Whittard of Chelsea

Oh jolly good! Some shitty faced wank stain sorry excuse for a human parasite broke into my house yesterday afternoon and stole a bunch of shit from me and my flatmates. Pardon my French. My laptops are gone, Gentleman’s laptops are gone, and mostly I’m pissed because they weren’t even good laptops but they were mine and they’ll probably have binned them anyway and so the whole venture just means they got nothing out of it and we had to have a new window put in and now we don’t have our computers that, frankly, given all the crap we’ve been through in the last few months, I can’t bloody afford to replace. GOSH DAMN MOTHER FLIPPING BEESTINGS.

So I guess this is kind of an angry review, as I’ve been crying a lot more than I can blame on my period, but I thought, you know, oolong’s nice. And it is, and this is a nice oolong. It’s a darker one so you get that muesli, autumn flavour, but it’s quite a distinctly fruity muesli. Like, there’s some toasted oats and nuts in there, but also an unusual number of raisins and sultanas and stuff. It’s good.

Gentleman’s just walked up to me and handed me a piece of cheese. I’m blessed to have him. We can weather any crap as long as we have each other. I’m grateful for that. I’m so grateful.

I’m not normally a big fan of Ceylon teas, but this one does it for me. There’s a certain fruitiness in the aroma that I can’t quite put my finger on, and a clean sort of autumn leaf taste, and a fruit-floral note to it. The company describes it as floral, but to me that sort of manifests itself in a lighter, fruitier sense, and less in any sort of heavy or super-fragrant way. Good.

Also, I wore a shirtdress I haven’t worn in ages today, and then remembered why I haven’t worn it in ages. It makes me look like either a nurse or a schoolgirl. Seeing how I’m not either, kind of not good. At least Gentleman told me I looked nice. He’s good at knowing what to say.

I have craft club in a bit so I’m cross stitching up a storm again. Unfortunately sometime in the night I managed to get a cut on the underside of my tongue and if I drink, eat, or move my tongue it hurts. That makes this sipdown painful but I’m hoping to get past that.

So two bags of this into my large mug and I can smell clove and pepper. Not as spicy as say a Chai tea but it is noticeable all the same.

In flavour this is mild, clove and pepper are still present though somewhat dry. The black base is hard to taste though on the plus side it’s rather smooth and non astringent. The spices do dominate the base and linger in the after taste, though again albeit still on a mild/medium scale. Perhaps a touch bitter in the after taste but I think that may be the spices, something in it like cardamom pod or citrus peel.

It’s not a bad tea but not strong enough for my liking, and I prefer cinnamon in my spiced drinks. It was alright though, got a few bags left that will easily be finished off.

My first tea of the day, late start as I had orange juice that needed using up and I’ve been busy cross stitching. I have a couple of weeks left before my community centre has a competition and my piece needs to get a move on. It’s a close call but I hope to have it completed in time. I doubt it will be but I may as well try.

I fancied some vanilla tea and this was the first one I could see, so I have two bags in my large mug and added some honey to it. The bags did smell strongly vanilla, more French vanilla than original vanilla but I adore French vanilla so it’s fine by me. It was also natural smelling which makes a nice change.

In flavour the vanilla is not very strong but it does linger in the after taste, despite the honey it’s not too sweet and the black base is rather smooth which at least matches the vanilla. It’s a little malty and smoky but still extremely light.

It’s not a bad vanilla black tea but I prefer the one from my local tea shop, the vanilla is stronger in that one and I much prefer it. Still for a bag this is alright, and at least the balance is not too bad so I can enjoy what few bags I have left.

I’ve had this tea a few times in bag form and today has been the most successful. Reason being that I found this Earl grey to be very ‘middle of the road’ in terms of strength and flavour, it didn’t stand out yet neither was it terrible. To it’s fairness it is a smooth Earl Grey even without milk or sugar, and the black base is not over powering the bergamot, also the bergamot is not too strong, bitter or perfumed. Yet for all those things it’s just not jumping out at me. That was until I decided to use 2 bags in my mug this morning with a sprinkle of sweetener, it reached perfection. It was stronger but due to it’s mild nature was not too strong, it did not become astringent/bitter and the bergamot was at a nice personal level. The sweetener added to the bergamot a little which helped to keep the balance smooth and sweet. Much better! As far as Earl Greys go this is a nice one, albeit if you double up on the bags. Meets on par with my favoured Twinings and Clipper Earl Grey.

