Bird & Blend – Monkey Chops
I don’t know what it is, but I suddenly had a hankering for some banana tea. I have no idea where this desire came from, I’m not even a big fan of actual bananas. But there I was, craving banana tea, and I thought to myself, “Well, am I the Tea Fancier or am I not the Tea Fancier?” (For the avoidance of doubt, yes, I am the Tea Fancier.) “I have approximately 80 billion varieties of tea stashed about the place, there’s bound to be a banana tea in amongst them all. And you know what, dear reader? There was. In fact, there’s probably more than one, but this here Monkey Chops banana tea from Bird & Blend was the first one I came across.
Monkey Chops contains Ceylon black tea, freeze-dried banana, desiccated coconut, calendula petals, sunflower petals, vanilla pieces and flavourings. And it’s absolutely delicious.
It’s creamy and ever so slightly sweet, like eating a bowl of banana and custard. Or eating hot Banana Angel Delight -if such a thing were scientifically possible. (If you’re accustomed to adding sugar to your tea under normal circumstances, you could do so here. I reckon Monkey Chops could handle extra sweetness quite happily.)
Incidentally, if you want to have your mind well and truly blown, check out the ‘Discontinued Flavours’ section on the Wikipedia Angel Delight page. Tangerine! Coffee Walnut! Bubblegum! Who knew that such things once existed in this mortal realm? Wikipedia also claims that there was once a ‘tea’ flavoured Angel Delight which seems like a bold claim indeed. Does anybody remember this actually existing? I couldn’t find any evidence of Tea Angel Delight on the internet so I have written to Premier Foods in order to get to the bottom of the matter.
I had to make several cups of Monkey Chops tea, because I wanted to see if allowing it to cool slightly brought out its flavours still further. Sadly, I still don’t know, because I was unable to put this tea down once I’ve made it. I found myself greedily slurping away at as hot a temperature as I could withstand both times.
I was never one for delayed gratification. I was enjoying this too far too much. And, for some mysterious reason, it was, in that moment, exactly what I needed.
Today’s featured book is Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. This classic of Chinese literature inspired the ‘Monkey’ TV series, which is a fortuitous bit of 1970s nostalgia in keeping with the ‘Angel Delight’ theme of this review.
