Ringtons English Breakfast Tea Review
The best thing about waking up early is having the time to cook up a decent breakfast and brew a nice tea to go with it. On this cold and rainy day, I’m trying Ringtons English Breakfast tea to find out if it’s worthy of being my morning wake-up tea.
I’m going to talk a lot about biscuits in this article – for me, you just can’t have English Breakfast tea without them. The Brits reading this article will know what I mean. For you Americans, I’m talking about cookies.
In this full review, you can find a description of the tea flavours, the best way to brew it, a little info about the company, and finally a place you can buy it for yourself.
Ringtons English Breakfast Black Tea at a Glance
Izzy's Rating
3.1/5
- Origin: Black tea from Kenya and the Assam region of India
- Flavour: Smooth, rich and bold black tea. Sublime with a dash of milk and biscuits
This is a wonderful everyday tea that packs a lot of flavour for a teabag. It’s bold, rich and warming – the perfect kind of tea to drink with milk. I have added it to my Best English Breakfast Guide.
Full Review – Ringtons English Breakfast Tea
Izzy's Rating
3.1/5
- Type: Tagged paper filter teabag
- Tea: Black tea
- Origin: Kenya and Assam India
- Flavour Notes: Smooth, rich, bold, yet plain
- Aroma: Bold, tannins, smooth, sweet biscuits
- Milk or Lemon: Milk, definitely
- Where to Buy: Amazon
Carefully opening the paper wrapper (not foil), this tea is exactly what you’d expect. It smells like a plain black tea – nothing exciting, but with plenty of promise of brewing into a satisfying cuppa.
And it does.
It brews into a very dark red tea that’s almost black in my cup, until I add a much-needed splash of milk to lift it.
The tea has rich and bold notes with a hint of biscuity sweetness to it. Thankfully, the flavour matches. It’s bold, smooth, and has that classic English Breakfast maltiness from the Assam leaves. It’s the perfect cup of tea for washing down a full English, bacon sandwich, or hobnob.
It’s a very nice everyday kind of tea, but you’ll want to pull out something different for special occasions.
How to Brew Ringtons Black Tea
Ringtons English Breakfast tea comes with instructions to brew for 3 to 5 minutes with water that’s just off the boil. By the time it’s poured from the kettle to your cup, it’s usually around 95° so you don’t need to worry about getting precise with thermometers to brew this one.
I add my milk after, but I don’t hold grudges against those that add it before.
I found a nice biscuity sweetness to this tea naturally, but you could add sugar if you like something a little extra.
Why Ringtons Tea Bags?
If you were looking for a quintessentially British tea brand, you’ve just found it. Ringtons was founded in 1907 by the Rington family in Newcastle. Beginning with deliveries, by the 1950s they had their own teabag line and nowadays they have a whole line of up food and beverage items.
I found these particular English Breakfast tea bags in a hotel in Newcastle. It’s always nice to find locally made tea when you travel!
Unfortunately, Ringtons win the award for the most finely chopped tea I’ve EVER seen. It’s almost like a powder. On the plus side, you get 2.5g of tea per teabag, which is higher than most. Usually you expect anywhere from 1g to 2g.
Ringtons English Breakfast tea is 100% Fairtrade certified and despite the finely chopped leaves, it’s really nice to drink such a tasty tea from a family-run, British business.
Summary
The tea connoisseur will probably skip this tea. I cannot lie and say that it’s more complex and premium than it really is.
However, this is still a brilliant tea. If you absolutely must have your everyday cup of black tea with breakfast, then this is the tea for you. Check it out on Amazon (it’s available both in the USA and UK there) or find it on Ringtons’ official website.
Tea Recommendation
What’s the complete opposite of a breakfast tea? It has to be a soothing bedtime tea. To round off your day, read my review of Novus Citrus Chamomile. You will love sipping this caffeine-free tea in the evenings.