Another tea that I purchased today, it’s been a while since I had an apple tea in stock. This was only £2.50 for a small tin so I thought it was worth a try. As my last pot of tea tonight I chose this blend to try, being caffeine free I thought it would be perfect, I was not wrong. The smell was beautiful, sweet yet crisp apple drifted up my nostrils and lingered with a flower breeze. Very fresh and fragrant, certainly a pleasant welcome to the blend.

After steeping I took a sniff and again was met with a wonderful apple scent with a hint of herbal flowers in the back, only a touch and still remaining fresh.

In flavour this tastes strongly of rose which was unexpected but all the same is very nice. Behind the rose is apple which lingers in my mouth and turns into a lightly perfumed, herbal, concoction. It’s sweet but also a little sour when the apple flavour kicks in, and while the after taste is strongly elderflower (which feels oddly refreshing) it remains sweet and pleasant.

Honestly this was not what I was expecting…but in a good way. I thought this would be another standard herbal/fruit tea but the quality and freshness of this blend has surprised me. Husband is also a fan which says a lot as he usually dislikes herbal blends.

Very happy with this tea, I will definitely be trying it in my new cold steeping flask :)

This was a tea from my visit in store earlier, I got 125g caddy of English Rose for £4 as it expires in just over a month. The date is fine with me as I can make iced tea and such for a few weeks with it, plus after that I am left with a caddy (which they sold for £3 alone anyway).

It smells rather soft, that is to say it’s not strongly rose though it is noticeably rose. If you can understand that babbling. In flavour it was very mild, there was a touch of rose in the after taste but on the whole the black tea is malty, smoky and a little astringent. I have not added milk as I usually don’t but this blend recommends not having it anyway, that that sharpness is a little disappointing. To save my large cup of tea I added quite a mountain of sweetener, it seems to have brought out the sweetness of the rose and toned down the black base but it is still sour.

It’s not a bad rose tea but it’s also not the best. For the price I can’t complain though if I paid the full £8 for it I would have been a little gutted. Still I can make use of this within the next month. :)

I visited a Whittard of Chelsea store today in Trentham, Stoke On Trent and my mother treated me to a few bits. One of which is a beautiful love heart mug that is larger than your average mug and will be my new best friend. To christen her (I think my mug is a female anyway) I chose this Jasmine green tea that I already had prior to my visit. I also got some other tea samples that I haven’t tried such as Sleepy Time instant tea and Very, Very, Berry blend but also I got a cold tea steeper which I’m looking forward to using. It cost £20 and it looks like a wine bottle, you put the leaves into the glass bottle and clip on a silicone top with built in strainer and after a few hours in the fridge it’s ready. It will be great to take to my craft/cross stitch club.

The tea is light yet very sweet and the Jasmine is smooth. Delicate and soft, very easy to drink. The green tea is also very mild though there is a grassy flavour in the after taste. It’s a little too light for me, next time I will try putting two teabags into my large mug. Oh well, for now it’s pleasant enough.

From the Round 3 Here’s Hoping TTB

This is nice. The base tea had decent body and smoothness. The toffee flavor is steady throughout, but it doesn’t overpower the base tea. It’s definitely sweet, but I’m not getting the pudding flavor. Still, this is a nice, robust dessert tea.

Great flavor!

Tasty, warm, delicious, sweet, nutty….just like it’s billed. Vanilla, Shortbread, and Black Tea.

This is a great blend of tea! Jasmine, citrus, bergamont all in great cup of tea!

I made some iced tea with this a few days ago, and finally tried it after it steeped today.

Unfortunately, I feel like I botched it. The website does say to use 1 tsp per cup of liquid, and I used twice that to make sure that it was able to be diluted for iced tea.

