teapigs birthday blend - jelly and ice cream

teapigs is a famous brand of artisan tea in the UK.
They are now all over the world.
I encountered them a few years ago when they had a stall at the Island East Markets and now you can find them all over Hong Kong and available at most restaurants and cafes.

Time flies and it is now their 10th birthday.

Thank you tea pigs for this lovely box which had the birthday blend and a glass cup and saucer to go with it.

I loved the packaging because it was colourful and the graphics are well designed like their other teas. This is what makes them memorable and outstanding.

On the back of the pack, there is a special message from Louise which I couldn't agree more especially memories of Woolworths pic'n'mix.

Sadly it doesn't exist anymore and lots of sweets and crisps have become extinct and many traditional British meals and desserts are rapidly disappearing or being modernized :(

Anyway, lets get back to the tea.
jelly and ice cream blend is the best way to celebrate because it is fun and everyone likes it.

The ingredients in this tea are: apple, blueberry, orange peel, liquorice root, citric acid, strawberry pieces, vanilla pieces, natural vanilla flavouring, raspberry flavouring, natural cream flavouring, natural biscuit flavouring.

When I took the tea temples out, there was a lovely sweet berries and cream smell and the tea has a pretty pink colour to it with a fine tart taste to it.

Taijiu hiua chiew chicken bowl noodles 台酒花雕雞麵

Sept 2023:

It has been years since I have tried this and the polystyrene bowl has been replaced by a paper bowl.

The overall taste is much better.

2016 Oct 24th

There are two flavours in this series: chicken and spare ribs.
The chicken comes with a sachet of chicken, soup powder, Hua diao wine and some beany paste.

The spare rib flavour is better because the chicken one didn't taste natural.

Taijiu hiua chiew chicken bowl noodles
4710199104507
https://www.facebook.com/ttl.noodles

Victorian Tea Rooms at the Eastbourne Pier

Despite being born and raised in Eastbourne, I have never dined at the Victorian Tea Rooms located in the middle of Eastbourne Pier.
Thankfully it was untouched by the fire in 2014.

As a foodie I decided to pay it a visit because I have not written much about my hometown.

Inside the tea room, it was just how it was when I saw it from the outside as a child.

The carpets were really familiar, perhaps they were popular and carpeted everywhere in those days.

There were golden crystal chandeliers and a picturesque view of the sea on both sides.

Looking at the menu, the Sussex Tea set was only £3.95 which includes a scone with cream, jam and a pot of tea.

In contrast to that, the Egg and Cress sandwich seemed expensive because it was £3.25 without tea but then it was freshly made with cress which you can see in the fridge cabinet.

I ordered the Egg mayonnaise and cress because I haven't had it for ages and not many places have fresh cress in the kitchen.
It was really comforting when my sandwich came, seeing all that luscious green cress in the sandwich and cress sprinkled on the salad.
As expected, it was delicious and the fresh cress did wonders.
The only let down was the service because it wasn't that friendly and it was late in the day so they were not amused when more customers came in.

Date of visit: Early September 2016

Puerh teas with a twist

I have never liked Puerh teas because they taste too earthy and like mud in my opinion.

Recently I went past this stall and saw these tea tablets and got some to try because they smelt quite nice especially the glutinous rice one 糯米香普洱 and Lotus Leaf 荷叶普洱沱茶.

Puerh and glutinous rice was really fragrant like pandan.
The puerh lotus leaf is like drinking tea after just having eaten lotus leaf wrapped rice dimsum.
There are other flavours as well such as lemon, rose, dates etc.

http://www.ybtea.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=16&id=3

Making pandan pancakes

I love Pandan so I decided to make some pandan pancakes after trying some expensive ones at some restaurant.
I got a pancake mix from the supermarket which just requires water and added some Pandan essence to the mixture and it was ready to go.

White wings original pancakes

 Koepoe pandan essense

After pan frying them at low heat until both sides were brown, they were ready to eat.

They tasted quite nice but next time I will try a different brand of pancake mix because the pancakes were not that fluffy.
Next time I will try adding hot chocolate powder to make chocolate pancakes.

Unif Assam Milk Tea

Obviously I got this drink because of the design.
There were two flavours: Milk or coconut.
I liked the way it was like a milk bottle with a cow merged into a teabag to represent the beverage inside which was Assam tea.

I ended up getting the coconut because you don't normally put coconut milk in tea.

There was a strong Assam tea taste but you couldn't really taste the coconut.
Overall, I liked the drink because it was not too sweet.
More details about the design:
http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2015/9/14/assam-milk-tea

Broadway Tower - Cotswolds

I was really lucky my brother took me to the Cotswolds because the Broadway Tower was nearby.
He showed me pics of it on google and I was definitely interested.

It was this striking tower against lovely blue skies and endless fields of grass surrounded by deer.

We would have gone up the tower but it was late so it was closed and so was the nuclear bunker but Thankfully there are some photos on Tripadvisor posted by others so you can see what it looks like.