Morgan’s Brew – Welsh Afternoon
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This tea – along with a whole herd of other blends – was very kindly gifted to me by Morgan’s Brew. Being sent free tea is something I am very keen to encourage and if any teamongers reading this feel the urge to do so, you can contact me at em@teafancier.com or via my Instagram account @theteafancier.
Readers, rest assured that the freeness of any tea I review will make no difference to the star rating or the review itself, which will be as appropriately complimentary or condemnatory as I believe the tea in question deserves.
Morgan’s Brew are a tea company based in Welshpool in Powys and they wear their Welshness loudly and proudly. Their tea collection contains brews inspired by Cardigan Bay, the Brecon Beacons and Barry Island. I decided to start my Morgan’s Brew journey with their Welsh Afternoon tea. It’s a blend of Ceylon and Darjeeling teas, which sounded like just the sort of thing I want in my life.
It would be easy to say that you can’t go wrong with Darjeeling, but that would be a big fat lie. Substandard Darjeeling is a wan, watery, pointless affair that gives no joy to anyone.
Morgan’s Brew Welsh Afternoon is emphatically not such a tea. It’s marvellous. The chunky, rolled tealeaves unfurl beautifully in the pot and bring forth an exquisite blend that manages to be both punchy and gentle at the same time.
It contains 55% Darjeeling and 45% Ceylon teas. I love imagining the tea tasting process which determined that this was the sweet spot, rather than 50/50 or 60/40. Sri Lankan teas tend to be mild affairs compared to, say, Assam or Kenyan, so it makes the perfect pairing with easily-overwhelmed Darjeeling.
I drank this afternoon tea at six o’clock in the morning, because I’m a rebel, and can confirm that it works very well before 12pm. (In a similar vein of free-spiritedness, I’ve also been known to eat After Eights before eight. Although eating after dinner mints at 6am would be a step too far, even for me.)
Welsh Afternoon is a delicious fragrant, tea. Each sip transported me to a place of Camellia sinensis-infused happiness. I’m not sure whether that place was in the Indian subcontinent, or East Wales, but I certainly enjoyed going there.
Today’s features book is Getting On In The World: Hints On Success In Life (1873) by William Mathews, a book which, as far as I’m aware, contains absolutely no mention of Wales. In fact, there don’t seem to be any books by Welsh writers, or about or set in Wales on my bookshelves. I should probably do something to address this oversight.
