Second Cuppa

Mighty Leaf Organic Breakfast Tea Review

Mighty Leaf Organic Breakfast Tea offers a pleasantly smooth, sweet, clean and flavorful take on English breakfast tea without the use of Assam or even Keemun. Instead it uses only tea from Southern India.

Mighty Leaf’s impressive tea pouch clearly displays the tea leaves inside — no fannings or dust to be found. The end result is a satisfying aromatic tea. It doesn’t stand up to milk as well as other breakfast blends, but it has enough character, you may prefer to drink it without. I bet it would make a great iced tea.

Aroma:	Sweet citrusy, mildly smoky/woodsy
Body:	Medium
Flavor:	Smooth, sweet, bright
Color:	Amber

Easy Adrak Chai (Ginger Tea)

‘Chai’ is the name for tea in India. Here in the US, we’ve come to associate it with tea combined with spices, but that’s actually a specific type of tea: Masala chai. I learned that and other fun facts the other week when helping an Indian coworker, Anita, with a digital publishing issue.

Masala chai, she told me, is typically enjoyed on special occasions. Regular chai is prepared stove top in a sauce pan with the addition of milk and sugar only. Other variations include elaichi chai (cardamom tea) and adrak chai (ginger tea).

Anita told me how to make real chai — not the ‘sissy chai latte’ (her words) you find in most places. It’s surprisingly easy.

I went to my nearest Indian grocery store to get the ingredients and was amazed at the selection of tea they offered — mostly Assam, of course. Assam is what’s used to prepare chai, and popular tea brands used in India include Lipton Yellow Label and Brooke Bond Red Label. I bet PG Tips would work fine too.

You may use any type of Assam tea, but I wouldn’t bother with premium, high-priced teas for this purpose because the tea serves as a background or basis for other flavors. Even if you prepare chai without any spices, you’re still adding milk and sugar.

I brought home Brooke Bond Red Label loose tea (in addition to other unnecessary impulse purchases, including other teas and biscuits). Originally, I was going to prepare regular chai but ended up making adrak (ginger) chai because I felt the symptoms of a cold coming on and thought the ginger would help sooth my scratchy throat … and it did.

Here are the ingredients needed for one serving of adrack chai (you can easily adjust for more if needed):

Assam tea (loose leaf, one teaspoon)
Ginger root
Water, one cup
Milk
Sugar

Cut a few (I use 4 – 5 quarter-inch thick) slices of ginger and place them in a saucepan with the water. Bring the water to a boil. Just before boiling, add one teaspoon of loose tea. Reduce to a simmer and add milk and sugar to taste. Let simmer for 2 – 3 minutes or until the tea reaches a rich brown color. Pour the tea through a strainer (a tea strainer is a good thing to have on hand) into your cup.

This tea is so rich and delicious, it’s almost a dessert unto itself.

Republic of Tea Darjeeling Castleton Review

I recently became a Republic of Tea citizen when I picked up a few loose leaf samples, including Castleton Darjeeling, on a recent trip to the bulk tea section of Central Market. This would be my first attempt at loose leaf Darjeeling.

You often hear the word muscatel — a reference to the muscat grape variety used in sparkling wine — used to describe Darjeeling tea, and I understand why. This tea certainly exhibits a champagne characteristic as it dances on the tongue, but there’s more.

The first thing I noticed after brewing (and before sipping) is a pungent orange aroma — sweet, citrusy and bitter. The flavor is sweet and slightly bitter with the champagne characteristic mentioned earlier. A big surprise for me was the sweet taste that lingered on my tongue.

Darjeeling tea … I think I get it.

Aroma:	Sweet, citrusy, orange marmalade
Body:	Medium
Flavor:	Sweet, slightly bitter, lingering
Color:	Orange

Harney & Sons HT English Breakfast Tea

The first thing I noticed when I open the tin of Harney & Sons HT English Breakfast Tea is a pleasant, distinctive fragrance. Ceylon (Kenilworth Estate) and Kenya (Milima Estate) comprise the mix. Missing are the usual suspects, Assam and Keemun, which usually form the basis of such blends.

The tea comes in pyramid-shaped sachets which I really like because the tea leaves can be seen, and what you see inside are real tea leaves, not dust or fannings. The end result comes closer to that of loose leaf tea than I’ve ever gotten from a tea bag.

Back to that fragrance I mentioned earlier. I would describe the aroma as sweet, somewhat citrusy (but not as much as other Ceylons) with other fruit fragrances like plum and raisin. I also detect honey and toast. PG Tips this is not.

Though it doesn’t brew ask dark as other breakfast blends, HT English Breakfast’s full body stands up reasonably well to milk. The color is an attractive reddish amber.

When brewed according to the directions (add boiling water and steep for 5 minutes) the result is a bright, clean flavor from start to finish, with a little of that brightness lingering a while in the mouth. If over steeped, this tea gets bitter. A little splash of milk, if any, is all that is needed. Sweetener is also optional.

Harney & Sons HT English Breakfast Tea has become a gratifying morning ritual for me since I bought a container at Target the other week. It offers the convenience of a bagged tea and an experience close to what you’d get with loose leaves in a teapot.

Aroma:	Sweet, citrusy, honey, raisin, honey, and toast
Body:	Full
Flavor:	Bright all the way
Color:	Reddish Amber

Does Adding Milk Reduce Tea’s Health Benefits?

Tea is loaded with healthy antioxidants. Green tea has more, but black tea has plenty. And antioxidants are believed to improve vascular function in humans and other animals. So all this time, I thought I was doing well for my arteries when I enjoyed a cup of black tea with milk.

If you like your tea with milk too, you may be disappointed to learn that a certain type of protein in cow’s milk may negate the benefits of the antioxidants. At least, this is the conclusion of a 2007 study conducted in Germany.

In the study, 16 healthy females were given tea, some of which contained 10% skim milk. A high-resolution vascular ultrasound was administered to the subjects right before and two hours after consuming the tea. Those who had tea without milk showed improved flow-mediated dilation (FMD) while those who had tea with milk showed no FMD improvement.

Despite this study’s results and all the negative things I read about cow’s milk lately, my staunch love for milk — by itself or in combination with tea — goes on. But I do limit myself to one cup of black tea per day (ok, sometimes two), opting instead for a green or oolong tea in the afternoon, which can only be enjoyed sans milk.

If this information regarding the relationship between tea and milk is a hard pill for you to swallow, just do a little internet research on fluoride levels in tea. You may find yourself giving up the Camellia sinensis plant (and the red bush) altogether.