A colourful selection of delicious fruits and flower petals brought together to create a very special fruit- tea blend especially for our ambitious customers. A touch of fruity and creamy sweet exotic flavours will delight your senses and excitement of a first romance.
Our First Romance Tea has a base of black Ceylon tea, and the blend is floral with accents of marigold and blue mallow. It is laced with essence of strawberry and has flecks of mango. It makes a delightfully refreshing and light cup of tea – but it becomes an elegant dessert with very little effort.
View our First Romance Loose Black Tea.
Makes enough First Romance Tea Granita or Sorbet for several romantic evenings.
Ingredients:
- 4 heaped tbsp First Romance Tea
- 200g Caster Sugar
- Juice of a lemon
- Large baking sheet covered with parchment paper or non-stick liner
Strawberry Hearts Garnish (optional):
- 110g Caster sugar
- 125 ml Water
- 12 Strawberries - rinsed and hulled
Method:
- Infuse the First Romance Tea in 1 litre of water brought to just under boiling point. Add the sugar and lemon juice.
- Allow to stand for just 3 or 4 minutes. Any longer will result in a dessert that has a bitter edge.
- Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or tea strainer.
- Leave to cool and then thoroughly chill in the fridge.
- To make a sorbet, churn the mixture in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
- If you don’t have an ice-cream maker then pour the infusion into a shallow plastic box and put directly into the freezer. After 40 minutes remove the box and fork the now-freezing contents to distribute the ice crystals throughout the remaining liquid. Repeat this process till only the small ice crystals remain.
- The granita can be served directly from the freezer, but the sorbet should be removed 15 minutes in advance so that it can be more easily scooped.
Strawberry Hearts
- In a small saucepan bring the sugar and the water slowly to a boil, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved. This will only take a couple of minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the syrup to cool completely.
- Preheat the oven to 100°C/200°F.
- Slice the strawberries lengthwise as thinly as possible.
- Dip the slices in the now-cooled syrup.
- Place each slice of strawberry on the lined baking sheet ensuring that none are overlapping.
- Bake until the slices are dry but still retaining their colour. This could take a couple of hours depending on the thickness of the fruit slices.
- Transfer the slices to a wire rack to cool.
- To garnish the sorbet or granita use the slices from the centre of the strawberries, the ones that look most like hearts. Allow 2 hearts per serving.
For Light East India Drinking Chocolate Cups:
- Replace the double cream with skimmed milk.
- Whip 3 egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in the drinking chocolate and beat again.
- Pour into glasses – the egg white will create a foam, like the froth on a mug of hot whisked drinking chocolate.
- Allow to chill for a couple of hours and serve with a swirl of 7-minute icing.
Note: The egg whites can be omitted if you want to avoid raw egg.