Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated 40, 109g
Plenty of people simply stop drinking tea after six, because the alternative on offer is a herbal they never wanted. This is the way out of that: the same breakfast blend, composure intact, moved to the end of the day rather than swapped for something else entirely. Nothing here is a compromise dressed up as a choice.
Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated 40, in brief.
Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated is the classic London tea house morning blend with the caffeine taken out, forty bags at one hundred and nine grams, picked into the teas.co.uk curator selection as the evening cup for people who want tea rather than a herbal substitute.
Decaffeinated is not caffeine-free: a residue always remains. Give it three and a half to four minutes.
Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated is the classic morning blend with the caffeine taken out, forty bags at one hundred and nine grams. Divide one by the other and you get 2.725 grams of leaf a bag, which is the most interesting number on this page. The caffeinated English Breakfast carton from the same brand carries 2.5 grams a bag. The decaffeinated version is filled noticeably heavier.
That is not an accident, and it is the correct answer to the usual complaint about decaf tea. Decaffeination is a process applied to finished leaf, and it takes a little body and aroma out along with the caffeine; the standard industry response is to hope nobody notices. Filling the bag heavier is the other response. The numbers themselves are the pack's.
Curator notes: what we say about taste is our own editorial opinion, checked against the current pack format and the description the brand publishes. Dispatch for the 40 bag carton comes within 1 to 2 working days. Steeping adjustments, the fill-weight comparison and what decaffeinated actually means 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, and English Breakfast is the blend most closely associated with the English tea trade as a category rather than with any one garden. A breakfast blend is engineered for consistency and for milk: the blender's job is to hold one recognisable cup steady while the underlying crops vary season to season. Taking the caffeine out adds one more constraint, since the process does not remove only caffeine, and whatever else goes has to be made up somewhere in the recipe or the fill.
All of those, along with the bag material and the current allergen advice, must be read off the current UK pack rather than taken from this page.
Packaging: What goes in which bin depends on the component, so rely on the markings on the pack you receive and on your council's rules.
What You Are Actually Buying
- A heavier fill than the caffeinated carton: 2.725 grams against 2.5 in the standard English Breakfast box. Useful to know, because it means you should not need a second bag.
- Cost: A forty-bag box never spreads cost the way an eighty does, and decaffeination is an extra step that gets paid for somewhere.
- What it is not: not a herbal infusion, not a sleep tea, not flavoured and not resteepable. It is the morning blend moved to the evening.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: 100 degrees Celsius, straight off the boil.
- Measure: one bag, 250 to 300ml.
- Steep: three and a half to four minutes, covered if you can.
- Hard water: a decaf has less body in reserve, so hard water shows up faster. Add thirty seconds, or use filtered water.
- Storage: sealed, cool, dark and dry, away from coffee, spices and any scented tea sharing the shelf.
- Not resteepable: the first steep takes what there is.
- Best with: after dinner, with a biscuit, or any point in the day when you want tea and not caffeine.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated 40, 109g, 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: What goes in which bin depends on the component, so rely on the markings on the pack you receive and on your council's rules.
Our commitment to the planet
The taste profile
How does it compare
Most complaints about decaf tea are really complaints about a rushed decaf tea. The process leaves the leaf slower to give up its malt, so a ninety second dunk, which just about passes with a strong caffeinated blend, produces something properly thin here. The heavier fill helps, but it is not a substitute for the clock.
The Evening Mug
The Pot
Made with this tea
The Evening Mug
How to make The Evening Mug with Twinings English Breakfast Decaf.
- 1 bag Twinings English Breakfast Decaf
- 250 to 300ml of water straight from the boil
- A splash of milk
- Pour water at the boil over one bag that sits in a pre warmed mug.
- Steep for 3 and a half to 4 minutes, covered for the first minute.
- Lift the bag out, then add milk with a lighter hand than you would use on a builder's brew.
What you'll end up with: A bright evening cup that still reads as tea rather than as a substitute for it.
The After-Dinner Pot
How to make The After-Dinner Pot with Twinings English Breakfast Decaf.
- 4 bags Twinings English Breakfast Decaf
- 1 litre water straight off the boil
- Milk
- Warm the teapot by swilling in a little kettle water, then discard it.
- Add one bag per cup and skip the extra for the pot; the fill weight covers it.
- Steep 5 minutes, then lift every bag out before the first pour.
What you'll end up with: A pot the whole table can finish at nine at night without anybody regretting it.
Late Iced Tea
How to make Late Iced Tea with Twinings English Breakfast Decaf.
- 2 bags Twinings English Breakfast Decaf
- 300ml water straight off the boil
- Half a lemon
- A full glass of ice
- Sugar to taste
- Brew Leave 2 bags in 300ml of water at the boil for 5 minutes and then take them out.
- Sweeten while hot so the sugar dissolves properly.
- Cool to room temperature, then send it over a full glass of ice with half a lemon's juice.
What you'll end up with: A summer-evening iced tea you can drink at nine and still sleep after.
Decaf Breakfast Fog
How to make Decaf Breakfast Fog with Twinings English Breakfast Decaf.
- 2 bags Twinings English Breakfast Decaf
- 120ml water straight off the boil
- 150ml steamed or hot milk
- 1 teaspoon honey
- A drop of vanilla extract
- Brew 2 bags in 120ml of water straight off the boil for 5 minutes to make a concentrate.
- Stir in the honey and vanilla while hot.
- Top with 150ml of steamed or simply hot milk.
What you'll end up with: A vanilla milk tea built on breakfast tea rather than Earl Grey, and drinkable at bedtime.
Tea Soaked Breakfast Prunes
How to make Tea Soaked Breakfast Prunes with Twinings English Breakfast Decaf.
- 3 bags Twinings English Breakfast Decaf
- 400ml water straight off the boil
- •300g pitted prunes
- A strip of orange peel
- 1 cinnamon stick
- Brew Put 3 bags in 400ml of boiling water and leave for 10 minutes, then remove the bags.
- Pour the hot tea over the prunes with the orange peel and cinnamon stick.
- Leave covered overnight; keep in the fridge and use within a week.
What you'll end up with: Plump, lightly tannic breakfast prunes with no caffeine in them, which matters if children eat them.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Decaffeinated black tea | The whole of the bag | An English Breakfast blend, decaffeinated after the leaf was made, so the bright brisk character survives while the stimulant largely does not. |
Ingredients and allergens. No ingredient on the list published for this barcode counts among the 14 major allergens. Formulations and allergen advice can move, so before buying read the current UK pack.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. Where it differs from the carton you receive, trust the carton.
Pack: Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated 40, 109g; low-caffeine black tea. Store sealed, cool and dry; use within the best-before window printed on the carton.
Characterising components shown; the full declaration, the decaffeination method, the bag material statement and any certification marks are on the current UK pack.
Sourcing & blend. Since 1706 Twinings has been a family tea house based in London, and it is the maker of this decaffeinated English Breakfast. English Breakfast is a blend rather than a single origin, and deliberately so: the blender holds one recognisable cup steady while the underlying crops vary season to season. Decaffeination is one more constraint: it is applied after the leaf has been grown, picked and oxidised, and it removes more than caffeine, so the loss has to be made good in the recipe or in the fill weight. The heavier bag here is consistent with that, though the brand has published no statement of its reasoning to us and the inference is our own.
What's in Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated 40, 109g, and what isn't:
- In: decaffeinated black tea, 2.725 grams a bag, blended bright and brisk and intended to be drunk with milk.
- No added flavouring, fruit pieces or flower petals: a plain black tea, not a flavoured one.
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Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated 40, 109g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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