Afternoon Tea News - Looking for a tea-riffic Valentines Gift??

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends.

Today we are sharing with you a tea-riffic Valentines gift idea.....perfect for the tea lover in your life (or maybe just for you!). The lovely folk at Piacha have put together the sweetest tea gift, perfect for your tea-addict Valentines!

Inside this box you will find eight different Piacha teas (yes eight varieties - told you it was perfect for the tea-obsessed individual in your life!), each stored in a cute little heart shaped tin....

Tea Gift from Piacha

How sweet are those tins?

The tea selection includes some of Piacha's most popular blends -  English Breakfast, Earl Grey Vanilla, Moroccan Mint, Ginger Chilli, Chamomile Citrus,  Rooibos Choc Cinnamon, Rooibos Rhubarb Fudge and my personal favourite Apple Green Tea.

Each tin contains enough tea for between 5 - 10 cups.

I know I would definitely love to receive this little black box this Valentine's Day (hint, hint Joe if you are reading!). For more information about this gift pop by the Piacha website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for.....a spot of porridge....with Piacha!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends.....I'm not sure about you but we're really feeling the cold in the autumn mornings! Well, the lovely Pia from Piacha is here to warm up your mornings! They've been taking their favourite tea blend and turning them into a porridge. Yes, really!

Tea infused porridges from Piacha

Piacha have been experimenting for their new menu and can now proudly present a colourful range of porridges to brighten up our mornings: a green coconut one based on Matcha Mint, a red berries version with Berry Mix and one for the traditionalists, with milk and English Breakfast.

Can't get to Piacha and want to try out a tea porridge at home? Piacha's top tip is to choose a strong blend and make your tea first, double strength. Add oats and then cook as usual. It's really very easy, and tastes marvellous!

This sounds like a tea-riffic idea to me - we can't wait to try this at Tea With Me and Friends towers! If you give this a go at home, send us a photo and let us know how you get on!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for a little.....Tea Mail from Piacha

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - today we have some very exciting news for you from our lovely friends at Piacha. Recently the fab London tea shop launched their Tea Mail subscription service - yes, tea lovers out there...you can join Piacha Tea Mail and have tea delivered straight to your door!

Piacha tea ships in a big envelope that fits through your letter box and packs in tea for two for a week. Better still....Piacha don't charge extra for UK delivery, and only 50p per tea for delivery in the EU. 

Pia very kindly offered me the chance to try the subscription service for myself.....a real treat to be able to pick a tea out from the range! I easily set up my account via the Piacha website, picked my tea from the range and sat back and waited....

Piacha Tea Mail subscription 

What wonderful post to recieve - a big envelope full of tea!

I opted to try Genmaicha - a jade green tea, blended with a generous helping of roasted brown rice. The leaves look really pretty with all the brown rice mixed in....

Genmaicha from Piacha

To brew this tea you should use 1-2 teaspoons of tea per mug. Add water at 80°C and infuse for 2 minutes - enjoy without milk. The tea once brewed is a pretty pale yellow colour and it has a nutty aroma....

The brown rice gives the tea a wonderful nutty flavour too, a bit like popcorn! It's a refreshing and unique taste - perfect if you are looking for something a little bit different!

The subscription service that Piacha offers is so flexible - you can opt to have a delivery as often as you want. As well as being flexible and easy to manage, it is also easy to unsubscribe, suspend or cancel orders at any point. Better still - tea bought via a subscription gives you a 10% discount on the standard prices! 

Piacha Tea Mail

The exciting bit....

In addition to trying the tea subscription myself, Pia has offered Tea With Me and Friends readers a tea-riffic 50% discount of your first tea order when you subscribe to regular tea deliveries. From now until the 8th August just use the code TEAWITHME@PIACHA when you set up your subscription to receive the discount.

T&Cs: 

Only available with code TEAWITHME@PIACHA - for purchase of tea envelopes at piacha.co.uk. 

Valid until 8 August 2016. 

New subscribers only.

One per household. 

Max. order £50.

To see the whole Piacha range and find out more about the subscription service please pop by the Piacha website. We hope you enjoy the subscription service - we'd love to hear about the tea you enjoy!

