Tea and Me

Today’s tea is the only one of the Bird & Blend July Tea Club teas that I haven’t already reviewed — Birthday Cake . On the accompanying card, they say they’re celebrating their sixth birthday, so this tea is particularly relevant. My apologies in the long delay in posting this, but I was unwell and then have been too busy to get near the blog. Reviews for the August and September tea club teas will be coming shortly, as I really need to get up to date. (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the individual packet) Ingredients: Rooibos (84%), Sri Lankan Black Tea, Sprinkles (Sugar, Potato Starch, Rice Flour, Corn Starch, Vegetable Fat, Spirulina Extract, Colours (E160a Carotenes, E160c Paprika, E100 Turmeric, E163 Anthocyanins, E162 Beetroot), Stabilisers (Maltodextrin), Almond Pieces, Vanilla Pieces, Mallow Flowers, Flavouring.   * Please note that this tea has less than 1% of Ceylon black tea, it's not just a Rooibos blend. They descri...

Belle’s Breakfast  is a limited edition black tea from  Bird & Blend  and was provided as part of the June  tea club  offering. Ingredients: Sri Lankan black tea, Kenyan black tea, Chinese Keemun black tea, Chinese black tea, rose petals, flavouring They describe it thus: Bird & Blend meet BREWtea and the Beast! This brew is our first rose breakfast  black tea  & you better believe it’s a blooming beautiful  loose leaf blend ! Think Turkish delight meets English summer garden!  ❣️ I have to admit it took me a little while to get round to trying this one as the rose teas I’ve tried in the past have generally given me a headache (sorry Enchanted Narnia , you are a major culprit here) and mixing it with black tea, which can also give me a headache doesn’t make for the most eagerly anticipated brew. Having said that, it smells wonderful, just like Turkish Delight (which I absolutely love), and so ...

Butter Brew is a limited edition black tea from Bird & Blend , which is released today and was provided previously as part of the June tea club offering. Ingredients: Indian Assam black tea, Sri Lankan black tea, calendula petals, natural flavouring They describe it thus:  You're going to go PotTEA for our caramel butter brew! We've combined our favourite British book/film series with every British persons favourite drink...A good ol' cuppa!  ⚡ So, I’ll be honest, I have never really taken much notice of the Bird&Blend tea club before but the addition of a tea based on my favourite book series was always going to catch my eye, and inevitably was going to be the first tea I tried. There is already a perfectly good Butterbeer blend produced by Adagio Teas, which I reviewed last year, so I was interested to see how this version would compare to that one. The answer is that I think I actually prefer this one just slightly. ...

So, I was still trying to recover from the disappointment of discovering that the Rice Pudding + Jam tea from Bluebird Tea Co.’s Spring Collection that I was so looking forward to trying (and was expecting to be my favourite by a country mile as I absolutely adore rice pudding) inexplicably contains coconut (I have no idea why — no self-respecting person would ever put coconut in a rice pudding — and believe me I’ve done extensive polling on this subject) so I can’t even try it. That left me with three others to try — Peach Cobbler , Raspberry Liquorice Laces and Mint Pistachio . Today I want to talk about the Peach Cobbler, which is a black flavoured tea. Ingredients:  Sri Lankan black tea, freeze-dried peach, pink cornflowers, natural flavouring. They describe it thus: Our first black tea + peach pairing and a heavenly one indeed! This blend tastes like a classic cobbler straight from the oven... warm, gooey, sweet with that delightful gold brown crust....

Happy New Year! Gosh, it’s been a long time since I last posted, hasn’t it? Although, actually, it’s been a long time since I last had a cup of tea. You might recall that just before Christmas I went down with the lurgy and was unable to enjoy the last of my Bluebird advent calendar teas as I couldn’t taste a thing and I promised I would review as soon as I recovered. I also promised to try all those Matcha’s once I got my milk frother, which the pesky Post Office were trying their hardest not to deliver. Sadly, the virus was a bad one, as everyone knows, as it seems most people I know were struck with it at some point over the holidays and for several weeks now I’ve drunk nothing but plain tap water as it’s been the only thing I could face drinking (apart from the odd medicinal tot of Glayva). I did try a pot of my beloved Milk Oolong just after Christmas, but as it has a subtle flavour I couldn’t taste anything and so it seemed a bit pointless, and a waste of money, ...

So the final window on the advent calendar has been opened and it’s another tea bag —  the extremely festive-sounding Christmas Cake . Ingredients: Ceylon black tea, vanilla pieces, almond pieces, cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, spruce needles, snowflake sprinkles (sugar, rice flour, hardened peanut oil, potato starch, flavour, gum arabic (E414), potassium sorbate (E202), colours (E171)), flavour. They describe it thus: Holding its own for the title of best Christmas tea of all time, this blend tastes like cake, contains real life actual Christmas tree (spruce needles!) and, as if that wasn't enough, it has little candy snowflakes. Still not impressed? Well brew it up and watch it glitter like icicles!  In the same way that I don’t like mince pies and Christmas pudding, I don’t like Christmas cake — not the fruit ones, anyway — I used to like the chocolate topping, the frosting and the marzipan fruit on a Tunis cake but n...

