Review: Dragonfly Tea

I drink a lot of tea but until recently have stuck to mass-produced tea bags - I don't even have a favourite brand and just buy what's on offer at the supermarket. But lately two companies have sent me some tea to review and I've realised there is a whole world of taste when it comes to tea - and some very different teas for different moods or times of day.

Dragonfly Tea is a family-owned British company run by a father and daughter, Bruce and Georgia, accompanied by the wonderfully named Madame Wanda, a very experienced tea trader. The company offers high quality, rare teas which are categorised on their website by type (black, green, caffeine free etc) but also by characteristic, such as calming or energising.

But there's plenty more on the website - advice on preparing tea, how to really appreciate it and best of all - in my opinion anyway - a recipe section. You can also learn a lot about the history of tea and how it is produced, and regular competitions which are worth checking out.

 I was sent a selection of tea - three types in boxes and one in a very attractive tin. I had Indian Spice Chai, Cape Rooibos, and Cape Malay Chai which you can see above.

Indian Spice Chai is an organic black tea which has overtones of the chai I had in India; it's a warm, slightly sultry blend that is good with or without milk.

Cape Rooibos is a redbush tea that only grows in South Africa's Cape mountains. It's caffeine free and low in tannin and has a natural sweetness so you don't really need sugar. I know a few people who have switched from regular tea to rooibos and swear by its healthy properties.

Cape Malay Chai is also a rooibos tea but with Asian spices blended in, but soothing rather than spicy.

Each teabag is individually packaged which gives an added element of luxury - though at £2 for a box of 20 I don't think this is particularly expensive. I also love the sense of humour or fun - each teabag has a label saying things like "Would you like to have an adventure now, or shall we have our tea first?"

Finally I tried the Jasmine Dragon Pearls China green leaf tea. This one is a bit more expensive - £6 for 50g - but it comes in a pretty tin and I think this would even make a nice gift for a tea lover. The tea leaves indeed look more like pearls than leaves and they have been infused with the scent of jasmine to make a very delicate tea. The website has tips on how to brew it to perfection.

I really enjoyed all four teas I was sent and particularly like the ease of the tea bags but the fact that they are different to my usual black tea is nice. And for special occasions I would definitely get out the tea strainer and the Dragon Pearls!

Thanks to Dragonfly Tea who sent me these samples to review.

Tea Vivre review

TeaVivre, a purveyor of fine Chinese teas, sent me another selection of samples to review. I previously reviewed some of their teas so it was nice to hear from them again.

If you haven't been to their website before I'd recommend having a look around;
http://www.teavivre.com/

- they have videos showing how to prepare a teapot, how to properly break up compressed loose tea, and all sorts of information like the health benefits of tea and how tea is made. It's an interesting read!

The first tea that I tried this time was the superfine Taiwan moderately roasted Dong Ding Oolong tea. Aside from the fact that I love the name 'dong ding', I really enjoyed this tea. Oolong is somewhere in the middle of a green tea and a black tea (which in Britain is what we consider 'normal' tea - I remember I was 18 when I learnt that PG Tips was technically a 'black tea'!). I don't generally like green tea but this had the taste of a black tea but somehow seemed much lighter - I didn't need to add any milk. It also had a slightly floral fragrance and wasn't bitter like some green teas - I normally add a sweetener to black tea but this didn't need anything.

The website has some incredibly detailed information about this tea, like the fact that it was harvested on September 10th, 2014,  in the Lugu Village in Taiwan. It also gives advice on how to brew the tea which is helpful; when I'm using loose leaves I never know how long to infuse for.

These teas are not cheap - 100g will cost $26.90 (about £17) but the website recommends you use 1 tbsp or 8 grams for one cup so by my calculation that means it would cost less than £1.50 per cup which is a lot less than you'd pay for a speciality tea or coffee in a café - and this really is good quality tea. Also, you get reward points the more you order through the site - what I really like though is that you can order samples of different teas for just $4 each so you can try as many as you like.

So on to the next tea:
Taiwan Jin xuan milk oolong tea. This tea was more of a yellow/gold colour and both looked and tasted lighter and a little creamier than the first tea I tried. It is low in caffeine. Again I enjoyed a cup of this with my breakfast when in the past I've only ever had the likes of PG Tips with sweetener and milk and never really wanted to switch. I don't think I'd have this every day but would certainly alternate with my regular tea.

Guang dong Phoenix Dan cong oolong tea was the one I tried the next day. It was quite dark and a bit smoky like a black tea - it's interesting how the leaves are different shapes, some are like little buds, these are long and thin. The website says this has the fragrance of sweet potato but my nose isn't that sophisticated - also, it's not something I would have expected!

