Rolled whole leaves. Beautiful to look at. Even better to taste, as proven by our best-selling blend, the ever-humble, always-loved English Breakfast...
Not just for Christmas.
Fashion might have its Little Black Dress, but tea has its Classic Black Tea. Quintessential, flattering to all tastes, classy and as bold as you want to make it.
The best English Breakfast tea has malt, body and just a splash of brightness to stop it from being overpowering. And way back in early 2012, we found our dream combination for English Breakfast, a combination that has remained unchanged ever since. And we're so committed to it, we've got the origins listed in the ingredients on each pack blended.
So, what's in the perfect English Breakfast blend?
- Assam - Indian black tea bringing malt & body
- Ceylon - Sri Lankan black tea, giving it a bit of lift
1. Try It Black
Since our first ever 'tea on tour' trade show back in 2012, we have served English Breakfast without milk. That's because, despite the bad food press, rumours of the death of black tea are greatly exaggerated. To this day more than half of all of our cups of tea sold are English Breakfast alone, and all black tea accounts for nearly ninety percent of all tea sold.
Despite this, there are an awful lot of tea drinkers who think that all tea tastes the same, so our bright idea of getting them to try tea by itself, without the addition of sugar and milk first.
What you'll find | Interestingly, most Drinkers say that whilst English Breakfast (a 3 minute brew, by the way) is strong and familiar, but has a smoothness that doesn't need milk in the same way that a standard paper tea bag might do - this is to do with the rolled whole leaves - a smoothier, tastier brew, not just dry 'strength'.
2. Then With Milk
This is where your brewing time is crucial. If you like only a splash of milk, or you want to relish those malty Assam notes, brew it for the full five minutes. Four minutes is a great sweet spot for most, giving you everything you'd want - colour, strength and great tasting malty goodness.
What you'll find | If you were to try our Ceylon or Assam seperately, you'd find interesting things about the taste and also the colour of the brewed tea. Ceylon brews a much lighter colour and so, despite the fact that it has a really good, sharp taste, lots of people aren't overly fond of it with milk because it's much paler than expected. Turns out the colour of things makes a difference (maybe betraying our age here,but some of us at Tea HQ are still suspicious of blue smoothies). Assam gives you that rich, almost-rusty base that takes milk so well.
3. Dream Pairings
Match it with your favourite foods
English Breakfast is surely a winner because of its sheer versatility. Our favourite savoury pairings are: Toasted, buttery sourdough. Any combination of English Breakfast tea & toast invokes a lifetime of brewtime for us. A Ploughman's board is a winner that because that tangy cheddar and English Breakfast combination is 👌.
Sweet pairings are also easy to choose from, but let's keep it festive. Milk Chocolate of any variety is a perfect match for those malty notes. Then you have Mince Pies, already jammed with citrus, spice and booze, needing something strong enough to stand up to them. This is the blend for the job!
4. Tea Lattes and Iced Tea*
Make some other jazzy drinks?
In a past life, Co-Founders Phil & Aideen shook iced tea by the gallonful in a café in Liverpool. One of their favourite creations, the "Savannah Honey", was the inspiration for the Lemon & Lime Iced Tea Blend.
That dreamy tea & honey base coupling is also fantastic if you've got a bit of time and fancy making a black tea latte. Just brew up a triple- or quadruple-strength pot of tea, add honey to taste, then mix with steamed milk. Try a split of 25% tea to 75% milk.
*Ok, iced tea might be a stretch for November in the Northern Hemisphere.
3,500+ subscribers*
This is a massive source of pride for us at Tea HQ. We have been fending off the gentrification of coffee (and herbalisation of tea) forever, so every time one of you sets up a subscription for English Breakfast, there's a jolt of pride here.
Our founding argument is that as tea drinkers, we don't need loads of different flavours, bells and whistles, we just need something made with care and attention, something special and worth brewing.
*surely we need a party when we get to 5,000 English Breakfast subscribers?
HOW DO YOU BREW IT?
We're not far off nearly 6,000 reviews to date. We also added a few additional dimensions to our review collection for the more scientifically minded amongst you, and to date the data collected makes for pretty great reading. Our drinkers are brewing for four minutes on average, and adding the merest splash of milk.
If you're a three minute brewer or you take it without milk, get your brewing know how down and not only might you recruit some new drinkers into the dark art of pure black tea, but you'll also get Brew Coins for your review, and if it's featured in the Brew Times newsletter. Well, it'd be rude not to say thanks, wouldn't it?
Click on the link below to tell us your side of the story. All the detail - how much tea? Brewed for how long? Are you sharing? Is it a morning energy boost, an afternoon pick-me-up or something else entirely? Perhaps you're making Risky Whiskeys (our English Breakfast & whiskey cocktail from a few years back that is most definitely too good to be responsible)? Do share...
