Whittard of Chelsea

I finally finished this tea. I hoarded for so long that I was afraid it was a goner, especially with the big strips of coconut in it.

GMathis mentioned scones a few days ago and I could not get them out of my mind, so Monday morning I made a batch of cranberry/white chocolate chip/pecan scones to serve as breakfast for the week. This was what I chose to pair with it.

The smell of the dry leaf is so sweet but the tea itself is not. I think it is the combination of black and green tea that gives this tea a little smoky edge that keeps the macaron part from being cloying. It was just hefty enough for breakfast but I love it as an afternoon tea, also. It is one of my favorites from Whittards of Chelsea. The coconut was not in the least rancid, thank goodness.

So this was a sipdown, but I don’t get any extra room on the actual shelf because the tin is too pretty to throw away. Eventually I will probably part with it but not today.

One year ago I said I was going to quit hoarding this, and never drank it again. I have been working so hard on sipdowns! I had enough leaf left for about four cups of tea and used half of it this morning. This is way out of date but it is still SO GOOD. It doesn’t have that sharp metallic edge I get in some flavored teas.

This is warm, sweet, creamy, and delicious. I will probably not remove it from my cupboard because I think this may have achieved desert island list status.

Another tea that I had failed to list in my cupboard….I guess I am not as far into decluttering my stash as I thought. On a happy note – someone stopped by my youngest daughter’s dorm this morning just to get their travel mug filled with the Teavivre jasmine tea I took her last weekend. Apparently it was a big hit!

This one is so delicious that I have hoarded it, saving it for only the most special occasions, and now it is past the use by date. It tastes fantastic, but I have to get serious and finish because it would be a huge waste to let it truly go bad.

It is so coconut-y and vry easy going even though it is a blend of black tea and green tea, which can sometimes be a lttle difficult to work with as the green can get “burned” or the black may not give up its best flavor at a lower temp. Nope, I really didn’t give it special treatment but it turned out awesome.

Hubby and I had his and hers teas this evening in front of the fire. He had puerh while I had this, served with garlic and herb goat cheese, crackers, and Woodstock organic bread and butter pickles.

And only AFTER I was all done handling food did I open the book that GGMathis sent for me to read – Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! I also got the CUTEST Thanksgiving…ahem…HENSgiving card that she made! I should show it to the chickens tomorrow. They will be so pleased! They will be so excited for Thanksgiving as they always get to enjoy some of the bounty.

With a splosh of cashew milk!

I’m definitely going to talk more about it when Steepster gets all not glitchy (or less glitchy, anyway) again but one of my MTL friends and I are starting a podcast all about tea and geeky fandoms – and we started an IG page for it to promote it.Today is also “Tea Together Tuesday” and the theme is mugshots, so we both decided to share some of our nerdy mugs! Marika chose a whisky flavoured blend from a different company for her tea, so I decided to mirror her selection and pick a whisky blend from my own stash! I think I actually own the one she was drinking, but I enjoy this one better and it seemed just a touch weird to choose the exact same tea.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDef49sjJgS/

Some mild tea experimentation happening with this one…

I wanted to brew Gong Fu on Thursday night when I got home from work, but I also was craving something more flavoured than a straight tea as well as lemon. At first I was just going to add a lemon wedge to a more full bodied and brisk straight black tea and do a sort of lemon/black type thing not super unlike the black tea and straight basil that I brewed Gong Fu not too long ago. However, while I was searching for the right straight black tea I ended up finding my tin of this tea – a whisky flavoured black tea.

Now, I already know that Whisky and Lemon go well together so as soon as I saw the tin I was convinced; this was what I was craving: a flavoured black tea that’s not too out there in terms of flavour and that would suit lemon. However, this is definitely not the type of tea that I would normally brew Gong Fu so I was just going to make it a Western mug with a squeeze of lemon. At the last minute, as the kettle had finished boiling and I was about to measure out the tea leaf, I decided “Fuck it; let’s just do it Gong Fu and see what the fuck happens!”.

It was a good call.

Obviously this is different than your standard Gong Fu session, for several reasons. It worked well though; the first infusion had a lot of the Whisky flavour from the tea and just a hint of lemon – it was full bodied and very strong/intense but didn’t come out bitter or harsh. Infusion two was still whisky note heavy but the lemon had steeped more into the cup so there was a stronger citrus note a bit of a bite of acidity. It was very much a “Hot Toddy” meets “Whisky Sour” kind of vibe that I was completely into. It was so extremely on point for what I had been craving taste wise, and I still got the physical sensation of brewing Gong Fu and that was equally satisfying. Infusions three and four were pretty similar, but four had a lot less Whisky notes and was more just a brisk, malty black base.

