TB14: Scottish Breakfast Blend

Oh how I love this tea. I ordered a big tin from Upton, and it arrived today (along with samples of various black teas – I’m trying to educate myself as to individual varieties!) This tea has a richness that I haven’t found in a lot of breakfast blends – many are too smooth for me, a former coffee drinker who wants some bite to her tea. There is malt and perhaps a touch of smoke (but just a touch.) Milk and sugar go well with this tea, but they don’t smooth it out too much – I don’t want to feel like I’m drinking milk! One caution with this tea – don’t steep it longer than 3 minutes. It does get bitter. But at 3 minutes it is perfect for me. Bumping my rating to my highest – when I was out I missed this tea every morning, and now I hope to not be parted again!

Oh, I am liking this.

Never had a Scottish Blend before, but I love the idea of Yunnan added to Ceylon and Assam. I have a tendency to think Yunnan always means Dian Hong. Of course, this is probably just the generic Yunnan black (not sure if it has a specific name) which is used in lots of breakfast blends-which is fine, because I like it a lot. Anyhow, it’s a nice touch.

Dry leaves are small-assuming a ctc. Very dark brown with some golden tips. Dry aroma is a pleasant, general black tea aroma-sorry. Liquor is mahogany. Brisk and robust. Full-bodied, not bitter.This is better than the Irish Breakfast teas I have been trying lately. This would be a good first thing in the morning tea.

Another sample of black tea from Upton {I got 14}. This is an incredibly strong and robust brew perfectly suited as an eye-opener. I can see this getting incredibly dark and gnarly if you let it steep past 3 minutes. I can imagine this as the espresso of the tea world. I brewed 2 steeps before I decided that this would make a nice iced tea. So today after the Bohea I am enjoying the rest of this and it turned out nice even after 2 steeps it remained strong and assertive.

Screw Folgers, this is what I like to have in my cup before going out into the unpleasant outside world of traffic and other people.

I like strong, caffeinated, dark teas that are complimented rather than weakened by the addition of milk. Upton’s Scottish blend has these qualities and then some. It’s strong, but not astringent, and dark without being bitter. Caffeine is a wondrous chemical, and this wakes me up like coffee without any meltdown a few hours later.

I’ve never had a blend like this, and I want more like it. It’s gotta be the Yunnan that adds a slight Chinese delicateness and keeps the Ceylon and Assam in check. To me, it’s the perfect reward for getting out of bed.

Scottish Breakfast

Leaves: they have a distinctive fairly strong scent… that i just cant seem to identify… it just smells like something you’d imagine drinking in the morning… the leaves are pretty small while some look rolled others do not, not sure if this is intended?

Liquor: the color is dark, and it steeps very very fast… ive often overbrewed this tea… i use times dramatically short of the 3-5m prescribed times for blacks….that being said if you get it just right its very nice and worthy of everyday drinking, has that smooth(malty???) feel and if you dont overbrew it has a slight tinged taste to it? like a metallicness? or a rawness? not a bad thing just strange

overall i do like this tea(when i dont over brew it :rage:)… but i would like to try some more teas before settling( irishbreakfast teas are my staple tea )

Got this as a sample from Upton Tea Imports. Made for a nice stiff cup of tea in the morning. Just what I was looking for. Managed to get a second steeping. Very fine with a little cream and honey. Now I just have to rustle up a good scone to go with it the next time. And yes, I will definitely be ordering this from them again.

I was delighted to share this with my grandmother today. She is a very picky British (has never actually lived in England) woman who is particular about which teas she likes. She almost always drinks straight black teas. She read something about teabags containing harmful micro plastics and now she doesn’t want to drink any tea bags. The problem is that she is not computer savvy and doesn’t like to buy anything online, but is trying not to be in stores right now.

I can say this blend has passed the “picky grandmother” test! She liked it so much she actually let me give her the rest of my sample pouch (I believe this is from a previous TTB). Norm,ally she will not let me leave until I agree to take every bit of food I brought with me + all of the leftovers and a bunch of things from her pantry that she thinks I will like. xD She expresses love be feeding us. Anyway, she seems happy to be able to drink this for a while since she has been a bit limited in her black tea options. I don’t drink a lot of breakfast teas, but it fills me with love that I could share this one with her.

We steeped it quite strong (2 tsp for ~8 minutes, boiling water, ~400 mL teapot) and it was a bit too strong for me plain so I added some soy milk (she took hers with milk, as usual). It is strong/lots of tannin (steeps a deep orange colour), rich, thick. Delicious. If you like strong teas, this one is a good choice for you.

My notion of Scottish breakfast tea (highly influenced by period dramas and literature) is that it should be dark and strong enough to clean a corroded car battery.

Thank you, Upton friends, for helping me adjust that notion somewhat. This Assam-Ceylon-Yunnan blend is definitely a breakfast tea, but it does a nicely choreographed step dance that touches evenly on malty, sharp, and smooth. The leaves second-steeped nicely and tasted a little “sunnier and fresh hay-ier.” Too tasty to mess up with milk.

Oh snap, first tea review in a year! I took a long tea buying break to try and drink down my supply, and a year later my cabinet is still overflowing with tea…a good problem to have I guess.
I got this and a bunch of English/Scottish/Irish breakfast style teas for iced tea during the hot days of late Summer (if you read my old reviews, I turned into an iced tea fiend the past couple of years). This is the first one I’m trying of the batch. It’s a winner. Brews up strong nice and quick. Smooth for it’s strength. Tastes nice and malty to me, which I expected. Kind of gives my mouth a drying sensation on the tail end. I’d definitely buy it again, if there isn’t anything similar selling for way cheaper.

I enjoyed this breakfast blend. There is a smokiness from the yunnan that threatens to overtake it at times but in the end feels well balanced by the other teas in the blend. It is definitely a tea you want to make sure you don’t oversteep.