Everyone at work has given up drinking coffee and switched to tea. This of course is accompanied by discussion on what’s the best tasting tea. English breakfast tea and Earl Grey are the current leaders. What are the favorites in Great Britain?
Most popular are blends, leading brands being PG Tips, Tetley, Typhoo and store brands. I have not noticed any great difference between them. They would taste similar to English breakfast tea, I guess. Specialist teas such as Earl Grey or Darjeeling are not actually drunk that much.
Anecdotally speaking, many in the UK (and myself, although not in the UK) think that Typhoo is a very under-rated tea. It is my personal favourite and sadly costs about $0.10 a round here in the US at most places - where I can find it, that is. When we use about 10 a day, that’s $1 a day for tea.
Fierra has written at-length about the quality of the water, the brewing technique, etc. making a huge difference in tea taste. Apparently, the water in Kansas is excellent for making tea.
Don’t forget **Yorkshire Tea ** , grown on the sunny tea estates of Ilkley Moor and Wuthering Heights. 
How much tea do typical (or average) British people drink in a day? All day, or mainly at tea time?
I’ve read, mostly in mystery novels, that some keep a kettle on all day. I’ve seen this in movies too, with a kettle simmering on the stove.
Peace,
mangeorge
The part about the stove/kettle may have been true fifty years ago. Now we all have electric kettles. Boiling water in a couple of minutes. I imagine the average consuption is about 4 or five cups. A lot of people now drink coffee (the real stuff or instant ) instead of tea.
How much tea do typical (or average) British people drink in a day? All day, or mainly at tea time?
It varies. I think I’m fairly average, among tea-drinkers, in having a cup at breakfast, morning and afternoon work breaks, and sometimes in the evening if I’ve been out. My wife drinks coffee.
slight hijak: Where do most teas come from in the West? What climate do you need to grow them?
The world’s biggest tea producers are India, China, Sri Lanka, and Kenya.
The only country in the Americas that has any kind of tea production is Argentina.
Tea grows in tropical and subtropical climates.
It was first grown in China and after the British got a taste for it (to say the least), they started looking for new places to grow it. India was that place. Sri Lanka came along later. It started as a coffee growing island, but a blight killed the coffee and tea took its place.
Actually “Ceylon, which later became Sri Lanka, came along later.”
This wasn’t asked but in Ireland it has to be Barry’s tea. Other brands are available but I don’t know who buys them as no Irish person in their right minds would tolerate anything else.
As long as someone brought this idea up, may I ask a side question of U.K. Dopers? Does Lipton market thier tea bags there, and if so, how popular is it?
I have never seen it in Britain, and am always suprised with how popular it is abroad.
As to the mutants who drink Earl Grey: Stop it you fools! It tastes of soap!
Now for a nice cup of PG tips.
I also want to stick up for Typhoo. To me it has a more fuller and rounded flavour than the other leading brands, though PG Tips is close behind.
Lipton’s is rarely seen in the UK. This is because it is an abomination that has brought tears of frustration to my eyes from San Francisco to Hong Kong via Rajasthan (yes, even in India they serve this muck). Why don’t some proper tea companies try to compete internationally?
My mother swears by PG Tips. But I know naught of the ways of the tea drinkers, they are a strange folk.
Steve “UK coffee drinker” Wright.
Lyons and Barry’s Tea would be the most popular teas here in Ireland. IIRC Ireland has the hightest per capita consumtion of tea.
You rarely can ever go anywhere (outside of a pub) without being asked do you want a cup of tea.
I like coffee but I LOVE tea.
England is seconds only to Ireland in tea consumption, and they consume about ten times as much tea as the average american. Quoting from tea.org
That makes about 3.5-4 cups per day (for the average ukogbanian.).
Popup, who is not English, but who drinks about three pots per day.
I drink Taylor’s Yorkshire Tea … it’s simply the best. The same company also runs the best tea shops in the world. Betty’s.
I was traditionally a PG Tips drinker until I discovered Twinings Ceylon Tea. Despite the fact that it’s sometimes hard to find (damn you Earl Grey drinkers for taking over the supermarket shelves) I would not swap it for any other tea I’ve ever tasted.
The Twinings range is very good: my favourites are their Keemun and Lady Grey.