# How to blend your own breakfast tea from two teas

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**Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent

## Summary

Blend your own breakfast tea from two you already own: one for body, one for brightness. Ratios to start from, how to test it, and what to write down.

## Description

Every breakfast blend on the shelf is a recipe: a base tea for strength and body, and a second tea for brightness and lift. You can do the same at home with two teas you already own, a pair of scales and about ten minutes.
Step 1: pick the two jobs



Job
What it does
Teas that do it




The base (60–80%)
Body, malt, colour, strength with milk
Assam, a strong everyday blend, Kenyan


The lifter (20–40%)
Brightness, aroma, a lighter finish
Ceylon, a lighter Ceylon-style blend



Two strong teas together make a heavy, flat cup. Two light teas make a thin one. The interest comes from the contrast.
Darjeeling is best left out of a breakfast blend: its delicate character is lost under milk. Save it for an afternoon pot.
Step 2: start at 70:30 by weight
Weigh, do not scoop. Leaf shapes vary so much that a spoon of one tea can weigh twice as much as a spoon of another — see tea spoons are not grams.
A sensible first batch is 20g: 14g base, 6g lifter. Mix them in a jar, shake gently, and label it with the two teas, the ratio and the date.
Step 3: brew it the way you actually drink it
Use your normal mug, your normal water and your normal milk. A blend that shines black at 2 minutes may vanish under a generous splash of milk at 4.

Brew 2.5–3g per 250ml mug.
Give it 3 to 4 minutes for a breakfast-style blend.
Taste it plain, then with milk.

Compare it against each tea brewed on its own the same way. That tells you what the blend is adding.
Step 4: adjust one thing at a time



What you notice
Next batch




Flat, too heavy under milk
More lifter: try 60:40


Thin, disappears with milk
More base: try 80:20


Bitter or drying
Shorter brew before changing the recipe


Dull and muddy
The two teas may be too similar



When you land on something you like, write down the exact products, the ratio, the dose and the brewing time. That note is the difference between a happy accident and a house blend.
Which teas to start with
Loose leaf makes this much easier. Yorkshire Tea Original Loose Leaf or PG Tips Original Loose Leaf both work as a base; Yorkshire Tea Gold Blend Loose Leaf is richer again.
No loose leaf in the house? You can cut open tea bags and weigh the contents. It is fiddly and the grades are fine, so brew for less time, but it works for a first experiment.
Background on what the big blends are made of is in English Breakfast tea and Assam tea explained.
A few blends worth trying

Everyday builder's: 70% strong everyday base, 30% Ceylon-style lifter.
Richer, for a pot: 80% Gold-style malty base, 20% lifter.
Afternoon-ish: 50:50, brewed 30 seconds shorter, drunk with less milk.
Scented twist: 90% breakfast base with 10% Earl Grey — a subtle bergamot lift rather than a full Earl Grey.

Common questions
Do I need special equipment?
Digital scales that read to 1g, a jar and a label. That is it.
How much should I make?
Start with 20g. There is no point making 200g of something you have not tasted.
Does it keep?
As well as its ingredients do: airtight, cool, dark, away from strong smells, and drunk within a few months.
Can I blend green and black tea together?
You can, but they want different water temperatures and times, so you will always compromise one of them. Blending within a family is easier.

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