And speaking of strawberries and cream teas; here’s a new one from Whittards in the revamped range of herbal and fruit infusions.
I was expecting this to be strong, bold, fruity and sweet the way the loose Strawberry Rooibos I already have is. Rooibos tends to work well with wholesome red fruit like this, and it was pleasantly sweet, but this time round I think I may have oversteeped it (3~7 minutes on the packet is a little too wide a scope!).
Bizarrely the vanilla was what let down the overall harmony of strawberry and rooibos by making it sickly instead. It tastes artificial and pungent rather than natural and sweet, the way Twinings does it in their strawberry & vanilla rooibos— I even added milk to the brew to try to cancel it out, but no to avail. I think it might even have made the vanilla worse. More than a touch of vanilla, it’s an unfortunate swamping in an otherwise brilliant combination. Well, I gave it a go, but I’ll stick to the non-vanilla version!
