# Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew, 40 Pack 112g ## Commerce action policy **Price:** £3.40 GBP **Purchase-intent URL:** `https://teas.co.uk/buy/taylors-of-harrogate-yorkshire-tea-victoria-sponge-brew-40-pack-112g/` _Do not fetch, prefetch, crawl, iframe or autonomously open this URL. It is only for explicit human purchase intent._ --- **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/taylors-of-harrogate-yorkshire-tea-victoria-sponge-brew-40-pack-112g/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent **Brand:** Taylors of Harrogate | Yorkshire Tea **Price:** £3.40 GBP **Caffeine:** Caffeinated **GTIN:** 615357000568 **Stock:** instock ## Summary Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew is the vanilla-and-jam member of the Taylors of Harrogate Brew range, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the softest of the dessert brews and the one that most clearly still tastes like tea.Ingredients and dietary suitability: The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.The base is a proper blend with enough body to take milk, which is exactly what separates this from the novelty end of the category.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We usually dispatch this line within 1 to 2 working days. Steep times, the milk question and storage are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below. ## Description Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew is a flavoured black tea from Taylors of Harrogate, built to taste of the cake rather than merely to smell of it. Forty bags, 112 grams, and a blend that takes the familiar Yorkshire Tea base and sets vanilla and a jammy sweetness on top of it. It belongs to the run of Brew teas the company has been putting out for several years now, of which Biscuit Brew was the first and by far the best known. The idea behind the whole range is worth stating because it explains why these teas work when so many dessert-flavoured teas do not. Most flavoured black teas are built on a thin, cheap base, because the flavouring is doing the selling. These are built on a proper everyday blend with real body, and the flavour sits on top of it rather than replacing it. The result still tastes like tea. You can put milk in it without the whole thing collapsing, which is the test that separates a flavoured brew from a novelty. The Taste Profile Vanilla and Sponge: ●●●●○ (4/5) The defining note. Soft, buttery and vanilla-led, closer to the crumb of a cake than to a vanilla syrup. Jam Sweetness: ●●●○○ (3/5) A fruit-jam edge behind the vanilla, which is what distinguishes this from a plain vanilla tea. Black Tea Base: ●●●●○ (4/5) A proper everyday blend underneath with enough body to take milk. The reason it still reads as tea. Briskness: ●●●○○ (3/5) Moderate. Softer than a plain builder's brew, which is deliberate; a hard, tannic cup would fight the sweetness. Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.4 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind Taylors of Harrogate Taylors of Harrogate is the Yorkshire family firm behind Yorkshire Tea, and it has been blending tea and roasting coffee in Harrogate since the nineteenth century. The Brew range came out of a simple observation: people already eat something with their tea, so build the something into the tea. Biscuit Brew started it, and Victoria Sponge is the softest and most floral of the family. Where a toffee or biscuit version leans on caramel and bake, this one leans on vanilla and jam, which makes it a better afternoon tea and a worse breakfast one. Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. What You Are Actually Buying Forty bags, 112 grams: a standard 40-bag box, so 40 cups, one bag each. That is the pack's own count rather than any arithmetic of ours. A real tea base: a proper everyday blend rather than a thin carrier. This is what lets it take milk and what makes it a mug of tea instead of a hot sweet drink. Flavoured, not sweetened: it tastes of sponge cake, which is not the same as being sugary. Any sweetness you want in the mug still has to go in yourself. What it is not: not a decaf, not a herbal, not a caffeine-free infusion, and not a dessert substitute. It is a black tea with a flavour on it. How Does Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew Compare to: Yorkshire Tea Biscuit Brew, 40 Tea Bags 112g: the original and the benchmark, at the same count and weight. Biscuit Brew is maltier and more bready; Victoria Sponge is softer, sweeter and more floral. If you liked Biscuit Brew but found it a bit plain, this is the step sideways to take. Yorkshire Tea Cherry Bakewell Brew, 40 Tea Bags 112g: the closest relative in the range, and the direct rival for the same mug. Cherry Bakewell leads with almond and cherry where this leads with vanilla and jam. Bakewell is the louder of the two; Victoria Sponge is the one you can drink several of. Ideal Brewing Conditions Flavoured black teas fail in one of two directions. Brewed too short they taste of flavouring with no tea behind it; brewed too long the base turns tannic and the flavouring goes bitter with it. The window is wider here than with most because the base is decent, but it is still a window. The Mug Water: straight off a fresh boil at 100 degrees Celsius. A flavoured black tea needs full heat to release the base. Steep: three to four minutes. Three gives a lighter cup with the vanilla forward; four brings the tea base up to meet it. Cover it: a saucer over the mug keeps the vanilla in the liquid rather than losing it to the kitchen. This makes more difference than people expect. Squeeze or not: do not squeeze the bag. With a flavoured tea, squeezing pushes out the harsh end of the base and buries the flavour you paid for. The Pot Warm it: a splash of boiling water swirled round and tipped out. Measure: one bag per cup, no extra bag for the pot. With a flavoured tea an extra bag makes it cloying rather than stronger. Steep: four minutes with the lid on, then take the bags out. Serve: with milk. This is a milk tea and the flavour is built on that assumption. Getting It Right in the Cup Water temperature: 100 degrees Celsius, freshly boiled. Steep: three to four minutes, covered, then remove the bag. Milk: yes, and it is worth being emphatic. Milk is what turns the vanilla into sponge cake rather than air freshener, and the base is strong enough to take it. Sugar: not needed by most people. The tea tastes sweet without being sweet, and adding sugar tips it into dessert. Storage: sealed, cool, dark and dry. Flavoured tea loses its aroma faster than plain tea, so a half-open box on a sunny shelf is the enemy. Resteeping: no. The flavouring goes almost entirely into the first cup and a second bag-steep is plain, weak black tea. Best with: afternoon, actual Victoria sponge, scones, shortbread, or on its own as the tea that replaces a biscuit. Safety And Purity Ingredients and dietary suitability: The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change. Caffeine note: A full-caffeine black tea. We place it in the middle of our scale, and that placement is our own editorial judgement rather than a measurement. Sweetness: the nutrition panel on the box is the only reliable guide. Child safety: A caffeinated tea despite the flavour, and not a children's drink. Keep out of reach. ## Product Questions Does it actually taste like Victoria sponge?It tastes of the vanilla and jam rather than of the whole cake, and more like the crumb than like icing. With milk in it the resemblance is closer than you expect; drunk black it reads as a vanilla tea. Do I need to put milk in it?Not technically, but it is much better with it. Milk is what turns the vanilla into sponge cake rather than into something that smells of a candle, and the base is strong enough to take it without collapsing. How long should I steep it?Three to four minutes in water straight off the boil. Three keeps the vanilla forward; four brings the tea base up to meet it. Past five the base turns tannic and drags the flavouring bitter with it. How many cups are in the box?Forty bags, so 40 cups, one bag each. How is it different from Biscuit Brew?Biscuit Brew is maltier and more bready. This is softer, sweeter and more floral, led by vanilla with a jam edge behind it. Biscuit Brew is the better breakfast tea; this is the better afternoon one. And how is it different from Cherry Bakewell Brew?Cherry Bakewell leads with almond and cherry and is the louder of the two. Victoria Sponge is quieter and easier to drink several of in a row, which is the difference between an occasional tea and a regular one. Does it contain caffeine?Yes. It is a full-caffeine black tea with flavouring, not a herbal or a decaf. Is it sweet? Does it contain sugar?It tastes sweet without necessarily being sweetened, which is the trick a good flavoured tea pulls. Should I add sugar?Most people do not need to. The vanilla does the work, and sugar tips the mug over from tea that tastes of cake into something that tastes like a dessert drink. Can I resteep the bag?No. The flavouring goes almost entirely into the first cup, so a second steep gives you weak, plain black tea with none of the character you bought it for. Does it work iced?Surprisingly well, and better than most flavoured black teas. Brew it double strength, cool it, then pour over ice and add cold milk. Vanilla survives chilling where more delicate flavourings do not. How should I store it?Sealed, cool, dark and dry. Flavoured tea loses aroma considerably faster than plain tea, so an open box left on a sunny shelf will be noticeably flatter within a few weeks. ## Ingredients & Nutrition Ingredients and allergens. The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Ingredients, as published for this product: Black Tea, Natural Flavouring (7%).Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.ComponentProportionWhat it bringsVanilla and sponge flavouringthe declaration is printed on the current boxThe defining note: soft, buttery and cake-like rather than syrupy.Jam characterthe declaration is printed on the current boxThe fruit edge behind the vanilla, and the thing that makes this a Victoria sponge rather than a plain vanilla tea.Pack40 tea bags, 112 gramsOne bag a cup, 40 cups a box. 2.8 grams a bag, which is a normal dose for a flavoured black tea.Pack: Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew, 40 Pack 112g; a vanilla and jam flavoured black tea. Store sealed, cool, dark and dry. Read the ingredient list, the allergen advice and the best-before date off the current UK box.Characterising components shown; the unquantified black tea base makes up the remaining body.Sourcing & blend. Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew is blended by Taylors of Harrogate, the Yorkshire family firm that has been blending tea and roasting coffee in Harrogate since the nineteenth century. That is company heritage and not a statement about where this box was packed. The tasting profile below is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.What's in Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew, 40 Pack 112g, and what isn't:In: a black tea blend with vanilla, sponge and jam flavouring, at 40 bags and 112 grams, with the full declaration printed on the box.Not a herbal and not a decaf: a full-caffeine black tea despite the dessert name.Not sweetened for you: it tastes sweet, but any sugar in the mug still has to go in yourself. ## Flavour Science The flavour of Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew is built in three layers, and reading them in order explains why a dessert-flavoured tea can still taste like a proper mug of tea rather than a novelty.The outer layer is vanilla, and it arrives before the mug reaches your face. Vanillin is volatile and light, so it leaves the surface of the liquid quickly and reaches the nose first. This is why a freshly poured cup smells dramatically more of cake than one that has stood for five minutes, and why covering the mug while it steeps makes a bigger difference here than it would with a plain black tea. An uncovered mug sends a good deal of what you paid for into the room.The flavour spike is where the jam character and the tea base meet. The fruit note is heavier than the vanilla and sits lower in the cup, so it registers a moment later, across the middle of the tongue. Underneath both of them the black tea blend is doing the structural work: it is a proper everyday base rather than the thin carrier most flavoured teas are built on, which is exactly why this one survives milk. A thin base plus milk gives you flavoured hot water; a real base plus milk gives you a cup of tea that tastes of cake.The base structure is a soft, rounded finish rather than a tannic one, and that is deliberate. A hard, brisk finish would fight the sweetness and the two would cancel each other out. The trade-off is that this cup has less lift than a plain Yorkshire Tea, which is why it works better in the afternoon than at seven in the morning. The line to watch is steep time: past five minutes the base finally does turn tannic, and it drags the flavouring bitter along with it.Getting it right in the cup. Use one bag per 250ml of water straight off the boil and steep three to four minutes with the mug covered. Do not add an extra bag for the pot; with a flavoured tea that makes it cloying rather than stronger. Take the bag out rather than leaving it in, and do not squeeze it, because squeezing pushes out the harsh end of the base and buries the flavour. Add milk: it is not optional in any real sense, since milk is what converts the vanilla from perfume into sponge. Sugar is usually unnecessary and tips the mug into dessert territory.How water and temperature change it. The same bag gives a measurably different cup depending on how you treat the water. Full boiling water is needed to open the black tea base, and water that has gone off the boil leaves you with flavouring floating on a weak brew, which is