A Tale of Two Teas – Secret Garden
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This is the second tea I’ve tried from A Tale of Two Teas’ Classic Collection. This one is inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. You may recall that I got very excited about Mr Darcy tea a couple of weeks ago. A Tale of Two Tea’s mission is to smurge together a love of tea and a love of books into a variety of tasty book-based blends. It’s an admirable ambition, and I love that they are doing it.
Secret Garden is a blend of Pai Mu Tan white tea, rose petals, jasmine petals, cranberry pieces and pomegranate flavouring. And look, I don’t want to bang on too much about the rationale behind each blend. I have it on authority from A Tale of Two Teas’ originator, owner and tea librarian herself that the teas are “inspired by the mood and feel of things rather than anything historically accurate”. It is just that one can’t help but wonder why a book about a young girl who moves from India to Yorkshire has inspired a blend of Chinese tea and somewhat exotic flavours, rather than the more logical-seeming choice of Indian tea and things that would grow in a garden in the north of England (although they definitely would have had roses to be fair). I’m clearly a lot more literal-minded than I thought I was.
The tea itself is absolutely beautiful. The light, yet deeply flavoured, white tea is complemented by the flowery and fruity flavours. There are whacking great pieces of cranberry nestled amongst the leaves, which means that the tea looks gorgeous before you’ve even taken it out of the package. This is a refreshing, calming, almost meditative cup of tea that brings to mind dewy grass and the fragrance of a flower garden carried in the spring breeze.
I would have taken pictures of this tea in my garden. But, as luck would have it, the day I drank it was uncharacteristically freezing, for May and absolutely bucketing it down. Which, now I come to think of it, is entirely appropriate for a tea inspired by a garden in Yorkshire.
Today’s featured book is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, because A Tale of Two Teas makes this part of the job extremely easy for me.