It’s the final of Bluebird’s ghosts and another Christmas Future  —  Mrs Claus' Raspberry Prosecco . Ingredients: First Flush Darjeeling black tea, apple pieces, rosehip, hibiscus, Siberian ginseng, freeze-dried raspberry, orange peel, natural flavouring. They describe it thus: First Flush Darjeeling, the champagne of black teas, and real raspberry chunks; this light + classy fruity flute is perfect for toasting special occasions (or just after a long day out on the sleigh!). It is a not-so-secret that all would grind to a halt at Christmas time without the help of the fabulous Mrs Claus so she sure deserves this tea treat! I was expecting to really like this as I have tried and enjoyed several raspberry-flavoured teas ( Adagio’s Veritaserum from the Magic Potions sampler is one of my favourites, as is the Blue Raspberry from Bluebird) and raspberries are one of my favourite fruits so I’m willing to try just about anything they appear in. Unfor...

The third ghost is apparently of Christmas Future  —  Mince Pie. Ingredients: Sri Lankan black tea, cinnamon, almond pieces, orange peel, pomegranate flowers, natural flavouring. They describe it thus: Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without homemade mince pies- surely the staple of the festive season? (and everyone knows puff pastry is the best!). Guilt-free, gently spiced + deliciously sweet, great with or without milk! So curl up in a warm duvet and sip on this inspired blend, before Santa gets his hands on it!  I have to admit that I don’t like mince pies but as this tea bag contains no ingredients I dislike I will be trying it as it sounds far nicer than its namesake. However, as it’s black tea, I can’t drink it in the evening otherwise I won’t get any sleep. I was intending to try it today at work, but unfortunately, I was extremely busy so didn’t get the chance. Therefore, I shall have to return with a review for this tomorrow. ...

It’s Bluebird’s take on a British classic – it's the Great British Cuppa . Ingredients: Indian Assam black tea, Ceylon black tea, Chinese Yunnan tea. They describe it thus: We've been around the world in 80 teas with this one! On a mission to get our nation of tea lovers, THE BEST cuppa. Good news... Mission accomplished! Fantastic with your fry up, perfect with a Paddington (marmalade on toast, obviously!) The Great British Cuppa is right here! It’s normal tea! Well, sort of. This is the closest you’ll get to a ‘normal’ tea bag on the Bluebird site, and it’s actually pretty good. I have to admit that as normal tea goes, I’m a big fan of builders tea (think M&S Extra Strong or Yorkshire Gold left to stew for a bit) and I have to have it with milk and 2 sugars (how very British of me). This tea isn’t that strong, but it’s also not bitter so can stand a longer brewing time to give it a bit more oomph. It is packed full of flavour though an...

Today’s tea bag is a twist on an old classic — it’s Earl Grey Creme Ingredients: Ceylon black tea, vanilla, cornflowers, bergamot oil. They describe it thus: Don't we wish prime ministers today were as good as the ones in the good old days? Take PM Earl Grey, he was the cream of the crop. Not only did he help abolish slavery and reform the House of Commons, he also invented the legendary Earl Grey tea! So we've created this creamy tribute just for you old chap! I’m sure you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I’ve never been particularly keen on Earl Grey tea as it’s far too flowery for my liking and I’m not a lover of bergamot either. But as this was today’s tea bag I knew I had to give it a try, even though I wouldn’t normally drink black tea this late in the day. This is actually quite a delicate-tasting tea so the usual flower/bergamot flavours aren’t particularly forceful as in most Earl Greys or perhaps the addition of the vanilla masks the fl...

It’s an oldie — it’s Honey Bee Beautiful . This tea is extremely popular with Bluebird customers but it contains chamomile, which is not one of my favourite flavours, and as I have already reviewed it previously, I’m directing you to that review instead of trying it again. Instead, I spent the day drinking Christmas tea by Adagio, which I was using to try to put me in the mood for festivities — i.e. putting up the Christmas tree (I also tried overdosing on Christmas movies), in the face of the snow that was coming down outside (my dislike of snow is as legendary as my dislike of coconut and is always guaranteed to put me in a bad mood). I failed miserably on all counts and the Christmas tree will have to wait until another day, but I did enjoy the tea and may or may not have shed a tear or two over the films. Ingredients: Black Tea, Cinnamon Bark, Orange Peels, Natural Spice Flavour, Cardamom, Cloves, Ginger Root, Natural Ginger Flavour And ...