Twinings Assam, 40 Tea Bags 100g
Single origins normally arrive loose and ask something of you. This one arrives in a bag, which is the whole point of it: the character of an Assam on a weekday, with no caddy, no spoon and nothing to rinse out afterwards. What comes out is a heavy, coating cup that still registers underneath a slice of something sweet, where a lighter tea would simply disappear. There is no fragrance here and no subtlety, and none was intended. High in caffeine, and it does not pretend to be a gentle start.
Twinings Assam, in brief.
Twinings Assam in forty bags is the everyday route to a black tea sold under its own origin name, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the malty thing that English breakfast blends are built out of, sold on its own.
Four minutes in water straight off the boil, then milk. The bag costs you a little of the rounded depth that the same leaf gives in a pot, and saves you the infuser; the loose 125 gram carton is on the shelf for the days when that trade is the wrong way round.
Twinings Assam in forty bags is the everyday way to drink a tea sold under its own origin name rather than as a breakfast blend. Assam is the broad-leafed black tea of the river plain in north-east India, and it is the malty, heavy component that most English breakfast blends are built around. Buying it on its own means getting that character undiluted instead of balanced away.
The interesting question with a bagged Assam is what the bag costs you. A teabag holds a fixed dose in a confined pocket, and Assam leaf swells a great deal, so it never opens as completely as the same leaf would in a pot. What you lose is a little of the rounded depth; what you gain is two minutes of your morning and a cup that is the same every time. For most people on most days that is the right trade, and the loose 125 gram carton we also carry is there for the days when it is not.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Steep times, milk and the loose-versus-bagged question are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Twinings
Twinings is the family tea house trading from London since 1706.
Assam was the discovery that made British tea drinking what it is. Before it, tea in Britain meant Chinese leaf. The broad-leafed plant found growing in Assam produced a heavier, maltier tea that stood up to milk and to hard water, and within a few decades it had become the backbone of the national cup. Almost every everyday blend on a British shelf still leans on it. Drinking it on its own, as this box lets you, is drinking the thing the blends are built out of.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Forty bags, 100 grams: 40 cups, one bag each, at 2.5 grams a bag. That is the pack's own count rather than any arithmetic of ours.
- A fixed dose: the bag decides how much leaf you get. That is the convenience and the limitation in the same sentence.
- Origin-named, not a breakfast blend: sold as Assam. Within that it will be blended for consistency, which is normal and is what keeps the box the same each time.
- What it is not: not a decaf, not flavoured, not a chai, and not the same drink as the loose 125 gram carton. The leaf is the same idea; the cup is slightly different.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: 100 degrees Celsius, freshly boiled.
- Steep: four minutes, covered, then remove the bag.
- Milk: yes. This is a milk tea by construction, and a heavy body is precisely what lets a splash round it rather than wash it out.
- Sugar: optional and traditional. A little reads as caramel against the malt rather than as sweetness.
- Storage: sealed, cool, dark and dry. A bagged tea holds up better than loose leaf, but an open box on a warm shelf still flattens within weeks.
- Resteeping: no. A 2.5 gram bag is spent after one pass and a second steep is thin and tannic.
- Best with: breakfast, buttered toast, bacon, fruit cake, and as a quick chai base when you cannot be bothered with loose leaf.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Twinings Assam, 40 Tea Bags 100g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Twinings
Twinings has been blending tea on London's Strand since 1706, the same address, three centuries later. Holders of the royal warrant for tea since 1837, they're the brand most-associated with Earl Grey, English Breakfast, and the polished afternoon-tea aesthetic. Wide flavoured-tea range; ethical sourcing through the Twinings Community Needs Assessment programme.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our commitment to the planet
The taste profile
How does it compare
Assam is forgiving about dose and unforgiving about time. The malt comes out early and the tannin comes out late, so the difference between a rounded cup and a harsh one is usually a minute. In a bag the whole thing happens faster than it does in a pot, which makes the timing matter more rather than less.
The Mug
The Pot
Made with this tea
The Morning Mug
How to make The Morning Mug with Twinings Assam.
