Tea & Toast

2022 Bird & Blend Advent calendar Day #13

I enjoyed this for my breakfast tea to start the new year. The raspberries definitely come through first but there was also a very strong bitter note. I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes and did not add anything. After reading some other notes, I feel I should have added some tea to temper the bitterness.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge, September 2022: A breakfast tea

This reminds me a lot of Vicky’s Sponge Cake, but with hibiscus and not as consistent in delivering jam (and Vicky is already a temperamental tea). I think I got jam once when I coldbrewed it and twice when I added milk. The three other times? Not so prevalent – although, I still thought this was a nice fruity breakfast tea, veering on creamy-ish (that’s jam adjacent).

Cold Brew!

I had a bit of a panic-y kind of moment a few days ago where basically every single tea I drank in the tea and any food I consumed tasted like practically nothing. In the case of this tea, I got the absolute lightest hint of tartness on the sides of my tongue. Almost imperceptible. I thought that maybe I had lost my taste/smell since that’s a pretty common Covid-19 symptom. Since I hadn’t been affected by that with my first few days of heavy symptoms I assumed I would be fine in that regard – it was a massive relief because the idea of losing my taste/smell when so much of my job relies on it was…

Well, horrifying.

So yes – I drank this cold brew and it was panic inducing. Thankfully, I think I had just reached such an extreme level of congestion that that was what was causing my poor sense of taste because literally the next day, though definitely still stuffed up, I was able to taste just fine. It was a massive relief.

I does mean, however, that I definitely need to make this again on a day when I can actually taste it.

Sipdown 60-2021
I probably could’ve gotten 2 cups out of this, but I’m really trying to slim down my stash (and just placed 2 tea orders…whoops). This cup smells oddly savory. Almost like a gloomy rind cheese covered in jelly. I’m actually having a bit of a hard time drinking this because of how much it smells like a soft cheese.

additional notes:  So this tea… I had a sample of it a while ago and finished it.  Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, but it is one of those teas where it will randomly pop up in a sale and I say “why not?” while I’m hurriedly trying to make B&B sale choices at three in the morning.  It has an odd sort of flavor profile, it’s like a brisk black tea (Kenyan black + Assam, yum) with a sort of tartness to it.  Sometimes hibiscus is acceptable.  However, I was even more pleased when opening the pouch I saw quite a number of huge raspberry pieces that I didn’t remember being in the previous sample.  So I was very happy about those promised raspberries that were missing, which led to disappointment before!   I knew not to expect a JAM flavor this time around. And visually a gorgeous blend. Definitely a lovely tea to have with toast.  A craveable flavor once in a while and I’m glad it popped up in the sale.  I love their sales mainly for the randomness of what teas might reappear.

206/365

Tea & Toast two ways!

This is the third of Bird & Blend’s summer collection, and the one that had me most intrigued. The name made me think it might be smoky flavoured (I was clearly thinking of burnt toast), but in actual fact it’s a raspberry jam flavoured black. I went straightforward for my first cup – 3 minutes in boiling water, no additions. I have to say, I love it! The base is a blend of Assam (my forever favourite), and a Kenyan tea, which together are malty and jammy in the best possible way. I taste the base first, before the “raspberry jam” flavour emerges in the mid-sip. It’s quite subtle to begin with, but somehow seems to develop towards the end of the sip until the raspberry is the main player. It reminds me a tiny bit of Butiki’s Ruby Pie (just a tiny bit, though – something about the raspberry), but also of Bird & Blend’s Vicky’s Sponge Cake; it’s like it takes the problems that blend had and smooths them over, so if you wanted to like that one and didn’t, this might be a better alternative.

The cup as a whole tastes like tea with a side of jam – not toast, so much, although I can see why they called it that. I suppose you could argue that the base tea provides a baked bread kind of flavour, but to me it’s all about the jamminess, and the choice of base teas complement and support that aspect of the flavour more than any other. I’m not sure I’d drink this one as a breakfast blend, although I guess I could be persuaded, but it’s definitely a mid-morning delight!

My second cup is actually a glass, because I took inspiration from Bird & Blend’s instagram and decided to cold brew 4 tsp in coconut milk. They say it tastes like raspberry ripple ice cream…

It does, in a way, although it’s heavier on the coconut (obviously! ) than raspberry ripple ice cream would usually be. It’s sweet and creamy, though, and the raspberry jam flavour does just about manage to make its presence felt. It’s a fairly close thing, though, and I think if I tried it again I’d probably use more tea – 6 tsp, perhaps, rather than 4. You wouldn’t know it’s a black tea, when prepared like this; instead, it’s got much more in common with milkshake. I think I prefer cold brewing in lemonade for clarity of flavour, but this is pretty yummy just the same!