We won!
Our Gold Tea has been crowned ‘top of the pots’ in the Guardian’s Great British Tea Test.
Top of the pots
Yorkshire Tea (£2.79 for 80 teabags) A no-nonsense brew, befitting a county that gave us Geoffrey Boycott and Sean Bean. Like a Yorkshire terrier: feisty but reliable and surprisingly domineering. 4/5
Cornish Tea (£2.99 for 80 teabags) Pleasant enough but lacking in personality. I was expecting more subversion from a tea with the subtitle “smuggler’s brew”. 3/5
Welsh Brew Gold (£3.69 for 80 teabags) A hearty brew – strong and confident, yet strangely comforting, like a male voice choir. Can double for Yorkshire Tea. 4/5
Ringtons Gold (£3.97 for 100 teabags) Blended on Tyneside since 1907, Ringtons is my fave: a slightly smoky brew with a bright and golden hue. 5/5
Miles West Country Original (£2.50 for 80 teabags) Barely there. Disappointing for a region famed for its cream teas and Cheddar cheese. 3/5
Lancashire Tea (£2.30 for 80 teabags) Odd purplish hue. As satisfying as a weak handshake. Very “meh” for the county of strong women like Thora Hird, Emmeline Pankhurst and Barbara Castle. 2/5
Kinnettles Gold (£40 for a 20g tin) Grown and hand-rolled on Kinnettles farm in Angus, north-east Scotland, this delicate yellow-green tea bears no relation to any of the above but scores highly for refreshment and novelty value. 4/5
Helen Pidd
North of England editor of the Guardian
The great British tea test: which part of the country brings us the very best brew?
As a proud Lancastrian, I ought to favour my local blend in a taste test with rivals from Yorkshire and beyond. However …I made the mistake of buying some Lancashire Tea bags recently. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I was born in Lancaster – and they were on offer in Morrisons.
What a disappointment. We Lancastrians may have won the Wars of the Roses* and be vastly better at football than our transpennine rivals, but, by ’eck, the brew bearing my county’s name is an insipid affair. More than once I had to go back to the cupboard and check I hadn’t picked up a decaf bag in error. Lancashire Tea is murky. It has a sinister tinge of that slightly bruised purple you get when suffering a tea with the good stuff removed.
Chances are, you have never tried Lancashire Tea. You probably didn’t even know it was a thing. It has only existed since 2002, when Paul Needham and Lynn Hitchen looked enviously at the success of Yorkshire Tea and decided to copy the gimmick over on the rainy side of the M62…
Posted by Bob Matthews