A big thank you to Pia for letting us try out her fab Tea Mail subscription!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel 

Time for....some tea inspired baking with Piacha tea

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you're having a tea-riffic day.

Today I am sharing with you a little recipe that made me very happy. You may remember that we discovered the fabulous tea from Piacha a while ago - Pia has so many delicious blends on offer, but Black and Cherry is one of my favourites. It's a sweet tea, that I find very refreshing. For ages now I have been trying to include this tea in my baking - always focusing on cakes. But they always fail - with hardly any flavour carrying through to the cake.

Tonight however I decided to try something different - I had seen teabag shaped biscuits all over the Internet (Ok - mainly on Pintrest....the place I seem to spend most of my time!!) and it struck me that maybe I could include Black and Cherry in a biscuit. A lot of the teabag biscuits I came across were flavoured with green tea (often using Matcha powder) but then I came across a couple of recipes which included earl grey tea. After doing a bit of research about whether you can actually eat tea leaves, I decided to give it a go and worked on a recipe using the Black and Cherry tea leaves.....and I'm so glad I did....

Black and Cherry tea bag biscuits
from Tea With Me and Friends

These biscuits are light and crisp and have a beautiful cherry flavour that will make you smile. Plus, they are super simple to make!

You will need:

1.5 heaped tablespoons of Piacha Black and Cherry loose leaf tea

130g plain flour

50g caster sugar

20g icing sugar

100g unsalted butter

splash of water

100g chocolate - optional

A straw for poking holes

Bakers twine (or other thread)

This will make: 16 teabag biscuits

Preheat your oven to:

200c or 180c (fan oven)

To make the biscuits:

• First you need to grind up the tea leaves as small as you can - either in a food processor, with a pestle and mortar or like me in a bowl with the back of a spoon.
• Now combine all your dry items (so that's the tea leaves, flour and both sugars) in a bowl, mixing them well
• Next you need to add the butter - rub this into your dry ingredients so you end up with a bread crumb like mixture. Don't worry if it starts to combine together at this stage,
• Now add a splash of water and carrying on combining the mixture to make a dough. At this stage less is definitely more - you don't want a sloppy dough
• It's time to chill your mixture - this is important to stop the dough expanding when baking in the oven. Roll your dough out, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
• Once chilled, we get to the fun part - making the teabags! First put flour on your clean work surface, then roll out the dough until its about 0.5cm and then cut out your little teabag shapes. I used a straw to make the hole at the top of each teabag.

Use a straw to poke holes in the top of your biscuits

• Once you've cut all your teabags, place them onto a cold baking tray and place in your preheated oven for 12 minutes or until the edges of your biscuits turn a golden colour.
• Remove your biscuits from the oven and allow to cool

Tea bag biscuits in the making!

• Once cool you can thread your twine through the holes in the top and dip your biscuits in melted chocolate. Don't forget if you go down the chocolate route you'll need to leave the biscuits to dry before you can tuck in.
• Enjoy with a cup of tea!

Teabag biscuits....perfect with a cup of tea!

To be really honest these biscuits don't really need the chocolate dip - the light cherry flavour is sweet enough. However, if you do add the chocolate it doesn't ruin them either!

These biscuits make a lovely gift for a tea loving friend.....or just gobble them all up yourself (like I did!).

I'm sure this simple recipe will work well with other tea leaves, so if you don't have any Piacha tea at home why not experiment with your favourite tea - just remember to grind up your leaves! If you try a different tea yourself, we'd love to hear what you baked - leave us a comment or send us a photo!

To find out more about Piacha teas and the fabulous tea bar in London pop by the Piacha website!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for some....Tea-riffic Tuesday Tea!

Hello there,

Happy Tuesday! We hope your week has started well!

My week started with a visit to see the lovely Pia who owns Piacha in London. Regular visitors to the blog will remember that we have visited Piacha, the fab London teabar, several times now and we're big fans of their tea range.

Pia was sharing some exciting news with me as they are introducing "tea for two" to their menu! The tea will include tea infused sandwiches, sweet treats and of course plenty of tea from the Piacha range. All very exciting!

On this visit I also indulged in a cup of their "Black and Cherry" - a scrummy Ceylon black tea infused with sweet cherry flavour......

