PG Tips

Currently drinking a cup of PG Tips made with the silly pyramid bags. Its quite terrible.

a proper cuppa tea

wonderfully strong and invigorating. took me by surprise the first time i had it, but now it’s a great mid-afternoon pick-me-up

Fabulous tea; hands down one of my favorites but prefer it loose.

This is by far my favorite tea.

Great for a quick cuppa whilst your doing work or just relaxing round the house.

I have this every morning at work, with honey and lots of 1%.
Gotta love the pyramid tea bag.

This tea has become part of my daily regimen.

Soooo much better than Ty.phoo.

I haven’t been too on the ball. But know that I drink at least 2 cups of PG Tips daily.

Drink this every morning. Sometimes twice.

Something about a strong english tea while reading about the undead in the middle of the night… I do enjoy it so…

warms my soul.

Nothing like a hot cup of tea in the middle of the day while drawing…

Most mornings, I make a big pot of tea and split it with the husband. But our tea tastes differ on a few big points, the biggest being smoky teas. Recently, we picked up a few bagged teas for him to have on the days I want something smoky – I don’t have to ignore my lovely lapsangs and he doesn’t get tortured by them, so it’s a win/win. I decided that I wanted to sample and compare two of his teas – the PG Tips and the Yorkshire Gold – because really, why not? So that’s what I did this morning. The brewing parameters were identical – one teabag, 6 oz, 4 minutes in a preheated cup, first taken plain then with a bit of sugar and half & half. Of course, this will result in two tasting notes so pardon the repetition.

First up, PG Tips. Out of curiosity, I weighed the bag. 3.2g. ROT, are you paying attention? Popped it in the cup, brewed it up. It’s a lot darker than the YG – I can’t see the bottom of the cup at all and it looks a tad cloudy. The smell is nutty, starchy and a bit flat – very similar to YG’s but a little earthier. Without additives it tasted pretty much liked it smelled. Solidly chewy, a little nutty and fairly flat. It had a bitter aftertaste that made my mouth feel sticky but I was pretty much expecting it to given the fact that it is a bagged tea and I brewed it for so long. Adding sugar and half & half made it taste a bit cardboard-y – not in a bag way but not exactly the cleanest cardboard either. Still ends up fairly flat and one-dimensional but that can be tempered a bit by adding excessive sugar, artificially creating a rounder flavor with the added sweet note.

Ultimately, not really an impressive tea but that’s not surprising. The main points this tea has going for it are caffeine content and a nice weighty body which means it’ll do the job as a morning tea and, as long as enough sugar and half & half has been added, won’t be horrid. Though part of me feels bad that I’ve been making the husband drink this.

Tried this with milk this morning and it really does taste better with it. Not a good tea to drink black which is what I am usually used to.

Very strong blend.

First morning in Italy, I woke up to this. Very nice, but simple black bend. Composed of Assam, Ceylon, and Kenyan (similar to Twining’s English Breakfast, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vpqffdeetI), this tea has a distinct flowery, toffee flavor. My guest this morning was going to brew the pyramid bags, but then was slightly concerned that I, as the host of Tea Time Tuesday, would be slightly offended, so he brewed loose tea, contrary to the picture here. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s important to note that this is essentially Britain’s version of Lipton, but not quite the lowest quality of standard orange pekoe.

Preparation: 5 minutes at 205 F.
Rating: 87% (4 1/3rd of 5 tea leaves)

Bog-standard daily beverage – add milk & inhale in one breath.

Pretty horrible, but all we have in the office…

Shake the teabag at each corner, to inflate the pyramid. Pour the water as soon as it’s boiled. Give it about 30 seconds. Take the teabag out. Add some milk straight from the fridge.