Ultimate Staple Tea: Twining’s English Breakfast Tea!

The Good: Tastes good, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Caffeinated
The Bad: Nothing at all distinctive from the flavor.
The Basics: Twinings English Breakfast is a flavorful basic tea . . . if flavorful is all about tasting like tea and nothing else.


There are some teas that I am surprised that I have not yet reviewed. A few weeks ago, I was at the discount store and I was absolutely thrilled to see that they had a giant tin of Twinings English Breakfast Tea for only $1.99! Given that these tins are regularly $7.99 and started at the discount store for $4.99, the huge discount on the tin made it an irresistible buy for me.

English Breakfast is a good tea for anyone who has to define what tea tastes like. I found mine as a loose-leaf tea, though it comes in tea bags as well.

Basics

English Breakfast Tea is a black tea from Twinings of London. Black tea is made from mature tea leaves that are dried on the tea plant. Twinings has its English Breakfast tea available year round and it is one of the brand's staple teas. English Breakfast is what I call an adjective tea; the flavor is its own, the name does not hold it to any standard other than to represent what is generally accepted as that flavor. Twinings has been making this tea since the early 1700s.

English Breakfast comes in a 7.05 oz. tin that holds something like fifty or more pots worth of tea.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, English Breakfast is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tablespoon of the loose leaf tea will make a full 32 oz. teapot full of tea. I have found that I can use the same tea leaves three times with no loss of flavor as long as I don’t let the tea brew for more than three minutes the first time. Indeed, this is one of the best teas for those who like to reuse tea. The second cup often comes out about at least as strong as the first (3/4 - 7/8 as strong), provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is - at worst - about 3/4 strength and a third brewing may be done as long as one leaves the tea leaves steeping for over five minutes.

To prepare English Breakfast tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea leaves (once they are in the steeping chamber. For English Breakfast, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes only three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes and as a rather strong tea, it does not truly need to be stronger than it naturally is.

Taste

English Breakfast tea has a strong black tea aroma to it. This tea smells very much like the tea I’ve had at virtually every Chinese restaurant ever. The scent of the tea is tea, without any embellishments or surprising flavor insinuations in the steam.

On the tongue, the English Breakfast tea tastes just like it smells. This is a tea-flavored tea. That means, it tastes like earthy water, bitter and strong. This is a tea that is not at all watery or overbeating in the flavor. Unfortunately, because this is a tea flavored tea, it is hard to describe in particularly graphic or interesting terms.

English Breakfast has no aftertaste, at least not the Twinings brand of it.

With a teaspoon of sugar, English Breakfast loses the bitterness one expects from a strong, black tea. The tea continues to have no aftertaste, but the primary taste does not get diminished by sugar. Milk overwhelms this tea’s flavor.

Nutrition

The ingredient to this tea is quite simple: Black Tea. There are no other ingredients or flavors, nothing that cannot be pronounced.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea. This tea is rather caffeinated, though and it will wake the drinker up.

Storage/Clean-up

English Breakfast tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea may be disposed of in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

English Breakfast is a rather dark tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Twinings English Breakfast is a very good, very basic black tea that might not be exciting, but is a baseline for what tea should be.

For other Twinings tea reviews, please check out:
Spiced Apple Chai
Green Jasmine
Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger

7.5/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Index Page for a complete list!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Great Aroma, But Not At All Fruity, Twinings Spiced Apple Chai Tea Is Still Good.

The Good: Does not taste bad, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Caffeinated
The Bad: Does not taste at all like apple, A LOT of superfluous papers and strings.
The Basics: Twinings drops the ball on flavor with their Spiced Apple Chai tea, as it does not taste at all like apple.


There are a number of teas that I try that suffer quite a bit because they smell wonderful or exactly like what they are supposed to embody, but they do not taste the same. I am not a huge fan of aromatic teas that do not live up to their promised flavor. Sadly, though, that is where I fall on the Twinings Spiced Apple Chai tea. This tea, unfortunately, is not exceptional on the taste front, though it does smell quite good.

Like many teas, Twinings Spiced Apple Chai Tea smells like what it is supposed to and it is an aromatic tea, but it does not live up on the flavor front.

