Liquid Proust Teas’ Smoked Breakfast

Smoked Breakfast by Liquid Proust Teas
Black Tea / Flavoured
$5USD for 1 ounce

Liquid Proust Teas has provided me with Smoked Breakfast for the purposes of providing an honest review.
I received this product at no charge to me and received no other compensation.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

I first came across Liquid Proust Teas on Instagram shortly after I had posted my first blog entry here on One More Steep. Andrew Richardson, the owner of Liquid Proust Teas, had liked my screenshot and I saw that he was looking for bloggers to review some teas. We communicated and a couple weeks later I got a package of tea to review! This is the first of four reviews of Liquid Proust Teas.

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First Impressions

The bag that this sample of Liquid Proust Teas’ Smoked Breakfast came in is very sturdy, I thought I was going to rip the thing apart trying to get it open! But onto the tea… The aroma of smoke is very, very strong and it reminds me a lot of the smell of a campfire. There is an underlying scent that reminds me of star anise, which is not listed on the ingredients list at all. The tea itself is quite nice, I can see a lot of texture in the dried leaves and the leaves themselves are decently sized.

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Smoked Breakfast contains the following ingredients: Chinese black tea (FOP), lapsang souchong, cinnamon pieces, and flavouring. For those who’ve never had a tea with lapsang souchong before, it is a smoked tea (which accounts for the strong smoke smell). Despite cinnamon being on the list (and being able to see the cinnamon), I can’t smell it at all when the tea is dry. I would have liked it if the ingredients list identified the flavouring as natural or artificial.

Preparation

Liquid Proust Teas recommends steeping Smoked Breakfast in 205°F (96°C) water for just 60 seconds. I thought this was a typo a first, given that black teas are normally steeped for a few minutes, but I did check the Etsy page for this tea and it is not a typo. So I gave it a go at 60 seconds.

First Taste

The tea was steeped for 60 seconds and it still smells smokey although it is not as strong as when the tea was dry, it is a lot more muted now it’s been steeped. I did have to let it cool down a bit as 60 seconds is not a long time to allow water to cool down. To my surprise, Smoked Breakfast is a very smooth tea. It wasn’t bitter and it doesn’t taste smokey. Instead, it tastes a bit sweet. There’s not spiciness that I would have expected from the cinnamon, I can’t taste it all. The tea itself is delightful. The subdued smell of campfire promotes a sense of nostalgia.

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A Second Cup?

I opted to try steeping Smoked Breakfast for a second time. This time I steeped it for longer than the initial 60 seconds (probably around 90 seconds). The campfire aroma is still gentle and not over-powering, and the taste of the tea remains true to the first cup. I love it when a tea can be steeped again and taste great! It would probably do very well for a third or even fourth resteep, although I didn’t try it as it was quite late in the day when I had resteeped this tea.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Liquid Proust Teas’ Smoked Breakfast. The heavy smoke aroma is very strong and can be off-putting if you’re not prepared for it. I find that the smokey aroma doesn’t transfer into the flavour of the tea itself, and overall it is a very nice tea. I quite like the taste of it and the gentle smoke aroma when the tea is ready to go is quite pleasant. The 60 seconds recommended steeping time was a good call by Liquid Proust Teas, and it did pretty well with the second steeping. Being able to resteep a tea and have it taste great is a great quality to find in any tea.

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