Bluebird Tea Co. Advent Calendar — Day 4 — Mulled Cider



Today we’re back to a traditional tea bag and it’s the always festive Mulled Cider.



Ingredients: Apple pieces, ginger, rosehip, hibiscus, cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel, flavour

They describe it thus:

Aromatic winter spices, cinnamon, cloves + ginger, steeped with apple chunks to create this mellow + comforting hot tea toddy. Brew up a fruit infusion or use to create Mulled Cider, serve steaming with a splash of dark rum and snuggle up on a chilly winter's eve!

The first thing is that the bag smells fantastic, all spicy loveliness that makes me think of cold winter nights and crackling fires and settling down to listen to carols by candlelight.

It says to brew it for 4+ minutes but I left it for about 10 as I wanted a decent strong flavour. Unfortunately, because this was a bag rather than loose in a teapot the tea had cooled quite considerably by the time I drank it. This wasn’t that much of a problem as it tastes just as good cold – but obviously, I preferred it warm as I’m doing the Christmas experience.   

Demerara is the perfect sugar for this rather wonderful concoction and brings out the spiciness, yet adds a splash or sweetness that makes it almost perfect. I wish I had some more of this tea so I could add some rum to it to see if that works as well as Bluebird suggest. I also think adding a bit more cider wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Sadly, I have only the one tea bag so I’m not going to find out this year.

This tea definitely gets the thumbs up from me and I will be hoping that it’s still around next Christmas.

The one thing I have realised this evening is that tea bags don’t have the same depth of flavour as loose tea and my massive Harry Potter mug is too big. I will, therefore, be switching to Moz the Monster as from tomorrow.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honey Bee Beautiful - Bluebird Tea Co.

Image
So, tea that smells like weeds – I honestly can’t stand the stuff. When I was a teenager and still living at home my mum used to ‘enjoy’ and I use the word loosely drinking things like chamomile tea, a beverage which made me feel ill. It was the smell, mainly. I couldn’t even get as far as tasting it because the horrible smell was so off-putting. Fortunately, years have passed and chamomile is no longer quite as popular as it once was and so I’ve managed to keep away from its terrible ditch water smell, until today.  Today, I decided to try the Bluebird Tea Company’s Honey Bee Beautiful as I was having quite a stressful day at work (and that was before I found out about the General Election) and wanted something soothing. Ingredients: Rooibos, honeybush, chamomile, nettle leaves, cornflowers, calendula petals, flavour They describe it thus: ‘Have you ever considered the work it must take to make a queen bee? Their beauty regime is extensive and their mu...
Read more

Favourite Tea League Table (Updated 12 August 2017)

Image
I thought it might be useful if I keep a league table of my top 10 favourite teas, going forward. This list reflects the favourites of those I've drunk recently rather than all-time favourites as I've discovered its very difficult to have an all time list when I'm trying so many different teas and what I like is affected by the weather or the time of year.  For instance, over Christmas and through the winter I drank enough Gingerbread Chai to sink a battleship (is that a thing?) and I would definitely have said it was my all time favourite tea. But at the moment I have no interest in drinking it at all because it seems to me that its the wrong time of year for it and so it's dropped from the top of the charts completely off the list. It will definitely be back by Christmas, though, that I can guarantee. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that my all time favourite tea is definitely China Milk Oolong from Camellia's Tea House. I could, quite...
Read more

Oolong Formosa – Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co.

Image
Today’s tea is the truly delightful  Oolong Formosa by the  Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co. Ingredients: Formosa Oolong tea They describe it thus: "Oolong Formosa is a Speciality Tea which originates from the mountains of Taiwan. After plucking the loose leaf teas are fermented to approximately 50% and then wilted in the sun. Frequent turning of the tea in bamboo baskets during the drying process allows the Oolong to develop a mild aroma and large wild curly leaves. This Loose Leaf Tea is a real treasure." This tea is quite unlike any other Oolong I have tried so far.  It is far darker than the Milky, Fleur d’ Orient or Vietnamese Oolongs, being brown rather than yellow in colour and the flavour, whilst extremely pleasant, is far more substantial than the traditional Oolong taste and reminds me more of a Yunnan tea. That quintessential tea flavour which can be found in abundance in black teas is really picked up in this on...
Read more