Basics

Spiced Apple Chai Tea is a black tea from Twinings of London. Black tea is made from mature tea leaves that are dried on the tea plant. Twinings recently released its Spiced Apple Chai tea and it is still finding its way to the marketplace (I know some of my local stores do not yet carry it).

Spiced Apple Chai comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that is independent of the wax paper wrapper. The string attaches to the tea bag through a knot, so there is no chance of metallic taste from a staple with this flavor! A box of Spiced Apple Chai tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper and strings.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, Spiced Apple Chai is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Spiced Apple Chai at about half strength. I tend to make my tea using a 30 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is about 1/2 strength.

To prepare Spiced Apple Chai tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Spiced Apple Chai, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes four to six minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after six minutes, but because it is such a rich tea, most consumers will likely to be happy with it at the four minute mark. Unfortunately, while a second pot with the same tea bags is weaker, the dryness of the tea is accented by reusing the bags.

Taste

Twinings Spiced Apple Chai Tea smells strongly of cinnamon and nutmeg. This is a very spicy tea that has no fruit aroma to the steam. Instead, this smells very much like potpourri.

As for the taste, the predominant flavor is simply dry. This tea is exceptionally dry and it is only after the tongue is overcome with dryness that the rest of the flavor begins to assert itself. This tea tastes primarily like cinnamon. It is only as an aftertaste that the Spiced Apple Chai Tea has even a vaguely apple flavor to it.

Oddly, for a tea that is so dry, the Spiced Apple Chai Tea has no aftertaste, which is nice.

Nutrition

The ingredients in this tea are more complex than most Twinings teas. It is primarily made up of: Black Tea, Natural apple and Chai. There are actual spices, but the flavors of real spices are added before the spices themselves. There is nothing that cannot be pronounced in this tea.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea. This tea is rather caffeinated, though and it will wake the drinker up.

Storage/Clean-up

Spiced Apple Chai tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Spiced Apple Chai is a very dark tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Twinings Premium Spiced Apple Chai Tea is a dry tea that does not actually taste like apple. While it is not unpleasant, it is not at all incredible, like one might hope for from Twinings.

For other Twinings teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Green Jasmine
Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger
Pumpkin Spice Chai

4/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for a complete list!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dry And Bland, Twinings Jasmine Green Tea Isn’t Worth Picking Up

The Good: Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Caffeinated
The Bad: A LOT of superfluous papers and strings, Very dry flavor.
The Basics: A very average tea, Green Jasmine from Twinings is unpleasantly dry.


Green teas are, lately, a tough sell for me. So many of them do not carry a bold flavor that is in any way distinct. Twinings Green Jasmine tea is one of those. In fact, it is pretty bland and exceptionally dry, making it impossible to recommend.

Basics

Jasmine Tea is a green tea from Twinings of London. Green tea is made from young tea leaves that are still moist on the tea plant. Twinings has its Jasmine tea available year round and it is one of the brand's staple teas. Jasmine is what I call an adjective tea; the flavor is its own, the name does not hold it to any standard other than to represent what is generally accepted as that flavor.

Jasmine comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that must be torn out of the paper wrapper and the other end attaches to the tea bag. A box of Jasmine tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper and string.

Ease Of Preparation

As a green tea, Jasmine is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Jasmine with little loss of flavor. The second cup often comes out about as strong as the first (3/4 - 1/2 as strong), provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is - at worst - about 1/2 strength.

To prepare Jasmine tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Jasmine, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes only two to three minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after three minutes and it does not truly need to be stronger than it naturally is.

Taste

The Jasmine tea had almost no aroma. In fact, Jasmine as it steeped and steamed had a light green tea scent only marginally stronger than that of the standard green teabag.

As far as the flavor goes, the Jasmine tea is dry and slightly bitter, tasting only like green tea. The flavor is not distinctive beyond tasting like a strong green tea.

When the Jasmine tea gets cooler, it becomes more bitter and leaves a horrible, dry aftertaste in the mouth.

Nutrition

The ingredient to this tea is quite simple: Green Tea scented with jasmine flowers. There are no other ingredients or flavors, nothing that cannot be pronounced.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea.

Storage/Clean-up

Jasmine tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Jasmine is a rather light tea and as a result, it will stain any very light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly.

Overall

Green Jasmine is a mediocre green tea that is too dry to get excited about or worth buying.

