Yorkshire Blend
Here is the first thing to know: Yorkshire Blend is not grown in Yorkshire. The name refers to a style of tea, not the place; like English Breakfast, it says how the tea is blended, not where it is grown. The style comes from the old tea rooms of Yorkshire, where blends were put together to suit the local water, which makes more difference to a cup of tea than most people realise. What emerged is a particular kind of everyday black tea: rich and robust, but with a brightness to it, and made above all to be drunk with milk.
Mine is a classic take on that style, a loose-leaf blend of black teas from Assam, Kenya and China. The Assam gives it body and malt, the Kenya brings the briskness and that lively brightness, and the China leaf rounds it out. It is rich and full, a proper wake-you-up cup, but noticeably brighter and fruitier than a traditional English Breakfast; if you know my Team Breakfast, this is its livelier northern cousin. It takes milk beautifully, which is rather the point, and it is a lovely one to drink all day long.
It is worth remembering, when you brew a cup like this, just how far it has travelled. Tea is central to British life; we drink more of it per head than anywhere else on earth, and yet almost none of it is grown here. Tea first reached these shores in the 1650s, brought over by Dutch and Portuguese traders, and by 1669 the East India Company was shipping it directly from China. In the 1830s the Company began planting gardens in Assam, and after the tea trade helped spark the Opium Wars, the British pushed on into Darjeeling, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and, later, East Africa. Today over half the tea drunk in Britain is grown in East Africa, Kenya especially, with India, Sri Lanka and China still playing their part. A blend like this one, with its Assam, Kenya and China leaf, is a little map of all that history in a single cup.
It is a proper black tea, so there is caffeine in it. Brew at 100°C for 3 to 4 minutes, and add milk to taste.
Ingredients || Black Tea (a blend of Assam, Kenya and China)
Warning, packed in an environment that contains nuts
Caffeine || Yes
Tasting Notes || Strong, bright and slightly fruity; made for milk
Brewing Notes || 1 teaspoon per cup, 100ºC, brew for 3-4 minutes.