Funny story, I drink this tea almost every day and have done so for about 7 years now. It’s odd to review it for a couple reasons: first, it’s not the most glamorous tea to start off with and second, it almost feels like judging an old friend. Nevertheless, I imagine my familiarity with this tea makes it a perfect candidate for my first review.
Preparation:
195 degree water
1 tsp sugar
1 dash of milk
3ish minutes steeping
For all of my time drinking this tea, you’d think I’d treat it a little more nicely than I do. However, one of my favorite things about PG is that it’s hard to over steep. This of course is a virtue of it’s being a bag tea without those fabulous little tea LEAVES to burn. I usually add my tea bag and sugar to the steeping receptacle and then water and let it steep while I’m getting ready to leave for work in the morning. On the weekends, I’ll leave the tea bag in the cup. A note: this tea CAN be oversteeped and it will taste like a mouthful of liquid brass.
I like PG because it has FLAVOR and BODY. I imagine this is because it’s an English Breakfast tea that English people actually drink. The American interpretations of this staple often end up tasting like crappy, tarry unsweetened sweet tea. It’s great with and without milk and is even good cold. You can definitely tell that the blend has a fair amount of assam given the red wine-like flavor and it’s reddish liquor. It’s very smooth and not overly sweet. It leaves a nice tannin-y after flavor, which of course, is not for everyone.
It’s expertly blended. In my times as a tea hawker, I tried to find a loose black tea that could replace my dirty little tea bag secret to no avail. The keemun was too weird, the assam too sweet, the darjeeling delightful, but not the same.
In all, I love PG Tips. There’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular teas in Britain. It’s reasonably priced, easy to make, and more flavorful than most bag teas. It’s obviously not the finest or highest grade tea, but for everyday consumption, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather drink.