For other Twinings teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger
Pumpkin Spice Chai
Pure Mint Premium Black Tea

4/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my food review index page for a complete list!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Very Dry Tea, Twinings Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger Is A Fair Beverage!

The Good: Tastes fine, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Affordable
The Bad: A LOT of superfluous papers and strings, Could use sugar for best results.
The Basics: A very good, very average tea Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger is interesting, but drier and less flavorful without sugar, making it harder to enthusiastically recommend.


When I started to eat and drink healthier last year, I decided my teas should actually taste like the flavors they claim without sugar. Based on that, some of the teas that have initially good flavors that others might rate higher, I find a bit wanting. Twinings Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger tea is one such tea. Without sugar, this tea tastes like Ginger, but not lemon at all.

Lemon & Ginger is a good tea, but it is not ideally flavored without sugar.

Basics

Lemon & Ginger Tea is an herbal tea from Twinings of London. Twinings Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger tea is available year round and it is one of the brand's newer teas. As an herbal tea, the Lemon & Ginger is naturally caffeine free because there is not actually made of tea leaves.

Lemon & Ginger comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab and the other end attaches to the tea bag without staples. A box of Lemon & Ginger tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper and string.

Ease Of Preparation

As an herbal tea, Lemon & Ginger is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea, though it cannot be reused and make a second cup of Lemon & Ginger without a significant loss of flavor. The second cup often comes out about half or one-third as strong as the first cup, provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well.

To prepare Lemon & Ginger tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Lemon & Ginger, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes only three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes and as a rather strong tea, it does not truly need to be stronger than it naturally is.

Taste

Twinings Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger tea smells delightfully of lemon. This smells like a lemon drops and the sweet, lemony flavor is utterly inviting.

In the mouth, the ginger flavor actually takes point. The dry, herbal flavor completely overwhelms anything remotely fruity in the flavor. This beverage is not at all thirst quenching or delightful for those looking for a fruity tea. The lemon flavor comes out slightly as an aftertaste as the tea cools.

With a teaspoon of sugar, the lemon flavor comes out and this tea becomes very much a flavor that is fruity. The citrus flavor and any of its usual sourness is cut by the sugar. Also, the dry flavor of the ginger is cut as well, making the Lemon & Ginger tea actually thirst-quenching.

Nutrition

The ingredients to this tea are quite simple and are dominated by ginger root, natural lemon & ginger flavours with other natural flavours and lemon grass. There is nothing that cannot be pronounced.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is no caffeine, either.

Storage/Clean-up

Lemon & Ginger tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will not stain a mug and may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Lemon & Ginger is a rather light tea and as a result, it will only stain the lightest fabrics it comes in contact with. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, with no trouble.

Overall

Herbal Revive Lemon & Ginger is a good tea that is not richly of both flavors it advertises without sugar.

For other Twinings teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Pumpkin Spice Chai
Pure Mint Premium Black Tea
Earl Grey

5/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my index page for a complete list!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Disappointingly Weak Red, Twinings African Rooibos Red Tea Smells Good, But Disappoints

The Good: Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Organic
The Bad: VERY weak taste, superfluous papers and strings, no caffeine
The Basics: Twinings flops with its African Rooibos Red tea, which is pretty much just good-smelling water.


Oftentimes, I strive for a level of thoroughness in my reviews of tea that is uncommon in tea reviews. Today, though, I just cannot muster up a lot of enthusiasm to write about Twinings African Rooibos Red tea. So, I’m not even going to try. This is an exceptionally weak tea and it is not worth the time and attention of a serious tea drinker.

Basics

African Rooibos Red Tea is a red tea from Twinings of London. Red tea is not, technically, a tea at all as it is made from rooibos roots, not tea plants. Twinings recently released its African Rooibos Red tea and it is still finding its way to the marketplace (I know some of my local stores do not yet carry it).

African Rooibos Red comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that is independent of the wax paper wrapper. The string attaches to the tea bag through a knot, so there is no chance of metallic taste from a staple with this flavor! A box of African Rooibos Red tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper and strings.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, African Rooibos Red is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and cannot make a second cup that could be credibly called African Rooibos Red. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is about 1/8 strength.

To prepare African Rooibos Red tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For African Rooibos Red, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes, which is a bit of a disappointment.

