Types of Black Tea
Malty Assam, flowery Darjeeling, smoky Lapsang: they're all the same leaf. Here's how they differ in the cup, which ones take milk, and how long to steep them.
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The main types of black tea are named either for where they grow (Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri in India, Ceylon in Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Keemun, Yunnan and Lapsang souchong in China) or for the blend they're part of: English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey and chai. All of them come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. What makes the leaf black is that it's left to oxidize completely before it's dried, and what makes one black tea taste so different from the next is where it grew and how slowly that happened.
With milk, the easy pick is Yorkshire Tea, a strong breakfast blend at about $9 for 160 bags. Plain, go the other way with Taylors Darjeeling, light and fragrant, about $7 for 50. Everything else falls somewhere between those two.
The 12 types of black tea at a glance
| Tea | From | Tastes like | Strength | With milk? | Steep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assam | northeast India | malt, dark bread, bright and brisk | strong | yes | 4 to 5 min |
| Darjeeling | Himalayan foothills, India | muscat grape, flowers, light | light | no, plain or lemon | 2 to 3 min |
| Nilgiri | hills of south India | floral, fragrant | medium | either | 3 to 4 min |
| Ceylon | Sri Lanka | citrus and brisk up high, fuller lower down | medium | either, or lemon | 3 to 5 min |
| Kenya | Kenyan highlands | robust, full-bodied | strong | yes | 4 to 5 min |
| Keemun | Anhui, China | cocoa, a little smoke, floral | medium, smooth | either | 3 to 5 min |
| Yunnan (Dian Hong) | Yunnan, China | malt, honey, caramel | medium, smooth | either | 3 to 5 min |
| Lapsang souchong | Wuyi Mountains, China | pine smoke, campfire | strong | no, plain | 4 to 5 min |
| English Breakfast | blend | full, malty, made for mornings | strong | yes | 4 to 5 min |
| Irish Breakfast | blend, Assam-heavy | bolder and maltier still | very strong | yes | 3 to 5 min |
| Earl Grey | black tea plus bergamot | citrus and flowers over black tea | medium | lemon more than milk | 3 to 4 min |
| Chai | black tea plus spices | cinnamon, cardamom, ginger | medium to strong | yes | 3 to 5 min |
Use water just off the boil for all of them. Strength here is how the cup tastes, not how much caffeine it has; that's further down.
Indian black teas: Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri
Assam is the backbone of most breakfast tea. It's made from a variety of the tea plant native to Assam, Camellia sinensis var. assamica, grown mostly at or near sea level in the Brahmaputra valley, and it brews brisk and malty, with a strong, bright color. Taylors picks its Assam during the second flush, the early summer harvest, and calls it rich, strong and full-bodied. That's the tea that keeps its taste under milk. I'd brew a box of Taylors Assam for four to five minutes and pour the milk in after.
Darjeeling grows up in the Himalayan foothills, and it's the opposite cup: pale, fragrant and light enough that milk drowns it. People call it the champagne of tea for its muscatel taste, close to muscat grapes. The spring harvest, the first flush, is brisk and citrusy; the early summer one, the second flush, has the deepest muscatel, a taste that comes from the plant defending itself against the leafhoppers that chew its leaves. Taylors says to steep its Afternoon Darjeeling just two to three minutes, the shortest time in the table. Go past that and it turns bitter.
Nilgiri comes from the Nilgiri Hills in the south of India. It has an almost floral taste and a fragrant smell, and it wants a little less time than Assam, three to four minutes.
Ceylon and Kenya
Ceylon is tea from Sri Lanka, which kept the old name on its tea after the country became Sri Lanka in 1972. It's sorted by altitude rather than season: low-grown, medium-grown and high-grown. High-grown tea from around Nuwara Eliya is light, with a hint of lemon; the lower gardens brew fuller and smoother. It's a natural with a slice of lemon, and it takes milk too.
Kenya is the world's third biggest tea producer, after China and India, and it's one of the teas that go into breakfast blends. Its own taste is robust and full-bodied. Yorkshire Tea, for one, is built from African teas for liveliness and Indian ones for strength.
Chinese black teas: Keemun, Yunnan and Lapsang souchong
Chinese black teas are usually softer than Indian ones: the leaf is oxidized more slowly, which rounds off the bite. That's why a Keemun feels smooth where an Assam bites. Lapsang is the exception, because of the smoke.
Keemun comes from Qimen County in Anhui province. It's a young tea, first made in 1875 with methods borrowed from Fujian: lighter, with a floral, slightly smoky smell and the taste of unsweetened cocoa. Worth knowing: Harney's Harney English Breakfast is 100 percent Keemun. The English Breakfast of the early 1800s would have been a China black tea like this, plentiful, cheap and good with milk and sugar.
Yunnan, also called Dian Hong, is from the province of the same name in the southwest. It's malty like Assam but rounder, with honey and caramel in it and no rough edge at the finish. The prized ones are full of golden tips, the fine leaf buds that give the dry tea its gold flecks. Golden Monkey, from Fujian, is a cousin: big dark leaves with gold tips, lightly sweet, with apricot, nuts and rose.
Lapsang souchong is the smoky one. It comes from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian, and the leaves are dried over pine fires, so the cup smells like a campfire before you've tasted it. It's often called the oldest black tea. People either love it or can't get past the first sip, so start small: Taylors Lapsang lists two ingredients, black tea and smoke, and costs about $8 for 50 bags. Drink it plain, the way Taylors says to. Russian Caravan, if you see it, is Lapsang blended with Keemun and oolong, a gentler way into the smoke.
