Hazelnut Vanilla

A delightful combination. Heady Madagascar vanilla flavor highlights the exotic Turkish hazelnut extract. Excellent sweet nutty finish with light cream notes.

Ingredients: Black tea, Elder blossom, Calendula petals, Natural flavors.

According to historical manuscripts, sweets made with hazelnuts and vanilla have been popular since the days of the Roman Empire and King Arthur’s ancient England – if you believe he existed! Prior to the meeting of both cultures however, hazelnuts and vanilla were consumed on their own. Legend has it that the first time the two were combined was after a skirmish involving some Knights of the Round Table and a contingent of Roman expeditionary soldiers seeking to extend the borders of their Empire. Owing to their superior weaponry, the Romans took a number of Knights captive. Among the items the Romans confiscated from the Knights was a sack of hazelnuts they carried as sustenance during long campaigns. As the story goes, the cook at the Roman camp took one bite and realized that the nuts would compliment his store of vanilla perfectly. (Roman cooks always traveled with a good stock of vanilla.) The Knights, seeing a potential means of escape, bribed the cook by offering to come back with 5 sacks of the nuts, one for each man captured. The cook agreed and the rest as they say is culinary history. Over the centuries, the wonderfully nutty sweet flavor of hazelnut and vanilla has been used to create cookies, pastries, and breads in nearly every country in Europe. In fact it was a European colleague of our Master Taster who initially conceived of this tea. We’re certainly glad he did because the resulting blend is in a word, esculentus. (That’s Latin for delicious.) Nutty, with fragrant flowery undertones, this tea is the perfect companion to a traditional European continental breakfast. Occupo! (That’s Latin for enjoy!)