Whittard – English Rose (Teabags)
Whittard – English Rose (Loose leaf)
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A few weeks ago I reviewed a bunch of rose-flavoured teas and Whittard’s English Rose tea was amongst them. I noticed that Whittard’s was the only tea in the group not to contain actual rose petals. This is because I was using teabags. Whittard also produce a loose leaf version of the tea, which has all the dried rose flowers one could possibly wish for in it.
One day, I said, I will do a comparison test between the teabag and loose leaf versions to see if there is any difference between them. Well, reader, today is that day.
The inclusion of generous quantities of rose petals and rosebuds in the loose leaf version isn’t the only difference between the two. The leaves in the teabag are much smaller than their loose leaf equivalent. This is presumably the reason why the teabag was much faster to brew. I prepared both cups at the same time. And while the teabag version looked full strength almost immediately, the steeping of the loose leaf tea leaves was a much more leisurely affair.
And as for the taste? Loose leaf English Rose is a lot nicer than its tea bag equivalent. Unmistakably so. The rose flavour is better defined and the underlying black tea tastes smoother and more robust.
This is actually quite a relief. I’m always listing the ingredients in the teas I review here. If it turned out that all the bits of fruit, flowers and foliage in the tea blends were purely there for decoration, I feel that would make a nonsense of everything I’m trying to do here.
It does, however, leave me with a dilemma. Whittard are not the only teamonger who offers some of their tea blends in both loose leaf and teabag format, and the two versions of English Rose were different enough to engender different star ratings. What if all loose leaf and tea bag versions of the same blend differ so markedly? Do I now have an obligation to purchase my teas in all their available permutations in order to protect the scientific rigour of the reviewing process?
Well, obviously I’m not going to do that. That would be silly. However, fellow tea fanciers, you will be relieved to learn that henceforth I’m adding ‘loose leaf’ and ‘teabag’ tags to my reviews so that if it’s not already clear from the photograph, you will be in no doubt as to the true nature of any given tea. I will include other formats as I get to them, obviously. (Such as powder, tea bricks or Heston Blumenthal-style clouds of tea-scented air.)
It’s all about transparency here at TeaFancier.com. Well, that and tea. Mostly about tea, in fact.
Today’s featured book is Of Mistresses, Tigresses, and Other Conquests by Giacomo Casanova, for obvious roses-on-the-front-cover reasons.
This is good to know! I was in Whittard last week sniffing the loose rose tea, but thinking about buying the teabags because they’re easier to use and I’m lazy (despite owning a teapot and tea strainer.) The loose leaf stuff did smell delicious though, like Rose Jam stuff by Lush. 😋 Next time I go to Whittard I’ll be picking some up!
English Rose loose leaf is definitely worth a try! The tea bags are still nice mind, but you really want the full potpourri effect of the loose leaf. Interestingly, I also did a side-by-side comparison of Whittard Earl Grey loose leaf and Whittard Earl Grey tea bags and couldn’t taste any discernible difference between the two. (https://teafancier.com/whittard-earl-grey-tea-review/)