Customer Reviews

Twinings Irish Breakfast Tea, Loose Tea, 3.53 -Ounce Tins (Pack of 6)

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Twinings was founded in London, England in 1706, and has a long and respected tradition of producing only the finest of teas. Irish Breakfast tea is a mixture of Ceylon and Assam (black) teas, well-known for its strong, malty taste.

OK, let's get down to brass tacks - Irish Breakfast tea is not for everyone. There's an old Irish saying that says that a proper cup of tea should be "strong enough for a mouse to trot on," and this tea is certainly within striking distance of that target! But, if you add milk and sugar to this fine tea, you will be rewarded with a smooth and full-flavored drink.

Irish Breakfast tea is in a class by itself among the teas I have drunk, in that it comes closest to being like coffee - that is having a strong taste that gets you up and going in the morning. Not all teas will stand up to a proper breakfast, but this one will. Overall, I have found this to be a wonderfully interesting tea, strong and robust.

And that's my review. If you want a tea that will round out your hearty breakfast, then Irish Breakfast tea is for you. If you want tea from a great tea producer, them Twinings is for you. I highly recommend this hearty tea!

Twinings loose leaf teas are a brand you can find in most good grocery stores and are a good tea, probably the best of the major tea companies. This is a strong fullbodied tea but a little more mild than most Irish teas. Some may like that. Its very drinkable, with or without milk or sugar. All Twinings loose leaf teas are actually coarsely ground rather than full leafs. The tea will brew quicker but bits of leaf particles can get into your cup. I use a tea strainer and still some small amount will go into the cup. There isnt a lot but something to be aware of.

It comes in an attractive green-and-gold tin cannister, as the picture shows. Very attractive but something that is not really needed if you have, or can buy, your own tea container. The tea is sealed with tin foil to keep freshness and brewing instructions are printed in several languages on the tin foil. It can be difficult to read the instruction if you need to do that. THe packaging makes a nice presentation for gift-giving.

I recently bought a package of Davidson's Organic Irish Tea, also from Amazon. I like it better. Cheaper, full leafs, fuller richer and a bit stronger taste. But Twinings Irish Tea can be good also. Its a decent tea and one of the most famous names in tea companies.

Wonderful bold flavor. This is a morning wake up tea or an alternative to coffee after a large meal or with guests. Slightly malty flavor will stand up to being enjoyed straight or with a little sweetener.

Test your amounts. You will be surprised at how little makes a full strong pot. As the saying goes, strong enough for the church mouse to walk over. Overbrewing is not an issue, so it can make a rather good iced tea (hot, let cool to room temp, decant, refrigerate), but you can make it a bit too strong with too much tea.

Side note; this is a cut & tear leaf tea, meaning a coffee grounds like texture. You will need a mesh filter like the bodum press pot, which is great for tea. You -can- use a standard filter coffee maker. Clean the 'roof' by the water outlet and the filter cup throughly, removing all the coffee oils. Something to do regularly anyway. Then put a measure of this tea in a paper or mesh filter per normal. You'll need to adjust amounts for taste. Enjoy!

I recently gave up coffee & made the switch to teas. Lipton & other grocery blends were bitter or weak. I purchased the loose tea leaves from Amazon at a good price & quick shipping. English friends suggested PJ Tips (?) tea which we found & ordered from another online site. Twinning's blows it away. Both the Earl Grey & Irish Blend are great both on the pallet & to the nose.

Irish Breakfast is a traditional black tea blend known for its assertiveness and malty flavor. It's a wonderful tea - i prefer it with a touch of milk, but it's not overpowering when drunk black. The Twinnings loose leaf is FAR superior to the bags. Those are made with "tea dust" and end up bitter and unbalanced. Do yourself a favor and always order the loose variety of Twinnings teas. There's an amazing difference. Great deal on amazon - i can't find the Irish Breakfast in my town and other Twinnings varities average about $6 retail. At around $3.50/tin, you get a great tea at a good price.

Twinging is a quality tea and the Irish Breakfast is one of my favorites (Twining English Breakfast is also really good). A good tea ball/infuser with a really fine mesh or paper T-sacs will take care of the tea leaves. Boiling water with 1 tsp tea per cup is all it takes for a totally satisfying tea. Enjoy!

great fragrance and flavor - more than English Breakfast. Can't beat the price either.

This is my favorite black tea. Personal taste in food and beverage is so subjective that it is hard to recommend it to everyone but I believe this tea is the ultimate in full-bodied flavor. I like the loose tea because I can make it stronger or weaker as needed. I also use the teabags when I don't have time to make a pot and they are good also but there is just something special about making a pot of tea the old-fashioned way. They recommend using 1 tsp of tea per person and 1 tsp for the pot. This comes out a bit weak for my taste so I use a rounded teaspoon per person and 1 for the pot and let it diffuse for five minutes and it is perfect for my taste. I always preheat the teakettle and mugs with a little hot water.

Did you know that the Irish - *not* the English - are per capita the world's highest consumers of tea? No wonder, then, that there is a breakfast blend named for them; although Irish Breakfast is actually strong enough to be a great pick-me-up throughout the day. Traditionally, it consists primarily of teas from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the state of Assam in northeastern India. Irish Breakfast has an intricately full-bodied, malty, floral aroma and goes particularly well with milk (or cream, but real milk is preferable). Enjoy!

This is a very good, high quality mainstream Irish Breakfast Tea, something that will kick you in the butt to get you out of bed. It's been described here as like "stout," or "Coffee" and even "strong enough for a mouse to trot upon. I just describe it as kick your butt strong, and one heck of an astringent flavor.

Amazon did so many things right when they offered this tea: loose tea instead of bagged, which in my opinion, is the easiest way to prepare your tea and make it go from average to delicious. It's a simple matter to take a teaspoon of tea and let it swim in the boiling water in your teapot. All the good stuff in the tea leaves comes out and you're drinking tea the way it has been drunk for thousands of years. If all you've ever had was tea in a tea bag, you're in for a treat.

Back to to the tea: I always found that Irish Breakfast was harsh and astringent, and not at all pleasant. I always drink my tea black, and never thought to drink tea any other way. You can't do with with Irish Breakfast Tea. When drunk black, it's very unpleasant. However, when cream is added, the tea undergoes a metamorphosis. Besides the obvious color change and dairy tastes, the tea itself seems to change. The harshness I detected when I drank the tea straight had disappeared, replaced by a rich, deep tea taste with a strength that gets you out the door in the morning with a smile on your face.

Okay, you say. Then what the heck do you mean by the title to this review? It's because Twining's is selling their loose tea in far too large a quantity. Six tins could last a family a year, and that's much too long to have tea kicking around. Black tea is meant to be drunk right away, not stored in a kitchen cabinet for months on end, perhaps being opened, and certainly being exposed to heat and air. The tea tins they sell are great for preserving a small quantity for the time it takes to drink the tea. But tea kept for many months becomes stale and flavorless.

If you do purchase this package of tea, keep two tins for yourself and give the other four to friends, making sure that they know this tea is meant to be prepared with cream and sugar. The sugar might be optional, but the cream [milk] certainly isn't.