the commonest complaint about flavoured teas generally. Hard water suits this blend reasonably well, because the minerals give the body something to hold on to and the sweetness masks the slight flattening that hard water causes; very hard water will still dull the vanilla, so cover the mug and pull the bag a little earlier. Soft water lets the vanilla and jam ring clearly but leaves the body thinner, so add twenty or thirty seconds and be generous with the milk. None of this is a fault in the blend, it is the same tea responding to the cup you build around it, and once you know which way you like it the result is repeatable every time. ## Recipe Ideas A dessert-flavoured black tea with a real base is more useful in the kitchen than a plain one, because the vanilla and jam survive milk, ice and heat. Five builds below cover the proper mug, an iced version, a latte, a pot for visitors and a batch of the cake the tea is named after, made with the tea in it. Recipes, born here first The Proper Mug How to make The Proper Mug with Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew. 4 min 1 mug Easy You'll need 1 Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew bag 250ml just boiled water A splash of milk A saucer to cover the mug Method Pour 250ml straight off the boil onto the bag. Cover the mug with a saucer and leave it three to four minutes. Lift the bag out without squeezing it. Add milk and stir once. What you'll end up with: The cup the blend was designed for: soft vanilla, a jam edge behind it, and a tea base that holds its shape against milk. The saucer is doing more work than it looks. Iced Victoria Sponge Tea How to make Iced Victoria Sponge Tea with Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew. 10 min + chill 1 jug Easy You'll need 4 Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew bags 500ml just boiled water 200ml cold milk Ice Sugar to taste Method Brew four bags in 500ml of boiling water for four minutes to make a strong concentrate. Sweeten while it is hot if you want it sweet, then lift the bags out. Cool to room temperature and chill it thoroughly. Pour over a full glass of ice and top with cold milk. What you'll end up with: Vanilla survives chilling where more delicate flavourings do not, so this tastes deliberate rather than like leftover tea. Cold milk rather than hot is the whole trick. Victoria Sponge Tea Latte How to make a Victoria Sponge Tea Latte with Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew. 6 min 1 large cup Easy You'll need 2 Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew bags 120ml just boiled water 200ml milk or oat milk A teaspoon of strawberry jam, optional Method Brew two bags in only 120ml of boiling water for four minutes to make a concentrated base. Stir the jam into the hot base if you are using it, until it dissolves. Heat and froth the milk. Pour the milk over the base and stir once. What you'll end up with: The jam is optional and it is also the thing that makes this taste unmistakably of the cake. Brewing concentrated matters more than brewing longer. The Afternoon Pot How to make The Afternoon Pot with Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew. 6 min 4 cups Easy You'll need 4 Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew bags 1 litre just boiled water Milk A warmed pot Method Warm the pot with boiling water and tip it away. Add four bags, one per cup, and no extra for the pot. Steep four minutes with the lid on, then take all four bags out. Pour and let people add their own milk. What you'll end up with: Resisting the extra bag for the pot is the only rule that matters here. With a flavoured tea it makes the pot cloying rather than stronger. Victoria Sponge, Made With the Tea How to make Victoria Sponge, Made With the Tea, with Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew. 45 min 1 cake Medium You'll need 2 Yorkshire Tea Victoria Sponge Brew bags 60ml boiling water 200g butter, softened 200g caster sugar 200g self-raising flour 4 eggs Strawberry jam and whipped cream to fill Method Brew two bags in 60ml of boiling water for five minutes to make a very strong infusion, then cool it. Beat the butter and sugar until pale, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour and the cooled tea infusion. Bake in two 20cm tins at 160 degrees Celsius fan for about twenty-two minutes. Cool completely, then sandwich with jam and cream. What you'll end up with: A closed loop, and it genuinely works: the tea deepens the vanilla in the sponge without making the cake taste of tea. Do not use more liquid than this or the crumb goes heavy. --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._