My love affair with Clipper tea goes back years. It’s not just the organic and Fairtrade logos, or the unbleached and plastic-free tea bags. It’s the quality and hearty flavour! This is my full review of Clipper English Breakfast tea.
If you’re unsure if this tea should be a regular in your tea cupboard, or you just want to find out what this tea brand is all about, this is the review for you.
Brew up a cup, grab some biscuits, and enjoy!
Clipper English Breakfast Tea at a Glance
- Blend: Fairtrade and organic black tea from Assam (India) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
- Flavour: Full-bodied and smooth black tea with hints of maltiness and sweetness
This is a simple but perfectly executed cup of tea that you really can’t fault. It has the perfect boldness and richness to perform well as an English Breakfast tea with your fry up.
Full Review – Clipper Organic English Breakfast Tea
- Type: Tagged unbleached paper filter tea bags
- Tea: Black tea
- Origin: Assam and Ceylon
- Flavour Notes: Full-bodied, smooth, rich, well-blended
- Aroma: Fresh, slightly sweet, slightly malty, rich, full
- Milk or Lemon: Milk is a must
- Where to Buy: Amazon
I’m reviewing the individually wrapped tea bags, which have no plastic in their packaging whatsoever. Just bear in mind that if you buy the box of Clipper tea that doesn’t contain individually wrapped bags, you will be left with that annoying foil wrapper on the inside.
Anyway. The aroma of the teabags isn’t too in-you-face but it does have slightly sweet and malty tones amongst the fresh black tea.
It brews into a classic dark brown tea colour very quickly. This is a tea that’s designed to be consumed with a good splash of milk, so that’s how I’ve reviewed it.
The malty, rich and full-smelling cup of tea has a very smooth and well-blended flavour. It’s calming and satisfying with its full-bodied taste and refreshing mouthfeel. It’s a cup of tea that’s crying out for a few biscuits or a bacon sarnie!
You can definitely drink this tea regularly, or mix and match it with the Clipper Everyday blend. Clipper English Breakfast tea is not one that you will tire of.
How to Brew English Breakfast Tea with Milk
Use very hot water to brew this tea – Clipper even recommend using water that’s still boiling when you add the teabag!
For that reason, I suggest you pour in water first and milk second. Personally, I don’t think the order you add milk changes the flavour… but in this case, adding milk first is risky when you’re using water that is so hot. You don’t want it to curdle.
This is especially important if you use dairy-free milk alternatives, as I find my soy milk splits very easily.
Brew for around 4 minutes, then add milk and crack open the biscuit tin.
Why Clipper Organic Tea?
Clipper are the world’s largest Fairtrade tea brand and you can find them in pretty much every supermarket across the UK. Their Everyday tea blend is a staple in many homes, but this one, the Clipper English Breakfast Tea, is very popular too. It is even featured on my Best English Breakfast Teas in the UK list.
Like most English Breakfast teas, this one is a blend of Assam tea and Ceylon tea. This is pretty standard, with most English Breakfast blends containing tea from these two regions plus Kenya.
It’s a quick brew – a simple, sturdy tea bag you can rely on.
I also really like that the teabags are made from unbleached paper. Nearly all tea brands now brag about having plastic-free teabags, but most still have perfectly white bleached teabag filter paper in every box.
Summary
Clipper describe this tea as “the lively and luxurious one” on their website. That might not be strictly true, but it certainly is a tea worth trying. It’s comforting, hearty, and a simple English Breakfast tea you can’t go wrong with. It’s available in boxes of 20, 40 and 80 tea bags, and can be found on Amazon (I’ve gone to the trouble of searching for it already, so just click the button below to go straight there).
Tea Recommendation
If it’s the delicate Ceylon tea in this blend that caught your eye, I recommend you read my review of Basilur Nuwara Eliya Tea next. Basilur have created a range of single origin teas from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in teabag format, so you can enjoy the unique flavour notes without the fuss of loose leaf tea infusers.