PG Tips Original Black Tea 40, 116g
Forty bags is a decision about the household rather than about the tea. It is a fortnight for one steady drinker and a long weekend for a family, so nobody buys this box out of habit. They buy it for a caravan, an office drawer, a holiday let, a spare room, a first flat, or a parent's house they visit twice a year and would rather not leave a stale cupboard behind in. It is also the size to buy when you are not yet sure, because committing a whole cupboard to a tea you have only ever had in other people's kitchens is how most of the unopened boxes in Britain got there. As for the tea, it is the one a great many people measure every other tea against without ever noticing they do it, which is a strange sort of compliment: familiar enough to be invisible, and hard to be impressed by after four thousand mugs. If it is already what you drink every day, buy the bigger box and we would rather say so. Four minutes, milk after, and nothing else asked of you.
PG Tips Original Black Tea 40, in brief.
PG Tips Original Black Tea is the forty-bag box of one of Britain's two default everyday blends, brisk rather than malty, picked into the teas.co.uk curator selection as the small pack for holiday lets, offices and anyone trying the blend before committing.
A hundred and sixteen grams across forty bags is about 2.9 grams each, the same dose per bag as the larger boxes rather than a thinner fill. Boiling water, three to four minutes, bag out before the milk goes in.
PG Tips Original Black Tea in the forty-bag box is the small pack of one of Britain's default teas. A hundred and sixteen grams across forty bags is about 2.9 grams each, which is a full-size everyday dose rather than the lighter fill some smaller boxes get. Nothing has been thinned out to make the box cheaper; it is the same weight of leaf per bag as the big box, just fewer of them.
That makes this a particular kind of purchase rather than the obvious one. Forty bags is roughly a fortnight for one regular tea drinker, or a few days for a household. Think holiday lets, caravans, office drawers, spare rooms and first flats, or anyone who wants to see if they like the tea before signing up to eighty or four hundred bags. If you drink it every day at home, the larger box is the better buy and we would rather say so.
Curator notes: we tasted the forty bag box ourselves and set our ratings against PG Tips' published description. Order the forty and it is normally in the post 1 to 2 working days later. Forty or eighty, milk first or last, Yorkshire or PG: see the Q and A tab.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind PG Tips
PG Tips is one of the two blends that between them account for most of the tea drunk in British kitchens, and the Original is the standard against which people measure everything else.
A box this size is about quantity rather than quality. Nothing about the tea changes between the forty and the eighty; the leaf weight per bag is the same. What changes is the price per cup, and the smaller box is always the dearer way to drink the same tea. That is normal across every grocery category and it is not a criticism of this pack, but it does mean you should buy it for a reason rather than by default.
Packaging: Even a small box may need sorting; the printed pack and your council say where each part goes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Count and weight: forty bags, 116 grams, which is about 2.9 grams a bag. The same dose per bag as the larger boxes, not a thinner one.
- Who it is for: small households, holiday lets, offices, caravans, and anyone trying the blend before committing to a big box.
- Format: standard one-cup bags in a cardboard box. They fit any mug and any pot.
- What it is not: not a decaf, not a flavoured blend and not the Gold Special Blend. It is the plain original at full caffeine.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: 100 degrees Celsius, freshly boiled and not reboiled twice.
- Measure: one bag to 250 to 300ml.
- Steep: three to four minutes, then out.
- Milk: suits it and the blend expects it. Lemon works if you skip the milk.
- Squeezing: a gentle press is fine; a hard squeeze against the side of the mug drives a burst of tannin into the cup and is the fastest way to make a forgiving tea taste bitter.
- Hard water: flattens the brisk top note and leaves a film. Half a minute longer restores most of it.
- Storage: shut away somewhere cool and dark, apart from coffee and spices. Cardboard is porous.
- Best with: breakfast, a bacon sandwich, biscuits, and the mug made the moment somebody arrives.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference PG Tips Original Black Tea 40, 116g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind PG Tips
PG Tips is the Brooke Bond brand that brought the pyramid tea bag to British kitchens and gave us the chimps adverts. Solid everyday black tea, dependable, mass-market and fairly priced. Owned by Lipton Teas & Infusions; the leaf is sourced from Rainforest Alliance certified estates.
