We're crafting up some new tea here at two leaves and a bud, and as you may remember, we asked for your help last month, specifically to take a survey about your tea habits when it comes to English style tea. Happily, almost 700 people responded to our nine-question survey!
Before we delve into what exactly you think of when you think of "English style tea," we should say that 52 percent of you have four to eight different brands of tea in your cabinet at home, and we can't blame you, because there's a lot of great tea out there. As for drinking two leaves and a bud, 34 percent of you say you drink our tea every day, and when we asked about how often you drink "traditional English style tea," most of you (41 percent) said you drink it "every now and then." The runner-up was "a few times a week," with 22 percent of you.
So, what is "English style tea," or rather, what does that term make you think of? We let you pick as many answers as you wanted, and the responses, in order of popularity (highest to lowest) were: English Breakfast, black tea with milk and sugar, Earl Grey with Bergamot, traditional tea, everyday tea, very strong, dark and rich, coffee-like, and special occasion tea.
Sixty-seven percent of you said you drink English style tea, so our next question was why? Again, letting you pick as many answers as you wanted, the responses in order of popularity (highest to lowest) were: I love the taste, it's strong/robust, it's great with milk/sugar, it's convenient, I just love a certain brand, I don't need a "nuanced" or high-end cup of tea for everyday drinking, I consider it the most British choice for a "proper cup of tea", and it's a good value.
So what brands of English style tea are some of you drinking? Twinings came out on top with 50 percent of the votes (of those of you who drink English-style tea), and then PG Tips, Taylors of Harrogate, Fortnum & Mason, Typhoo, and Harrisons and Crosfield.
We also wanted to know what kind of tea you drink in traditional paper teabags (as opposed to the sachets of whole leaf tea that we offer here at two leaves and a bud). The answers in order of popularity (highest to lowest) were: herbal tea, black tea, green tea, Earl Grey and English Breakfast.
Finally, we asked if you thought you might be more likely to buy English style tea if it was both Certified Organic and Fair Trade? Sixty-seven percent of you said yes!
We certainly find all of these answers enlightening, and we'll be thrilled in short order to let you in on our plans to introduce a new line of teas to our family. We don't want to give anything away before the big announcement, but based on the numbers of questions we just asked about robust, English style tea consumed in traditional paper teabags, we bet you can make a few educated guesses. Feel free to leave any comments below about your thoughts regarding English style tea, especially if you didn't take our survey — do you drink it regularly? What do you like about it, or not like about it?