Hello Spring! With the arrival of March comes spring, and with it comes the promise of warmer, longer days, cheery daffodils and new growth.
Later this month also comes the Easter celebrations, the most important festival in the Christian calender, and for many a few welcome days holiday to spend with family and friends.
Easter would not be Easter without chocolate eggs. A symbol of fertility, representing the rebirth of spring and the beginning, Easter eggs are an interesting tradition associated with this time of year. When people first started giving eggs as gifts at Easter time, it is thought that brightly painted bird (chicken, duck) eggs were given. Though from the 19th Century onwards, as chocolate (and at the same time tea!) became more accessible, the first chocolate eggs began to appear, and it is Chocolate eggs that are so well known and loved today.
This month’s tea pairing has been selected in honour of Chocolate, and we have paired our second flush Assam black tea with a rich Chocolate & Nut cake. Full bodied black teas, such as Assam, are rich in tannins and work really well when served with sweet, sticky cakes. Tannins are bitter tasting, plant polyphenolic compounds naturally found in tea and other foods such as red wine (red wine and chocolate, now there’s another top pairing for you!). Tannin content varies by tea type, though it is black teas that are generally found to have the highest tannin content. It is the astringency from tannins that causes the dry and puckering feeling in the mouth – this astringency is what works so well at cutting through the rich, sweetness of chocolate cakes.
An Indian black tea with strength and body, our Hope & Glory Assam tea has been sourced from the second-flush production (grown during end May to June). Quality second flush Assam’s are renowned the world over for their thickness and sweet, malty character, and are always best served with a drop of milk which brings out the inherent creaminess.
So before you tuck into that Chocolate Egg, pop the kettle on and make a cup of Hope & Glory Assam tea. Sit down and savour, it will be worth taking time over, I promise!
