Bird & Blend Advent Calendar Day 10 – Cherry Cola Bottles
This site uses Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click on an Amazon link from this page and make a purchase, I will – at no cost to you – earn a small commission.
I wondered if Coke would make an appearance in this calendar and today it did! Coca Cola have tried to align themselves with Christmas for over a hundred years now. They take quite a lot of credit for Father Christmas, or at least his red suit which is quite a significant part of the bloke’s branding.
I suspect that Santa has quite a lucrative sponsorship deal with The Coca-Cola Company. Seems reasonable. He has to pay for the gift materials and maintenance of that premises in the North Pole somehow.
Admittedly, this tea is actually ‘Cherry Cola Bottles’ rather than Cherry Coke so it has actually been modelled after the Pick ‘n’ Mix sweets rather than the fizzy drink. Which is a bit less Christmassy to be honest.
There are eleven (11!) different ingredients in this tea, not including the ‘natural flavourings’. These are (deep breath): Apple, hibiscus, rosehip, cinnamon, cardamom, cola nut, lime leaves, orange peel, stevia, cranberries and cherries.
The rosehip and hibiscus give it that ‘generic red fruit tea’ vibe. There is a bit of a kick from the spices. But mostly you can just taste the cherry flavour. (Which is probably largely down to the flavourings given that freeze-dried cherry is the last ingredient listed.)
The inclusion of ‘cola nuts’ is interesting. Cola nuts were an original ingredient of Coca Cola back in olden times. Although Coke haven’t used cola nuts in their beverages for a century now and cola bottle sweets and never contained anything vaguely nut-like, consisting entirely of sugar, gelatine and e-numbers.
I’m not complaining about Bird & Blend’s lack of authenticity in this regard. Not only would the inclusion of gelatine in one of their tea blends bugger up their vegan credentials but I really don’t think the world is ready yet for gelatinous tea.
It belongs firmly in the ‘hot squash’ section of my ranking list with Christmas Cranberry Pie and Mulled Cider. I’ve bunged it in between the two, because, meh, why not?
