Organic breakfast OP black tea

OP stands for Orange Pekoe, and it is worth clearing up what that means, because it is one of the most misread terms in tea. It is not a flavour, there is no orange in it, and it does not indicate quality in the way people assume. It is a leaf grade: whole leaves, long and wiry, picked from the bud and the first leaves below it, and left unbroken during processing.

The practical consequence is that an OP infuses more slowly and more evenly than a broken or dust grade. A tea bag is usually filled with broken leaf precisely because it needs to release everything in two minutes. A whole leaf takes longer and gives a rounder cup with less harsh tannin at the end.

How to brew it

90 °C, three to four minutes. Because the leaf is whole it takes up more room in the pot, so measure by volume rather than by weight if you are used to a broken tea, and give it space to unfurl. A cramped infuser undersells it.

It takes milk well, which not everything in our range does, and it is strong enough to stand up to a breakfast rather than disappear next to it.

Where it comes from

Sri Lanka, grown organically. It is the plainest tea we sell, in the good sense: nothing added, nothing scented, nothing blended in. If you want to know what a black tea tastes like before you start adding things to it, start here.