Tea and Me

Today’s tea is one of the  Bluebird Tea Co. 's newest permanent offerings, Blue Raspberry . It started life as a limited edition but was recently voted back by a landslide and so now everyone can enjoy it forever. Ingredients: Chinese sencha green tea, blue pea flowers, freeze-dried raspberry pieces, natural flavouring They describe it thus: The magical butterfly blue pea flower turns your cuppa a bright blue colour, naturally! This pretty plant is full of antioxidants and our addition of raspberries + green tea makes this a health boosting brew indeed! Mixologist tip off - try adding a squeeze of lemon and see the colour change!  The first thing to say about this tea is that it really is very pretty. It is worth making it in a clear teapot because it is a beautiful vibrant blue (that I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to capture in a picture because I’m not a very good photographer). It also has a good quantity of raspberries, an...

Because of the current absurdly hot weather, I’m finding my usual go-to teas a little heavy and spicy and because I’m almost out of the China Milky Oolong  I’m having to ration myself because I can’t bear the idea of running out. I was intending to try the Strawberry Lemonade  fruit infusion from Bluebird Teas , as that sounds exactly what I need and should hopefully taste pretty good cold. Unfortunately, because it knows I want to try it the tea has completely disappeared – and believe me I have looked everywhere – well, obviously not everywhere as it is around somewhere, but I have looked in all the obvious (and some not so obvious) places and I can’t find it anywhere. Instead, I’ve finished off my stock of Rhubarb and Custard  tea (also by Bluebird and just as lovely cold as hot) and gone shopping for some more Summer-sounding teas.  Fortunately, the Bank Holiday has encouraged some tea companies to give discounts or giveaways and I’m all for it ...

Yesterday afternoon I was binge drinking the rather lovely Draught of Peace , which is a specialist blend made by Robert Pirlot for Adagio in their ‘ Fandom ’ blends range called Magic Potions .  I couldn’t really talk about this tea without mentioning the other blends in the set at the same time so this is a review of the Magic Potions sampler, with separate reviews attached for each of the teas. Doing this has given me a chance to revisit the other teas in the set as well – which I can honestly say has been a real pleasure. Adagio UK's banner for Magic Potions I originally came across Adagio when I was searching for Harry Potter merchandise. You really can buy anything under the sun to do with the boy wizard these days, and tea is no exception. On the US site , which I discovered first (which is absolutely amazing but the shipping costs are prohibitively expensive alas, otherwise I would be the owner of great quantities of Chestnut tea amongst other t...

Veritaserum is clear, colourless, and odourless and is almost indistinguishable from water. The potion must mature for a full lunar phase, and is quite difficult to produce. It can be mixed with any drink, and three drops are a sufficient dose to make the drinker 'spill out his innermost secrets'. Thus, the potion forces the drinker to tell the complete truth to any question asked to him/her. Ingredients: black tea, natural raspberry flavour, raspberries, raspberry leaves, natural chocolate flavour, dark chocolate chips, cocoa nibs, natural hazelnut flavour The teas used to create this blend are: raspberry , chocolate chip  and hazelnut , accented with raspberry leaves, rose hips and chocolate chips. Veritaserum is one of the blends in the Magic Potions sampler box by Adagio Teas and the reason this jumped straight into my top 5 teas should be relatively obvious. It contains both chocolate, of which I am inordinately fond and raspberries, which are one of my f...

Enrol in a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, think magical thoughts and drink this. Ingredients: black tea, cinnamon bark, natural pumpkin spice flavour, cloves, ginger root, natural vanilla flavour, natural caramel flavour, marigold flowers, cardamom The teas used to create this blend are: pumpkin spice , vanilla and caramel , accented with apple pieces. Pumpkin Potion is one of the blends in the Magic Potions sampler box by Adagio Teas . I absolutely adore the spiciness of pumpkin pie and was delighted when the wizarding world was revealed to drink pumpkin juice in the same way the Muggle world drinks orange juice.  It was the drink I was most excited to try at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and the one I loved the most (sorry frozen Butterbeer, although you were amazing). Sadly, it isn’t available outside the US as it’s not transportable, so I have to make do with tea instead. I have tried both this and Adagio’s Pumpkin Spice tea which is...

Why Brew for 21 days when you have instant polyjuice? Polyjuice Potion is a very complicated potion that allows the drinker to assume the form of someone else. WARNING cannot change into an Animal. Ingredients: black tea, cinnamon bark, ginger root, rooibos tea, cardamom, dried coconut, lemon grass, cloves, orange peels, cocoa nibs, natural coconut flavour, natural chocolate flavour, natural vanilla flavour, natural cinnamon flavour The teas used to create this blend are: thai chai , chocolate chai and rooibos vanilla chai . Polyjuice is one of the blends in the Magic Potions sampler box by Adagio Teas . It smells absolutely amazing, just as you’d expect from something that blends three different types of chai — and you can definitely smell the chocolate (always a favourite with me). It also tastes pretty good, even considering the coconut (which I absolutely detest). I suspect this is because it’s fairly subtle and I can’t taste it and the spiciness mask...

