Twinings of London

So, I was emptying out my purse today and guess what I found? An English breakfast teabag. Perfect to go with my dinner.

After having a full tumbler of Irish Breakfast, I decide that the tumbler full isn’t enough tea for me. So, I brew up a tumbler of this to sip on when I am doing my paper. It is really mild and gentle after the Irish Breakfast. I put a little bit of milk in this tumbler, but it doesn’t really need it like the Irish does. I just like how it tastes with it in. So, I will be sipping on this for the rest of the night.

When you need comfort, it is easy to turn to a faithful cup of tea. Hot with milk and a little on the strong side.

Nothing tastes better at the end of the day than a reliable cup of tea with milk.

Hot with no milk.

Drinking this after getting back from being with my sick boyfriend. His fever broke so he should be fine. Now to see if I dodged the bullet as well.

Time to get back into tea. I find it difficult to keep up a consistent tea habit when I am at school because I don’t trust the kettle at school and I keep forgetting to bring tea bags to meals. But when I’m at home, everything is fair game.

This has been my comfort tea recently. Hot with a drop of milk.

Lovely cups of tea in the evening. Ever since my 21st birthday I have been drinking this with a drop of Baileys. Limited to one cup of course but it is a lovely way to relax on a friday evening. And the chocolate mixed with the tea is a lovely treat.

Big cup + hot water + two bags + long steep = happy

This is quickly becoming my standard cuppa. Hot water, steep for 4 mins (mostly), add a splash of milk, and enjoy. : D

I didn’t feel like having green tea so I picked up some more tea when I went to the store. Apparently this is my go-to tea since it was the first to hit my shopping bag. This with milk tastes so good. Especially since I haven’t had any tea for a week.

This is my last teabag of this tea. I have enjoyed drinking it for all the times I have drank it. I can really see this becoming a comfort morning tea. It doesn’t have the same punch as Irish breakfast but it does help wake me up gently.

It is really fun to watch tea steep in a clear mug. The color was this beautiful dark amber. I put just a splash of milk in it and it was so fun to watch the milk mix with the tea as I put it in. When I was carrying it around my brother thought it was coffee because it looks like milky coffee.

That was about an hour or so ago. My clear mug is really big so my tea lasts a while. It is now cold but it is still really yummy. This would be a great tea to make during breakfast at school. The only problem is that I would need to get a thermos to drink out of. I know they have this nice one made of recycled materials at school but I will see if there is anything out there before I go to school.

Apparently this is my comfort tea today. I have been having a bad headache and dizzyness since last night and this is the first thing I grab in the morning. It is also apparently one of the teas I really want some milk in. A nice comforting cup of tea.

Backlogging:

I made myself a cup of this when I was over at my boyfriend’s house. I used hot water from their 1-cup instant coffee maker. I had enough sense to run a cup through before putting my teabag in to try to clear out most of the coffee taste. It still had a little bit of coffee residue but didn’t alter the taste of the tea by much. I put a little bit of organic milk in too.

I was reading a post last night on Numi’s 2 Week Puerh (Pu-erh?) Challenge blog and somebody had made oatmeal with her tea. I thought that this sounded interesting and different so I decided then that I would try it today.

So, I brewed up a tea of English Breakfast and made it a little stronger. Four minutes seems to be the magic point for me this week. The sips of the tea I had before I made the oatmeal were nice and kinda earthy. The taste is really difficult for me to put my finger on right now but it is good.

I poured about 1/4 a glass over raw oats and put some agave nectar on the oats and mixed it up. The oats all bunched up and looked a little sad that they weren’t getting any brown sugar and butter like they normally do. But the oatmeal was nice and thick. They tasted a little gluey without being the blech gluey taste that I have always associated raw oats with. It was a good earthy gluey. In hindsight, I would make the tea a little stronger for the oatmeal so I could get a little bit more of the tea’s flavor in the oatmeal. I would also put some fruit in the oatmeal next time as well.

The rest of the tea got some milk in it. I saw a picture of this mug (http://www.firebox.com/product/1975/MyCuppa-Mugs?via=ser) a while back and according to that mug I put enough milk in it for it to be considered milky. It was nice and very creamy while still having that mild earthy taste to it.

Edit: got the link down but actually had a typo. Bad English student! ; )

I was commenting on my blog on how I was just beginning to get into tea when somebody found me and suggested this site. After a day of lurking, I liked what I saw and here I am. I just picked up a sampler pack of Twinings teas from the store yesterday. I am still in the teabag phase and just starting to branch out into different flavors and different blends.

I didn’t steep this for very long because I am still getting used to black teas and I didn’t want it to come out too bitter. But now I’m not too sure I steeped it long enough. I also didn’t put any milk or sugar in the tea. I want to cut back on my sugar intake so I am learning to drink my tea straight.

It is strange. It tastes weak but strong at the same time. It isn’t unpleasant. I have four more bags of this to experiment with. I think next time I’ll steep it for a little bit longer than what I did. It has been slowly cooling down and as it cools it starts to get a little bitter in the back of my throat. Well, I’m not sure if bitter is the right word. It feels like my tongue and back of my throat gets dry after I swallow and has a strange aftertaste. This is the taste I normally associate with black tea when it cools honestly. Though sometimes my green teas do the same thing.

Overall, I think I am starting to like the taste. It has the texture of tea but the flavor reminds me of a weak cup of my Dad’s decaf coffee. I’m not sure if I would drink this in the afternoon that much but I could see myself waking up with a cup of this.

No frills, no tricks, nothing hidden up its sleeve. A solid tea that’s a basic staple in my tea box.

A fragrant Earl grey. A big cup of this tea was a great way to start my morning. Not weak, not bitter – just right for me. I think there might not be a lot of complexity to the flavor, but that’s ok by me.

Tea. Earl grey. Hot.

I don’t drink my black teas with milk. So I’m probably not giving this one it’s best shot. I found it harsh but drinkable with ample sweetener.

Ok green tea, decent but unremarkable. Now mix it with an equal part of Twinings loose leaf Darjeeling and you get an interesting and tasty cup.

I didn’t like this tea, astringent and thin for a black.

Wonderful, full malt flavor with rich body. I take this cuppa without additives. In a teabag style I give it a 74. Yes loose leaf makes a difference.

TTB Tea #16:

I’m not a black tea person- especially bagged… but I know black tea is part of the tea culture in the UK and since this is named for one of the royal family, why not? I’m a sucker for novelty teas.

The liquor is a dull brown color… CRAP! forgot to weigh this. Sigh… Oh well… Slightly sweet smooth flavor. Quite pleasing for even the not black lover like myself. Paired nicely w/ lunch- chicken parmesean. Not sure I’d drink it not paired w/ some sort of food though.

Travels well. I don’t like it quite as much as the Twinings IBT, but it is solid and good with a shot of milk or 1/2 and 1/2.