Chocolate Digestives

Did you enjoy any of the advent flavors enough to order them during the Boxing Day sale? I’m deciding what I should order this year!

I would order Snowball and there’s one upcoming in a few days I really loved too (we did this advent in November so I don’t want to give any spoilers)! Otherwise, I didn’t love any enough to warrant an order. What about you?

I’ve already tried most of their teas that I have an interest in, so I really don’t know for this year! Maybe if they bring back something special just for the sale.

Ah yes, that’s a good call. I stayed up last year to get into the sale early, but I didn’t actually end up getting anything. I have a fairly big DF cart started, so I think most of my tea funds for December/January will go to that haha.

Every time I stay up late, the site crashes and it takes an hour to get my order in, so I think I’ll just sleep in and get whatever crumbs are left this year :P

I think that’s a good idea haha.

I thought of this one when creating my B&B order, but because of the liquorice and fenugreek passed for this time. Good to know it seems to work!

I find the licorice to be fine, but perhaps a little too much cardamom for me!

I was surprised how well those were/are executed in comparison between tea and real biscuits!

Mattress Alita, the best way to flavor milk is to start with hot liquid, be it plant based or dairy milk. Bring your liquid to simmer, then add your leaves/material. The longer it steeps, the more flavor is extracted. You can refrigerate the liquid when it comes to room temperature, then strain it when it’s chilled if you wish. What this accomplishes is letting the fat/ protein in the milk absorb the volatile oils of the steeped materials.

That’s what I did with the glaze I made for my lemon poundcake the other night. Simmered almond milk, turned off and added lavender and herbal tea, steeped for maybe 10 minutes in the hot milk and it infused with plenty of flavor.

Yes! As a former caterer and long time herbalist who still makes concoctions, I’ve learned over the decades (today I want to write centuries…) that this is the way to go when dealing with plant material and milk-plant or animal.

I’ve been trying to go through certain “prompt lists” that came off of Instagram, and I’m not an Instagram person in the slightest (I can’t even get the prompt lists without a friend logging in and downloading the pictures of the prompt calendars for me because I don’t have an account). “Cold brew a tea in milk” was one of them and I was trying to check that box. Can only guess it’s a “thing” over there. Don’t plan on trying it again. Do plan on using the tea in smoothies, it isn’t like it tastes bad. Even the hot tea with NO milk didn’t taste “chocolately” to me which was my main complaint about the cold brew, as well. I found both the cold brew in milk and the hot tea in water still tasted very “biscuity/graham cookie”.

Gad! Instagram prompt lists?! I had no idea there was such a thing. Guess that comes with being a technophobe crone. And I have never had a ‘chocolate’ tea that even remotely lived up to the name.

I’ve had some chocolate teas that were better than others, but agree many feel lack-luster (usually the flavorings don’t quite mesh with me, or something about “chocolate” and the tea mouthfeel feels a bit strange)… I used to get chocolate almond milk for the purpose of “helping” chocolate teas (adding more flavor and a creamy texture), but I’ve started having a GI reaction to almond milk and had to switch to oat milk, and it only comes in plain and vanilla in my area. And I’m honestly just too lazy to whisk it with cocoa powder and then add it to a tea latte, heh (though… I could totally do that…). Maybe I’ll try regular dairy chocolate milk again and see how it goes (I’m usually okay with some lactose, but not in abundance…)

The prompt lists have been giving me some fun mini-goals to working on some of my sipdowns (I got through 17 last month, which was my highest monthly total so far for this year). I’m definitely not doing everything on the list if it doesn’t suit me (like “drink the same tea all day” would be very bad for my migraine brain - I need moderate caffeine in the day, and herbals in the evening). Some have proven to be fun experiments. Honestly most of them make no sense to me without the “Instagram context” (of which I don’t have… again, I’m not a user over there and have no intention of doing so, photography/social media isn’t really my jam) so I’m being very selective off the charts. Some do interest me and mostly I have to wait until the weekends to have more “tea time”… “Indian Tea” and some chai prompts are easily feasible for me and I’m looking forward to doing those at least this month. :)

Cold brewing in milk, specifically oat milk, definitely became a thing recently in the instagram blogging community – though I’ve seen it done elsewhere before too. Similarly, I’ve cold brewed directly in orange juice and other juices. My understanding is that one of the advantages to cold brewing directly in milk is that it’s verrrrryyyy low effort/maintenance, but also some people don’t enjoy the flavour of “cooked” milk/milk alternatives so cold brewing straight in milk offers an alternative to that. A lot of people find cold brewing teas, versus steeping/infusing in hot water, provides a “smoother” taste. I’ve tried both, and personally I feel like I’ve had mixed success – very dependent on the tea, IMO.

Mastress Alita-2 thoughts. #1-You might be casein sensitive/allergic rather than lactose intolerant. I discovered my casein allergy late in life after thinking lactose was the culprit. A1 milk has a lot of casein where as A2 milk does not. I seem to be okay with raw milk, which I can get from my CSA but even then, I only have it on rare occasions. Actually finding A2 milk is the challenge. The idea of chocolate almond milk to ‘help’ the tea delighted me! : )

I hope you’re feeling better today.
#2. I have an IG account but I never post anything because I’m anti-social, very private and like you, not interested in social media. I use IG to mostly look at pictures of the city where I live-lots of public gardens, parks, nature preserves, historic sites and so on. Cat pictures, stupid videos and impossible to reproduce food, embarrassing selfies of people I don’t know and don’t want to know and all manner of horrid art don’t interest me at all.

@Roswell: Other than experimenting with the milk (which I haven’t really had any great success with) I have cold brewed directly in lemonade and quite liked that. I haven’t tried juice yet, though! I do notice different flavors cold brewing with water and have found I tend to (in general) prefer black teas hot brewed, oolongs I don’t have a preference (tend to like both hot and cold equally), and greens and whites I tend to prefer cold brewed. And for some strange reason, I hate the taste of red rooibos cold brewed/iced, but like it hot, but LOVE green rooibos cold brewed!

@White Antlers: I’ll have to look into the casein then! I tend to be fine if I limit my dairy, but have issues if I have excessive amounts. Now I’m having issues with the almond milk which I think may be either a late-developing nut sensitivity or just an issue with my GI in soluble vs. insoluble fiber (switching to oat milk I’ve done very well). My GI is wonk since it is tied to the migraines (and my head is doing much better today, thanks!)

Mattress Alita, if you have not explored it, do some reading on AIP; auto immune protocol eating. I have had fibromyalgia for the last 50 or so years. When I am strict with AIP, I am nearly pain free. If nothing else, it makes for some interesting reading.

Mint?! I don’t think there was any flavor contaminating from here… Also, we both just wrote tasting notes for chocolate teas we sent each other. haha

I’m sure it was just my brain fooling itself, but I enjoyed the results! Oh yeah!

A mint? Indeed weird. But I am happy you liked it, as I do as well :)

Cardamom might be the culprit.

Aha! That could definitely be it.

I’ve never had this B&B, but I do always keep some British “digestive biscuits” in my house to go with tea, hahahaha. I get the McVities ones! (The Scottish staple!) They are hard, flat, sweet wheat biscuit, and the ones I get are covered in dark chocolate (because who doesn’t love dark chocolate?) but I’ve seen milk chocolate and plain as well. There is this absolutely tiny section of my grocery store that has a few “British” things in it (I live in podunk Idaho and foreign cooking stuff is near impossible to find out here!) so I was shocked when I saw these. Now I buy a pack on every trip just in the hopes they’ll keep stocking them.

All y’all need to come to Canada. Chocolate digestives are in every local grocery and corner store. Really, this is not something easy to find in the States?

Oh, my friend in California could throw a stone and get foreign foods. But where I live in the middle of farm country in Idaho, foreign foods are nil impossible to find… it was EONS before even ONE green tea ice cream finally appeared in a local grocery, and that is my favorite thing in the world. I’m willing to pay the ridiculous price for it. >_>

Yeah, I never heard of Chocolate Digestives until this tea. haha. I will have to intentionally look for them…. but I doubt I will find them in my store. There is no way I’ve seen green tea ice cream. I bet I’d love it though. :D There was a really weird fruit I’ve never seen before for $6. It must have been the foreign food of the week.

hehe