Welcome to our blog....here we will share all our afternoon tea adventures with you...the good, the bad and the wonderful!

Saturday, 27 September 2014

Tried and Tested....Whittard English Rose Tea

Hello there,

Welcome back to another tried and tested tea article from Tea With Me and Friends.

Recently I received a wonderful box full of tea goodies from Whittard and Joanne at Halpern. I have to say that I was rather excited as I rummaged through the box that arrived with me and I look forward to sharing with you the various teas that I have enjoyed as a result.

I will start with the English Rose Tea that I was sent, complete with a cute little infuser. This is part of the Alice in Wonderland themed range on offer at Whittard, and I was rather pleased to also find this charming fine bone china mug to drink my tea from....

English Rose Tea
 from Whittard

The mug has a lovely key handle, which I thought was a brilliant quirky touch. Although Joe found it a little too delicate to use ("I'll snap that" were his exact words), I am pleased to report that anyone with normal sized hands will find the handle a good size and easy to use. The design is very elegant and would make any Alice in Wonderland fan happy!

The tea itself is a blended black tea with flavouring, which is best enjoyed without milk. The black tea leaves are enhanced with rose petals to produce a rather fruity blend, which I found really pleasant. 


The leaves are very dark in colour as expected, punctuated with the colourful rose petals. I'd recommend about a teaspoon of them per cup, infused in freshly boiled water.

I really liked the handy infuser, which was easy to use and allowed for simple brewing once my water had boiled.

If you look closely you might see me in the reflection!

Once brewed the tea has a beautiful amber colour and wonderful aroma. 

If I'm honest - I'm not normally a rose tea fan, as I often find them very artificial and far too floral to enjoy. However, the rose in this brew was quite subtle and gave a sweet, almost fruity taste to the tea which I enjoyed.

English Rose Tea
from Whittard

I found this to be a very mellow tea, that I enjoyed at different times of the day - but it was particularly refreshing in the afternoon with a slice of cake! 

In fact I enjoyed this tea so much that when I worked away from home this week (three nights away) I took my loose leaf tea, infuser and mug with me! Now, I think this might make me a bit of a tea snob....but I really enjoyed having a decent cup of tea at the end of the work day!

Tea on the road....
I took my home comforts with me!

The tea and infuser come together as a lovely gift set and costs £14 and the mug costs £15. To find out more about these items and more of the Alice in Wonderland range (there is lots more to see!) visit the Whittard website.

I'd like to thank Whittard and Halpern for sending me these items to try. Please note that although I have been asked to review these products by the companies, all opinions expressed are my own and I have not been influenced.

Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like rose flavoured tea if it only has petals added. If it has oil etc then it feels and tastes too fake. I love the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland range and always lust after it when I walk past! I do plan to treat myself to the mug one day but it's quite expensive considering that I don't use mugs often. It's so unusual and delicate that I think it is worth the price tag!