Irish tea

Today we travel to Ireland. They are the most western of the British isles. Thanks to my lace making hobby, I know that one of the ways women survived the potato famine was by making lace to sell to the wealthy. In the show "Victoria" shown on PBS, one of the seasons talked about the potato famine. They also talked about the protestant church requiring the people of Ireland to tithe 10% of their income to the church even if they weren't members, saying that the poor protestant church needed funding so it wouldn't fail. This was said at the same time the show the vicar's wife wearing a small lace covering on her head, and a lace collar. Only a lacer would look at that and know immediately that their claims of poverty were a farce.

I think most people in this country have heard of "Irish breakfast tea". It means black tea of some sort. When I was looking through the bulk spices recently (and buying more tea in an effort to bridge the gap between running out of my good loose leaf tea and not wanting to drink bagged tea before stocking up at a tea shop again), I discovered that the "ingredients" for Earl Gray tea were listed as Irish breakfast tea with bergamot. Interesting.

In researching Irish tea, I found an interesting article. It's a bit tongue in cheek, but I have a feeling that it is pretty accurate. First, the phrase "breakfast tea" is not used. There is just tea. Second, the tea you drink is your identity. The 2 main brands are Lyons, and Barry's. Some people apparently take these as seriously as people in this country take sports teams. According to the author, both brands of tea technically taste the same, and sugar and milk are signs of social status and grit.

I decided to compare English breakfast tea against Irish breakfast tea. The English versus Irish rivalry has come to my blog. Honestly, since the article talked about how the 2 main black teas in Ireland taste the same, I figured I could use 2 black teas that don't necessarily represent the countries they were named for that pretty much taste the same.

Irish is on the left, English is on the right. Straight out of the bag, they pretty much look the same. Particle size may be a little different, but that doesn't mean much.

So they both sat and brewed. Isn't that nice? Matching cups, matching tea balls (I actually got the pliers out and fixed the catch on one of my tea balls to make this picture possible).

The verdict? I think the English breakfast tea was older. It seemed a little weaker, and had more bitter notes. The Irish tea was sslightly darker, and had a stronger black tea smell. In the end, I decided that I really needed to make my birthday trip to my favorite tea shop a few weeks before my birthday so I didn't have to drink this swill for 3 weeks. Sigh. I'm turning into a tea snob.