Fortnum & Mason Advent Day 16 (sachets)
This is a different darjeeling from the one in their tins advent calendar. If I recall the color of the other one correctly, this one is a little lighter.
Breakfast was toast made from Buttermilk Bread that middle daughter made using flour from wheat she freshly milled. Hearty bread. Toasted, buttered, and smeared with Fortnum Strawberry Preserve. Against this backdrop – the nutty, hearty bread and the sweet strawberry – the first sips were almost smoky. It definitely had the heft to accompany my breakfast and not disappear like a shrinking violet against the strong grain and sweet flavors.
The sachet is crammed full of saturated leaf and the color so good on the second steep still that I decided to go for a third steep. It is lighter now, but still flavorful and brisk. I find all Darjeeling brisk and adjust my steeping time and temp to get it to where I can enjoy it, since I don’t love briskness, although it does make it go better with food sometimes.
I am pretty sure that if I released those leaves from the sachet I could get a pretty nice fourth steep from this, but I think I am ready to move on to a different tea now.
This was an interesting tea. Very glad to try it in the advent.
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What a breakfast! :D
I don’t even care about the tea. At this point I’m here for that bread! She milled her own grain for bread?! Wow, that’s impressive!
Dustin: Yes! Ashman built a special cabinet to hold grain – about 140 pounds at a time when all buckets are full. Middle daughter had allergies and simple carb cravings as a child so we started milling grain for our baking to try to boost her nutrition and it worked. There is amlot more Vitamin E in freshly milled flour, and fiber is boosted as well.
I wondered how well she would handle the switch to freshly milled whole wheat but from the first loaf she was standing behind me with a bread knife as it came out of the oven. Now she makes most of her bread herself. We use a mix of hard red and hard white for bread, soft white for cakes and brownies, hard red alone for most cookies because it has such a nutty flavor. It is really easy to do with a grain mill! But I would love to someday have a gorgeous cast iron hand cranked mill! Just for fun!
That’s really cool!
Echoing Dustin here, but that is super cool!
What a breakfast! :D
I don’t even care about the tea. At this point I’m here for that bread! She milled her own grain for bread?! Wow, that’s impressive!
Dustin: Yes! Ashman built a special cabinet to hold grain – about 140 pounds at a time when all buckets are full. Middle daughter had allergies and simple carb cravings as a child so we started milling grain for our baking to try to boost her nutrition and it worked. There is amlot more Vitamin E in freshly milled flour, and fiber is boosted as well.
I wondered how well she would handle the switch to freshly milled whole wheat but from the first loaf she was standing behind me with a bread knife as it came out of the oven. Now she makes most of her bread herself. We use a mix of hard red and hard white for bread, soft white for cakes and brownies, hard red alone for most cookies because it has such a nutty flavor. It is really easy to do with a grain mill! But I would love to someday have a gorgeous cast iron hand cranked mill! Just for fun!
That’s really cool!
Echoing Dustin here, but that is super cool!