Friends, I have finally finished all the teas in the Renegade Tea Taster Set! One day, I’ll go back to that first post and update it with links to all the reviews but today, let’s dive into the last tea – Georgian Breakfast. I generally like black teas and I actually have a place in my heart for a good cup of English Breakfast (it’s great with food), so I’m excited for this one. This is how the Renegade Farmers describe it:

A great companion to start the day with! This black tea’s captivating smell is toasty, smoky, a bit spicy. You can feel some roasted rye bread, tobacco. The taste is full-bodied, toasty and you can also feel the sweetness of dried plums. If you have been looking for a stronger black tea in our selection, then this is the one! 

First Impressions

The dry leaves smell smoky, which doesn’t feel like a typical breakfast tea, more like a heavily roasted oolong. I’ve not yet drunk the tea and it’s already giving me a surprise.

Tasting notes

The first steep, while quite light, was sweet and smoky, with no bitterness of astringency. This was really just a foretsaste of what was to come because in in the second steep, the sweetness deepened into a honey-like note while the smokiness reminded me of the Zhen Cong Shui Xian that I had a really long time ago. Interestingly, I didn’t make the connection to honey until after the tea had cooled down and the sweetness became more noticeable.

The third cup, which I steeped for 3 minutes, had the clearest honey-note of all. The smoky note is much less intense compared to the first two cups, so what I got now was a basically honey. It’s definitely not a typical breakfast tea but I’m enjoyed it a lot.

Compared to other renegade teas, I managed to steep this quite a few times! After the third steep, I increased the steeping time for each subsequent cup by 1 minute. By the 5th cup, the tea was light but still quite flavourful. It’s a pity I had to end my session with the tea because I think I could push it at least for one more cup.

Conclusion

This was a very fun tea to finish the taster set with! I was definitely expecting something woodier and with more astringency so that it can stand up to milk, but I got a rich, sweet tea instead. The smoky note was surprising but I felt it added some pleasant depth to the tea that the honey-note alone couldn’t give. This one is definitely a tea that I would be interested in drinking more of!