Taste

Twinings African Rooibos Red Tea smells incredibly good. The aroma of this tea is like wheat and cinnamon. The scent is pleasant and inviting and hints at a fairly strong tea.

Unfortunately, African Rooibos Red is surprisingly bland. While most Rooibos teas I have had taste like cinnamon or nutmeg, this tastes very much like a grain and a weak one at that. The flavor is watery and tastes surprisingly mild. In fact, this is an almost flavorless tea, especially as it cools.

With sugar, the flavor is sublimated even more. Sugar drowns out what flavor the rooibos tea did possess,

Nutrition

The ingredients in this tea are ridiculously simple. It is made up entirely of rooibos. That’s it.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I do not recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is no caffeine, either.

Storage/Clean-up

African Rooibos Red tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself is a very faint red and will only stain the lightest fabrics.

Overall

Twinings Premium African Rooibos Red Tea is a truly disappointing tea that does not hold a candle to . . . well, any other rooibos tea I have ever reviewed!

For other Twinings teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Pumpkin Spice Chai
Pure Mint Premium Black Tea
Earl Grey

2/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my index page for a complete list!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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With Its Inviting Aroma, Twinings Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea Invites Consumers To Deliciousness!

The Good: Wonderful taste, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Caffeinated
The Bad: A LOT of superfluous papers and strings.
The Basics: Twinings has a winner on its hands with Pumpkin Spice Chai, which may be a new favorite autumn tea for anyone!


My wife recently gifted me with several new (to me) flavors of tea and I have, honestly, been enjoying the opportunity to taste all sorts of new teas and review them. Twinings has not always enjoyed the content of my reviews and that is understandable. Compared to Celestial Seasonings, many of the Twinings teas are dominated by the black tea leaves in the tea as opposed to the flavors they attempt to embody. But that is not one of the weaknesses of Twinings Pumpkin Spice Chai tea. This tea lives up!

One of the immediate side notes I must make is this. Twinings Pumpkin Spice Chai tea is exactly what its name states: pumpkin spice. This tea is designed to embody the flavor of pumpkin spices, not pumpkin itself. In that way, the Twinings Pumpkin Spice Chai tea lives up for consumers.

Basics

Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea is a black tea from Twinings of London. Black tea is made from mature tea leaves that are dried on the tea plant. Twinings recently released its Pumpkin Spice Chai tea and it is still finding its way to the marketplace (I know some of my local stores do not yet carry it).

Pumpkin Spice Chai comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that is independent of the wax paper wrapper. The string attaches to the tea bag through a knot, so there is no chance of metallic taste from a staple with this flavor! A box of Pumpkin Spice Chai tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper and strings.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, Pumpkin Spice Chai is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Pumpkin Spice Chai at about half strength. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is about 1/2 strength.

To prepare Pumpkin Spice Chai tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Pumpkin Spice Chai, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes four to six minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after six minutes, but because it is such a rich tea, most consumers will likely to be happy with it at the four minute mark.

Taste

Twinings Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea smells richly of ginger. The aroma is inviting and opens the nose up and gets the mouth watering. The scent of this tea is distinctive for autumn in the Northeast and I found that especially comforting.

Tasting the tea, consumers are likely to be very well pleased. The black tea taste that one might expect from a Twinings tea is almost instantly overrun on the tongue by the dry, full taste of cloves and ginger. The dry spiced flavor is replaced after about three seconds by the flavors of cinnamon and nutmeg. The tea is rich and flavorful and, while hot, has the tastes of the spices far more than a bland, black tea taste.

With sugar, the flavor of the cinnamon comes out faster. As the tea cools, it becomes unfortunately dry. Only as the tea cools do the spiced flavors become sublimated to the basic tea flavor. That only encourages you to drink the tea while it is piping hot!

Nutrition

The ingredients in this tea are more complex than most Twinings teas. It is primarily made up of : Black Tea, Natural Chai and Cinnamon & Ginger Flavours with other natural flavours. There are actual spices, but the flavors of real spices are added before the spices themselves. There is nothing that cannot be pronounced in this tea.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea. This tea is rather caffeinated, though and it will wake the drinker up.

