SADLY, I must admit that I haven't spent as much time exploring the world of different teas as I would have liked. Be that as it may, my limited experience has introduced me to a few teas that I've come to know and love . . .
Eight at the Fort
I found this tea when Chris introduced me to it at Mission Valley Coffee Roasting, which has a surprisingly good selection of different loose teas. Eight at the Fort is a blend of eight different teas, created for a 1997 world summit meeting between eight different world leaders that occurred in Denver, Colorado. Surprisingly, it's a U.S. tea and goes entirely against my experience with the quality of U.S. teas. This is a rich black tea and definately one of the tastier things a body could find steaming in a cup at around four in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it's a bit pricey for daily consumption, at least for my pocketbook. Be that as it may, I'm awfully glad to have discovered such a nice tea to serve on special occasions.
Bewley's Clipper Gold
While it may be an Irish icon itself, Bewley's Trading Co. has only recently began producing their Clipper Gold tea blend. After sampling Lyons and Barry's (both respectable teas and favourites of Irish households), I have to say that Bewley's Clipper Gold tea has the nicest taste. This tea is a wonderful excuse to keep the kettle going all day. It's great at any time of the day, full-bodied, but not overwhelmingly so. Mmm.
PG Tips
Supposedly, this is the best-selling tea in England. For a culture that loves tea as much as the british do, that's really saying something. Nancy, an ardent Tsaiophile, keeps a supply of this on hand at all times. Come to think of it, I believe my first cup of European tea was a cup of PG Tips . . .
Red Rose Tea
So, if you're stranded in the great tea wasteland known as the U.S.A., what do you do? Well, you could do much worse than find yourself some Red Rose Tea. Red Rose is actually one of the older tea companies, older than any mentioned on this site, in fact. At one point they were owned by the same people as PG Tips. They're actually a Canadian company ("Canada" is that big area north of the U.S.), though the U.S. portion of the business is now owned by Redco Foods,Inc in New York.
Please, please . . . NOOOO!