Peaches vs Dairy

On the Vancouver wet west coast, there is a lot of rain. One might saw you could also go to a beach, and say there is a lot of sand. The first probably being truer.
Oh....I wish I could go to that beach. A sunny beach. A sunny warm beach with none of this whishy washy rain that might turn to snow but just remains cold and slushy.

So, what do you do when it is cold and miserable and you are craving the warm days of summer? Well, try drinking a summery tea for one thing! My boyfriend and I were at a small grocery store, and saw this lovely peach of a tea: Stash's Peach Black Tea!
Upon finding this tea, I was intrigued. It is a black tea, and you can add dairy and sugar to black tea. Could it be added to this tea?

Any tea drinker out there has added milk/cream to a nice cup of tea, and found it curdled up at the top at least once in their life. I personally had this experience with a blueberry herbal tea, and my mother made me drink it anyways. Even as a young girl I knew you could never put dairy in a citrus tea/tisane as that was just asking for it to chunk up, but blueberries?
(just a refresher, herbal teas aren't actually teas because they don't include the plant camellia sinensis—or tea. They should be called tisanes.)
Now I am no science teacher, and neither will I give you a science lesson, but I will say milk curdles because of the acidity in the blueberries, and that changes the pH in the milk/cream and causes it to coagulate.
In fact, all these fruits are acidic, and will most likely cause you milk/cream to curdle: apples, blueberries, cherries, grapes, grapefruit, nectarines, peaches, pears, pineapple, plums, and raspberries.

Another thing will cause dairy to curdle is pouring it right into boiling water. The heat will do the trick, even if you have a regular old black tea. If you find this a problem, add your milk/cream first, and add the boiling water slowly to gradually warm it up.
If you aren't putting milk into boiling water, you are drinking a regular old black tea, and it is still lumpy, then your milk/cream is bad. For goodness sake, throw that dairy out!

Now if you do make the citrus tea mistake, and you see your tea curdled, you can do one of three things:
1) Throw it out and start again. And this time, don't add any milk! Or use whole milk/cream, as it has a higher threshold for clumping.
2) Scoop out all the curds you can see. The milk/cream hasn't gone bad, just changed consistency. Water still tastes the same frozen, doesn't it? You might have to keep scooping throughout your drinking experience.
3) Just drink it all. The texture will be off, you might have to chew your tea, and you might not want to drink blueberry tisane ever again, but it won't kill you.


Well you might have noticed peaches in the list of acidic fruits. If you had a herbal tisane full of peaches and added milk/cream, it would curdle. But a black tea is a different sort of beast. To a point, you can add dairy to black teas and not have to worry about the consequences. On the other hand, some very bitter teas, or a strong Earl Grey(with the bergamot oils) will curdle milk.
Indeed, I was very curious about this tea.

Upon opening the box, I grew concerned. Ever open a bag of peach candies? That overwhelming PEACH smell? That's what greeted my nose. The smell was strong, but would it curdle the cream?
I made two cups, added sugar, and poured the cream in. It swirled, and twirled and mixed perfectly. No curdling! Got to love the black teas!

As for the actual tea? Well, it wasn't nearly as strong tasting as it smelled (they never are). By the time I put cream and sugar in it, it smelled like a peach perfume. Depending on the person, I suppose that could or could not be appetizing, The peach taste was there, but on the whole I think it would have made a better tisane.
What I am absolutely sure about, is that this tea would make an amazing iced tea come summer time. Oy.
Maybe I just need to go to a warm sunny beach now, and bring some Stash's Peach Black Tea with me.

Tea available at most grocery stores!

The lemurs love vanilla

My mother came from a French Canadian catholic family, which means my family has a slightly different Christmas tradition than others. When the clock strikes 12, instead of seeing Jacob Marley, our family opens stockings and presents. And if there is one thing I really love about the 25th of December, is that I typically get a strange and wonderful black tea in my stocking.

Last year my brother gifted me with the maple tea, and another herbal tisane. This year, I got a lovely tea called Trader Joe's Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea.


As you probably assume, he got it from Trader Joe's, and I must say I have never seen the like before. The box has a Lemur drinking a cup of tea wrapped in Christmas lights. While lemurs are not at all a Christmas icon, the Christmas lights are, telling us that this is a limited holiday item. So if you would like a box of Trader Joe's Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea, you should head out now to the USA and pick some up before they are gone. And you really should, as you would probably like a box of this tea.

The ingredients are black tea, natural vanilla, natural flavours and cinnamon. At first I was worried that it would taste like a cinnamon death valentines heart candy (okay as a candy, but not as a tea of course.) But when I opened the box, the vanilla was the main star and a the smell of cinnamon was light and subtle. I could also tell, upon opening the box, that this would be a wonderful dessert tea.

My first cup of this tea was gone pretty quickly, on the account of how good it was. Again, it was the vanilla that was the star, making it smooth and creamy. The cinnamon, from what I tasted and that wasn't very much, was enough to make it seem like I was partaking in a sinful feast. Like the little bit of cinnamon sprinkled upon a latte or mocha to give it the extra kick into heaven, the cinnamon is a sidekick and not the hero. The vanilla flavouring, well, that's the Superman of this tea's Metropolis. The tea rivals a Earl Grey Cream, which means nothing to you if you haven't had that tea. But if you have, you know how smooth and creamy that tea is too.

If you want something delectable, and something akin to a vanilla cake or dessert, this tea is just what you need. It it is perfect around this time of year, when everyone is baking and being well fed by cookie platters and cakes. While not full of icing and maraschino cherries, this tea would be a good switch from a typical dessert – and you wouldn't feel like you were missing out on a treat. Unless you were like me, using cream and sugar, then this tea would be a much healthier substitute too. Now while this is a good after dinner tea, you might not want to drink this tea really late at night. Black tea is the first ingredient, and where there is black tea there is caffeine!

I don't see why they couldn't offer this tea all year round, and it is a shame that it will be disappear from shelves pretty quickly if not already. I personally could drink this tea all year round, and maybe eat a little less dessert because of it. Or perhaps eat more, since this would be a great pairing to any dessert (oh I am terrible!)

And with that, I'll leave you with the cute inscription that graces the side of the box:

“You've never seen a lemur drinking a cup of tea? Trust us; it happens all the time. But only if that tea is Trader Joe's Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea. You see, the vanilla in this tea makes our island friends – the lemurs & their chameleon chums – thirsty. The blend of vanilla, cinnamon & black tea will satisfy your thirst and put you in a festive mood. The lemur says so.”

Tea available at: Trader Joe's but only for a limited time!

For all who are keeping watch for this tea, it is in stores now for the 2011 Holiday season!