Sunday 31 August 2014

London purchases part four: Tea.

When in the land of teaophiles, there's no way around buying some tea. Okay, there probably is, but I got some tea anyway! There's a much wider variety of tea in the UK than there is here, so I got a few that I cannot find here.

Fortnum and Mason

The fist stop I made was Fortnum and Mason. They have  wide variety of teas and they have biscuits and candles, tableware and hampers and much more than that. The store is so chique and fabulous that I felt out of place there wearing jeans and a top, not to mention the backpack (tourist, much?). The staff was very nice though, I bet they're used to many tourists, as there were people taking pictures with their phones. Anyhow after wandering around in there I decided to go for green tea with Moroccan mint. I love the, it tin looks so nice! It's a bit hard to open, but once you get it, the mint fragrance comes right at you and you'll find a loose tea inside. It tastes very nice: minty, but not overwhelmingly so.

Clipper
Later on I got some more tea at Sainsbury's. I was drawn to clipper teas as their packaging is cute and on top of that their tea is organic! So I got two kinds of Clipper tea. The first one is snore & peace. It says to be an organic chamomile, lemon balm & lavender infusion.

It smells like lavender, which is odd as I never eat or drink lavender. But it tastes a bit different. A very nice tea and it is 'just the thing before lights out' indeed!

The other Clipper tea is Blackcurrant & blueberry. Again the packaging is lovely! The tea is bright red as you see in the photos, but I'm not quite sure whether I like the taste yet though. I like the it when sipping, but the taste changes upon swallowing, and it's that second taste that is unfamiliar. I think this may make a nice iced tea with a bit of honey.

Drink Me Chai
This may not count as tea, but here it is anyway: instant chai latte powder. I'd only drank chai latte once before getting this and I loved it. Since I couldn't find anything like it over here, I brought this baby home. I've tried preparing it in a few ways: with almond milk, with water or half of each. I prefer to drink it with just water. It's very sweet and a bit spicy.
And that is all. Not bad for someone who's on team coffee rather than team tea, right?
Again, any recommendations about nice teas are very welcome.
Sincerely,
R.