Last week the Brighton Bloggers and I were invited to attend a Tea Mixology evening at the newly opened Bluebird Tea Co Mixologists on Gardner St, Brighton. We met at one of my favourite restaurants in town La Choza for the obligatory blogger catch-up, some delicious Mexican food and of course, a cocktail or two before heading down to Bluebird.
Cheers!
On arrival at Bluebird Tea Co. the lovely owners Krisi and Mike greeted us with the first of many Tea cocktails! I chose the Mojitea, of course – which was delicious. After a little mingle around the newly opened and pristine store, we were invited to three tea ‘lessons’ to learn about Bluebird Tea Co. and how they have created such an interesting, unique collection of blended loose leaf teas.
Mojitea
The first of the lessons was with Mike, he certainly knows his stuff. We looked at all the different types of tea, learnt where it comes from and how it’s processed. Mike is so passionate about his craft and spoke with such enthusiasm – it was such an interesting ‘lesson’ and an insight into what goes on in the tea industry, from everything from your standard cuppa to Oolong.
Next up was tea tasting! We were able to taste and smell around 12 of their finest blends, which must be done by slurping the tea from a spoon, the louder the better (apparently). We tried everything from English Breakfast Tea to funkier flavours like Rhubarb and Custard and Pandalicious Liquorice. All were delicious (I’m a bit of a tea addict) but I fell truly in love with a couple of the flavours – Peppermint Cream and Morning Kick, which I ended up buying a packet (or two) of!
Our final lesson of the evening was all about Matcha. I was particularly interested in this as I’ve been on a health-kick recently and I’ve been thinking of incorporating this into my menu, but didn’t really know where to start. Matcha is a Japanese tea with 10 times the health benefits of Green Tea. It’s an amazing slimming aid and destroys hangovers like nobody’s business. Matcha is bit of a miracle in a glass, but it has one downside – it tastes pretty potent! Some people like to drink it straight, but the lovelies at Bluebird showed us a few different ways to blend Matcha to make it a little more palatable. Firstly, they stock flavoured Matcha, this we tried in shot glasses, it’s much nicer! They then showed how they make their Super Tea matcha smoothie, which was blended with banana, spinach and some other goodness – delicious, my favourite of the Matcha varieties! And whats even more exciting is if you would like to try Matcha, use this code FIZZYMATCHA to receive 20% off on their website now.
Will be popping in for one of these bad boys soon!
Finally, we were able to try our hand at tea mixology and create our own tea. Mine was an originally named ‘Lyndsay’s Tea’ and was a blend of Chocolate Orange with Chai Spices. I think I’ve got a hidden talent there, as it’s pretty good if I do say so myself!
It as such a lovely evening, I had so much fun. I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all of the staff at Bluebird Tea Co. Mixologists for having us for such a lovely evening of tea, cocktails and fun! If you are in Brighton, do pop in and see them (they are lovely) and the teas are amazing, you will want to buy them ALL. They also run Tea Mixology classes like this once a month with unlimited cocktails and tea and are on Facebook and Twitter too – check them out! 🙂