However, I cannot abide the bland brands that fill most shelves: Lipton, Red Rose, Tim Horton’s, or house blends as being mostly as tasteless as old dishwater (generally I’ve found UK brands are better blends than Canadian or US blends).

Typhoo Extra Stong is also reasonably good, although hard to find locally.Īt a pinch, when nothing better is available, I’ll settle for Tetley (although the latter’s English breakfast and bold blends are much richer than the stock blend they also make a palatable ginger tea that, unlike most herbal teas - more properly called tisanes - actually has tea in it). Cole’s isn’t bad, either, although not as strong as we prefer. We used to drink a lot of Tata tea, but it was recently discontinued by the company, most unfortunately for us, because it was superior to 90% of those off-the-shelf brands sold locally.

And experimenting a lot, since each package I open requires somewhat different amounts of leaf and steeping to develop to my taste.Īmong the few grocery-store brands that sell in bags, I enjoy Yorkshire Gold, Twinning’s, and Barry’s (Irish) teas most. I am learning more about the blends, the vagaries of steeping, the crops, and about the tea-producing regions as I drink my tea. I am trying to explore more loose-leaf teas than I have in the past, when I more often went for convenience and simply dunked a bag into the cup. I also like earthy teas like pu-erh, and smoky lapsang souchong (neither of which Susan likes). While I may not appreciate the herculean strength of Orwell’s “perfect cuppa,” I do like a strong tea.Įnglish Breakfast is a blend I generally prefer over the usual grocery-store blends. * I like strong, bold teas in the morning, like those from Assam or Kenya, well-steeped, and served with just a little milk, no sugar. I will admit to having a rather pedestrian palate when it comes to subtle teas (and for many wines). Black tea in the morning, two to three cups, and for me usually a green tea or oolong in the afternoon. I seldom drink coffee these days, and only then when I’ve been able to meet at a restaurant with friends some pre-pandemic mornings. In this sheltered spot, I have a small, but delicious, freedom from the noise and the woes of the world for an hour or two while I read and sip. I treasure these moments when it’s quiet, warm enough to sit outside, the air still, and my tea warm in its cup beside me. I sit outside on my back deck in the early morning of this young summer, the sun still hidden behind a wall of tall cedars and birch, with my cup of tea, my laptop, and several books. A highly enjoyable book for everyone interested in tea, history, botany, and Indian culture and politics. With characteristic brightness frequently likened to newly minted coins, fragrant aromas, and sophisticated, complex flavours - delicate, even flowery (more stem than petal, as one expert blender put it), with hints of apricots and peaches, muscat grapes, and tasty nuts - it’s the world’s premium tea, the “champagne of tea.”… Darjeeling tea is often sold not just by single estate like wines, but also by flush, or harvesting season, a term nearly exclusive to tea from the far northeast of India… While Darjeeling tea’s unique brightness and aromatic flavours set it apart from other similar types of tea, each of the four periods produces a tea with distinctive characteristics.įrom Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World’s Greatest Tea, by Jeff Koehler, Bloomsbury, 2015, 292 pages.

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