Tea and chocolate

Interesting tea bag concept. Probably works better with a tall mug. Too bad the tea quality doesn't match the concept.

Some white and dark chocolate-covered gianduia blocks.

Coffee and tea

Looks like instant coffee in the US is going the way of instant coffee overseas with pre-mixed sugar and milk. Fortunately these new Starbucks flavours don't include the milk yet. Very fragrant. Good when made into coffee agar.

Tea bags are interesting for their packaging. Tea's nothing spectacular.

January Food Holiday Wrap Up: National Hot Tea Month

I've decided to add a monthly feature: a wrapup of explorations of the selected food holiday of the month. Hopefully this will motivate me to try more new foods and recipes without adding to blog clutter. It should also guarantee at least one topic to post on each month, handy for those low-inspiration periods.

There are some hilarious food holidays out there, but I'll be focusing on those that have a whole month dedicated to them, for obvious reasons. Those wanting more frequent programming should head to 2010 Food Project who is eating and cooking through a food holiday every day!

Interesting how this month's tea drinking was influenced by my travels. The Harney and Sons, camomile and Bigelow teas were supplied by various hotels. Loved the classy packaging of the Harney and Sons teas! The various Marks and Spencers herbal teas were a London souvenir. Each was distinct with the berry and currant flavours strong and dominant. Interesting combination and lovely bright colours for the dreary winter. Aldi's green tea was a little disappointing - too weak for my taste.

From the Food Holiday Sponsor: Tea Council of the USA (PDF)

Twinings Camomile, Honey and Vanilla tea

A strong vanilla and honey fragrance but zero taste. Disappointing, as I loved the shiny box.

Marks & Spencer Fairtrade Earl Grey

I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to find fair trade and organic teas in London. This very pleasant purchase will be the source of many hot cups of tea consumed in front of the computer.

Iced tea candy

A lucky find at World Market, this little Indonesian candy has an unusually true tea taste.

TNT #7: Tulsi Rose Tea

Extremely strong rose fragrance from this herbal tea. Not for the faint-hearted.

Iced peach tea

Keemun black tea with peach slices and a teeny bit of sugar to offset the tart peach skin. Better in theory than practice.

Chuao Earl Grey

A birthday present for myself, this is the first Chuao bar I've tried. It's smooth, creamy and sweet with a distinct tea flavour. Very, very similar to Dolfin's Earl Grey bar. Similar reaction too. Definitely buy this again. I like the pearlescent wrapper better than Dolfin's paper wrapper though.

Numi white rose tea

Found this new tea after trying it at the cafe at work. It has an amazingly strong natural-seeming rose fragrance which I love.

Dolfin Chocolat Noir Au Thé Earl Grey

An intensely floral aroma hit me as I opened the elegant pearly green and white wrapper under the plastic-wrapped envelope. Would I be able to identify this as Earl Grey if I wasn't told? No. Would I buy this slightly sweet, milky floral bar again? Definitely.

Dolfin Chocolat au the vert sencha du Japon

This Belgian milk chocolate bar with 32% cacao and 5% sencha is milky, smooth and with a good, not overpowering, sencha taste. A little sweeter than my preference but the sencha prevents it from becoming cloying. This is my first Dolfin bar purchased on my now, long-past trip to Germany. It was selected from a range of relatively unusual flavours as I wanted to try the green tea and chocolate combination which is rather rare, as most tea/chocolate combos use black teas. Overall I really liked this, even though I'm not a fan of sencha on its own. The sweet milkiness covered the often-overly grassy (to me) flavour of sencha, so maybe that's why. Hard to tell from the photos but this comes in a very nice plastic wrapper imprinted with "Dolfin" in shades of green to match the plastic-covered paper pouch on the outside.

Handmade chocolates

A trip to Belgium led to my first foray into handmade chocolates and pralines from three choclatiers. I was impressed with the elegant packaging, interesting flavours (cinnamon, pepper, kumquat, thyme, Earl Grey, passionfruit, coriander, ginger, violet) and relatively reasonable prices at 57 Euros/kilo for the most expensive.

Wittamer


Planete Chocolat


Daskalides

3400 Phinney Milk Chocolate with Chai

3400 Phinney Milk Chocolate with Chai

One of my Seattle purchases. Yes, I keep chocolate far too long! Around 35% cacao, this is a pleasant, not too sweet, bar with discernable but not overwhelming chai flavours. Not sure I could taste the black tea though. An organic and fair trade bar. Theo also roasts their own organic cocoa beans. I love the colourful packaging, which is such a contrast to the sober luxe designs of other premium chocolates, and look forward to trying their Coconut Curry bar.

Saturday afternoon tea

Afternoon tea used to be real ritual when I lived at home, with a huge shiny teapot with its rosy pink tea cosy and multitude of bisuits, cake, nuts, fruit and whatever was available. We would sit for hours every weekend chatting and snacking till we were too full for dinner. It still is a daily ritual for my semi-retired parents whose adoption of the Zone Diet seems to allow them to snack all day long.

For me, weekends are the only time I have to keep up the tradition. Today I have the usual cup of Twinings Earl Grey. It's not the best Earl Grey but has a distinct strong, almost acidic, verging on harsh, bergamot aroma that I'd recognize anywhere. Having had the opportunity to try Mighty Leaf and Tazo Earl Grey recently, these are much more subtle. I like the aesthetics of Mighty Leaf's silk-like bags and the flavour is delicate and subtle, but Tazo's is way too faint for my taste.