Black and Cherry tea - Piacha

Now I have to tell you - this tea smells amazing! 

Open the packet and you are hit instantly by the mouth watering aroma of cherries, it's a rich, warming aroma which makes me smile every time.

Black and Cherry Tea - Piacha

For this tea you should use two teaspoons of tea per cup, add boiling water and infuse for 3 minutes. You can drink the tea with or without milk (I prefer without).

Once brewed the tea is a lovely amber colour and you can still smell those cherries. The flavour is rich and sweet, but not too overpowering - its a refreshing blend. And as you can see...I think it pairs really well with a bit of chocolate cake!

Black and Cherry tea with some chocolate cake
Piacha

For more information about this tea and the others in the Piacha range....or to find out about the tea-riffic tea for two pop by the Piacha website

Now, I know we are big fans of Piacha....but please remember that all opinions expressed on the blog are our own.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time to Announce a Winner!

Hello there,

Welcome back to another post from Tea With Me and Friends....as you know we are now two years old and to celebrate we have been running a blog competition to win a tea adventure at Piacha in London.

Well, the competition closed on Friday....and we are very pleased to announce our lucky winner.....

Tea With Me and Friends Winner!

Congratulations Nicci!

We will be in touch with more information about your fab prize!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Pia from Piacha for providing us with our blog birthday competition prize...if you want to know a bit more about this fab tea bar in London visit their website or take a peek at our recent blog post.

We'd also like to thank everyone who entered and everyone who continues to join us on our afternoon tea adventures!

Tea With Me and Friends

If you want to see more from us don't forget that we have a YouTube channel where we post regular vlogs...from baking scones and cakes to ruling the country....its all covered in our vlog posts!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for...another celebration!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends...doesn't time fly....at the end of June we will be celebrating two tea-riffic years of writing this little blog!

Cheers! Tea With Me and Friends celebrate two years!

** COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED **

We are constantly surprised at how this blog grows and can't thank everyone enough for their continued support...we're so pleased that you all enjoy a spot of afternoon tea as much as we do! We may not have made it to the finals of the UK Blog Awards again, but we are very proud of our new logo, our Facebook page and YouTube channel which are all new additions in the last year.

More than anything we love meeting and talking with new and old tea lovers - both in person and virtually!

We'd like to say a HUGE thank you to all the hotels and brands who have worked with us in the last year. We have had some amazing afternoon tea adventures and tried some scrummy new teas! We'd also like to say a HUGE thank you to all our lovely guest bloggers....and to Connie...our first guest vlogger! 

If you want to share your adventures please get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!

Do you remember when Lorna dressed her scone the "wrong way"?!

Lastly we would like to say the BIGGEST thank you to all our beau-tea-ful readers....thank you for coming back each week and reading our ramblings and watching our vlogs! Now for the exciting bit....we are very lucky to have another fab prize to give away this year to celebrate our Blog Birthday....this time we are joined by the lovely Pia from Piacha who is giving one lucky winner and a friend and tea-filled adventure....

Piacha Taste Journey

Piacha taste journey –  teas, cakes and jazz

an afternoon Piacha tea tasting with Pia

-two guests for one & a half hours at Piacha tea bar & shop, 280 Upper Street, London N1 2TZ

-discuss your taste profile and Pia will help you to select 8 teas to taste from the Piacha range

-sample your teas with matching cakes and sandwiches

-finish with a refreshing Piacha tea smoothie, homemade at Piacha with ice tea base, fruits & berries

Having spent a wonderful morning at Piacha recently I can confirm that this is a lovely prize to win, the teas are really good and Pia is knowledgeable and super friendly - you'll be in great hands!

The lovely Pia!

Sooooo.....how do you win this lovely prize I hear you say....

Either leave a comment here on the blog, telling us your favourite tea or send an email to us at teawithmeandfriends@gmail.com with your favourite tea and your name.

It's as simple as that! We'd love it if you also followed the blog or liked us on Facebook....but you don't have to!  A BIG thank you to Pia for giving us this fab prize - we know the winner will have a tea-riffic time!

Now for the boring bits....

