Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Ringtons
Tea Description:
Naturally easy to drink with a mild, mellow flavour. Very refreshing! From our ‘Speciality Teas’ family of teas. Gas-flushed. 2 x 50 tea bags. 200g/7oz.
Our modern version of green tea. The unfermented tea leaves are processed gently, encouraging the mellow tea flavours to come through to give a smoother flavour with no harshness. Ideal with or without milk!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Being a huge green tea fan, I thought for sure I would not love this tea. To be honest, I thought my tea snob would come out and say No- I will not like you. You are a tea bag. Mind you, I have been drinking tea bags from Paper Box Goodies all week but I still had that feeling.
Yep, my inner snob was shut up right quickly with one sip of this tea. I am surprised how good this is. Clean and refreshing green tea. No fuss. No mess. Just a solid smooth almost sweet green tea with a hint of vegetal going on here and there.
I prepped this tea up using just the water spout on our coffee maker at work and VIOLA! Green tea on the go and in a flash! This tea saved me in a meeting that I thought for sure I was going to fall asleep in. This tea is a great every day kind of tea. One that I could drink all day every day!
Nicely done Ringtons. This is the first tea I’ve had from them and I can say it won’t be the last. Tasty!
Organic Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
As you can imagine, organic tea cultivation is time consuming and requires careful attention. Over the last 10 years we have worked closely with selected organic tea gardens where careful crop husbandry and leaf quality is at the heart of everything they do. Our selected blend delivers a classic smooth flavour with a golden colour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
After having tried several of Rington’s Premium English Teas offerings, I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed a few and there have been a few that I wasn’t too crazy about. And then there are some that I was kind of just ‘meh’ about. That is to say that while I didn’t dislike the tea, it wasn’t something that had me jumping out of my seat with excitement either.
This Organic Tea from Rington’s falls into the latter category. I don’t dislike it, but it’s not got me all giddy with joy either. I’m feeling just sort of ‘meh’ about this tea.
It’s got a rich flavor: earthy and robust. It has notes of leather and fruit. The finish is moderately astringent. Not overly so, but I notice that the dryness from the astringency seems to build as I continue to sip. On the down side, I can also taste the paper from the teabag. Not my favorite flavor profile.
The tea isn’t ‘bad’ or unpleasant. It’s just sort of boring. It tastes like a bag of tea fannings which is essentially what it is. The problem is, I’m not wild about a bag of fannings and generally, when I drink a bagged tea, I’m looking for something that doesn’t taste like a bagged tea. I want something that convinces me to think twice about bagged teas – but this one isn’t doing that. This is the kind of bagged tea that makes me feel like a tea snob because it makes me realize just how inferior a bagged tea can be.
Northumbrian Blend Loose Leaf Black Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Our oldest and most traditional tea for original strength and flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The cut on this Northumbrian Blend Loose Leaf Black Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas is a very fine chop. It’s a very finely cut CTC, so when you’re brewing it, you want to take that into consideration and measure out a little less tea. The smaller the leaf, the more surface area that’s exposed to the water – so therefore it brews faster and stronger than a whole leaf tea would.
But that doesn’t mean that CTC teas aren’t good. Sure, I’ll be the first to tell you that whole leaf teas are some of the best teas you can get, but a finely chopped CTC doesn’t mean that it’s not a good tea. I’ve tried many CTC teas that I’ve quite enjoyed. It just means that you need to be mindful of the size of the leaf when you’re preparing the tea.
So when I brewed this, I measured out a bamboo scoop of the leaf and then I shook the scoop a little to let some of the leaf fall off the scoop and back into the package. I ended up measuring two ‘scant’ bamboo scoops of tea into the basket of my Breville One-Touch. Each ‘scant’ scoop is about 3/4th of a scoop. Maybe just a little more than 3/4th scoop. Then I added 500ml of water into the jug of the tea maker and set the settings for 205°F and 2 minutes. Again, because this is a smaller cut, I went with a slightly lower temperature and a little less time to avoid a bitter cup of tea.