Infusion five the the turning point; it was just too soft a black tea taste with too much acidity from the lemon juice being steeped out – so that was where I stopped brewing. Even still, while it was a short session it was the kind of session that sort of “recharges” your soul and where you feel both at piece and also invigorated.

Loved this combo!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwt-xaxHyIr/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Jt4wQr-so

Tea Infused Salad Dressing!

I tend to hyper fixate on ideas/concepts occasionally, and the most recent example of this is tea infused salad dressings. The first one I tried out was Spicy Pina Margarita but I wasn’t super happy with the result so I did a lot more research, and consulted with a couple coworkers for ideas. Then, I was right back at it!

This was my second attempt, and here’s the recipe that I used:

- 1/3 Cup of Distilled White Vinegar
- 2 tablespoons of tea
- 1 clove of garlic (optional, but I did add it for this recipe)
- 2 tablespoons of buckwheat honey
- 2/3 Cup of Olive Oil
- Black Pepper & Salt to Taste
- Mason Jar
- Cheesecloth or some other form of straining device

Basically, you pour the vinegar into a small saucepan and bring it up to a boil. Then, immediately take it off the heat and add in the tea and a crushed clove of garlic. Let that “steep” into the vinegar until it’s completely cold. Then strain it into the mason jar. Add in the honey, shake together until blended. Then, slowly add in the olive oil and shake very vigorously until emulsified.

And bam! You’ve made salad dressing/vinaigrette! It was actually a really easy recipe to follow along with, and I’m super happy with how it turned out! I think the flavour of the tea is definitely quite noticeable, and it just works really well with everything else going on in the recipe – honey, garlic, and whiskey? I mean, that’s a perfect pairing as far as I’m concerned. You can also use any type of honey, vinegar, or oil if you want to slightly tweak the profile to best match whatever tea you’re doing. I went with white vinegar/olive oil because they’re basically the “plainest” options and I really wanted the focus here to be the taste of the tea. For the honey, I chose buckwheat honey to add more depth and richness to the flavour because I didn’t think whisky was something that should necessarily be super “light”. Plus, the molasses/nutty notes of the honey are also great pairings with that flavour.

Other things you could switch around are the spices you add during the “steeping” process, and instead of honey I could have also used agave or eggwhites as my emulsifier. I happen to love the taste of honey, and really lean towards sweeter dressings so that was the best option for me. I also own a lot of “weirder” honeys, which gives me more customization options. Also, you can up the acidity by doing things like adding lemon/lime juice too. Have fun and play with it! The key things are just that you need an acid (vinegar), oil, and emulsifier and you want your ratios to basically match what I outlined in my recipe above…

But yeah, a successful project that I will 100% be trying with other teas! And, for the record, I have now finished off this dressing in different salads because I liked it so much.

Evening cuppa post work.

Still working on finding a good for me balance of teas at home to at work ratio. I’m sure, with the amount that my at work tea drinking has sky rocketed upwards, my caffeine tolerance will rebuild to being very high, but in the meantime I definitely need to be really careful to not overdo it on the caffeine. I also want to make sure I’m consuming the teas I have at home in addition to what is available at work though: otherwise I will NEVER have a smaller tea cupboard…

This was something I made sure I had right after getting home from work though: I was craving that strong, black base and boozy whisky profile. Really I was also just craving some Tennessee Honey Jack Daniels, but that wasn’t accessible to me at all so this was
kind of a backup to that craving. This was such a satisfying cup of tea for me! Super, super smooth but also really heavy/dark and sweet.

So, my manager at work recently went on vacation to Europe; she went to quite a few places including Italy, Ireland, and England among others. Because she’s a sweet heart, she brought back a souvenir for all of our staff; and the thing that she picked up for me was some tea! This tea!

So, Whittards is a pretty big brand in England from what I’m aware of – and I’ve tried a couple of their teas before but largely they’re pretty unexplored by me. I don’t know why this is the tea that she picked for me, but I’m definitely appreciative and it’s not one that I’ve had before – plus is smells really good. They were only selling it in 100g increments at the Whittards store, so I’ve got a lot to play around with – but for my first tasting I’m going with hot and straight.

Snap impression!? This does some somewhat boozy. I’m not a huge whisky drinker, folks – my spirit of choice is generally rum or gin. So, I definitely don’t have a vast familiarity with the taste of whisky. However, I’ve had a decent amount of “Whisky Chocolate” and I can confirm that the taste of this tea reminds me of those whisky chocolates, down to the sweetness and cocoa notes. It’s smooth and pleasant, and maybe even just a hint smoky? The thing that I didn’t expect though was that I’d be picking up notes of apple – and I kind of am!?

