Breakfast Tea

Typically in the morning is when you want your stronger, more robust tea. My first cup of tea for the day is always black tea, mainly because it has a lot of caffeine and it wakes me up a bit like coffee would do. When I was younger I would always go for English Breakfast in the morning. English Breakfast tea is also found in most of the lower-end teabag market in stores. For example Tetley, or Lipton are variants of English Breakfast, but it is important to note that these are lower quality and are much weaker teas.

What exactly is English Breakfast tea anyways? I would describe it as a full bodied, rich tea that is typically a blend of several different teas. These teas are usually from India and Africa. Most English Breakfast tea, including the kind found in teabags, is usually a blend of Assam, Ceylon and Kenyan tea. As seen above in the photo, if you're looking for a good blend of English Breakfast, I would suggest Twinings. It's a good price for great tea. Buy in the US or the UK. The only issue with the Twinings tea is that it has small leaves, so if you're a teabag user it isn't a problem, however if you drink loose tea then you will need a relatively fine strainer.

There are also variants of English Breakfast teas, such as Irish Breakfast and Scottish breakfast. Since trying Irish Breakfast recently last year, it has been my go to cup of morning tea. It is stronger than English Breakfast because it has more Assam in it and can be described as malty. With any breakfast tea you have to be careful, because if you brew it for longer than 5 minutes, it can be too strong to drink and neither milk nor sugar can save it. As seen above, Adagio make my favorite kind of Irish Breakfast tea. It's delicious. You can find it here for the UK or here for the US. 

Also a choice to bear in mind is Scottish Breakfast, although I've never had it myself. It's the strongest of the three breakfast teas, because it was made back when Scotland's water was soft, which means the water lacks the natural elements typically found in water after it goes through the ground, such as magnesium and calcium. In some Scottish Breakfast teas, you can detect a hint of smokiness. I have yet to find any true reason as to why the Scottish Breakfast tastes stronger, but if I had to guess I would say more Assam and less Ceylon, since Assam tea is very strong and caffeinated and Ceylon is a very weak black tea.

My boyfriend got me this for Valentine's Day. Thought you might enjoy it too!

Leah