Storage/Clean-up

Pumpkin Spice Chai tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Pumpkin Spice Chai is a medium dark tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Twinings Premium Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea is a flavorful tea that embodies well the promised flavor. This should be a new autumn favorite for anyone who loves tea!

For other Twinings teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Pure Mint Premium Black Tea
Earl Grey
Irish Breakfast

8/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my index page for a complete list!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Mildly Mint, Twinings Unfortunately Creates A Weak Caffeinated Black Tea With Its Pure Mint Premium Black Tea.

The Good: Tastes fine, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Caffeinated
The Bad: A LOT of superfluous papers and strings, Is not dominated by anything remotely minty in the taste department.
The Basics: A very good, but not great tea, Twinings Premium Black Tea Pure Mint scuds my hope of a worthwhile caffeinated mint tea by not being minty enough.


In case you do not keep up on my many tea reviews, I have long been searching for a great mint tea that contains caffeine. While I enjoy teas like Celestial Seasonings Mint Magic (reviewed here!) and Bigelow’s Mint Medley (reviewed here!), I have yet to find a mint tea that I could completely rave about because I love caffeine! So, when my wife ordered some Twinings Premium Pure Mint Black Tea, I had high hopes. Here was a caffeinated mint tea! Finally!

Unfortunately, having tried it now, I am sad to say my search for a great caffeinated mint tea continues.

Basics

Pure Mint Black Tea is a black tea from Twinings of London. Black tea is made from mature tea leaves that are dried on the tea plant. Twinings recently released its Pure Mint tea and it is still finding its way to the marketplace (I know some of my local stores do not yet carry it).

Pure Mint comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that must be torn out of the paper wrapper and the other end attaches to the tea bag via a staple. A box of Pure Mint tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper, string and staples.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, Pure Mint is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Pure Mint at about half strength. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is about 1/2 strength.

To prepare Pure Mint tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Pure Mint, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes only three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes, which was a little bit of a letdown.

Taste

The Twinings Pure Mint Black Tea smells lightly of mint. In fact, the aroma that comes from the Pure Mint tea is not strong enough to open up the nostrils. This is not a distinctive menthol scent, so those who love mint may not be eager for it by its scent alone.

Tasting the tea, consumers are likely to be equally disappointed. The Pure Mint may be a premium mint tea, but it is not overly minty. In fact, when served piping hot, the Pure Mint tea is dominated by the black tea flavor. The mint flavors of peppermint and spearmint – which are present in the bouquet – are sublimated until the aftertaste in this tea.

As the tea cools, the mint flavor actually diminishes some. That surprised me because my experience with mint teas before this one was that menthol flavoring increased as the tea cooled. That was, alas, not the case with this tea. With a little bit of sugar, the peppermint flavor comes out a little better. But, for the most part, this is a solidly tea-flavored tea.

Nutrition

The ingredients in this tea are quite simple: Black Tea, Peppermint Leaves and Spearmint Leaves. There are no other ingredients or flavors, nothing that cannot be pronounced.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea. This tea is rather caffeinated, though and it will wake the drinker up.

Storage/Clean-up

Pure Mint tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag, staple and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel. Like most mint teas, the longer the menthol flavor stays in the mug, the more likely it is to taint the mug with the mint flavor, which is ironic considering how weak the mint flavor is in this tea!

Pure Mint is a rather dark tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Twinings Premium Pure Mint Black Tea is a very average tea with a hint of mint. Those who love their mint will want a more minty tea than this. For those who just want an aftertaste of mint . . . well, there are less expensive options than this one.

For other Twinings teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Earl Grey
Irish Breakfast
Revive Blackcurrant, Ginseng and Tahitian Vanilla

5/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my index page for a complete list!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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My Betrayal Made Public! I Return To The Old Love, Twinings Earl Grey Tea!

The Good: Excellent flavor, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Good aroma, Caffeinated
The Bad: Superfluous papers and strings, Could use sugar for best results.
The Basics: A perfect flavor of tea is just slightly undermined by the extra packaging that might be a standard in the industry, but is annoying. Yummy and tea flavored.


