Tea and Me

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...

Like the previous review, today's tea is one of the limited-edition teas from Bluebird Tea Co. which is in their poll to decide which ones will become a permanent blend (as will be the next few reviews, no doubt). It is called Bramble Ramble and is one of a trio of teas inspired by cocktails. This one is, apparently, based on a gin cocktail called The Bramble , of which I've never heard, but then I'm not really a cocktail aficionado (not since the dark days of the 1980s, anyway, and gin was never really my tipple of choice). Ingredients: Chinese Chunmee green tea, juniper berries, elderberries, apple pieces, hibiscus, angelica root, coriander seeds, freeze-dried blackberry, liquorice, lime leaves, cardamom, lemon peel, blackberry leaves, blackberries, raspberry pieces, strawberry pieces, flavouring.  They describe it thus: " The Bramble cocktail is a delicious, blackberry based, sweet yet sour gin cocktail, garnished with a slice of l...

Tea hasn't really been on my mind much this week as I've been suffering from a bad headache which made drinking anything but water or something mild like Milk Oolong pretty much unbearable. However, I'm now fully recovered and back to my old tea-swigging ways and I really need to get on and do some reviews. I have a lot of tea to get through as I seem to have collected rather a lot over the last few months (I was quite shocked when I returned from holiday to see how many packets of tea I actually have waiting to test — I guess they have been steadily building up so I hadn't noticed but suddenly seeing them all together was quite an eye-opener).  Having so many different teas can make my tea tasting quite tricky as I have so many new flavours to try that I can't decide which one I should go for first. This often means that I get overwhelmed, particularly if I don't have a lot of time, and so I give up and revert to old favourites (Milk Oolong (of course)...

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...

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...