However, even iced and diluted, this doesn’t really work for me. The rose and elderflower flavours are really strong, and it feels like I’m drinking a cup of perfume. Adding ice didn’t help. Adding huge bunch of club soda even after the ice melted helped, but not as much as I hoped. It just doesn’t taste sweet and fruity enough.

I had this a few days ago before I left to visit the in-laws for thanksgiving. Still not my favourite tea, but I’ll give it this – it’s easy to prepare in a hurry, when I don’t have the time to measure out the leaf or make sure the water is the right temperature.

Not much to say about this tea here. It’s bold, its bergamotty, and I just didn’t want to have to deal with loose-leaf yesterday afternoon, as this is one of the only bagged teas in my cupboard. I was lazy, what can I say?

I probably oversteeped it a bit though.

I made a big pitcher of this iced yesterday – 3 teabags, about 1 L of hot water, let steep for 5 minutes, then top up with cold water and ice.

It’s surprising, but the sort of dark lemony sweetness I find in this tea when it’s hot is absent when it’s cool. Or maybe not absent – just that the tea base comes to the fore more.

These teabags are so potent that I only use a single one for 3 cups of hot water, though the packaging recommends more. How can people in the UK stand to drink tea so strong? My tongue crinkles at the thought of it.

Anyways, this is still decent – lemony, citrusy, with a sort of hint of dark molasses or gummy flavours – but I’m still not a huge EG person. One or two blends in the pantry is enough.

Backlog from a few days ago:

My sister-in-law and her husband went to Britain about a month ago, and brought back some Whittards of Chelsea tea for me upon my request. So yay!

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Earl Grey, but that’s because I don’t often drink it, and probably haven’t developed a palate for it. I will say, though, that this one is very strong. I used only 1 bag in a 12-oz mug for 3 minutes, and the resulting liquor was so strong and black that I had trouble finishing the entire cup. I even added some milk to tone it down, which is something I almost never do.

One thing I noticed about this variety is that the dry teabags have a sort of scent to them that reminds me somewhat of jujube candies. Just that sort of jelly-like undertone to it. Not sure how to describe it.

How i got it: Bought it

Experience: The base mix of Ceylon, Assam and Kenyan teas results in a strong, rich, complex taste that i find a bit difficult to describe. Its flavor is very lasting, and goes more on the malty side, but with the characteristic soft bitter notes of the “breakfast” blends. What i’m most grateful for is that the touch of bergamot is not too intense, but just the right amount to complement the tea. This blend surely stands out compared to the regular Earl Grey. Really good.

Would i buy it again? : You can bet. This one is a must-have for me.

How i got it: Bought it

Experience: My first loose leaf black tea (though it really is a mix of black and green), and one of my options for evenings. By far the most aromatic i own, its distinctive jasmine touch dominates both smell and flavor. Light, clear and almost sweet taste. Quite good.

Would i buy it again?: Maybe yes… i guess i would miss it if i don’t have it as an alternative to my green tea some evenings hehe

Small Big Traveling Tea Box

When in doubt, pinky out! ← that’s what I kept thinking while drinking this tea. It reminds me of tea and biscuits at the eve of noon:P Probably because it has a bit of an English breakfast taste to me. I was having a tough time distinguishing the individual flavors, it tasted mostly of a very mild potpourri of spices. A decent tea, I just wish there was a bit more here.

I bought this tea in a Whittard store in Santiago, Chile.
I took it to the teachers lounge and drank a couple of cups everyday. There’s nothing more refreshing after a class than a nice cup of turkish apple tea.
I actually ran out of it very quickly. I need to buy it again…when I get the money.

Backlog: (cleaning up old teas from my cupboard that are long gone!)
I didn’t like the rose in this. It just wasn’t for me, although ocassionally rose is done well.) Thanks anyway, Sil!

Is it weird that I keep mixing this tea with other stuff to make other things more extra delicious?

Because it’s a really good use for it, because it’s delicious, and it makes lots of other things more delicious too. I’ve mixed it with pu erh, and strawberry teas, and fennel, and dark oolongs. I’m thinking of seeing what happens if I mix it with beet tea. OMG.