Tea and Me

Okay, so after last month’s fairytale selection which provided a trio of excellent new teas, all of which I could more than happily purchase more of ( if I didn’t already have enough tea to last me several years) , I was a little disappointed to discover that July’s selection  — Christmas in July — was mainly geared towards interesting you in their sale, which lasted only a few days and finished a whole week before my box even arrived.  Unfortunately, my box didn’t arrive until 28 th July — I know this is my own fault for signing up so late for the June box, but I hadn’t realised that I would get a late box every month in the future. I assumed it would default to the beginning (or whenever they usually send them out) from this month onwards. In fact, because of the timing, when I got the email through to say it was on its way I thought I was getting the August box. As it happened I wasn’t interested in buying the sale teas anyway as the middle of a heatwav...

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 ...

Mermaid Mist is a limited edition fruit tea from Bird & Blend and was provided as part of the June tea club offering. Ingredients: Hibiscus, apple pieces, aniseed, rosehip, blue pea flowers, liquorice, blackcurrant leaves, natural flavouring They describe it thus: Mermaid Mist is a magical concoction of apple, blackcurrant & blue pea flower with notes of aniseed and liquorice! Add a squeeze of lemon & be hypnotised by the magical colour change!  ✨ The first thing to say about this tea is that it is a beautiful colour, or maybe that should be colours . Depending on the number of blue pea flowers in the teaspoon it can range from a lovely deep plum right through to an almost scary dark blue, more reminiscent of Ursula the Sea Witch than Ariel the Mermaid. Whatever the colour, it looks particularly impressive in my clear glass teapot.  The aroma is interesting, with fruit being the most prevalent when you open the packet. Once brewed it smells quit...

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, after another slight hiatus and a wonderfully relaxing holiday in lovely Malta, I’m back and ready to review tea. Having discovered that several of my work colleagues are more interested in our favourite brew than I had previously realised I will be opening up my precious tea stocks to them in order to widen the views on the teas I am reviewing. To assist in this endeavour, I have (slightly belatedly) signed up to Bird & Blend ’s monthly tea club – swayed, I’ll admit, by the June offering being fairy tale related (Belle’s Breakfast, Butter Brew and Mermaid Mist). I’m not really sure why I’ve never looked at the club previously, as it gives members the opportunity to try their new limited edition blends before they are officially released, particularly when I usually end up buying them anyway, but having been drawn in by the HP-related tea, I’m looking forward to seeing what future months are going to bring. These teas have been released as Limited Edi...