The competition will run from Monday 8th June 2015 and will close at 6pm on Friday 26th June 2015, entries received after the closing time will not be included.

The winner will be picked at random and announced on the blog on 28th June 2015.

Entrants must live in the UK.

The prize does not include travel or any other costs incurred.

No alternative prizes will be offered.

The winner will be sent a voucher for the Piacha Taste Journey, which needs to be redeemed before 31st December 2015. The winner will need to book the experience directly with Piacha.

This post will stay at the top of the blog until the 26th June - for new afternoon tea posts please scroll down!

Another Tea With Me and Friends Afternoon Tea Adventure!

Good luck everyone!

Thanks for celebrating another tea-riffic year with us and thanks for popping by today!

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....Piacha

Hello there,

Welcome back to another post from Tea With Me and Friends! We hope you're well and have had a tea-riffic week!

Today we wanted to share with you our recent visit to Piacha in London.....you might recognise the name as we have featured some of the Piacha teas previously on the blog. But Piacha is also a lovely tea bar in London, run by the even lovlier Pia....

Located in Islington, London, Piacha are all about interesting tea blends, bold tastes and skilfully brewed tea. With the selection of 25 Piacha blends, ice tea smoothies and tea infused food, expect the unexpected....and some really, really good tea!

Pia created Piacha because she could never get a really good cup of takeaway tea when she was out and about - good takeaway coffee is everywhere....but good takeaway was really limited!

The teabar itself is cool and comtemporary and the team are skilled in tea making.....and super friendly! I only wish I lived closer!

Piacha Teas

Piacha tea is displayed in the teabar in an easy to read format, all colour coded so you know what kind of tea you are looking at. I especially love the jars of leaves so you can smell the various blends....

Take a sniff - Piacha Apple Green Tea

If you don't know what kind of tea you want, Pia or one of the team are happy to help you out, suggesting blends based on your likes and dislikes. There is also the opportunity to taste some of the teas on offer......

Tea tasting - Piacha

Tea is at the heart of everything at Piacha, it's even infused in the freshly made sandwiches!

Lorna and I spent a happy Saturday morning talking tea with Pia and trying some of the blends on offer....

Tea With Me and Friends at Piacha

Tea is served in lovely glass mugs at Piacha

We picked some teas that we thought we would like and based on these Pia made some recommendations too. We also tried some of the rather scrummy chocolate cake, which melted in the mouth....

Tea tasting at Piacha

The Piacha chocolate cake went down rather well!

Tea blends include a rather lovely, warming ginger chilli tea which included Ginger, lemon verbena, black peppercorns, liquorice, ginseng, chilli in the ingrideint list. There was also such delights as Black and Cherry (think scrummy black forest gatuex), apple green tea (vibrant and refreshing) and morroccan mint.

All these can be enjoyed while listening to jazz and watching the world go by in the comfort of the tea bar.....or as a takeaway tea, freshly brewed.

When you visit if you get the chance to talk tea with Pia herself its a real treat as she is so passionate about all things tea! She has even created ice tea smoothies....

Ice Tea Smoothies from Piacha

There are currently four flavours which are truely unique and freshing....definitly worth a try!

On the 10th June Piacha are hosting an open tea house and free evening of tea tasting between 6-9pm....if you are in the area pop by to try some of their unique blends and talk tea!

We also have some very exiciting news about our blogiversary at the end of June which might just involve a fabulous prize from Piacha - watch this space for more details!

A huge thank you to Pia for spending the morning with us, it was a truly entertaining and inspirational tea adventure!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

The Friday Review....Piacha

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - you are just in time for another lovely Friday Review.

This week we are featuring another lovely blend from Piacha who we first discovered last week when we tried two of their rooiboos teas. This time we are featuring their Moroccan Mint tea, which one of our lovely readers called Simon mentioned to us after our last post. He told us he had tried the Moroccan Mint and it was "Really well balanced, full mint flavour, no artificial sweetness just totally refreshing."

Inspired by this I took a look at Piacha's website for some more information....I found that their Moroccan Mint tea is gunpowder green tea blended with cooling peppermint, tangy spearmint and fragrant rose petals.....

A very pretty looking blend! 

Now, I'm not much of a mint tea drinker if I am honest and so I asked my colleague Rosie to try this one as she loves a cup of mint tea.