Packaging: Even a small box may need sorting; the printed pack and your council say where each part goes.
Our commitment to the planet
The taste profile
How does it compare
Everyday black tea is forgiving until it is not, and this blend is more forgiving than most. The two mistakes that still spoil it are water that has sat off the boil and a bag lifted out as soon as the colour looks right. Colour arrives well before flavour does, which is why a ninety-second cup looks finished and tastes hollow.
The Standard Mug
The Pot
Made with this tea
The Standard Mug
How to make The Standard Mug with PG Tips Original Black Tea.
- 1 bag PG Tips Original Black Tea
- 250ml just boiled water
- Milk to taste
- Pour just boiled water, 250ml, onto one bag.
- Steep three to four minutes, covered if you have a saucer to hand.
- Lift the bag out and press it gently rather than crushing it.
- Add milk last, to taste.
What you'll end up with: A brisk, clean everyday mug. The gentle press is the difference between bright and bitter.
A Pot for Four
How to make A Pot for Four with PG Tips Original Black Tea.
- 4 bags PG Tips Original Black Tea
- 1 litre just boiled water
- A warmed teapot
- Milk
- Warm the pot by filling it briefly with boiling water, then emptying it.
- Add four bags and a full litre of freshly boiled water.
- Steep four minutes, then lift every bag out.
- Cosy the pot and pour.
What you'll end up with: Four even mugs rather than one good one and three stewed ones. Taking the bags out at four minutes is the whole trick.
Iced Tea with Lemon
How to make Iced Tea with Lemon with PG Tips Original Black Tea.
- 4 bags PG Tips Original Black Tea
- 500ml just boiled water
- Ice
- Lemon
- Sugar to taste
- Brew four bags in 500ml of boiling water for five minutes to make a strong concentrate.
- Sweeten while hot; sugar will not dissolve once it is cold.
- Cool to room temperature, then top up to a litre with cold water.
- Pour the tea into a tall glass of ice, finishing with a slice of lemon.
What you'll end up with: Clear rather than cloudy, because you diluted after brewing instead of brewing weak.
Overnight Cold Brew
How to make Overnight Cold Brew with PG Tips Original Black Tea.
- 4 bags PG Tips Original Black Tea
- 1 litre cold water
- A sealed jug
- Drop four bags into a sealed jug, then pour in a litre of cold water.
- Refrigerate for eight hours, or overnight.
- Lift out the bags, and finish the jug inside two days.
- Serve straight or over ice, without milk.
What you'll end up with: Rounder and sweeter with no grip at all. Cold water never extracts the harsh tannins, so it cannot go bitter however long you forget it.
Builder's Chai
How to make Builder's Chai with PG Tips Original Black Tea.
- 3 bags PG Tips Original Black Tea
- 300ml water
- 300ml whole milk
- 4 crushed cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick, 3 cloves
- Sugar to taste
- Simmer the crushed spices in 300ml of water for five minutes to open them up.
- Add three tea bags and simmer for a further three minutes.
- Pour in the milk and bring it back to a bare simmer without letting it boil over.
- Sweeten to taste and strain into two mugs.
What you'll end up with: A brisk everyday blend is the correct base for chai, because the spices need a tea that pushes back. A delicate tea disappears entirely.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|
Pack: PG Tips Original Black Tea 40, 116g; a brisk everyday black tea in standard one-cup bags. Seal the bags away somewhere cool, dark and dry, out of reach of coffee and spices. On the current UK box you will find the ingredient list and allergy advice, the best before date and whatever certification marks it carries.
We only show components we can confirm from the product name, the pack weight and the count.
Sourcing & blend. PG Tips Original Black Tea is one of the two blends that between them account for most of the tea drunk in British kitchens. Everything we say about the taste here is our own opinion, checked against today's box and PG Tips' account of the blend. Our catalogue already carries the eighty-bag and four-hundred-bag boxes of the same original blend as well as the loose leaf version, so this listing fills the small pack position rather than introducing a new tea.
What's in PG Tips Original Black Tea 40, 116g, and what isn't:
- In: black tea leaf and nothing else, in a standard one-cup bag.
- No added flavouring: this is the plain original. No bergamot, no fruit, no petals and no added sweetness.
Asked about this tea
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Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference PG Tips Original Black Tea 40, 116g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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