What is a Breakfast Tea?
There is more to it than just a tea for a hearty breakfast. Breakfast teas are a blend of black teas from different countries. The most common blends are English, Irish and Scottish. Keemun from China was highly prized as the English’s favorite black tea, but it became rare and expensive during trade disagreements. To make Keemun last longer the British blended it with more common teas, hence English Breakfast.
- English Breakfast is by far the most common. It is the lightest of the major three. most of the blend is Ceylon for Sri Lanka. This happens to be the place where Sir Lipton got most his tea. Other regional teas in the blend include Keemun and Assam.
- Irish Breakfast is a stronger blend with the majority of tea coming from Assam (India). Assam black teas are the boldest teas in Asia. The timing of higher Indian export of Assam Tea and the rise of tea interest in Ireland led to a favoring of Assam in the Irish blend. Other regional teas in this blend include Ceylon and Keemun.
- Scottish Breakfast tea is bolder than Irish with it’s combination of Kenyan Teas and Assam Tea. It is said that Scottish Breakfast is the strongest of them all because of the soft water in Scotland lead to lighter infusions.
- A lesser known breakfast tea is Queen Catherine. Queen Catherine was married to King Charles II in 1662. She popularized breakfast tea and her blend is lighter than English Breakfast since it is a blend of Chinese Black Teas including Keemun.
So there is your five minute explanation of what breakfast teas are and what makes them different.
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