Sponsored review: Twinings Moroccan mint tea mojito

 

Both Ro and I enjoy a good cuppa tea every once in a while. Mostly weekends, we try making all these different types of tea and enjoy it with some biscuits and such. I particularly love experimenting with it..like making a macaron flavour with it, different flavours of iced tea's with it, the occasional masala chai and our favourite the mint tea.

I received a couple of boxes of Twinings tea to review and after enjoying some with our biscuits and cakes, I decided to try something new. I had never made a cocktail with tea, and my love for everything cocktail made me try this Moroccan inspired mojito. Its such a cool recipe..i mean it combines my favourite mint tea with rum and really, what's not to like about that?

 

I also absolutely love the whole Afternoon Tea idea. I find it incredibly romantic, to dress up and go to a fancy hotel for some tea. I have been wanting to throw a tea party at mine for a long time, but haven't had the time to do it. But I did whip up some macarons for an afternoon tea-ish session with friends beginning of summer. I served them with Twinings Earl Grey (my favourite), English Breakfast and Assam tea- all great tea's. The English breakfast makes a mean mint tea as well. But be careful to not let it steep too much, or else your mint tea is gonna taste bitter. I have wasted waaay too much tea with that mistake.

Recipe adapted from here (Makes 2 to 3 glasses)

 

Twinings English Breakfast- 2 bags
Boiling water- 1 1/2 cups
Cardamom pods- 20, crushed
Sugar- 3 tbsp (adjust accordingly)
Mint leaves- 10 to 15
Lemon juice- 3 tbsp
White rum- 3 oz
Ice

 

Into a measuring cup put in the tea bags and bruised cardamom pods.
Pour enough boiling water to make 1 1/2 cups of liquid in total.
Seep for about 2 to 3 minutes, remove the tea bags, but not the cardamom and store in the refrigerator till ready to use.
Meanwhile, muddle the mint and sugar together in a cocktail shaker and keep aside.
When ready to serve, add the tea mix to the cocktail shaker, followed by lemon juice, rum and some ice cubes.
Shake away and then pour into individual glasses, top with a sprig of mint, a lime wedge and some ice and you are good to go.

 

Notes: The drink was not sweet at all, so the second batch i made, I used sugar syrup (1/4 cup) instead of sugar and added it to the tea mix when it was still warm. The mint leaves were muddled on its own.
Add more rum if you want it super boozy :)

With thanks to Twinings for the samples

Blackberry bramble

Finally summer is here (to stay I hope). Days are warm with highs of 20C and evenings are cool. Pleasant enough to sit out on the balcony and enjoy a beer. The pub near our house is almost always full and its impossible to get a seat outside. My flip-flops and skirts have come out of hibernation, but I'm not yet brave enough to venture out in shorts as the crazy winds are still around, reminding us that summer is not completely here.

I have been bugging Ro to take me on one of those countryside walks...through the gorgeous yellow rapeseed fields. I hope I have one more weekend with loads of sunshine and high temperature to venture out, before they are harvested. On one Sunday afternoon when all of London was out enjoying the sun, we went into Greenwich town to check out Jamie Oliver's new restaurant "Jamie's Italian' and I had a blackberry bramble which was just amazing. I HAD to recreate it at home and that's exactly what I did on a Friday when the temperatures hit a high of 26C. Its not the authentic bramble which has Creme De Mure, the blackberry liqueur, in it, but I made it work with whatever was at home. Apologies for hijacking the name for something not even remotely related to the original. I thought it would be fun to do individual servings in small milk bottles. No one questioned me, because they all know better than to argue with a crazy prop-obsessed food blogger :)

I'd been lusting behind these really cute school milk bottles from the dotcomgiftshop website and as luck would have it, they sent me a set to review. They have a lot of cool stuff on their website, especially for food bloggers who are prop obsessed. There are 6 bottles in a crate and they are oh-so-adorable. They are great to serve individual drinks in and can double up as a decorative item at home- like mini flower vases. The only problem is that the bottles are tiny, and can take only about 1/2 a cup of liquid each. May not be that great for adults- especially when you give them an awesome drink and they finish it off in a gulp- but they just look too pretty and I love them. I can see myself using them as prop ever so often.

Recipe adapted from here (serves 3)

Gin- 4 oz

Blackberries- 10 to 12 (plus enough to garnish)

Lime cordial- 3 oz

Simple syrup- 3 oz (recipe follows)

Ice cubes- a hand full + enough to top

Tonic water- 300 ml

Make simple syrup by boiling together equal parts of sugar and water. Stir till the sugar dissolves. Keep aside to cool and use as required. Of course I'm lazy, so I just mix water and sugar in a glass and chuck into the microwave for a couple of minutes. Take the glass out, stir to dissolve the sugar and chick it into the freezer for a couple of minutes.

Combine the gin, blackberries, lime cordial and simple syrup together in a cocktail shaker.

Add a hand full of ice cubes and shake away.

Strain into glasses, add more ice and top with tonic water.

For the glass bottles, I strained the drink into a measuring jug, topped with the tonic water, gave a gentle stir and then poured it out into the bottles.

With thanks to dotcomgiftshop for sending me the milk bottles to review.