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A Tale of Two Teas is the sort of teamonger that I can totally get on board with. Their teas are, in their own words, “made by literary lovers for literary lovers”. They produce a range of teas inspired by classical works of literature, such as, in this case, Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. Tea and books are two of my most favourite things in the world. If it turns out that A Tale of Two Teas also love cats, I might ask them to marry me.
Unusually, I’m going to start this review by talking about the packaging the tea arrived in. Clearly, in an effort to be as ecologically sensible and booktastic as possible, the tea arrived packed in shredded up paperbacks. As a book fan, my first reaction was OH MY GOD THE HORROR.
Most of the pages are cut vertically making it impossible to tell which books they’re from. A few are sliced horizontally though, and by examining them I was able to ascertain that they were made from Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, which made me feel a lot better. At least they’re only cutting up shit books.
Onto the tea itself. Mr Darcy tea is a blend of tea, chocolate and vanilla flavours and it is absolutely delicious. I have purchased the complete ‘Classics’ collection from Tale of Two Teas. I started with the one I knew I’d like. The tea pairs up beautifully with the cocoa and vanilla flavourings and produce a robust cup of pure indulgence. I could happily drink this every day forever.
I’m not sure quite how A Tale of Two teas are inspired to create their recipes. I’m guessing that it’s done by the feel of the book, rather than any direct reference to the text or historical accuracy.
Did Mr Darcy consume a lot of chocolatey tea? Coffee shops selling tea, hot chocolate and, of course, coffee were all the rage in seventeenth and eighteenth century England. But by Regency times, they had largely fallen out of fashion and were replaced by the rather more booze-focused gentlemen’s clubs. There isn’t a single mention of ‘chocolate’ in Pride and Prejudice.
But no matter. A Tale of Two Teas have created a tea which is rich, dark, gorgeous and smells of chocolate hobnobs. Attributes which, I reckon, are true of both Jane Austen’s fictional hero and of actor Colin Firth.
Obviously choosing today’s featured book was a bit of a tricky task but I reckon I might have nailed it with Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.