So I guess what I’m saying is that this one tastes like whisky, chocolate, smoke, and apple. It’s good though! I’m excited to try doing more things with it.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGw3etetIxc&t=0s&index=2&list=WL

(Note: the tea I tasted for this review is the classic Earl Grey by Whittard of Chelsea. However, it seems they’ve changed the packaging of their teas, and the one I own doesn’t look like the one in the picture on here. I found conflicting info on the web so I’m not sure of anything. Should I find out that this tasting note is in the wrong place, I will remove it.)

My sister brought this tea back from her school trip to England and I hadn’t tasted it before yesterday. My mother brewed it for Sunday brunch, which is why I had no control over the water temperature and steeping time, but I decided I’d write a tasting note anyway.
The tea has a dark brown colour which is very nice to the eye, and a very interesting marine smell when hot. As it cools down, the smell of the black tea becomes more prominent and the mix of the two is pretty nice.
I started sipping it as soon as it got cool enough for me not to burn my tongue and lose my taste for three days. It’s nicely astringent, which is exactly what I wanted from it on this lazy Sunday morning.
It has some kind of herbaceousness to it, as well as the marine feeling I got when I first smelled it – it’s also kinda cold, like stone perhaps. It’s a tea you might drink after a walk along the shores on a windy October day. It’s a tad salty in smell and taste, and the balance between briskness and smoothness is near perfect for my taste.
It doesn’t become bitter and bad once it starts to really cool down, aka the last few sips are still drinkable even when you’ve forgotten your tea on the living room table for a while. Which is something that happens to me quite often, hehe.
I recommend this one!

(The box recommends 100°C and steeping 3-5 minutes. I only steeped it for 2, so I’m gonna steep it for at least 3 next time I sip it, just to see how it unfolds when steeped longer.)

EDIT: I steeped it for 3-ish minutes just now and was amazed by how bergamot-y it smells? I didn’t get that at all the first time I had this tea, so I’m guessing that flavour only ever comes out when you’ve passed the 3 minute mark. Even just the dry leaves smell like one single huge bergamot (I’ve never actually seen one though). Someone on here says it has almost a creamy flavour, which I totally agree with. Interestingly, that whole saltiness is gone now that I’ve steeped it for longer than 2 minutes.
So, if you want a marine tea, steep 2 minutes, if you want the whole Earl Grey deal, steep for 3 minimum!

(I initially gave this Earl Grey an 83, but now that I’ve sipped it again I’m going up to an 87.)

287/365

This one came to me from a colleague – one from the good old days, such as they were, before the stupidity really started. She wasn’t part of the problem, so we’re still in touch…and she knows all about my tea obsession.

This one’s a peach flavoured black; maybe a touch on the artificial side, but not too bad. I’m drinking my first cup without milk, but I reckon it’d probably be okay with also. It’s a little drying, so possibly it’d be a slight improvement. I’m okay with it, in any case. There’s a touch of liquorice/stevia sweetness towards the end of the sip that, as ever, I’m really not sold on. On the whole, though, it’s okay. Nothing I’d write home about, but nothing terrible either.

I think there are probably better peach teas out there – in fact, I know there are. Bird & Blend’s Peach Cobbler is one, but there are others. I’m intrigued by a few Whittard’s blends, but in practice I’m never bowled over by them which is why I’ve refrained from ordering for so long. This one has kind of confirmed to me that my decision still holds. It’s okay, but I want more than that.

June Wedding! Something borrowed! I had a single teabag of this tea, gifted to me from a former coworker, Katie (thanks, Katie!) It came from one of her favorite British tea companies, Whittard of Chelsea, though I couldn’t find this particular blend on their online store, so I’m not exactly sure how she came about it… It just seems to be a fairly standard black tea blend with Ceylon, Assam, and Kenyon black teas which they claim is a “strong traditional” so I’m expecting pretty much an English Breakfast sort of tea here. Which have never really been my favorite (though they were certainly the favorite of the person who gifted this to me) but tonight I’m watching The Man Who Invented Christmas, and a movie about Charles Dickens just seemed to fit an English tea. Though I’m sure I’m going to hate myself tomorrow for drinking an English breakfast in the evening…

This tea definitely has a much stronger flavor than the last one I tried, which was Art of Tea’s Organic Breakfast. I actually handled that tea pretty easily for myself for a breakfast black, without even having to add milk, but it was also strictly a Ceylon, as I recall. This tea has a more bitter flavor to me, and far more of an astringent bite left on the tongue in comparison. I get flavor notes of malt, wood, citrus, and pepper.

I had to add a spoon of lemon-infused honey and a dash of milk to this one; otherwise it was just too strong of a black tea for me! With those few additions, though, it was a perfectly fine cup. Still packed a bit of a kick, though!

