I prefer my Ooh from Northern Tea Merchants (Other Black Teas)

Member Name: wtwildcats

Product:	Other Black Teas
Date:	11/11/02 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: taste

Disadvantages: availability

I am allergic to dairy products, and love tea. I drink loads of it. But as I can't have dairy products, I always drink my tea black. And without sugar (I'm sweet enough, obviously!).

So what? Well, unless you are like me, you probably won't realise that a lot of teas are very bitter, especially if stewed for a longer period, which makes them quite unpalatable if you don't alter the drink by adding milk.

Milk cools the tea down, but also takes any bitterness away.

Probably the best tea I have found to drink is the Golden De Luxe tea bags, produced by Northern Tea Merchants. They cost £1.89 for 110 tea bags, which makes then slightly more expensive than most "off the shelf" tea bags available when you buy in quantities of 240 bags or more at one time.

Bear in mind the fact that I am a Yorkshire lad, these tea bags must be good if I am happy to spend extra to buy them!!!

Well, they are not bitter, for a start. I buy them for my tea fund at work too - and people there like to stew tea for 14 days and use forceps to squeeze the last bit of life out of a tea bag before they are prepared to give you your cup back, and the tea still isn't bitter.

(Another good tea bag for people who drink black tea is PG Tips, by the way - they don't produce bitter tea either.)

The packaging states that "each tea bag makes one cup of good tea", and they aren't lying. This tea is a blend, so its not dargeeling, assam etc, its just your average tea.

However, its very very refreshing. Quite a few teas are just drinks, but this one seems to be a bit different. When stewed, the tea itself is very clear, and the taste is of good quality teas. There isn't any particular flavours which stand out, except a general tea flavour. But its not sullied by too much tannin, it seems to be very crisp and light.

As touched upon in the disadvantages, this product is hard to obtai
n if you live outside Chesterfield. Northern Tea Merchants is a Chesterfield based company who supply many businesses, as well as have a shop and tasting bar open to the public.

They serve a wide range of teas, both bagged - they have golden and silver de luxe bags, but golden is better, however slightly more expensive - and loose leaf - they sell these blends and about 20 or so speciality teas from Africa, India, Japan etc. Some of them, I would almost certainly guarantee you've never heard of.

If you pop into the shop, then (at a cost of around 85p a cup) you can try your tea before you buy it, which is good. The shop has just had a face lift, and is much more welcoming now.

Northern Tea Merchants also have a very wide range of coffees on sale - up to 30 different coffees at any one time. You can buy them as whole beans or they will, at no extra cost, grind the chosen beans for you for use in a percolator or caffiteire, as you wish. Costs vary depending on what coffee you buy, and I don't know how much they are cos I don't like coffee.

This is my tea of choice, purely because it is not bland, nor bitter, and is refreshing when drunk.

The shop and company can be contacted as follows:

Northern Tea Merchants
193 Chatsworth Road
Chesterfield
Derbyshire
S40 2BA

Tel: 01246 232600

I don't know if they do mail order, but ring and ask if you want to find out :)

Thanks for reading this op, please leave your ratings and comments.

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