When I first tried this tea, I didn‘t know the difference between a macaron and a macaroon. Macaroons are far more common here! I have now been introduced to macarons, which I much prefer, but that’s just me! The two are very different.
This tea does have lots and lots of coconut pieces and the coconut flavor is as noticeable as the pastry like scent, the caramel, and hazelnut flavor, with hazelnut being the lightest element here. There isn’t a lot of oil floating on top like some coconut flavored teas have, nor is coconut overpowering to me.
The main thing is noticed was that as much as I loved the flavorings in this one, they did not obliterate the taste of the tea base. Quite often, flavorings will utterly mask the tea base, and tea lovers can feel a little let down. We want TEA. Here we have equal strength in the cup of tea, coconut, caramel, hazelnut, confection…how did they accomplish this?
I think the key is that over a third of the leaves in this blend are Sencha, a green tea from Japan that boosts the actual tea presence to keep it from being masked. It’s has a bit of edge that some black teas don’t have, and you end up tasting both the black and green, with the black tea lending a luscious, rich base for all the other ingredients.
I often pair sweets with unflavored black tea, usually from China, but this is a flavored tea that goes well with most sweets or serves as a decadent and chic afternoon treat on its own.
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Leaf Type: Black/Green
Where to Buy: Whittard’s of Chelsea
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Whisky Tea/Whittard of Chelsea -VariaTEA-
I have never been a fan of whisky. My step-dad likes it and so when a young me meandered up to the side of of my mom’s bed and looked at the glass of whisky on the night stand and then at my mom and then back at the glass and back at my mom, my mom had no qualms about giving me the okay to taste it. Why? Because I reacted in the very way she expected…I took the tiniest sip and then spat it out and yelled “EWWWWWW!!!” I did not like it then. I still do not like it now. So when a tea friend sent me a whole bunch of this Whisky tea by Whittard of Chelsea, I had no idea what I was going to do with it.
That is until the other day when my family made pulled pork, which required 2L bottles of coke. My mom bought the off-brand coke figuring it was going in the food and wouldn’t really matter thus no sense spending the extra money on actual Coca Cola. So when there was a bit leftover, we were unsure of what to do with it. I felt inspired and decided to use it in a teapop. That left me with the question of which tea to use and it was this one that came to mind.
I brewed up both a plain hot cup of the tea and a teapop. Both were steeped for 3 minutes in 200F water.
The hot cup is malty. Malty but brisk. The underlying flavor is dry, like alcohol. It is like a breakfast tea but with alcohol. Definitely not the tea for me. I like softer and more dessert-like flavors. Astringency and briskness with a touch of alcohol is just not for me. However, for those that like breakfast teas and whisky, this could be right up your alley.
As for the teapop, it’s more of the same but with the off-brand coke, it has a pretty strong medicinal quality. It latches on to the dryness and gives this a bit of a cough syrup element. Like cherry cough syrup but without the cherry.
This tea smelled good in the bag but ended up being quite the bust. I think that is more due to my personal tastes than a reflection on the tea. Plus, it was not helped by the off-brand coke flavor since I am a Coca Cola girl through and through. So while this was not good for me, I do see that it has potential for those that enjoy these flavors.
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Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Whittard of Chelsea
Description
Specially for those who love a tipple, we’ve concocted a rich black tea laced with flavours of fine Scotch whisky, adding a highland fling of heather petals in true Scottish spirit. With its warm, rounded flavours and malty sweetness, this tea is as good as any hot-toddy – so you won’t be needing that hip flask after all…
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