Whittard – White Chocolate Flavoured White Tea
Whittard White Chocolate tea is an odd beverage. And – let’s not beat about the tea bush here – by ‘odd’, I mean ‘absolutely disgusting and undrinkable’.
It’s a blend of white tea, cocoa shells and white chocolate. And I’m sure it must have seemed like a good idea to somebody at the time.
“People love chocolate tea,” the members of the Whittard Tea Innovation team presumably said to one another. “But no one makes a white chocolate tea. We should make one of those!” And so they put thought to deed without stopping to wonder why nobody else does this.
What is white chocolate anyway? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I had to look it up. Turns out that what makes white chocolate ‘chocolate’ and not ‘strangely solid bar of sugary milk’ is the inclusion of cocoa butter.
Now, I don’t dislike white chocolate. It wouldn’t be my first choice chocolatewise. But if, say, someone gave me a box of Green & Black miniatures, I would happily devour the white chocolate option alongside its more chocolatey brethren.
Mind you, Whittard White Chocolate tea doesn’t taste of white chocolate. If you were handed this tea without any explanation, I doubt very much you’d say “Hey, this tastes just like milky bar buttons!”
I’m a fair-minded individual and I tried not to hold this tea’s lack of white chocolatiness against it. I determined to judge this white tea on its own merits. And it was at that point that I had to concede that it really is a most unpleasant drink.
I doubt the tea leaves are at fault. Whittard, as a rule, use very good quality leaves. And – like a well-brought-up tea fancier – I brewed this tea at 80 degrees as recommended for white tea.
I think the problem is the white chocolate pieces. The sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, emulsifier and sunflower lecithin may not impart any actual flavour, but they do make things weird.
It’s like drinking a cup of white tea where someone has added a splash of vegetable oil and an artificial sweetener. And if I went around to a friend’s house and they actually did that to my tea, I would storm out in disgust, remove them from my Christmas card list and, most probably, report them to the relevant authorities.
While I applaud Whittard’s attempt to think outside the box, I think we need to remember that thinking outside the box isn’t always a good idea. Sometimes the box is there for a reason.
Today’s Featured Book is Call of the Wild / White Fang by Jack London. Because it has ‘white’ in the title. And possibly also because of the Whittard of Chelsea / London connection.