Rosie brewed the tea at home and reported back to us....

Moroccan Mint Tea from Piacha

Rosie commented that she thought it was a very light blend, not as intense in flavour as she had expected. It was pleasant to drink though and as Simon had said not at all artificial in flavour - light and refreshing.

Moroccan Mint Tea from Piacha

This tea is available from the Piacha Tea Bar in London, or via their website. 

The tea costs £5.20 for 70g and its recommended that you two-three teaspoons of leaves per cup. Brew the tea for three minutes, but remember not to pour boiling water directly onto the tea leaves as this can make the green tea taste bitter. For more information on this tea please visit the Piacha website.

Thank you to Simon for his recent comments on the blog, and also Rosie our taste tester for this week! So, over to you....have you tried this Moroccan Mint tea? What did you think? Or is there another Moroccan Mint that you would recommend? We look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

The Friday Review...Piacha Tea

Hello there,

It's Friday again (doesn't it come around quickly??) and so it's time for another Friday tea review from Tea With Me and Friends! This week we are sharing with you a couple of teas from Piacha a tea bar & shop in London.

Bit of a weird name I hear you say...one you haven't heard of before...well according to the website Piacha means either ‘drink tea’ or ‘devoted to tea’. However, in this tea bar's case it also means Pia’s tea – as the tea bar was founded by Pia, a tea enthusiast ex-lawyer.

Pia got in touch with us recently to introduce her tea bar and tea range they offer.  The Piacha tea range consists of an impressive twenty-two teas and blends, including black, green, oolong, herbal, rooibos and hibiscus teas. The website includes phrases such as "intriguing tea blends", "full flavours" and "tea smoothies" - as you can imagine this peeked our interest some what!

Pia kindly sent us a selection of teas to try, but today we are going to focus on two Rooibos blends - rhubarb rooibos and rooiboos choc cinnamon.

If I am honest I am not a huge fan of rooibos teas, there is something about the flavour that I'm not keen on. In fact I might have asked a friend to sample the rhubarb rooibos first....

Rhubarb Rooibos - Piacha

Now this blend is described as a "guilt and caffeine-free treat", as rooibos has been blended with  strawberries, rhubarb and a hint of creamy fudge. But does it live up to this claim?

The minute I poured the boiling water over the infuser my nose was hit by the sweet aroma and my mouth actually watered! I was rather jealous of this cuppa that I had asked my friend to sample for me! As I handed her the cup full of ruby red tea I wondered whether it would taste as good as it smells.....blends like this have let me down so much previously. However, Beth assured me that the tea was indeed delicious....and that was it I needed to taste it for myself!

The blend is sweet, but not in an artificial way, it's refreshing and ever so slightly creamy. All in all a lovely cup of tea....I even made myself a cup to enjoy! I also think this would also make a lovely iced tea in the warmer months.

Inspired by this discovery I decided to brave the rooiboos choc cinnamon blend on my own....

This time the rooibos is blended with cardamom and cinnamon for a more soothing cup, it is then finished with a hint of vanilla and cocoa to add some sweetness.

The tea is a strong amber colour and its extremely fragrant, the aroma lingering in the air for a while after I had finished my cup (weird I know!).

Now if the first blend reminds me of the summertime, then this one definitely reminds me of the winter months - full of cinnamon treats and comfort. It also sort of reminded me of apple pies, but that was probably just the cinnamon and the vanilla in the blend. I have to admit that I didn't enjoy this blend quite as much as the first - I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but it wasn't as appealing to me (it could just be my rather sweet tooth!).

You can enjoy these blends for yourself in the tea bar in Islingston, London - either as a take away or drink in experience. You can also buy the loose leaf blends directly from the website. The weights vary slightly, but it's approximately £6.90 for 100g.

You can also buy really cute tea gift cards....

Thank you for Pia for sharing these teas with us, please note that although we have received samples for free all opinions expressed in this post are our own. Look out for more tea reviews featuring Piacha tea blends in the future!

Now over to you, have you tried any Piacha teas? Do you like rooibos teas and do you have a favourite? We'd love to hear from you....let us know by leaving a comment below!

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel