Bird & Blend – Toffee Apple
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It’s cold, it’s dark and there are Christmas decorations in the shops already. It must be autumn. (Autumn is distinguishable from winter because winter is colder, darker and there are even more Christmas decorations in the shops.) Bird & Blend’s Toffee Apple tea seems a good fit for the “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness“.
In America, toffee apples are known as candy apples. I always assumed that toffee apples and candy apples were two different foodstuffs, but they are completely the same. Toffee apples don’t use toffee at all, but rather boiled sugar heated to ‘hard crack’ consistency. What’s more, it turns out that toffee/candy apples were actually invented across the pond. Those shiny, red, fruity embodiments of Dickensian England were first concocted by a Newark sweetseller called William Kolb, who – looking to create a festive Christmas window display – dunked apples in melted cinnamon candy and found himself with a runaway hit on his hands.
My former ignorance surrounding toffee apples’ heritage might be down to the fact that I’ve never really been a fan of the toffee apple. As a child, I found the sugary sweet coating and often disappointing apple failed to live up to its alluring appearance.
So what does Bird & Blend’s take on the toffee apple have to offer the tea fan? It’s actually rather lovely and nowhere near as sweet as I expected it to be. Obviously you can’t have ‘toffee’ in the title without whacking in a bit of sweetness. But the toffee candy flavours don’t overwhelm the three major players in this brew – Sri Lankan black tea, apple and cinnamon. This tea is rich, spicy and as apple-y as you could possibly wish for.
There are also safflowers, blackberry leaves and lime leaves in the ingredients list. I’m not sure what their role is here. Maybe their job is to temper the sweetness. If so, they’re doing sterling work.
This is a comforting, heartening brew to snuggle up with on a chilly autumnal evening. I learned today that the German word for cosy is “gemütlich” which pleases me greatly for some reason. Bird & Blend Toffee Apple tea ist sehr gemütlich.
Today’s featured book is Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman.
