Biscuit and Brew Tea House (formerly Arthur Dove Tea Co.)
Edit CompanyPopular Teas from Biscuit and Brew Tea House (formerly Arthur Dove Tea Co.)
See All 37 TeasRecent Tasting Notes
Mildly flavoured but still nice and smooth with milk chocolate notes and a dough like quality that reminds me of a super chewy and (and maybe slightly underbaked) chocolate chip cookie – with hints of raw planed almonds and also sweet almond paste. The “raw” quality of the planed almonds actually adds to the dough-like elements, in my opinion.
Placed an order with Arthur Dove in December to stock up. He was kind enough to give a few weeks notice before his teas had a price increase on them, and since it’s already a little pricey to order from him just because he’s in the UK (and shipping/dollar conversion is a bitch) I figured it was as good an excuse/justification as any! That order arrived today!
I’m justinfinishing up a mug of this tea now and I’m enjoying it – like all the other primarily black tea blends I’ve tried from Arthur so far (Banana Fudge, Salted Caramel, etc.) this is lighter on the flavouring than the kind of blends you would typically from North American companies – I enjoy that I get to focus on the black tea though, and that the few flavorings and other ingredients used are simplistic but really well focused and executed. There’s a doughy chocolate note here worthy of a nice Chocolate Chip profile, but also a pleasantly sweet and just a little bit roasty almond note – so it’s like having a Chocolate Chip with a dash of Amaretto mixed in. It’s a good level of sweetness!
I forgot there’s chili in this blend so the first sip was a bit of a hot, spicy surprise. However, once I remembered I was into it and I think the heat adds such a nice new layer of complexity to this blend which is otherwise just filled with lovely notes of smoke from the Lapsang Souchong, a sweet clean earthiness from the beets, and just a hint of maple. Really a huge fan of this unique blend!
Cold Brew Sipdown (1288)!
This is only a temporary sipdown – I ordered a larger 50g bag of this around boxing day as part of a big Arthur Dove order because I just needed to have more of this unique blend in my life. I was inspired to try it cold brewed, though, by an IG friend Red Phoenix who was experimenting with cold brewing Lapsang last week, with results he quite enjoyed.
This is definitely a weird cold brew but I’m into it! The smoke is quite strong and comes through more than any other flavour but this tea also has a lot of other flavours going on with it – namely an earthy but sweet beet note (which tracks, there’s A LOT of beet in the blend) but also a more maple-y kind of sweetness. When I thoughtfully sip it, I taste those components all as strong individual flavours.
However, the magic here happens when I sip at it without much conscious thought of the flavours. When I do that, it tastes eerily like a burnt/toasty marshmallow – and possibly the most accurate toasted marshmallow flavour I’ve encountered in a tea. I definitely didn’t find it marshmallow like as a hot tea either, so it’s like some kind of strange witchcraft happening here with the flavour! I simply can’t explain it – but I love it.
So excited to get more of this back in my stash!
Geek Steep S1E15 – V for Vendetta
This is the tea that I drank during our episode recording. I have never been as acutely aware of my love of Lapsang Souchong as I am when we record; it seems at this point like every other fandom at least one of us wants to pair Lapsang in some capacity with whatever the geek is.
This is, of course, one of the blends from Arthur Dove that takes inspiration from his music and I plan in the future doing a much more thorough write up of what song/kind of music this tea “tastes like” to me and comparing that against his music, as well and just doing a better job at describing the flavour of the tea in general.
For now I’ll say that, for a blend that uses Lapsang and does taste smokey, I find this to be quite an approachable form of that “smoke” note. It’s a bit sweet as well, with maple sort of notes and, from what I recall, a surprisingly strong flavour of carrot too.
I picked it, however, because the name reminded me of the titular character, “V”, in this week’s geek. He is someone that could, very easily, be described as a hound or as hound-like and a significant portion of the story does unfold over his hunt for the people who abused him prior to where our story begins. It definitely felt like an appropriate cuppa for what is ultimately a pretty complex and heavy episode/conversation surrounding some pretty political themes and discussions – like the nuances of terrorism, for example.
This was definitely not on of my favourites things we’ve explored, but I will say that this podcast episode did have what I thought was one of the best and most grounded discussions thus far. Worth checking out, in my highly biased opinion.
Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/
Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geeksteep/
Listen to us on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1286036/podcast/website
DB topic:
https://steepster.com/discuss/42133-geek-steep-a-new-tea-and-fandom-podcast
Geek Steep S3E16 – Downtown Abbey
Cold Brew!
I drank this while recording, but this was a tea that was in my shortlist when I was looking at what to pair while watching. In the end I decided that, even though I felt the profile had the appropriate British vibe I wanted to capture, this tea was a little too flavoured to be my choice during my episode watch.
I won’t reiterate everything here because we actually had a pretty long conversation about it during the podcast episode itself, but I just love rhubarb and custard teas (and the candies too) and it makes me really sad that this isn’t a flavour profile that’s all that accessible from North American tea companies. There’s a ton of UK based companies like Biscuit & Brew that offer it and I always try to take advantage when I order from them, but I’d LOVE a more accessible option because international shipping sucks.
…so if anyone knows any companies in the US or Canada that sell rhubarb custard teas, please let me know!
Iced Latte!
You know those optical illusions where they look like a old lady when you first look at them but then eventually your brain flip flops and it’s suddently a beautiful flapper woman? This tea was like that except the first impression was sweet vanilla custard with just the right level of egg-y taste to it. The flip was that, in the second half of the latte, my palate picked up more of the sweet and slightly tangy rhubarb. Really playful, not overly sweet and just all around one of the nicest iced lattes I’ve had in a long time!
Cold Brew!
This is my current tea that I’m sipping on this morning while writing tasting notes. I just love anything with rhubarb and cream, and so of course this straight forward blend of tart natural rhubarb, honeyed notes from the rooibos, and silky cream makes me heart sing. I’m getting rhubarb primarily, but regardless of what the flavour balance was I think I’d be a happy camper!
Cold Brew!
I felt like I’d gone too long without enjoying a nice rhubarb cold brew so I decided to steep this one up. I love the rhubarb/custard combination so much. That bright, sweet taste of tart rhubarb with the thick notes of cream that cut in right afterwards to soften the blow from the acid pop!? Brilliance. It’s a great decadent fruity profile, and made for a reallllyyyy refreshing cold brew!
Bird and Blend’s Rhubarb & Custard is probably my favourite tea from them of all time and also just one of my favourite rooibos blends of all time in general, so I was on pins and needles waiting to see how I would feel about this option in relation…
To be honest, they are very similar in taste but I think that this one is a bit more rhubarb and less creamy custard than Bird & Blend’s take. That said, it’s hard to say without doing a side by side and you also have to factor in variation from the ingredients used in the scoop of tea as well as preparation. So, really, I think they could probably be passably the same tea. That’s exciting for me, because it means a second source to buy this wickedly delicious profile from!
I need to price compare to see which would be more cost effective, but there’s also the fact that Arthur is just a super awesome guy and on several levels (even if it winds up being more expensive) I would likely just prefer to shop small.
I still see Bird and Blend as a small company, but I guess they aren’t anymore!
I was thinking along similar lines tea-sipper!
It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose. In the grand scheme of things, I do think they’re pretty small/independent, but compared to a company that’s literally only run by a single person… Definitely bigger. Maybe a “medium” company at this point?
Cold Brew Sipdown (1364)!
A bit sad to see this one go, but that was the point/goal of moving it into the focus area so I’m not too sad about it. It was delicious as a cold brew though – like a liquid After Eight chocolate bar, but a little more focus on the mint. So refreshing and relaxing.
Mild chocolate throughout but ultimately, in my opinion, this is really more of a mint blend than anything else. It has the cooling crisp menthol flavor of the mint during the sip, but more importantly it finishes very deeply of mint after the sip – just lingering and clean/cool/crisp. Just a nice tea all around.
I’ve moved this blend into my sipdown focus area, so will be polished off shortly if all goes well – I like the blend, but I have other mint chocolate teas in my stash that are as good so it’s time to finish some off…
Steeped this one over the weekend and it was nice – crisp and mint forward with medium bodied chocolate notes on the back end. I’ve had a handful of mint and chocolate teas over the last few months from multiple companies, and this is sort of right smack in the middle of all of them – perfectly nice, but not anything exceptional either.
Sipdown (1425)!
A very pleasant sipdown with a light be well balanced and well rounded flavour. Just caramel enough to actually be considered caramel, but not cloying or artificial. However, I feel like this sipdown needed to happen – I have several other salted caramel teas in my stash and while this isn’t my least favourite it’s also not my favourite. Good to clear out some of those doubled up flavour profiles.
Sipped on this one earlier this morning and I enjoyed it. The caramel flavour is thin for my tastes much of the time, but it’s definitely there and in this moment I liked the light sweetness and caramelized notes paired with the hint of salt. Plus the black tea is so nice and smooth. It wasn’t too much and it wasn’t too little.
Caramel is such a tricky flavour to get right in tea and I don’t think this blend nails it perfectly, but it gets pretty close. I’d describe it as “sweet and brown”, sort of in the vein of Della Terra’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake – if anyone remembers that blend. No fruit notes though, just that similar cakey sugary flavour. The salt comes through more than I expected, but isn’t strong – it works very well in the blend, and helps sell the “caramel” flavour more than what it would be without the salt.
I like this one.
I swear this tea was a little more sweet and syrupy last time I made it, with a more distinctly soda-type strawberry flavour. This time around I found myself really noticing the presence of the hibiscus in the blend. Juicy still, but accented by a lot of top note tartness. The finish was still pretty sweet though with more of the over ripe strawberry notes I was initially looking for when I picked this one out.
Cold Brew!
A simple note because this was a straight forward brew that I selected because I knew that would be true – just lovely strawberry soda type notes that were refreshing perfection! And like I said earlier tonight while writing tasting notes – I’m trying to get better at giving myself permission to write smaller notes and not feel like I need to elaborate on everything.
Cold Brew!!
Very juicy and sweet strawberry with a thicker and more syrupy liquor! It’s not quite at the “strawberry soda syrup” level of sweet and thick that I’ve tasted in the past, but it is channeling more of those “Daiquiri” vibes. I get flickers of light, playful citrus brightness from the lemon myrtle in this infusion – I know it’s in the blend but I rarely taste it next to this stellar strawberry flavour so I’m appreciating the relationship of that flavour in connection with the strawberry that I’m experiencing today!
Less strawberry Italian soda/Daiquiri than I remember, but delicious nonetheless. There’s still a sticky denseness to the strawberry that clings to the palate, coating the throat after each sip. I had this hot, but it’s such an iceable type of profile – would probably be badass with some liquor added to it. Maybe, since this is a 50g and not a sample bag, I got a bit more lemon verbena/lavender (herbal and floral undertones with a bit of a citrus edge) because it’s just a more “true” representation of how the blend was intended to be – better ingredient ratio, y’know!? Still strawberry first and foremost though, as it should be. That strawberry flavour is a star.
Cold Brew Sipdown (1103)!
I cold brewed this one for over twenty four hours to get it super intense/strong, and then after that I strained it and mixed it 50/50 with some lemonade to make a “Strawberry Fields Lemonade” cold brew and that worked really well. I could very clearly and distinctly taste both the tart and refreshing lemonade but also the very sticky sweet candied strawberry/strawberry soda type flavours from the tisane.
This was one of the teas I had for a #SeptemberSipdown prompt about having caffeine free teas, and I picked it because it was a sipdown but now I’m thinking that if it’s something that Arthur carries year round that it’s the type of strawberry profile I might like to have a larger amount of…
Raising my rating slightly from the 79 I had first ranked this at.
Definitely a different strawberry than I had expected – more syrupy and sweet like the sugar syrup that might be used to make a strawberry soda or to flavour milk/top icecream with. I enjoyed it a lot, but it caught me off guard because the LLT appearance is a bit more natural and herby looking. There was some tart hibiscus backbone to the cup, but more sweetness than anything else. Seems fitting of its musical inspiration, though!
Cold Brew!
Had this one earlier in the week with a pretty hefty amount of coconut milk poured in after straining it. There is a lot of acid in this blend from the citrus and hibiscus and that definitely caused my added coconut milk to badly separate, however that was something I had fully expected so it didn’t catch me off guard. I just gave it a vigerous shake and it mostly reincorporated.
Very tasty though – just this explosion of tropical citrus notes and creamy coconut. I’d say dominant flavours were orange, coconut, and pineapple – in that order. Something about it does lean a little bit bubblegum-y in taste, but in a good kind of way. Sweet, decadent, refreshing. Y’know, all the good summer things.
