I was glancing through one of those catalogues that fall out of the weekend papers, when I came across 'Monkey Picked Tea'. This Chinese tea is picked by trained Monkeys who scale cliff faces and other inaccessible places in order to harvest the leaves from wild tea plants.
For the coffee drinkers among you, there is Weasel Coffee - Coffee that has passed through the digestive tract of weasels! Given the choice I know what I would choose.
Last weekend, my dad bought an hilariously expensive bar of chocolate which was flavoured with cardamom pods. These are brittle and crunchy and have a perfumey flavour that contrasts well with the dark chocolate. On the wrapper there was a list of other flavours (sea salt!?!) one of which was Earl Grey tea.
I’ve noticed that Marks & Spencer are using green tea as an ingredient in a lot of their Chinese meals. I can’t vouch for the flavour as I only occasionally eat fish, which puts a lot of Chinese food off my menu, but I am planning to experiment with green tea as a base for a vegetable stock – maybe for a soup or a casserole.
