Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g
The thing that puts people off loose breakfast tea is the silt. Leaf cut for a breakfast blend is fine, and a classic wide-hole strainer lets enough of it through to leave a grey sludge in the last inch of the mug. A fine mesh basket solves it outright. Past that, what is in the caddy is a broad, malty, firmly caffeinated black tea that wants a pot rather than a mug, with a tannin edge underneath that milk is there to meet. Pour the pot out at four minutes or lift the leaf, because it keeps going for as long as it sits.
Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, in brief.
Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea is the breakfast blend in its original form, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the loose leaf worth owning a strainer for.
Whole leaf in a pot unfurls and extracts slowly where ground leaf in a bag brews fast and hard, so the cup is broader and maltier with a longer finish. One teaspoon a cup, four minutes, then get the leaf out of the water.
Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea is a different drink from the bagged version of the same name, and anybody who has only ever had the bag should try the leaf once before deciding what they think of breakfast tea. The blend is recognisably the same idea. What changes is the grade of the leaf and the room it has to work in.
A tea bag has to hold ground leaf, because whole leaf packed tight enough to fit would never open properly in the ninety seconds most people give it. Ground leaf has more surface area, so it brews faster and harder, which is exactly what a bag needs and exactly what makes a bagged cup taste brisk and slightly one-note. Loose leaf in a pot does the opposite: it unfurls, extracts more slowly and gives a broader, maltier cup with a longer finish. That is the whole trade. You gain flavour and lose convenience, and you take on a strainer and two minutes of washing up.
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. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Twinings
Twinings has traded from the Strand in London since 1706, and loose tea is the older half of its business by two and a half centuries. English Breakfast is the blend the house is best known for after Earl Grey, and the loose version is the one the shop sold long before anybody thought of putting tea in a bag.
The tasting profile above is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Weight: 125g of loose leaf in a carton. There is no bag count because there are no bags.
- How many cups: about 50, by our own calculation at a 2.5g rounded teaspoon per cup. That is the usual measure rather than a figure printed on the pack, and a heavy hand will get you fewer.
- You need a strainer: or an infuser basket, or a pot with a built-in filter. This is the part people forget when they buy loose tea for the first time.
- What it is not: not a single origin, not a bagged tea decanted, and not a decaf. It is a proper breakfast blend in its original form.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: 100 degrees, freshly drawn and boiled once.
- Measure: one rounded teaspoon per cup, about 2.5g.
- Steep: four minutes, then separate the leaf from the water.
- Service: with milk. Black at four minutes is firm; black at three is pleasant.
- Storage: sealed, dry and dark, in the carton or a tin. Loose leaf keeps better than ground leaf in a bag because there is less surface exposed to the air.
- Best with: a cooked breakfast, buttered toast, marmalade, or fruit cake in the afternoon.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g, 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
Loose leaf is easier than people expect and has exactly one rule that matters: get the leaf out of the water when the time is up. A bag can be lifted; loose leaf cannot, so either the tea leaves the pot or the leaf does. Everything else is detail.
The Pot
In A Mug, Without A Pot
Made with this tea
The Warmed Pot
How to make The Warmed Pot with Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea.
- 3 rounded teaspoons Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea
- 600ml freshly drawn water, boiled once
- A teapot and a strainer
- A jug of milk
- Warm the pot with a splash of boiling water, swirl it, tip it out.
- Spoon in one rounded teaspoon per cup and pour on 600ml of water straight off the boil.
- Steep four minutes.
- Pour it all out through a strainer, into cups or into a second warmed pot. Do not leave the leaf sitting in water.
What you'll end up with: A deep coppery pot with a broad malt that a bag does not give you. Pouring it all out at four minutes is the whole technique.
One Mug, No Teapot
How to make One Mug, No Teapot with Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea.
- 1 rounded teaspoon Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea
- 250ml just boiled water
- A small sieve, or a roomy infuser basket
- Spoon the leaf straight into the mug and pour 250ml of just boiled water over it.
- Steep four minutes.
- Pour through a small sieve into a second mug. It takes three seconds and washing the sieve takes five.
- Or use an infuser basket with room in it, and lift it out at four minutes.
What you'll end up with: The pot cup without the pot. Avoid a cramped ball infuser: the leaf never opens in it and a full spoonful gives a thin cup.
Cold Brew Breakfast Tea
How to make Cold Brew Breakfast Tea with Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea.
- 4 rounded teaspoons Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea
- 750ml cold water
- A lidded jug and a sieve
- Stir the leaf into 750ml of cold water, lid on, into the fridge.
- Leave for eight to ten hours or overnight.
- Strain thoroughly and keep it cold. Drink within two days.
What you'll end up with: Smooth, sweet and almost caramel, with the tannin left behind entirely. Worth doing once with a breakfast blend, because the result is nothing like the hot cup.
Loose Leaf Chai Base
How to make Loose Leaf Chai Base with Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea.
- 3 rounded teaspoons Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea
- 300ml water
- 300ml whole milk
- 4 cardamom pods, a coin of ginger, a small cinnamon stick
- Simmer the crushed cardamom, ginger and cinnamon in 300ml of water for 5 minutes.
- Add the loose leaf and simmer a further 3 minutes.
- Pour in the milk and bring it back to the edge of a boil, then take it off the heat.
- Strain into cups and sweeten to taste.
What you'll end up with: Chai with the tea still audible under the spice. Loose leaf is the right form here because it can be simmered directly, which a bag cannot survive.
Smoked Tea Salt
How to make Smoked Tea Salt with Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea.
- 2 rounded teaspoons Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea
- 100g flaky sea salt
- A jar
- Grind the dry leaf coarsely in a pestle and mortar.
- Mix it through the flaky salt and seal the jar.
- Leave a week, then use on roast potatoes, eggs or chicken skin.
What you'll end up with: Salt with a dry malty savour behind it. Only possible with loose leaf, because you need the dry leaf itself rather than what comes out of it.
What To Do With The Spent Leaf
How to make What To Do With The Spent Leaf with Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea.
- The leaf from a pot of Twinings English Breakfast
- A compost bin, or acid-loving plants
- Let it cool in the strainer or the pot.
- Tip it straight into the compost. There is no bag material to think about.
- Or scatter it around acid-loving plants such as camellias, which are the same genus as the tea bush.
What you'll end up with: One genuine practical advantage of loose tea over bags, and a use for something that would otherwise go in the bin twice a day.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Black tea, loose leaf | The whole of the blend | Everything in the cup: the deep coppery colour, the broad slow malt, the firm tannin edge that milk is there to meet, and the caffeine. |
| Leaf grade | Whole and broken leaf | Not ground to the dust a bag needs. It unfurls in the pot and extracts more slowly, which is the entire difference between this and the bagged version of the same blend. |
| Leaf per cup | 2.5g | One rounded teaspoon, the usual measure. Our own figure rather than one printed on the pack. |
| Cups per carton | About 50 | Our arithmetic on 125g at a 2.5g teaspoon. A generous hand gets fewer; we show the working rather than quoting a round number as fact. |
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.
Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.
Pack: Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g; a caffeinated loose leaf black tea blend in a carton, GTIN 0070177010539. There are no tea bags: a strainer, an infuser basket or a pot with a filter is needed. Store sealed, dry and dark. Read the ingredient declaration, any certification marks and the best-before date off the current UK pack.
Characterising components shown. The cup count is our own calculation and is labelled as such wherever it appears.
Sourcing & blend. Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g is put together by Twinings, the family tea house trading from the Strand in London since 1706, for whom loose tea is the older half of the business by two and a half centuries. Our assessment of the cup rests on the pack format and the brand's published description.
What's in Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g, and what isn't:
- In: loose black tea leaf and nothing else, at about 2.5g a cup.
- No artificial colours, preservatives or added sugar: an unscented black tea, so there is nothing to sweeten or colour. Any sweetness in the cup comes from the malt in the leaf.
- No bag at all: which removes the bag material question entirely, and means the used leaf goes straight into the compost.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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