So. Once upon a time, there was a geek. That geek loved, absolutely loved Star Trek: The Next Generation (reviewed here!). Like many geeks, it did not take long before Captain Jean-Luc Picard's regular order of "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." became embedded in memory. Like many young, impressionable geeks, the demands of fandom put that as a recurring beverage order. More often than not, that geek would drink Earl Grey Tea from Bigelow or Twinings of London in its yellow box. But then that geek aged and became more independent of the trends of the television series that the geek adored (and, truthfully, became more of a fan of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). And as an avowed liberal, that geek began to consider where the money spent on such things as tea went afterward and that geek became a lover of Celestial Seasonings and its great tasting teas and its corporate responsibility.

My name is W.L. Swarts and I am a loyal Celestial Seasonings tea drinker and an unabashed geek. It had been four years since my last cup of Twinings Earl Grey tea before I received a box of it as a gift and began brewing it up. This is my confession: despite my love of Celestial Seasonings' teas, I have never managed to get around to trying their incarnation of Earl Grey. And when I tried Twinings again, it sure took me back!

Basics

Earl Grey Tea is a black tea from Twinings of London. Black tea is made from mature tea leaves that are dried on the tea plant. Twinings has its Earl Grey tea available year round and it is - in many ways - the gold standard for that flavor of tea. Earl Grey is what I call and adjective tea; the flavor is its own, the name does not hold it to any standard other than to represent what is generally accepted as that flavor.

Earl Grey comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that must be torn out of the paper wrapper and the other end attaches to the tea bag via a staple. A box of Earl Grey tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper, string and staples.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, Earl Grey is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Earl Grey with little loss of flavor. Indeed, this is one of the best teas for those who like to reuse tea bags. The second cup often comes out about as strong as the first, provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is - at best - about 3/4 strength.

To prepare Earl Grey tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Earl Grey, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes only three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes and as a rather strong tea, it does not truly need to be stronger than it naturally is.

Taste

Herein lays the problem with reviewing Earl Grey tea or any adjective tea that is rather limited in its taste: how does one describe the baseline for a flavor? Twinings Earl Grey tea tastes like Earl Grey tea. It tastes like tea.

Earl Grey tea is a very strong tea, the type that kicks the morning out of bed, whips up the drinker at night and allows for a pretty level drinking experience to those drinking it throughout the day. The most reasonable analogy I can come up with is to compare it to Lipton's rather pathetic version of tea. This Earl Grey is like sucking on five Lipton tea bags in each sip. It is a very concentrated tea flavor and it has a bold flavor without being woody.

The scent is also very strong and unique to the tea, most likely a function of the Bergamot flavoring. Honestly, I don't know what Bergamot smells like, but as I do know what standard teas smell like, it seems reasonable that the forceful, dry scent of Earl Grey is the Bergamot.

Actually, dry is an excellent way to describe the taste of this Earl Grey tea. The Earl Grey flavor is strong and dry with an aroma that smells like tea and warmth. It is worth noting that Earl Grey does not have a spiced flavor to it; there are no components to pick out in the flavoring. This is a tea-flavored tea and it is quite a bit stronger than the standard tea.

Earl Grey has no aftertaste, at least not the Twinings brand of it.

With a teaspoon of sugar, Earl Grey becomes surprisingly sweet, but no less dry in its flavoring. The result is a tea that is easy to drink and tastes quite good, but is very awkward to describe in its flavoring. The truth is, Earl Grey is a flavor of its own and I consider Twinings to be the baseline, though I have not had a better Earl Grey.

Nutrition

The ingredients to this tea, which will explain my inability to describe the flavor, are quite simply: Tea and Bergamot flavouring. There are no other ingredients or flavors, nothing that cannot be pronounced.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea. This tea is rather caffeinated, though and it will wake the drinker up.

Storage/Clean-up

Earl Grey tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag, staple and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Earl Grey is a rather dark tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Well, if it weren't coming from a replicator, one might easily imagine Captain Picard drinking Twinings Earl Grey tea. He is fortunate, though; his tea comes fully prepared without the extraneous papers and strings. All that truly keeps this tea from being a perfect tea (yes, this truly is blasphemy for a Celestial Seasonings junkie) is the annoying extra packaging and waste that comes as a result of it.

Flavorwise, despite my inability to describe this unique flavor articulately, it truly is a perfect flavor. It's easy to see why the heroic Captain Picard would love drinking it. Anyone who likes their tea strong and distinctly tea (not flavored like something else!) will enjoy this. It is a staple tea and a must have for any tea drinker, despite the packaging.