Did it work? Yes it did. The tea is rich and what I want to call ‘stout.’ It’s a hefty, strong tasting tea. It’s not quite as ’round’ as some other teas that I’d call hefty or strong. It’s not quite as full-flavored and well-rounded, but it’s still a mighty bold cup of tea.
It’s got notes of earth and leather as well as some floral background notes. Toward the end I pick up on citrus notes. There is a fair amount of astringency to it but it’s not bitter. I would like to say though that if I had oversteeped this tea – it would definitely be bitter so don’t let that happen!
This tea would take the additions of milk and honey well should you wish to add them. I drank it straight up and found it enjoyable, although the second time that I drank it, I did so with a drop or two of cream and found it a much more enjoyable drink. The touch of dairy (not a lot, a little less than a teaspoon) helped round out the tea and as a bonus, it softened the astringency a bit.
Kenyan Gold Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Kenyan Gold 80’s is a luxury, top quality tea from the “Extra Fresh” family of teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve tried a couple of different teas from Rington’s Premium English Teas now, and I think that this Kenyan Gold Tea might be the best one that I’ve tried thus far.
Yes, it’s a bagged tea. Yes, I know that I’ve been ‘bagging’ on bagged teas a lot lately. I guess after spending the last six plus years tasting teas and writing about what I’m tasting has shaped my opinions about bagged teas because as I’ve said before (and am likely to say again) – loose leaf tea is superior.
But this bagged tea is actually quite pleasant. The flavor of the Kenyan tea is rich and flavorful. It’s nice and smooth. There’s very little astringency to this and no bitterness. Just smooth, rich flavor that is bold and invigorating.
To achieve this flavor, I brought my kettle to a boil and put one bag into my mug and poured 8 ounces of boiling water over the bag. I let this steep for 2 1/2 minutes.
It’s a little sweet with a flavor that is somewhere between molasses and caramel. It has some fruit notes – reminiscent of raisin and plum. Hints of earth. Notes of leather. It has a pleasant, round flavor. Nice.
Earl Grey Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Aromatic light black tea bags. From our ‘Extra Fresh’ family of teas. A premium quality fair traded aromatic blend of black tea, delicately flavoured with natural bergamot flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Earl Grey Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas: another bagged Earl Grey. I decided to go into this experience with an open mind and determined to find the good in this tea. I feel like lately, most of my bagged tea reviews have been ‘bagging’ on the tea bag. I want to try to keep an open mind because I have, in fact, tried decent bagged teas. Sure, loose leaf is better. Loose leaf is the way to go in about 98% of all situations, but there is the occasion when bagged teas are certainly more convenient even if they aren’t more flavorful.
So I steeped the bag in one of my favorite mugs, using 8 ounces of boiling water for 3 minutes. Now that I’m sipping this, I wish I would have gone with 2 1/2 minutes because this is a tad more astringent than I would like it to be and I think that a slightly shorter steep time might help to reduce that.
My first impression: the flavor is a bit off. The bergamot tastes strange to me, it doesn’t have that crisp tangy flavor that I expect from bergamot.
Again, I want to find the good in this tea, so I’m not tossing it yet! The black tea. It’s alright. It has a pleasant flavor. It’s rich and has a light malty note to it. It is astringent, like I’ve already mentioned. It has a dry sensation toward the tail of the sip.
On the good side: although the bergamot isn’t quite what I expected when I tasted this tea, it isn’t ‘bad’ – it’s just a bit sweeter than I expected from bergamot. It tastes like maybe the bergamot has been ‘enhanced’ by another orange flavor to soften the edge of the bergamot. The black tea has a pleasant flavor. And this tea does taste better as it cools – this would make a really nice iced tea.
I suspect that this might be alright to someone who hasn’t tasted better Earl Grey teas. That is to say, if all they’ve been drinking is other brands of bagged Earl Grey teas, they might find this one to be just as acceptable as some other bagged Earl Grey teas, perhaps even better than others. It’s certainly not the worst Earl Grey I’ve ever tried, but it’s not the best either. But if you’ve tried a really good, loose leaf Earl Grey tea, you’ll more than likely find this one lacking, I’m sorry to say.