As a proud Yorkshireman,
is best tea.
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Orange Pekoe or Bust!
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King Cole tea, in a big jar of water, sitting all afternoon in the sun.
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Do they grow it on the slopes of the Pennines?
My grandfather used to say that you had to be able float an axe in it.
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I too have Opinions on tea.
But I wonât bore you with that. The point I want to make is that in the UK there used to be regulations (link is to a PDF), on the pack sizes that a whole load of goods could be sold in, for consumer protection. They got rid of them a few years ago, and of course shit like this started happening.
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*Sigh*
Weâve all been there. Possibly the only reason Iâve ever paid real non-Monopoly money for Vitamin Water.
Flagged as inappropriate.
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Tea Source in St. Paul, MN: http://www.teasource.com/
Teavana is a terrible place to buy tea: overpriced and not very good. Tea Source ships to me free, and the quality is consistently excellent. Shilling for them because theyâre uniquely good whereas Teavana is just ripping off Americans who donât know tea.
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If I could like your post 100 times more I would. I pay through the nose here in Toronto for my favourite. I discovered Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire when I lived in the UK. I drink normal for everyday, Gold blend when Iâm feeling posh.
I am a tea fanatic, but I love most just plain old builderâs tea. A strong cuppa with lots of milk and sugar. MMMMmmmm⌠makes everything right.
And in the evening Taylors Decaff is not too bad when you want that mmm⌠builderâs tea feeling without the caffeine.
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My household uses Upton religiously. But I think you are being too hard on the blenders. A 1:3 blend of Ceylon and Assam will not taste like straight Assam.
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Orange Pekoe is, if I am not mistaken, simply a grade of tea rather than a specific variety in itself. My experience in the US is that things sold as being OP are a sort of mongrel brew of random black teas. But they are often fairly good. As a consequence though, it seems easy for one companies orange pekoe offering to be quite dissimilar to anotherâs. Or even perhaps offerings from the same company over time.
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Get summat proper down yer, lad.
@slinkywitch I had to get it shipped over when I lived in Germany or I would have died. Now I have to send it to my brother in law, because he canât go back to the piss-water they call tea over there now that heâs had a sniff of the special stuff⌠I stick to the red stuff though. I tried the green since London has the hardest water in the known universe but I didnât rate it - although Iâve always lived in hard water areas barring a few years in Wales so that may be why. I donât think Iâve ever tried the gold - thought it looked like itâs for those as have more brass than sense, as they sayâŚ
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I agree that the taste and body will differ. If I seem unfair to the blenders I do this because they are not all going to blend the same things. So we get English Breakfast = Keemun + âsomething elseâ, Irish = Assam + âsomething elseâ, Earl Grey = Bergamot + âsome sort of black teasâ. Many popular blends seem to focus upon one key ingredient, with far more variance in what may comprise the remaining portion. I donât mean this to imply that the blend is insignificant, it can certainly help or hinder the experience.
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Far Too Good for Ordinary People = Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe.The more letters, the better, assuming you like this style.
You may have seen this rather poor quality image before.
I happen to also like Lapsang Souchung, which uses an entirely different grade of leaf which is then smoked. Iâve not tried Congou or Bohea though.
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My favorite is Ahmad Tea English #1. Similar to English Breakfast, but with a hint of bergamot â good if you donât like being hit over the head by a typical Earl Grey.
I recently replaced my traditional tea caddy (which I got shortly before they announced the end of the token scheme) with a Gruffalo one they released last summer - the âYorkshire Treeâ campaign. It confuses my son a fair bitâŚ
King Cole is a staple in the Maritime provinces.
I watched a documentary following Kevin Gascoyneâs during one of his tea-buying trips. I was impressed. His shop, Camelia Sinensis in Montreal has an impressive choice of some of the top and difficult-to-get teas. They ship to the US too.
Earl Grey, and all itâs variants, is a blight on humanity. The trees from which it comes should be strangled at birth.
That is all.
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Mmm. Tea. I used to get fancy with my tea buying (aka needlessly expensive) but these days I buy in bulkish resealable bags from the annoying orange site that starts with an A. Still have to shop around and be really specific about what I want to find but Iâm running about $15/pound (~450 grams) for decent gunpowder tea.
(I donât know if youâre really supposed to with gunpowder tea but Iâll brew up to three times with the same tea. I donât keep the tea leaves past a day in any case. Iâve yet to use up an entire bag since I alternate between that and linden leaf ⌠and also drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day.)
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Wow I mention Yorkshire and all the commonwealth aficionados add their part (it is good tea.).
I forgot to mention that I really like pu-erh tea, both for flavor and fascinating historical context.
For my favorite tea texts, I recommend George Orwell on tea and Kakuzo Okakuraâs 1906 âThe Book of Teaâ.
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