For other tea reviews, please check out:
Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer
Bigelow Sweetheart Cinnamon
Lipton tea

9/10

For other food or drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Tea-Flavored Tea That Works: Twinings Irish Breakfast

The Good: Tastes fine, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Caffeinated
The Bad: A LOT of superfluous papers and strings, Could use sugar for best results.
The Basics: A very good, very average tea which establishes a baseline for what black teas ought to taste like, Twinings Irish Breakfast is worth picking up.


For those who do not follow my regular tea reviews, there are very few brands of tea I enjoy outside of Celestial Seasonings. However, my very first divergence as a reviewer from my preferred brand was for Twinings Earl Grey tea and since starting my own blog, I've moved over my Twinings review for their Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng and Tahitian Vanilla tea (click here to read that review!). To be fair, the Earl Grey is a tea I love and if I felt guilty about it, it would be what others call a "guilty pleasure." As it stands, I've just gotten in a whole load of teas from other brands and because of how much I have enjoyed Twinings Earl Grey in the past, I made the Twinings Irish Breakfast that arrived on my doorstep a culinary priority.

Irish Breakfast is a good tea and as a tea-flavored tea, this might well be the ideal standard tea for black tea flavor (Earl Grey being flavored primarily with Bergamot). The flip side of such a statement is that Irish Breakfast has an almost impossible to describe flavor (black tea tastes like black tea; the taste defines what it is) and leaves one with very little to write about.

Basics

Irish Breakfast Tea is a black tea from Twinings of London. Black tea is made from mature tea leaves that are dried on the tea plant. Twinings has its Irish Breakfast tea available year round and it is one of the brand's staple teas. Irish Breakfast is what I call an adjective tea; the flavor is its own, the name does not hold it to any standard other than to represent what is generally accepted as that flavor. And, truth be told, Twinings Irish Breakfast is my first experience with Irish Breakfast tea and thus has become the standard by which I judge other brands' Irish Breakfast teas (if there are other brands). Twinings also earns this distinction through their claim that they have been making this tea since the early 1700s.

Irish Breakfast comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab that must be torn out of the paper wrapper and the other end attaches to the tea bag via a staple. A box of Irish Breakfast tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. After years of drinking only Celestial Seasonings' tea, this seems remarkably wasteful now to have so much waste as far as paper, string and staples.

Ease Of Preparation

As a black tea, Irish Breakfast is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Irish Breakfast with little loss of flavor. Indeed, this is one of the best teas for those who like to reuse tea bags. The second cup often comes out about as strong as the first (3/4 - 7/8 as strong), provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is - at worst - about 3/4 strength.

To prepare Irish Breakfast tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. For Irish Breakfast, roaring boil is just fine! This tea takes only three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes and as a rather strong tea, it does not truly need to be stronger than it naturally is.

Taste

The first thing that struck me about Irish Breakfast tea was that it had almost no aroma. In fact, Irish Breakfast as it steeped and steamed had a light tea scent only marginally stronger than that of the standard Lipton teabag.

My potential for disappointment was eliminated, however, when I began to drink the tea. Irish Breakfast has a strong tea flavor. The flavor is a bit woody, but it is otherwise a very strong, straightforward tea flavor. Again, this is a tea that helps to define what black tea tastes like, so there is little comparison. But, for those trapped in pedestrian American tea-drinking standards, this is a tea that is about as strong as three Lipton teabags brewed together. The beverage is hot and heady and has an earthy, woody taste to it with a very dry flavor. This is not a thirst-quenching beverage.

Irish Breakfast has no aftertaste, at least not the Twinings brand of it.

With a teaspoon of sugar, Irish Breakfast becomes oddly sour and the dryness of the woody taste is accented. For those looking to sweeten their tea, this is one that requires at least two teaspoons of sugar! As for those who add milk, milk cuts the dryness of this Irish Breakfast tea, but it is thoroughly overwhelmed by the tea flavor. This is a strong tea and milk doesn't touch it's flavor!

Nutrition

The ingredient to this tea is quite simple: Black Tea. There are no other ingredients or flavors, nothing that cannot be pronounced.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how it relates to other beverages remains a mystery; Twinings does not put a scale on their boxes of tea. This tea is rather caffeinated, though and it will wake the drinker up.

