English Breakfast - Organic
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Commercial Description
...Our breakfast blend includes teas from the major tea producing countries to give it the robust, hearty, full, heavy-bodied brew ideal for morning starts.
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 2 reviews
65 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5Difflugia (169 reviews) on Feb. 25th, 2022
When 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 and raisin maltiness, cut with an oaky and tannic astringency. It flavor profile reminds me a bit of TATA Gold, which is a blend of Assam CTC and Darjeeling leaves, but without the strength.
I keep wanting there to be more to this tea. It's not bad, it just tastes like a blend of cheap teas that is, if anything, less than the sum of its parts. The flavor and body are light enough that I have to struggle a bit to properly taste them. The finish is a nice cocoa, but also fleeting. I paid $7 for a 100g/3.5oz tin that is $11.00 from The Tao of Tea's online shop. $2/ounce isn't outrageous, but there are less expensive teas that I enjoy more, including straight CTC Assam or Yunnan black teas. I'd feel ripped off if I'd paid $3/ounce. I won't be buying more.
EDIT: I intentionally oversteeped the tea (fifteen minutes) and it improved a lot. It balances a bit too bitter, but the cocoa shines through with some dried cherries, classic malt, and a hint of molasses. Maybe that's what they were going for. If I were blind-tasting the oversteeped tea, I'd guess it to be an average Sri Lankan tea. In any case, I bumped the rating a few points. It's still overpriced for the quality, but worth drinking.
72 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5Alex Zorach (1447 reviews) on Nov. 22nd, 2017
This tea smelled fantastic, but it was disappointing when I actually brewed it. It also didn't seem to match the commercial description or my expectations for an English Breakfast blend.
The dry leaf has a fresh, light fruity aroma, smelling very sweet and bright. The fruitiness is more like fresh grapes than dried fruit. The leaf is quite finely broken.
When brewed, I was surprised at how light and somewhat thin-bodied this tea was. It's also very astringent...a sort of sharp, edgy astringency that reminded me a bit of Darjeeling first flush; I wonder if this blend contains first flush Darjeeling; The Tao of Tea doesn't list what types of teas go into it, so I can only guess. Flavor is lightly bitter and sweet. The aroma is a lot like that of the dry leaf, but not as strong as I'd like.
This tea was interesting, but it doesn't seem to fit the description very well at all, nor does it seem to fit the English Breakfast style. Tao of Tea describes this as "robust", "hearty", "full", and "heavy-bodied", and I am really getting none of this...to me it seems bright, fresh, a bit light.
Although I wasn't super impressed with this tea, it is relatively inexpensive, at $2 an ounce. We got it on sale and got 8 ounces for only $7 which is a steal...it may not be among my favorite teas but it was quite good for that price.
Page 1 of 1 page with 2 reviews
More Pure Tea (Camellia sinensis) from from The Tao of Tea
2005 Jing Mai Autumnal
| Style: | Ripened (Shou) Pu-erh |
| Region: | Lancang, Yunnan, China |
| Caffeine: | Caffeinated |
| Leaf: | Compressed |
2
3 Ratings
