Twinings of London

Had this iced today. Made it hot and then added ice. This is an excellent quick iced tea. No sugar necessary.

I just love this tea! It is simple because it is bagged but very flavorful. It has great tea flavor and its strong without being bitter. Very enjoyable.

Still yummy

Still one of my favorites :-)

One of my favorite teas. It is a great black tea that isn’t bitter. It is very smooth and just a nice cup of tea.

Had this at the French restaurant as well. I plucked a spearmint leaf off the garnish on my plate and stuck it in this tea. They seemed to go surprisingly well together, though the bergamot flavor could be stronger.

Bob Evans had the decaf version, and I noticed it after I had made green tea. I made the Earl Grey after 2 cups of green. Gotta love a tea basket! This one is light and lemony. Where’d the lemon come from? It’s just tea and bergamot. Regardless, I like it, because I like lemony things. I probably could’ve left the tea bag in for a little longer, but that’s alright. The whole point of going out to eat was to feel better after a stressful day, and the waiter certainly amused us.
I originally wanted the chicken pot pie, but they didn’t have any readily available. He said it would take about 20 minutes, so I said maybe I’ll have the beef pot roast, and he said “though you would have salad and bread to distract you,” I said I’d take the pot roast anyway. They’re both comfort food to me. So when this bell rang, he came over and said “I just thought you’d like to know that that was the bell for the pot pie.”
Also, my roommate had a lot of diet Coke, and kept needing more refills. She put her empty glass near the corner of the table, and said, “I wonder if putting it here will make him notice that I want a refill.” Within minutes, he brought one out and said, “surprise.”
Needless to say, we had several laughs, and I am a lot more relaxed now. Still worried, but relaxed. And full of tea.

Earl Grey. This is strongly associated with high tea for me, for historical reasons. But here I am, drinking it for lunch, with cheese and bread. Heresy.

Still, it’s a nice cup drunk black, and the astringency (heh) tackles the rather cloying cheese I’m eating quite nicely. 3/5 chainsaws indeed. :-)

Morning cup of tea, inadequately steeped due to impatience. Drunk with milk.

The funny thing about English Breakfast is that there’s a taste in it (woody? maybe it’s just tannins) that I don’t remember from drinking tea for breakfast in England. I’d prefer that it wasn’t there, but nevertheless, a decently strong, milky tea is required as the first tea of the day, and this does the job.

I don’t know about the others, but I think this is a decent tea. Just had it last night after a big party, and it definitely hit the spot. Prepared with a bit of milk and honey. Tasted good. Slight herbal accents which I enjoyed.

It’s Twinings, you can buy it everywhere and it doesn’t taste bad at all, but isn’t going to set the world on fire.

My second real attempt with Earl Grey after a horrific Tazo cup a few months back.

Since my Tazo hot cup was so bitter and oversteeped when I followed the instructions on the packaging, I might have understeeped this cup. The teabag smelled very fragrant and quite delicious, with the bergamot a subtly sweetening the blend.

The bergamot in this isn’t the strongest, which is what I like. However, the taste was overwhelmingly floral, which was quite odd. Almost potpourri-like. There isn’t a real strong taste of bergamot; it’s more of an aftertaste that lingers on the tongue and in the back of the throat after each sip. A pleasant aftertaste that was altogether welcome. But the black tea itself didn’t have any real presence at all, which surprised me. I wanted it to be a better balance of the two, and I didn’t expect the bergamot to taste so cloying and floral.

I’m going to try to brew my second cup a bit stronger next time, in hopes that the black tea taste will rise to match the flavoring in this package. It was a very drinkable cup, with no bitterness whatsoever, but I’m not sure if this is going to be the perfect blend of Earl Grey for me yet. More tinkering needed!

I figured I’d go back and try a bagged tea after all of the loose leaf I’ve had, and see how differently it tastes. That project flew out the window, though, because I think I overstepped this puppy. I was in the midst of a highly entertaining e-mail conversation and let the teabag float there for too long. As a result, this one isn’t tasting as good this morning.

The tea juice is a lot darker than I remember. It’s probably because loose leaf is much less murky and dark. Loose leaf is also a lot less bitter. That might be from the oversteep, because I really don’t remember my cup of English Breakfast looking this dark, but it was still surprisingly bitter compared to what I’ve been drinking the past few days. The nice flavor profiles are still there, but I find myself not wanting to pick up the cup as often. I think that bags might be even more finicky than loose leaf (or at least some bags, for that matter), since you’re releasing so much dust/tannins into the water at such an accelerated rate. If you don’t watch, it’s bitter.

This is probably the true beginning of my tea education.

Before I move on to loose leaf tea, I wanted to try some of the best, traditionally bagged variety. My friends kept bringing up Twinings, and I bought myself the black tea variety pack.

This is my first English Breakfast, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I probably could have steeped this a bit longer, but the taste of this is what I think of when I think of the word “tea.” I knew I was missing something with all of those Lipton-dishwasher-hot-water tasting teas I disliked as a child. A basic black, smooth with a very slight, bitter aftertaste.

I really liked the strength of this just plain, without any added milk and sugar. I’m a purist, what can I say. I can’t wait to try even higher quality loose leaf English Breakfast blends, because I feel like this could be a favorite morning drink.

Twinings manages to blend quality teas for the huddlin’ masses. For this I tip my hat. English Breakfast is my go to for a very wakeful day.

This is a nice gunpowder green tea. It’s inexpensive and tasty. Not as good as the specialty tea shop stuff, but it’ll do nicely in a pinch.

Good, but I think the Irish Breakfast is better.

Bigmont oil made me think I hate earl grays for a long time. This is a classic earl grey made with oil. This has teeth. Brewed a little long or a little hot and it gets pretty vicious and upsets my stomach. The sheen of oil on top should scare you off. There are lovely earl greys but don’t use any with oil.

It’s ok for late night drinking

Wonderful at night before bed too!