Storage/Clean-up

Irish Breakfast tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag, staple and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint brown if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Irish Breakfast is a rather dark tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Twinings Irish Breakfast is a very good, very basic black tea that those who want to enjoy tea would do well to use as a baseline for what tea should taste like.

For other teas reviewed by me, please check out:
Celestial Seasonings Ginger Vanilla Green Chai tea
Yogi Ginger Organic
Lipton basic tea

7/10

For other tea reviews, please visit my index page for a complete list!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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A Flavorful Tea, Twinings Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, And Tahitian Vanilla Is Good.

The Good: Decent aroma, Tastes good
The Bad: Dry aftertaste, Not as invigorating as it promises.
The Basics: A very good herbal tea, Twinings Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla is worth stocking up on, despite the extra tea garbage.


In the world of tea, there are many variables I consider when deciding to recommend a product or not. One of the criteria I have only recently been able to truly expand on in the last few months since I finished the Celestial Seasonings tea line, which is comparing teas I try now to other teas from other companies. To date, I have not tried any other teas quite like Twinings Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea

Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla is a good tea with a complex flavor unlike any other herbal (or black) tea I have ever tried. The fact that the resulting flavor actually tastes good was more than enough for me to recommend the tea, as well as stocking up on it!

Basics

Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla Tea is an herbal tea from Twinings of London. Herbal teas are not, ironically, made using tea leaves and as a result tend to have slightly different properties from traditional teas, though both are brewed drinks and herbal teas tend to be naturally caffeine free. Twinings has Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea available year round and it is part of the new Herbal Revive line, so how long it is available will likely be determined by how long the "herbal" and "organic" fad last.

Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla comes in Twinings' standard tea bags, which are individually plastic sealed, paper wrapped and have a five inch string. A box of Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea comes with 20 individual paper-wrapped tea bags. For the bulk pack of six, the twenty teabag boxes are then cellophaned together.

Ease Of Preparation

As an herbal tea, Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla with a fair loss of flavor. Still, this is a good tea for those who like to reuse tea bags. The second cup often comes out only a little less strong than the first (5/8 - 3/4 as strong), provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is - at worst - about 5/8 strength.

To prepare Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. This tea takes only three to five minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it gets no stronger after five minutes and as a rather strong tea, it does not truly need to be stronger than it naturally is.

Taste

Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea has a powerful and delicious floral and fruity aroma. The tea is blessed with a wonderful mix of fruit and spiced scents that actually result in the tea smelling like a cherry orchard in bloom. The scent is not of cherries, but of fruit blossoms and the way the scent opens up the nose and invites itself in is quite nice.

The taste, however, is somewhat more problematic. The Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea has a strong fruit flavor which is most like cherries (one assumes these are the blackcurrants) and the floral scent reminds one of rosewater when it comes to the taste. However, like many teas, this seems to define the vanilla taste through a strong, dry aftertaste and that is a bit off-putting to the tastebuds.

With a teaspoon of sugar, Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea is less driven by the dry aftertaste and it is a delightful, surprisingly robust beverage for an herbal tea. In fact, I served a pot of this to some friends and most were surprised to learn it was an herbal tea, not a black tea. Sugar definitely makes it more palatable.

Milk does not enhance the flavor of this tea and drinking it cold unfortunately leaves the consumer wanting something more to drink that might actually satisfy their thirst.

Nutrition

The Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea has all-natural ingredients which sound more like a flower garden than a beverage! With ingredients like hibiscus, natural blackcurrant flavour, and orange peel, there is nothing bad in this tea.

In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is also no caffeine, because of the all-natural ingredients. The tea promises to enliven the drinker, but I found it to be less of a wake-up beverage than a decent midday treat.

Storage/Clean-up

Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag, staple and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will stain a mug a faint red if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel.

Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla is a rather dark purple tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.

Overall

Twinings Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng, and Tahitian Vanilla is a very good herbal tea with a robust taste that is unique, though it does not energize the way Twinings claims it might.

For other tea reviews, please check out my takes on:
Yogi Berry Detox Tea
Stash Earl Grey tea
Celestial Seasonings Tropic Of Strawberry tea

6/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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