English breakfast tea or simply breakfast tea is a traditional blend of black teas originating from Assam, Ceylon and Kenya. [1] It is one of the most popular blended teas, common in indigenous British and Irish tea culture, which developed among native populations since their exposure to Asian tea culture.
English breakfast tea is a black tea blend usually described as full-bodied, robust, rich and blended to go well with milk and sugar, in a style traditionally associated with a hearty English breakfast.
The black teas included in the blend vary, with Assam, Ceylon and Kenyan teas predominating, and Keemun sometimes included in more expensive blends.
Accounts of its origins vary. Drinking a blend of black teas for breakfast is a longstanding British and Irish custom. The term breakfast tea has been applied by vendors since at least the late 18th century. [2] [3]
The current naming practice is claimed to have originated not in England but America, as far back as Colonial times. [4] An additional account (referencing a period-era Journal of Commerce article) dates the blend to 1843 and a tea merchant named Richard Davies in New York City. Davies, an English immigrant, started with a base of Congou and added a bit of Pekoe and Pouchong. It sold for 50 cents per pound (0.45 kg) (equivalent to $16.35 per pound in 2023), and its success led to imitators, helping to popularize the name. [5] An investigation to find the original Journal of Commerce article failed to locate it but did come upon an earlier reference to the same story in an 1876 edition of the Daily Alta California, citing "a New York commercial journal" and dating the tea's origin to 1844. [6] [7] In an 1884 American publication it was noted that "Bohea teas (are) known to trade in this country as "English Breakfast" tea, from its forming the staple shipment to England". [8] [6]
In the UK, the popularisation of breakfast tea has been attributed in part to Queen Victoria. [9] At her Scottish residence Balmoral in 1892 she tasted and enjoyed a blend so named, and returned to London with a supply. Despite its Scottish origin, the generic blend subsequently acquired the prefix "English". [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northern Myanmar. Tea is also made, but rarely, from the leaves of Camellia taliensis. After plain water, tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world. There are many different types of tea; some have a cooling, slightly bitter, and astringent flavour, while others have profiles that include sweet, nutty, floral, or grassy notes. Tea has a stimulating effect in humans, primarily due to its caffeine content.
Tea blending is the act of blending different teas to produce a final product that differs in flavor from the original tea used. This occurs chiefly with black tea, which is blended to make most tea bags, but it can also occur with such teas as Pu-erh, where leaves are blended from different regions before being compressed. The most prominent type of tea blending is commercial tea blending, which is used to ensure consistency of a batch on a mass scale so that any variations between different batches and seasons of tea production do not affect the final product. Commercially, it is considered important that any batch of a particular blend must taste the same as the previous batch, so a consumer will not be able to detect a difference in flavor from one purchase to the next.
Irish breakfast tea is a blend of several black teas, most often a combination of Assam teas and Ceylon teas. Irish tea brands, notably Barry's, Bewley's, Lyons and Robert Roberts in the Republic and Nambarrie's and Thompson's Punjana in Northern Ireland are heavily weighted towards Assam. It is one of the most popular blended teas, common in tea culture in Ireland. When tea was first transported from China to Ireland in the mid-18th century, it was mainly introduced to the wealthy as a result of its high cost and low demand. However, throughout the mid-19th century, Irish breakfast tea became readily available to those of both lower and higher socioeconomic classes.
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