Monday, May 16, 2011

Chocolate + Tea = Bliss

Today I seem to have my brain connected to my hands and managed to get the tin of Twining's Darjeeling Tea - Classic, no less. It is a blend of teas and when I opened the tin, I was a bit disappointed, as the tea was such tiny bits. It is not the hard core pebbles of many CTC teas, but tiny, nevertheless. It smelled kind of hay like, but heavier, almost toasted. It was clearly a mix of black, brown and silver bits.

I used my usual, 1 teaspoon, boiling water, but only 3 minutes, as the leaves were so small. While it was brewing, it again had that roasted hay aroma. The tea was much darker in the cup than I expected, almost black. Rats, the 3 minute steep is too long and the tea is pretty tannic. Cream does help, but I guess I had better try for 2 -2.5 minutes tomorrow.

Oh goody, the mail just came and with it my order from the Tea Table. I am very taken with their Tsarina blend, which I reviewed a long time ago. I also got a couple samples - one of which is coconut. My husband loves coconut tea and I am trying to find one I like as well.

For those of you with an iPhone, there is now a tea app, accessible at http://www.teaapp.com/ or for a $3.99 download from iPhone. There's a tea map and James Norwood Pratt's Tea Dictionery available there as well.

What Ho! Somone has finally come up with the ideal melding of chocolate and tea - chocolate tea cups! They are infused with several different teas and come in a tea tin. They come from Kitchen TLC (tea, life, chocolate). I am not sure how to order from them, but there is a place on the site for stores and to contact them. http://www.kitchentlc.com/

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