Birdhouse Tea Company – Jaffa Cake
I’ve had some bad experiences with chocolate orange teas in the past. This is due to the fact that two separate teamongers – presumably independently of one another – seem to be of the opinion that hibiscus is a necessary ingredient in a chocolate orange tea blend.
Happily, Birdhouse have no such notions. They set out to make a Jaffa Cake-inspired tea blend and they haven’t mucked about. There’s cocoa husks (for the chocolatey layer), orange (for the ‘smashing orangey bit’), rooibos (for the sponge) and black tea (for the tea). Personally, I could have done with a bit more chocolatiness here, but really that’s a minor quibble. This tea blend is absolutely delightful.
If I were a bit more organised (and a bit less vegan), I would have purchased some actual Jaffa Cakes to accompany this Jaffa Cake tea experience. But really, if you have Jaffa Cakes with a cup of tea, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. They are the world’s least drinkable biscuit. The whole thing turns into a wet, soggy, melty mess.
This is because – as was definitively determined in a VAT tribunal in 1991, during which McVities wheeled out an enormous Jaffa cake and cut it into slices – the Jaffa Cake is not a biscuit. It is a cake. So it makes sense that you can’t dunk them. It’d be like dunking a slice of Swiss roll or Victoria sponge. (And if any of you are doing that, don’t tell me because I will judge you harshly.)
Birdhouse Tea Company have got form for Tea Fancier-approved chocolate teas. Muddy Boots was a fantastically well-put-together bit of tea business and Bourbon Biscuit got the thumbs up from our guest reviewer GetLippy.
Birdhouse also run a tea shop in Sheffield. I fully intend to visit it if I’m ever in ever vaguely in the area. The cherry on the cake of this whole tea-drinking episode was that the whole time I was drinking it, I had ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ by They Might Be Giants stuck in my head. And that’s a jolly fun earworm to have looping around your noggin, I can tell you.
I have a song in my heart, a warm cup of tea rooibos-y tea-y deliciousness in my hand and a cat on my lap. Right now, my life is the very definition of ‘cosy’.
Today’s featured book is Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce, simply because it has the word ‘orange’ in the title.
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