English Breakfast

This is a decent enough tea to me. It’s smooth and has a pleasant flavor, but it was a bit astringent at the end. I steeped for 4 mins. I’ll definitely give it another try, with less steeping time.

I tried this from their tin canisters and not their tea pyramids (makes sense, since we only carry loose leaf teas :p), and I found the taste a bit strong. I actually did want to try this tea with milk for the first time ever (for any type of tea), but we were all out, so I drank it straight.

This was my morning tea sample. Its a nice deep dark color and smells earthy. must say I don’t care for this cup of tea. The bitterness and astringency is very off putting. I wish I could add a splash of milk but apparently my cereal eaters drank all the milk. I handed it off to the Coffee Drinker who said he enjoyed it until the last few sips and it was even too astringent for his palate.

Grabbed a bag of this from a TTB. This blend was a little harsh and unremarkable. Fine with milk and sugar, but I wouldn’t choose it again. Their packaging is unnecessarily bulky so I was happy to get this one out of my stash.

My sister got me a Tea Forte sampler box for Christmas and this is the first tea out of it I’ve tried so far.

This tea is just okay. Possibly I was spoiled with my good black tea over the holiday but this one is just not as good and is making me wish I was drinking something else. There’s something almost grapey to it that I don’t like. I’m not a fan of Darjeelings after all. I will not be resteeping it.

Mild, pleasant English breakfast tea. Good with milk.

Hoo boy, does this steep up dark and opaque. I received this in a Tea Forte “single steeps” sampler set. Maybe my sample was a little stale? This is not a very strong tea. There’s not a lot of nuance here. It’s a pretty average assam.

I added some milk and a pinch of sugar to the second half of my cup. It brings out a slight caramel flavor, but this really still doesn’t taste like much. I normally steep my black teas at a slightly lower temperature to avoid astringency, but this probably needs to be prepared with water near a full boil.

Old tasting note from my phone

Steeped 1 minute, 450 mL water, 80 deg C

A very interesting black tea blend. Flavourful at first, slight sweetness in the aftertaste that reminds me of licorice root and honey. The tea is medium bodied, flavour of ground oats (but not toasted grain/buck wheat). Quite interesting!

Staying at a hotel for a few days and they have these cool looking Tea Forte tea bags in the club room. This is a strong and malty black with a pretty generic Assam taste, maybe a little bit of Yunnan in it. It’s not bad, one of the better English Breakfast teabags that I’ve had. That said it seems that packaging is their “forte,” not the tea.

Doesn’t seem to stand up very well to a second brew. So bland. :(