Christmas Spiced tea's bring out very powerful emotions for me. I either love them (as I do Twinings Mulled Spice, or their recent Christmas Cake flavoured tea), or loathe them, which I did Whittards Christmas Spice tea, which for some strange reason, made me feel nauseous. There is very little middle ground for me.
Spiced tea's are also rare in as much as I abandon my strict no milk, no sweetener, rule as I found them very, very strong to drink black, and believe me, I have tried!
Last week, Simon from Cup of Tea kindly sent me a sample of their Winter Fairy Tale tea. What a beautiful and emotive name for a tea!
As it is a bank holiday here in the UK today, I had time to really enjoy my tea, so this was the first tea I decided to brew. I was intrigued as to how this tea would fare!
As you can see below, it's quite a large leaf tea.
This exotic blend contains orange peel, pieces of cinnamon and clove, star anise and rose petals.
The aroma of this tea is very powerful - you are in no doubt whatsoever that this is a Christmas tea. The prominent aroma for me has to be clove, with cinnamon as second. Very strong and very powerful.
I brewed the tea for four minutes in total. I took a sip of this tea without milk and it was very strong so I added a small amount of milk and a even smaller amount of sugar. Sugar is very much a must for Christmas tea's because it just helps bring out the spices and the sweetness just adds a bit of extra depth to the tea.
As I sat down on a rather chilly bank holiday Monday, I took my first sip and it's incredibly warming. It's some time since I've taken milk in tea, and I have to say, I much prefer it without now. However, as I said before, Christmas spiced drinks are just a little too strong for me, I enjoy them much more with milk.
This is a very warming cup of tea first and foremost and it did the job wonderfully on a bleak day like today. Even though I have milk added, the taste of spices was wonderful. In fact, it's very similar, for me, at least, to the mixture used in the mince pies I brought at Christmas.
Winter Fairy Tale is wonderfully spicy and exotic. But it's blended perfectly. I often find with similar tea's that too much of one spice is added, making it almost undrinkable, whereas another spice is lacking. Like Twinings did with their now withdrawn Mulled Spice, everything was measured perfectly making the flavours just blend together so well.
Amongst the strong flavours of cinnamon and clove, the orange pop's it's head up quite nicely and is easily detectable, which is no mean feat as cinnamon and clove are very strong flavours. For the orange to hold it's own against them is really rather impressive!
This is a really smooth but strong tea.It really is perfect for all of those outside activities we do at the end of the year - trick or treating at Halloween, enjoying fireworks on Bonfire Night, or watching the Christmas lights being switched on. To come home and make a huge pot of this would be the ideal way to round off a lovely evening. Or indeed to serve to guests as you enjoy a mince pie or piece of Christmas cake on Christmas day.
I received an email from Simon explaining that they run down their stock of Christmas tea's throughout the year. If you'd like to buy some, I'd suggest cracking on as I'm not sure how long this tea will be around for.
For more information on this perfect, festive tea, please click here.
This tea is perfect if you like spiced tea's or like milk in your tea. If you don't like strong tea's or can't take milk it may be just a little too strong for you.
I have enough tea left now to make a couple more cups, and I'm saving it now till the end of the year, when we put up our Christmas decorations. Quite frankly, there isn't a more perfect tea to have whilst decorating the tree.
This has made me feel very festive! But, judging by how quickly this year has flown by already, it won't be long till I enjoy another cup of this wonderful blend!
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