It´s always a special moment when I get an old-fashioned letter from a good friend…and what can be better to cherish this moment than make myself a cup of tea to accompany the reading? Today I had some mountain pearls, fresh and crisp…a real summery tea, if you ask me, without needing fruit or extra sweetness. In nose very grassy, but fortunately in taste it isn´t at all so herbal.

This first time I stuck to the preparation indicated on the note by Whittard of Chelsea, i.e. take one teaspoon of the rolled leaf tea, add water at 100ºC and have it steep 3-5 minutes. I used a mug with a matching (ceramic) filter …what a nice way to see the leaves open up!
The dry tea smells nice and intense, what I often find lacking with green teas…and the resulting hot brew although light in colour is quite fragrant and again intense aromatically speaking.
With just the right degree of bitterness, it stays crisp and I like that. Next time, I´ll reuse the leaves for multiple infusions, to see whether it manages to make my enjoyment of this tea even bigger!

This is a very nice tea. It has a very sweet smell that compliments the tea’s taste, which is not overly sweet. It has a very smooth texture with the coconut blending with the two different teas

Four sisters come for music lessons on Thursday afternoons, and last week they invited me to their home after lessons to celebrate my birthday with a tea time! One of the girls had purchased this tea at Home Goods and served it, and I couldn’t wait to try it because she has been telling me about it for a few weeks now. I love my students!

It is so rosy! Not icky bubble bath rosy. Just delicious and girly and foofy and sweet. I was really surprised that when it was resteeped, it was still significantly flavorful. It was in no way a letdown after the first delicious pot.

Lovely tea, lovely tin, great value because of how well it resteeps. We didn’t go for a third steep, but I would love to know if it holds up for that. And I drank it in such lovely company, so how could I not have good memories of this tea?

I am so embarrassingly behind with reviewing teas I’ve gotten yet back in the fall. When my boyfriend was in London, he generously offered to pick some tea up for me and I asked him to surprise me since the few that I was originally interested in from Whittard have been since discontinued. This is the one he chose, and apparently, the sales associate described this as an “intense tea experience,” if I remember correctly.

This reminds me of a Christmas blend from Acquired Taste, and other orange spice blends. The vanilla bean is overpowered by the much stronger orange and clove notes in here. Not to mention, the base is bold and astringent. I would probably enjoy it more with milk but keep forgetting to do so whenever I steep up a cup.

The last sip is loaded with clove. I’m surprised my tongue hasn’t gone numb!

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I heard
Was a song outside my window, and the traffic wrote the words
It came a-reeling up like Christmas bells and rapping up like pipes and drums

Oh, won’t you stay
We’ll put on the day
And we’ll wear it ’till the night comes

… (Joni Mitchell – Chelsea morning)

Nothing better than to “put on the day” with a cup of Chelsea breakfast : the addition of Kenya tea makes this breakfast blend stronger, maltier, and definitely more “my cup of tea” than the standard English breakfast blend.

I picked up this tea at Home Goods—and many other Whittard that have been all good so far. This is a very light, girly tea! the leaves aren’t rolled or pressed, just loose large light pieces that float around the pretty flowered tin. I paid attention to the lower temp, and it made a great cup-no bitterness. A beautiful floral and fruit combo—I imagine would be great iced also. I only used a touch of honey. Was such a treat as I watched Olympic ice skating!

My first tasting note! I chose this, because I have been drinking it every day for a month! I actually have the round tea bags. I love the earl grey-like flavor. I have just been dropping one in a cup of water to take to work, let cold brew, and drink with lunch. I nearly always add honey to my hot tea, and sometimes to cold—but this is great without any additional sweetener, which I love to get away with if I can. I bought several more variateas from Whittards and I think they are all pretty great.

OK, I admit it : I love the “revisited” packaging of these Whittard tea bags! As I really love bergamot flavoured teas, this might have been a sure bet, although I´m not too fond of fruit (flavoured) infusions, and green teas very often have a grassy taste I cannot appreciate…let´s have a taste. I brewed the tea bag as indicated on the box (infuse for 2-3 minutes with water heated to 80ºC), and I must say it´s quite a nice surprise : aromatically the mango dominates, but not overly so, while one notes the green backbone in the just degree and the mouthfeel is definitely bergamot, to satisfy Earl Grey lovers as myself. As far as I´m concerned, this tea suits me more than most of the green earl grey teas I´ve tried so far…maybe the mango addition makes it work after all!

This tea was a treat! While I don’t really understand the reasoning behind blending green and black tea (all I can taste is the black tea) the flavor combination in this one is delicious: lots of creamy coconut with a touch of caramel sweetness and just a whiff of hazelnut. The mouth feel is thick and rich and it’s delicious both with and without milk. I would definitely consider re-purchasing this one!