Catching up on some weekend backlog, as I spent most of the last few days alternately whinging at Gentleman about my lack of employment and, well, making googly eyes at Gentleman like the disgustingly cute couple we are.
If we were anyone else I’d be barfing at how schmoopy we are. It’s cloyingly gross.
Moving on. Not cloyingly gross is Vicki blend tea. Vicki’s lovely. I’d been on a real kick of both chestnut things and cardamom things, having had Nine tea shortly before this one, and making cardamom creme caramel for fancy late dessert when Gentleman came up from Oxford Friday night. I’ve done baked custards and flan and stuff before, but never a creme caramel, so I was chuffed to bits when I released the custards from the ramekins and they’d set perfectly with a pretty pool of runny caramel sauce surrounding them! Heck yeah! And cardamom marries so well with caramel flavours.
To that end, the tea. The leaves’ fragrance begins with that gorgeous cardamom warmth, moving into a lingering, almost buttery caramelized nutty sweetness, reminiscent of lovely, freshly-baked Scandinavian biscuits. When brewed and served with milk and sugar, the Irish Breakfast keeps the flavours from becoming overwhelmingly sugary, while the cardamom offers a lively counterpoint to the almost maple combination of chestnut and caramel. It’s every bit as bright and warm and lovely as one would rightly expect from Vicki.
