03:40 ESTDry, this tea smells like a Lipton teabag, which is potentially promising. I've yet to find a decaffeinated black tea that actually tastes like tea. After adding water, a hint of earthiness comes through. The dominant aroma is the same wet paper smell that I now realize is a hallmark of decaffeinated black tea. The tea is incredibly weak, but at least has a bit of bitterness to give it some body. As this tea starts to cool, I'm noticing a little more flavor and astringency. If I tasted this blind, I ...http://ratetea.com/review/6276/http://ratetea.com/review/6276/Tue, 11 Feb 2020 11:15:11 ESTI 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 able to procure a couple bags at a cafeteria a few days ago: one to chug there, one to take home for review here. Listed as the ingredients: orange pekoe and pekoe-cut black, which don't seem ...http://ratetea.com/review/6226/http://ratetea.com/review/6226/Mon, 30 Dec 2019 06:31:13 ESTCup at home. Pours nearly clear light copper brown with no sediment. Clear but mild aroma of black tea, with very mild hints of caramel. Smooth but bitter flavour of black tea, ending on a dryish note. This is my staple black tea, which I drink several times a day when I don't have the time to enjoy more sophisticated brands. It tastes good as is, but it goes really well with a gentle squeeze of lemon and half a teaspoon of sugar, too. Nothing really illuminating but a stable brew. Not expensive (22 DKK pe...http://ratetea.com/review/6211/http://ratetea.com/review/6211/Mon, 02 Dec 2019 11:44:40 ESTThe 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 smelled this before?" On and on, this maddening exercise proceeded for several minutes. Then it hit. The dry bag smells like the inside of a Pier 1 Imports store! Say what? I kept sniffi...http://ratetea.com/review/6177/http://ratetea.com/review/6177/Mon, 14 Oct 2019 00:09:50 ESTThis 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 deficiency here. It's also rather plain and unassuming...at least I didn't detect much background flavor aside from a straightforward, pleasant, moderately stimulating tea taste. Perhaps more-refin...http://ratetea.com/review/6078/http://ratetea.com/review/6078/Thu, 04 Apr 2019 13:19:21 ESTThis is an excellent breakfast tea. I find a bit of sugar and milk really brings out the mellowness.