Finally the last tea I was sent to try was Taiwan osmanthus oolong tea (flavoured). I couldn't tell what flavour, maybe a little floral or citrusy but it was definitely nice. It's quite smooth with a rich flavour though I think the Taiwan Jin was probably my favourite.

If you're a tea drinker, why not have a look at the Tea Vivre website and see which tea you most like the sound of, and order a few samples?

I was sent the tea samples to review free of charge. All comments and views are my own.

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Fluff

I have so many cookery books now that I tend to only buy ones or ask for them as a gift if there is a specific reason - either a brand or chef I like, such as the Hummingbird Bakery, the Great British Bake Off or Nigella - or because they are focused on a specific type of cooking, e.g. vegan desserts as I have a vegan friend I like to bake for. So the fact that I bought a random cupcake book in The Works was quite unusual, but I just couldn't resist.

The Works has very competitive prices - often better than Amazon, and there are plenty of books I want there at the moment that cost just three or four pounds. This one - called Make, Bake, Cupcake - was £5.99, reduced from £14, and it was just such a pretty book with some very inventive recipes. I'm sure I will be baking more of them at a later date!

When I first flicked through, I mentally bookmarked one for hot chocolate cupcakes, because I have a set of cupcake moulds that look like cup and saucers, and I thought this would work perfectly for that recipe. It had slipped my mind until I saw my Alphabakes co-host Ros, aka The More Than Occasional Baker, had made some hot chocolate cupcakes from a different recipe as her entry for Alphabakes, as the letter this month is H. So I decided to dig out the recipe I had been planning to use and make them today; they are a quick and easy bake for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

At least, they were easy because I didn't follow the whole recipe; the book explains how to use white chocolate to use an edible case for the cake which is a brilliant idea, but I wanted to use my cup and saucer moulds. Also, the cakes in the book are topped with chocolate ganache, but I wanted to use my marshmallow fluff (thanks to Ros for reminding me) that I received in my latest Degustabox.

Here's what I did.

To make six large cupcakes, you need:
60g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
pinch of salt
60g softened butter or margarine
100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 egg
4 tbsp. Carnation Cooking Crème (also in my last Degustabox) or 4 tbsp. milk
to decorate:
6 tbsp. marshmallow fluff
mini marshmallows (optional)



Preheat oven to 175C.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla and egg and beat until light and fluffy.

Add half the flour and the cocoa powder and the Cooking Crème or milk, and fold in. Then fold in the rest of the flour.

Spoon the mixture into six cupcake cups. I only had three of the cup and saucer moulds - there were four in a box but I think one got thrown away after a party as someone thought it was rubbish. I also bought these cute baking cases at the Cake and Bake Show; they look like little cups or pots.









Bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow to cool. When cool, top with marshmallow fluff and a marshmallow.

 

 

 

 These cupcakes are really chocolately and light and fluffy, and definitely remind me of drinking a cup of hot chocolate!

 

 I'm sending these to Alphabakes, which this month is hosted by Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker.

Chinese Teas from TeaVivre - Review

Tea as we know it today originated in China. According to tea supplier TeaVivre, the ancient Chinese discovered the tea plant and its medicinal uses, and then evolved into drinking tea for pleasure. Teavivre sent me some samples of its teas to review; I like tea but normally just make a cup of PG Tips so I knew this would be interesting!

TeaVivre is a group of tea aficionados from China, Canada and France, so the name is a play on the French phrase 'joie de vivre', meaning joy of living. They want to share their enjoyment of Chinese teas with the wider world and have a wide range of teas and other products available on their website.

 The website is easy to navigate and allows you to browse different types of tea and read about their health benefits and also learn about tea in Chinese culture.

I was sent the following types of tea:
- Bi luo chun green tea
- Yun nan Dian Hong black tea
- Anxi monkey-picked ma liu mie tie guan yin oolong tea
- Taiwan oriental beauty bai hao oolong tea
- Premium tai ping hou kui green tea

I was particularly excited about trying the monkey-picked tea. I learnt from the TeaVivre website that oolong tea is somewhere between a black tea (what I would call 'normal tea') and green tea; the tea leaves are shaken and deliberately bruised so the edges of the leaves are brown or red, having oxidised, while the middle stays green. I'm not sure if the tea was actually picked by monkeys or not - the website says the name comes from either the fact that monkeys were trained to climb high cliffs to reach the tea, or from the fact that farmers tied a rope around their waists during the process of picking, 'just like a monkey'. This tea is supposed to have a scent of honey peach and is good for digestion

This is the Taiwan oriental beauty tea - here are the leaves inside my teapot before I poured on the water. Definitely more interesting than a teabag!

This tea has a mellow, slightly sweet taste and is low in caffeine. The TeaVivre website offers recommendations for brewing time and the temperature of the water which is very good; this is definitely a useful website!

I don't have the most refined palate when it comes to tea,  and normally I drink very milky tea which I'm sure changes and probably masks the flavour of the tea. But I enjoyed the samples that TeaVivre sent and I am impressed by the information on their website, so if you fancy trying something a bit different, or you are already a tea connoisseur, check out TeaVivre.

I was sent the tea samples free of charge, but was not asked to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

Teapot Birthday Cake - Strawberry Tea Flavour (Vegan)

 A cup of tea and a piece of cake - such a great partnership that I decided to combine the two!

I made this cake for a friend's birthday as she is a real tea connoisseur. She's vegan so I also had to make sure the cake was dairy-free. I flavoured the cake with tea - I was going to use earl grey but then found I had some strawberry-flavoured tea bags so decided to use those instead. I covered the cake with fondant and decorated it to look like a tea pot, but it isn't quite as neat as I would have liked, which I will explain later. The tea cup next to the teapot is a cupcake made from the same cake mixture. I don't think this is as good as some of the other vegan cakes I have made but I loved the idea and my friend was really pleased with her birthday cake.

Vegan Teapot Birthday Cake - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

You need:

3 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 tea bags - I used strawberry-flavoured tea but earl grey would work well 

1/2 cup vegan margarine

1 and 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 cup soya or almond milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla flavouring

For the buttercream:
vegan margarine
icing sugar
- I played around with the quantities but as a general rule you need about twice as much icing sugar by weight as you do to marg.

These are the tea bags I had in my cupboard:

 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix the flour and baking powder in a large bowl and open the tea bags and sprinkle the tea into the bowl.

Beat in the vegan margarine and sugar and then the oil

Finally mix in the almond milk and vanilla

I also added a little pink food colouring to go with the subtle strawberry flavour of the tea.

To make a cake that looks like a teapot, you need a round cake. You can either make the cake in two pyrex dishes, which you can bake in the oven, or you can buy hemisphere cake pans, for instance from Lakeland, or I have this Wilton sports ball tin.

The tin is very good because it comes with two halves and a base to stand them on while they are in the oven.

Grease the cake tins and spoon in the mixture. Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes, though it will depend on the size and depth of your cake tins.

 Allow to cool on a wire rack. I love how these are perfectly shaped!

Mix the buttercream; again I added some pink food colouring and a little bottled strawberry flavouring. Spread over one half of the cake and sandwich the other half on top. However it is important not to use too much buttercream; I used quite a lot and it meant that the top of the cake slowly slid off to one side, only slightly but this is why the finished tea pot cake looked rather uneven.

Spread a thin layer of buttercream around the outside of the cake as well. Roll out 1kg of white fondant and use to cover the cake - you can see where again I had too much buttercream and a little started to come through the fondant at the bottom.

After trimming the excess off the sheet of fondant after I had covered the cake, I used the rest to make a handle, spout and lid. I found it easiest to let the spout air dry for about ten minutes so it stiffened a little, and then attached it with edible glue. You can also use cocktail sticks for extra support, but either make sure these are removed or that the recipient knows they are there before the cake is eaten!

I used an icing bead maker which I bought in the Lakeland January sale to make beads to go around the lid and other parts of the teapot. You roll out a long sausage of fondant,which I had coloured blue, and simply press it into the mould and clip together. You then get a string of beads. I found this quite easy to use but the string of beads had a little excess icing around the edges, but if I used less fondant, then the beads wouldn't stay together. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has used one of these and what they think.

I stuck the pieces on with edible glue.

I also made a few cupcakes from the rest of the cake mixture and covered one with fondant upside down to look like a teapot. I rolled out another piece of fondant and cut it into a circle shape to be the saucer for the cup, and made a handle as before.

Finally I used a flower cutter to make some blue flowers to stick around the sides of the teapot. I think it looks much prettier with this design than it would plain but how you decorate it is up to you.

I'm sending this to Love Cake, the blog challenge hosted by Jibber Jabber, as the theme this month is 'giving up', and the idea is to make a cake without at least one of the following: eggs, butter, sugar or wheat flour. This cake uses no eggs or butter (though it does use vegan margarine).

Tea Time Treats, run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage, and Janie at the Hedgecombers is with Janie this month and she has chosen to focus on decorative cakes.

Chris at Cooking Around the World is returning to the UK as the theme this month and I don't think you can get much more British than a nice cup of tea!