- 1 Twinings Assam bag
- 250ml water at a rolling boil
- A splash of milk
- A saucer to cover the mug
- Pour 250ml straight off a rolling boil onto the bag.
- Cover the mug with a saucer and leave it four minutes.
- Lift the bag out without squeezing it.
- Add milk and stir once.
What you'll end up with: A deep red-brown mug with rounded malt and the body to hold milk. Pulling the bag at three minutes gives a lighter, sweeter cup for drinking black.
The Breakfast Pot
How to make The Breakfast Pot with Twinings Assam.
- 4 Twinings Assam bags
- 1 litre water at a rolling boil
- Milk
- A warmed pot
- Warm the pot with boiling water and tip it away.
- Add four bags, one per cup.
- 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: Taking the bags out is the whole discipline. Left in, the pot keeps extracting and the second round of cups is noticeably harder than the first.
Weekday Chai From Bags
How to make Weekday Chai From Bags with Twinings Assam.
- 3 Twinings Assam bags
- 300ml water
- 300ml whole milk
- 4 crushed cardamom pods, a small piece of cinnamon, 2 cloves
- Sugar to taste
- Simmer the spices in the water for five minutes.
- Add the three bags and simmer two minutes more, pressing them against the side of the pan once.
- Pour in the milk and bring back to a bare simmer.
- Sweeten, then strain into mugs.
What you'll end up with: The quick chai. Loose leaf does it better because you can push the dose further, but three bags and twelve minutes gets you most of the way there.
Overnight Cold Brew
How to make Overnight Cold Brew with Twinings Assam.
- 5 Twinings Assam bags
- 1 litre cold water
- A sealed jug
- Ice to serve
- Drop five bags into a litre of cold water in a sealed jug.
- Refrigerate eight hours, or overnight.
- Lift the bags out and drink within two days.
- Serve over ice, sweetened lightly if you like.
What you'll end up with: Rounder and sweeter than the hot version with none of the tannic grip, because cold water never pulls the hard tannins out. The best use for a heavy tea in summer.
Smoked Tea Marinade
How to make a Smoked Tea Marinade with Twinings Assam.
- 3 Twinings Assam bags
- 200ml boiling water
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- A thumb of ginger, grated
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- Brew three bags in 200ml of boiling water for six minutes to make a deliberately over-strong, tannic infusion.
- Stir in the soy, sugar, ginger and garlic while it is hot.
- Cool completely before it goes anywhere near food.
- Marinate chicken thighs, pork or firm tofu for at least two hours, then grill or roast.
What you'll end up with: The one use where overbrewing is correct: the tannin is what tenderises and the malt is what caramelises under heat. A rare case of a tea working better ruined than made properly.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Bag format | 40 bags, 2.5 grams each | A fixed dose and a confined pocket. Assam leaf swells a great deal, so a bag never opens it as completely as a pot does - the convenience and the limitation in one line. |
| Dose | 2.5 grams a bag, 100 grams across 40 bags | A textbook dose. Adding a second bag pushes the cup towards tannic grip rather than more malt. |
| Pack | 40 tea bags, 100 grams | One bag a cup, 40 cups a box. The pack's own count rather than any arithmetic of ours. |
Pack: Twinings Assam, 40 Tea Bags 100g; malty black tea for a mug or a pot, taken with milk. Store sealed, cool, dark and dry. Read the ingredient list, the allergen advice and the best-before date off the current UK box.
Components shown are those we can state honestly from the product name, the pack weight and the bag count.
Sourcing & blend. Twinings Assam is put together by Twinings, the family tea house trading from London since 1706. 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. It sits on the shelf between the everyday blends, which balance Assam away, and the loose 125 gram carton, which gives the same leaf more room.
What's in Twinings Assam, 40 Tea Bags 100g, and what isn't:
- In: Assam black tea, 40 bags at 100 grams, with the full declaration printed on the box.
- No flavouring, fruit or petals: plain black tea, not a scented or flavoured blend and not a chai.
Asked about this tea
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Twinings Assam, 40 Tea Bags 100g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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