* Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Lie to Me”
Bird & Blend – Campfires and Vampires
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It’s almost Halloween! I love Halloween with all my pitch black gothic heart. Campfires and Vampires is the first of two Halloween-themed teas from Bird & Blend I’ll be reviewing. (And then there are two Bird & Blend Guy Fawkes Night themed teas next week. Let the autumnal festivities begin!)
Campfires and Vampires is a blend of Chinese Sencha green tea, roses, cinnamon, cloves, and red peppercorns. That’s an interesting blend of spices but unfortunately, they all keep a very low profile. This tea tastes of delicate green tea and flowers.
Therein lies a problem. I want my Halloween flavours dark, bitter, rich and spicy. Why am I drinking a so-called vampiresque tea that tastes like it would be well suited to being served in a well-lit drawing room with a selection of dainty cakes? What self-respecting vampire is going to be caught sipping on a tea that smells like Turkish Delight?
The Twilight vampires might, I suppose. I could see Esme Cullen serving this. But Stephenie Meyer’s twinkly ethical vampires really don’t count. Especially at Halloween.
Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer wouldn’t drink this tea. And he drank copious amounts of Jack Daniels and eats spicy buffalo wings so it’s not like he restricted himself to a blood-only diet.
I don’t think Dracula was a big tea drinker, I found twenty-one references to tea in Bram Stoker’s novel and not one of them involves the count having a cuppa.
I think I have this all wrong though. Bird & Blend may not be intending this rose-based tea to be drunk by vampires, but rather as a tea that non-vampiric people can use to keep the blood-sucking undead at bay.
Roses repel vampires, apparently. Their thorns keep vampires trapped in their graves. Van Helsing placed wild roses on Dracula’s coffin to prevent him from rising again. Folklore has it that rose petals will burn a vampire skin like acid, which is something you never see in horror movies. Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have been a totally different show if Buffy had flung pot pourri at the denizens of the Hellmouth rather than staking them.
I’ve also discovered, in the course of my research, that Kampfire Vampire is a 2015 song by an artist called Gerry Cinnamon which makes the inclusion of cinnamon in this blend quite apposite.
This is a lovely cup of tea. I really enjoyed drinking it. I just think that – given the time of year – I was expecting something a little bit more evil.
