I’m flexible when I travel. I pack the minimal amount of clothing needed and take pride when only one pair of clean underwear is left on the day of return.
I’m cool with forgoing comfort for convenience. The little bottles of shampoo and conditioner provided by the hotel save me packing space and hassle. Avoided is the gooey mess that sometimes greets you when your poorly sealed shampoo bottle explodes during travel.
I don’t need to pack tea either. Most hotels have me covered. My criteria are not stringent. Anything labeled as English Breakfast tea will do. Any black tea not labeled as English Breakfast is also workable.
I recently stayed at the DoubleTree Suites in Austin, Texas. Within the coffee-maker station were two bags of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s (CBTL) English Breakfast, a Ceylon-only blend.
The room also featured a kitchen with a stovetop and saucepan, so I was able to use properly boiled water and not settle for “hot” water from a carafe in the lobby or, worse, a coffee maker.
Ceylon teas can range from complex, single-estate varieties to blends designed for uniformity. This English Breakfast belongs to the latter variety and does the job admirably.
Characteristically, it has a citrusy, orange aroma with a full body that takes milk well. It goes down with a tannic bite that makes my mouth happy. I don’t feel I’m compromising anything by drinking this tea instead of the kind I brought from home.
Video Transcript
When you’re traveling on the road, and I’m in Austin, Texas this week,
you do what you can. Every morning I have a cup of tea; it’s my caffeine delivery
service. And usually I like to use whatever’s in the hotel, and today they have
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf English Breakfast, which is a Ceylon tea
from Sri Lanka which is what used to be called
Ceylon or si-lan, however you want to pronounce it. So, I do like a good strong Ceylon tea.
It’s usually very citrusy, and it could stand up well to milk, we’ll see. So anyways,
this is what I’m having this morning. Gonna steep it for three minutes in boiling water. Let’s go.
[places tea bag in mug]
Apologies for the handheld nature of this but it’ll work
[tries to use a saucepan to turn on sink faucet]
Maybe. There we go!
[pours water into saucepan]
A watched pot never boils.
[pours boiled water into the mug with the teabag]
While we’re waiting for it to steep … they always get fancy with the stuff they put on the
package. It says whole-leaf premium Ceylon, and it probably, it definitely started as
whole leaf, but once it ends up in the teabag it’s just a bunch of dust. So don’t be fooled.
[Young boy’s voice in the background says, “Don’t be fooled”.
Anyways. That’s my son in the background.
We’re just waiting for it to steep. We’ve got …
… over two minutes left.
All right. One-handed, can I do this?
[tries to remove the teabag from the mug with a spoon]
I think I can. Yes!
Plunk! Okay, normally I just put milk in immediately, but I’ll try it without milk.
[takes a sip from the mug]
Mmm. Definitely an orange citrusy aroma. Let’s see here we go here’s milk from breakfast this morning.
[pours milk into the mug with tea]
Okay, remember this is just this is my caffeine delivery — my morning caffeine …
… delivery service. That’s all this is for, and I’m sure it’ll be just fine.
I mean it’s this or,
or the bags of Tetley British Blend that I brought so. Crap! I put too much milk. Oh well.
[sips the tea with milk added]
It’ll do. It is what it is.
Thanks for hanging out. We’re drinking Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf English Breakfast. Ceylon.
Cheers!
[flashes the peace sign with his fingers at the camera]
Maybe CBTL’s Engish Breakfast (100% Ceylon) tea will be waiting to greet me again in a hotel room somewhere down the line.
While you can’t find this exact tea on CBTL’s website, you can get another English Breakfast version that features an interesting blend of Ceylon, Keemun (China), and Taiwanese teas.
