This flavoured black China tea is the perfect winter warmer for when the temperature dips. It’s a delicious rich & spicy tea that creates a soothing brew to warm the cockles of your heart when it’s drab & dreich outside.
Winter Tea contains some pretty amazing ingredients. Our ‘Atkinsons Tea Lists’ of old had a category on them called ‘Exotica’ and this tea would definitely have sat very happily in the exotic department.
THE FINEST INGREDIENTS
Aside from a beautiful large leaf black China Tea as a base, rather like our Keemun, Winter Tea is strewn with just the right quantity of each ingredient, each with their own very strong flavour profiles, that work together really well to create a fantastically nostalgic aroma.
1. Orange Peel – If you’ve ever seen the Orange trees lining the streets of Seville, near harvest time when the fruits are swollen with ripeness and the windfalls are littering the gutters and wondered why nobody eats them, then imagine the bitterest thing you’ve ever tasted and double it! This is why Seville oranges are ideal for preserving and why we use them in marmalade – and they are, in their dried form, integral to bringing some Summer sunshine into Atkinsons Winter Tea
2. Cloves – Once upon a time the world was going mad over cloves. The fate of entire nations, and giant conglomerates that were even bigger than some nations, seemed to rise and fall over who controlled the Spice Islands. The tiny Moluccas islands are a pinch-point in the busy trade routes criss-crossing the South China Seas. They were also the origin of those small brown sticks that are as hard as nails and as sharp as tacks but had such fabled medicinal properties that the desire for them sparked the Spice Wars. Consequently the islands where they grew, along with their spice cousins nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper, took on a strategic importance way beyond their size
3. Hibiscus Blossom – is packed with anti-oxidants and aside from a host of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels this ingredient adds a tartness to the brew akin to cranberries.
4. Almond Pieces – for those of us blessed with immune systems that don’t kick off with allergic reactions when nuts are included, then the smooth soft notes of the almond act as a balance in the blend, providing much needed sweetness and a certain nostalgia for that best bit of the Christmas Cake – the thick layer of marzipan between the icing and the fruit.
5. Cornflowers – Is there such a thing as ‘merely’ decorative? Surely the way we embellish things around us to improve our surroundings is a primal urge and these little accents of blue are simply there to gild the lily.
