The best black tea for any time of day

3 min read

Black tea is fully oxidised, which gives it the body, colour, and briskness that have made it the standard morning cup. That full oxidation is also why black tea varieties differ so widely from one another: origin, altitude, and blending decide whether a tea lands strong and malty or bright and light.

Here is how we would match our black selection to the time of day.

The best tea in the morning: body and briskness

Morning wants weight. A fuller-bodied cup that stands up to milk and clears the head is the reliable choice for a good tea to drink in the morning.

Atlas Breakfast is our everyday breakfast blend, and our answer to English Breakfast. A breakfast blend is built rather than found: several black teas combined for strength, for consistency from batch to batch, and for enough backbone to take milk. If you are looking for the best English Breakfast tea to start on, this is ours. (And many are surprised to first learn English Breakfast is a blend!)

For single origin, Assam is the classic. Grown in the Assam valley of northeast India, it brews a black, black tea, deep in the cup and unmistakably malty. It is the backbone of most commercial breakfast blends for a reason, and it holds its own as the best tea in the morning without any help.

Kenilworth, a Ceylon black from Sri Lanka, is brighter and brisker. It has the lift of a morning tea with a touch less weight than Assam, which also lets it carry into the early afternoon.

Good afternoon tea: lighter, brighter, or scented

These are all black tea, though the different kinds of black tea vary enough that the afternoon deserves its own shortlist. Later in the day most people want less body and a little more aroma, and that is where the best afternoon tea in our range sits.

Daintree is grown in Far North Queensland, one of the few black teas produced in Australia. It carries a lighter body than most black teas, which makes it an easy, unfussy afternoon cup, a good afternoon tea that will not sit heavily before dinner.

Traders Grey is our answer to Earl Grey: black tea scented with bergamot, softened here with vanilla to round the citrus edge. It drinks gently, which suits a slower afternoon.

Jin Hou, or Golden Monkey, is a Chinese black tea named for its golden downy tips. The cup is fragrant and fruity, leaning sweeter than the maltier breakfast styles, which makes it more of an afternoon treat than a morning staple.