Tea and Me

It’s apparently a ghost of Christmas Past  - it’s the Mulled Wine tea bag. Ingredients: Hibiscus, rosehip, apple pieces, lemon pieces, orange peel, orange flowers, cloves, cinnamon. They describe it thus: A steaming mug of mulled wine on a frosty winter's eve is just about our favourite part of the chilly Christmas season. Brew up a Bluebird Mulled Wine and delicious scents of clove, cinnamon and orange will waft you right into a winter wonderland! You can also add to red wine on the stove for the real deal. So, today’s tea is classified as a 'ghost of Christmas past', but as luck would have it, this week Bluebird are reviving five of their ghosts, each for one day only.  Today’s 'ghost' is the same Mulled Wine as the advent calendar tea bag and you have until midnight to get it if you want it (and better still there’s still free delivery until then as well). This is a really tasty fruit tea, full-bodied and full of flavour with all those...

Rejoice! I managed to complete the gargantuan task of reducing my extreme document holdings (that have been steadily rising over the years) to the minuscule allowance we were allowed to keep in order to be able to transfer to our new computer system over the weekend. As I suggested earlier in the week, to celebrate this magnificent feat (and it truly was — you have no idea how much stuff I had to get rid of) I treated myself to a visit to the Bliss Tea Rooms in Walderslade to partake of one of their cream teas and celebrate, once again, Afternoon Tea Week . Bliss is a tiny tea room but somehow feels perfectly sized although to be fair, when I went it wasn’t particularly busy. If it was full it might feel slightly less perfect especially for someone who gets a bit claustrophobic (there is seating for 18 people and there is also a table outside). Bliss Tea Rooms, Walderslade While I have never been to Bliss before, I have looked at the menu (in the window, when it w...

One of the sets of tea bags I received in the free goody bag from Camellia’s Tea House last month was called Sleep Well . As someone who suffers from chronic insomnia, I am open to anything that might aid in helping me sleep so I was interested in trying it. It’s actually an infusion as it doesn’t contain any type of tea leaves but I will still be treating it as if it is tea.  I did have some slight concern as one of the ingredients is my old nemesis chamomile but as it contained plenty of other (potentially) good stuff too, I decided to give it a go. Ingredients: Valerian, hops, chamomile, lemon verbena, hawthorn, red clover, violet and spearmint. They describe it thus: ‘Sleep Well is a lovely infusion which combines lemon verbena with chamomile to produce a gentle and soothing infusion with delightful undertones of mint. The ingredients of the tea are believed to ease insomnia and promote restful sleep.’ Wrapped in a sealed foil packet, the infusion...