Black tea blends: English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey and chai
English Breakfast is a mix, usually Assam with Ceylon or Kenyan tea, sometimes with Keemun, Darjeeling or tea from Java and Sumatra. The point is a full, malty cup that holds up under milk and sugar. Brands blend it their own way, which is why one box can taste nothing like another. Yorkshire Tea isn't sold as English Breakfast, but it's the same idea, 10 to 20 black teas in one bag, and it's the cheap pick on the best tea brands for that reason.
Irish Breakfast is the stronger sibling, heavier on Assam. Harney's loose Irish Breakfast is 100 percent Assam, and Republic of Tea puts Irish Breakfast and Assam together as the boldest black teas. English Breakfast is generally the mildest of the breakfast blends, with the Irish and Scottish ones stronger.
Earl Grey is black tea flavored with oil of bergamot, a citrus fruit grown in southern Italy, so it smells of lemon peel and flowers and tastes lighter than a breakfast tea. The base is often Assam or Darjeeling. It's most likely named for Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey and British prime minister in the 1830s, though the link is shaky. Twinings Earl Grey is the classic box to try it in. French Earl Grey adds rose or cornflower petals; Lady Grey adds orange and lemon peel.
Chai is black tea brewed with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and cloves, usually with milk. It has the same caffeine as the black tea underneath, about half a coffee, which my page on whether chai has caffeine works out cup by cup.
How much caffeine is in each type of black tea
Less difference than the flavors suggest. A mug of black tea has roughly half the caffeine of the same mug of drip coffee, and Taylors gives about 48 mg for a 200 ml cup of Yorkshire Tea brewed for five minutes.
What moves the number is the clock and the amount of leaf, not the name. A lab test of twenty supermarket teas found anywhere from 14 to 61 mg a cup, and steep time explained more of the gap than the type of tea did. Assam and breakfast blends mostly feel stronger because they taste bolder. So a Darjeeling pulled at two minutes is a gentler cup than an Irish Breakfast left for five. For the numbers cup by cup, see whether chai has caffeine, since chai is black tea underneath.
Green tea is the same leaf, heated before it can darken; what matcha is made of shows how far that goes.
How to brew black tea: water temperature and steep time
Black tea wants hotter water than green tea: 194 to 212°F, which in practice means water just off a boil. One bag, or about 2 grams of loose leaf (roughly a teaspoon), goes into 8 ounces. Taylors puts 2.5 grams in each Assam bag, which is why a bag of it makes a full-bodied mug.
Time is where the types differ. Strong teas you'll drink with milk, like Assam, Kenya and the breakfast blends, take four to five minutes. Lighter ones, like Darjeeling, Nilgiri and Earl Grey, take two to four. Leave any of them too long and the cup turns bitter, the stewed taste you get from a bag forgotten in the mug. If you're new to a tea, pull it at the low end of its time in the table, taste, and go longer next time if you want more.
Warm the pot or mug with a splash of hot water first: a cold cup cools the water enough to flatten the brew.
Six boxes to taste the main types
- Yorkshire Tea the strong breakfast blend, for a mug with milk$8.79 as of 10:16 AM ET
- Taylors of Harrogate Assam Assam on its own, to taste what breakfast tea is built on$8.29 as of 10:16 AM ET
- Taylors of Harrogate Afternoon Darjeeling the light, muscat-scented one to drink plain$6.99 as of 10:16 AM ET
- Harney & Sons English Breakfast Keemun in a bag, sold under the English Breakfast name$10.84 as of 10:16 AM ET
- Taylors of Harrogate Lapsang Souchong smoky Lapsang, at a price that makes it easy to try$7.69 as of 10:16 AM ET
- Twinings Earl Grey classic Earl Grey with bergamot$14.34 as of 10:16 AM ET
The morning box. Give it the full five minutes Taylors recommends and it brews dark enough to hold its own under a real splash of milk, at about 5 cents a bag. People who drink it call it rich and strong but smooth, and it's cheap enough to brew by the pitcher for iced tea.
For the afternoon, the other end of black tea: pale, floral and best without milk. Two to three minutes, no more. At about 14 cents a bag, it's the cheapest way to try the lighter side of black tea.
Common questions
Which type of black tea is best?
The one that suits how you drink it. With milk, a strong Assam or a breakfast blend like Yorkshire Tea. Plain, a Darjeeling, a Keemun or a Yunnan, which are lighter or smoother and don't need anything added. For something with more character, Earl Grey or Lapsang souchong.
Is Earl Grey just black tea?
Black tea plus bergamot oil, a citrus that gives it its floral, lemony smell. The base is usually black tea such as Assam or Darjeeling, so it has the caffeine of black tea. Some brands sell Earl Grey made on green tea, and the box will say so.
Which black tea is healthiest?
No study ranks one type above another: they're all leaves of the same plant. What changes from cup to cup is caffeine, which depends more on how long you steep than on the type, and whatever you stir in.
What is the most popular type of black tea?
Black tea itself is the most popular tea in the US by far: about 84 percent of the tea Americans drank in 2021, against 15 percent green, according to the Tea Association of the U.S.A. Among the types, the blends lead: English Breakfast and Earl Grey are the two you'll find on every grocery shelf, ahead of any single origin.
What is the strongest black tea?
In taste, Assam and Irish Breakfast, which are malty and bold enough for plenty of milk. In caffeine, the gap between types is small; steeping a tea five minutes instead of two makes more difference than switching from Darjeeling to Assam.