Felix Felicis is also known as Liquid Luck. It is a magical potion that makes the drinker lucky for a period of time, depending on how much is taken, during which everything they attempt will be successful. It is meant to be used sparingly, however, as it causes giddiness, recklessness and dangerous overconfidence if taken in excess. Felix is highly toxic in large quantities and is also a banned substance in all organised competitions such as Quidditch, along with all other methods of cheating. It is very difficult to make, disastrous to get wrong, and requires six months to stew before it’s ready to be consumed.  Ingredients: rooibos tea, honeybush tea, natural almond flavour, natural hazelnut flavour, natural caramel flavour The teas used to create this blend are: rooibos almond , rooibos caramel and honeybush hazelnut . Felix Felicis is one of the blends in the Magic Potions sampler box by Adagio Teas and is probably one of my favourites despite all th...

The Draught of Peace is a potion which relieves anxiety and agitation. Its ingredients are powdered moonstone, syrup of hellebore, powdered porcupine quills, Valerian root, and powdered unicorn horn. It should be a turquoise blue when finished and simmered before being drunk. It is ironically a difficult potion to make, requiring that the brewer follow the directions carefully because making a mistake can have drastic consequences. Adding too much of the ingredients, for instance, will put the drinker of the potion into a deep — and possibly irreversible — sleep. Ingredients: black tea, apple pieces, natural apricot flavour, natural creme flavour, marigold flowers, apricots, natural vanilla flavour The teas used to create this blend are: apricot , cream and vanilla , accented with marigold flowers. Draught of Peace is one of the blends in the Magic Potions sampler box by Adagio Teas . It is chock full of apricots and tastes every bit as good as it smells. Bright and bo...

The sweet taste of Butterbeer, which is a mildly alcoholic drink served throughout the wizarding world. Ingredients: black tea, natural caramel flavour, natural creme flavour, natural vanilla flavour The teas used to create this blend are: caramel , cream and vanilla . Butterbeer is one of the blends in the Magic Potions sampler box by Adagio Teas and has, unsurprisingly considering its contents, a creamy flavour even on its own and is relatively sweet although personally, I’m not keen on it without sugar as it’s definitely a classic black tea. I think it’s actually quite a subtle blend so it doesn’t really smell of much, apart from some creaminess, and while I enjoyed drinking it I didn’t really pick up on the butterscotch flavour it’s supposed to impart so to me it bears about as much resemblance to Butterbeer as the one sold at the Harry Potter Studio Tour does to the one sold at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter — i.e. not much — although it is very pl...

Earlier this week, I and some of my work colleagues went to the Royal Horseguards hotel for afternoon tea as a farewell to one of our number who is moving on to pastures new. This was a new venue for me and I think I can safely say that the event was a success and the afternoon was enjoyed by all. Chicken and mayo, Cucumber and Philadelphia cheese, Honey roast ham and mustard, London smoked salmon and dill creme fraiche, Egg mayo and watercress, Crayfish Marie Rose crouton  As there were a few of us the tea took a rather more freeform approach than I’m generally used to with afternoon tea – some went for the sandwiches first, some dived straight into the cakes, and someone made a cream and jam sandwich with the scones. It was a bit chaotic but fun. There was also some champagne drunk, but most importantly for me, of course, there was the tea. Plain and fruit scones with Cornish clotted cream and preserve The teas on offer are mainly provided by Novus...

In the dim and distant 1980s and 90s, anything that wasn’t ‘normal’ Indian tea was considered ‘herbal’ and was, therefore, generally only available from health food shops (or in Chinese restaurants in the case of Jasmine tea) – unlike today, when every style and flavour of tea fills up both the supermarket shelves and specialist online tea sites – oh, how far we’ve come. I used to regularly frequent Holland and Barrett as one of the only health food stores I had access to, to buy such exciting fare as those provided by the brands Heath and Heather and Yogi. One of my favourite blends was lemon and ginger (which I seem to recall was also one of Twinings first attempts at branching out into more interesting flavours) which was perfect for keeping me going in that post-lunch slump and was good for when I was bunged up with a cold or hayfever, had a sore throat or just generally felt a bit rough. Obviously, this was the start of my love of ginger-flavoured teas although I never realis...

Today I’m trying another tea that was in the free goody bag from Camellia’s Tea House , the Vietnam Oolong . This was one of the loose teas, lovingly packaged in a small clear bag with a nice bright yellow ribbon and a handwritten label, which contained enough tea for three mugs. Initially, I had trouble tracking it down on their website until I realised that it is one of their special edition teas, which come in pretty, small, clear jars with cork stoppers (60g), which are really quite cute. They describe it thus: 'A gentle oolong tea, with a fragrant and flavourful cup. This particular oolong is plucked a few times during the year  from 25 year old tea bushes, originally brought back from Taiwan.' I will start by saying that I now realise I am rather fond of Oolong tea. I only discovered it a short while ago when I tried the  China Milky Oolong at the Corinthia Hotel. This, therefore, is the second Oolong I’ve tried and it’s very pleasant and has, what I...