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Chinese Emperor's Breakfast Loose Leaf Black Tea

31 reviews
$27.00
$27.00
$0.68 per cup
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A rare China tea crafted by masters to produce an astonishingly sweet black loose leaf tea. Made from very young and tender spring leaves and golden buds that have been carefully kept whole during hand rolling.

Remarkably smooth with flavours of rich toffee, butterscotch and vanilla. Like White Silver Tips, these spring buds are full of the sugars stored by the tea plant over winter. These tender shoots give the tea an extraordinary sweetness, unlike any other black tea. The tannins in this black tea are very low and the mouthfeel is clean and silky.

31p per cup based on 2.5g of tea per 150ml of water and 2 infusions.

Fujian, China
Satemwa Estate, Shire Highlands, Malawi
Temi Tea Garden, Sikkim, India

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Recommended Infusion Guide

  • Quantity

    Use 2.5g of tea per 150ml of water.

  • Temperature

    For the optimum infusion use 80°C water.

  • Time

    Infuse for 1 - 2 minutes, tasting regularly. Best enjoyed without milk.

  • Infusions

    You can infuse this tea at least twice. With each careful infusion, different subtleties of flavour are revealed.

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How to infuse your tea is very personal, and these are just our recommendations based on experience. Please experiment with these variables to your heart's delight. These are our recommendations, not hard and fast rules. The most delicious tea is the one you love.

Our guide uses a standard tea cup size (150ml/5.5 oz) as a measure, please adjust the quantity of leaf accordingly for less or more water. Our whole loose leaves are of such a high quality that you can infuse our teas at least twice, and the second infusion is often better than the first, with different flavours revealed as the leaf softens. If you prefer your tea stronger, add more leaf, don’t leave it for longer (this will just make it bitter).

Golden Monkey Paw

Emperor's Breakfast is a truly epicurean black China tea originating in the Ming Dynasty. It comes from the mountains of Fujian, and is also known as ‘Golden Monkey Paw’. The varietal used has small golden buds, covered in elegant downy hair, like a catkin.

When the tea is fired and rolled, the buds curl, giving them a resemblance to the paws of capuchin monkeys.

Serving Suggestion

Normally, this tea would be drunk black and infused at a lower water temperature to enhance its innate sweetness. However, using boiling water and a longer extraction (3 - 4 minutes) will bring out a depth and richness that pairs wonderfully with a drop of milk.

You may notice the colour is a little lighter, but don’t let your eyes fool your taste buds. As long as you don’t over dilute your tea, you should get a lovely well balanced cup of tea with milk. Although if you do like your milky tea very strong – we recommend our Speedy Breakfast or Lost Malawi.

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Shipping, delivery & more...

Australia Tracked Delivery from AU$20.00

FREE International Tracked Delivery when you spend AU$100 or more

International Courier Delivery from AU$64.00

Availability of rates depends on location and order weight. For a complete overview of our shipping rates please see our delivery page. Prices displayed at the checkout are based on live currency exchange rates and may differ slightly from this list.

The Rare Tea Lady believes that our teas are some of the greatest in the world, and that our range and service are second to none.

In the isolated case that you are not completely satisfied with any product you purchase from our website, please get in contact with our customer services team to discuss returning your order.*

In most instances, we will give you a full refund of the item's cost, excluding postage. We may ask you to return the item to us.** Customers in the UK & European Union have statutory rights not affected by this guarantee, but any tea pouches must remained sealed for this to be in effect.

*We only accept returns/refunds for tea within 30 days of receipt, because it is impossible for us to know if the tea has been stored correctly.

**We will endeavour to ask for pictures where possible - but if you have changed your mind and are outside of any statutory rights time period, return postage is payable by you.

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