Poached peaches in a vanilla and Orchid syrup

We adore the sweet flavour of juicy, ripe peaches. Rich in beta-carotene and potassium, in Chinese medicine they’re associated with longevity. Poaching them concentrates their heavenly flavour and gives them a silky consistency, all enhanced by this glorious syrup with hints of vanilla and the stunning flavour of Orchid. If you’re not familiar with it, Orchid is a Chinese oolong with the scent of orange blossoms, apricots and orchids. We love it on its own, and it makes a delicate, fruity cold infusion, but it’s perfect with these poached peaches!

Silky, glossy and delicious! 

Ingredients

• 4 flat peaches
• 300ml Lahloo Orchid
• 1 split vanilla pod
• 225g caster sugar

Add the sugar and vanilla to the tea in a small pan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve. Place the peaches in the pan, cover and simmer over a low heat for 5-8 minutes, or until tender, turning them once halfway through. Allow to cool and remove the skins from the peaches. Serve with a dollop of vanilla ice cream for a decadent desert!

Strawberries with rose geranium and chamomile infused cream

Strawberries and cream! That’s the flavour of English summer, reminiscent of sunny days and fresh grass. It’s such a simple combination, but so perfect! We don’t know anybody who doesn’t like it. This recipe adds some floral notes to the classic dessert, with sweet rose geranium and earthy chamomile creating a lovely and mellow quartet of flavours.

I’d like some strawberries with my cream, please! 

Ingredients

• punnet of strawberries
• 250ml double cream or whipping cream
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp Lahloo Calming Chamomile (our blend of chamomile and lavender)
• a handful of rose geranium leaves

Heat  the cream in a saucepan over medium heat until gently bubbling. Remove from heat. Add chamomile and let it infuse.  Cover it and let it cool down, leaving for at least 2 hours.

Wash and chop the strawberries in quarters, adding 2 tbsp sugar and the crushed geranium leaves. Refrigerate to allow the flavours to soak in.

Strain the cream into a bowl, adding 1 tbsp sugar. Beat it! (soft peaks will form when it’s ready!).

Serve the strawberries with a dollop of whipped cream and a rose geranium leaf. Enjoy! (Champagne is optional).

Darjeeling summer punch

Incredibly sweet, refreshing and uplifting and brimming with exotic flavour, this summer punch will be the star of any garden party.

We first spotted this recipe on the Telegraph online and were really intrigued about it. Mixing Darjeeling tea with ginger and mint sounded brilliant! Could it work? We currently stock three different types of Darjeeling and we instantly thought of using Darjeeling Afternoon, a refreshing blend from the Makaibari gardens. Holly and Hannah at Lahloo Pantry tried a few different variations on the original and this is our absolute favourite. We love it so much that it’s become part of the summer tea menu at Lahloo Pantry! Make it at home and serve it to your guests for a sophisticated, alcohol-free, drink.

Ingredients

• Lahloo Darjeeling Afternoon
• Ginger beer
• Orange juice
• Fresh mint
• Slice of orange

Cold infuse Darjeeling Afternoon (we use 4g tea per litre of water) overnight. Mix 3/4 glass of cold infused Darjeeling with a splash of ginger beer and a splash of orange juice. Serve with a sprig of mint, a slice of orange and crushed ice.

Tea-cycling tips to celebrate Bristol’s Big Green Week

On Saturday the 9th Lahloo Pantry will be on Corn Street for Bristol’s Big Green Week. All around St. Nicholas’ Market you’ll find the most inspiring and exciting independent businesses from the South West! There’ll be plenty of things to do, so come and say hello to the Pantry team if you’re around.

To celebrate Bristol’s Big Green week here are our favourite tea-cycling tips! 

1. Loose tea is greener: 

Brits consume 165 million cups of tea every day, according to The Guardian. Although teabags can be composted, some of them are partly made of a nasty-sounding material called polypropylene, which isn’t fully bio-degradable. Some teabags have staples that aren’t bio-degradable or environmentally-friendly either.

Drinking loose tea generates less waste, plus you can reinfuse your leaves up to 6 or 7 times depending on the type of tea! (Check our website if in doubt!). Each reinfusion will taste diferently to the previous one, and observing the subtle changes is a wonderful way of exploring tea.

2. Reinvent your old China:

- Use old cups and saucers to plant fresh culinary herbs and put them on your windowsill. Basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano or sage are always essential!

-Use teacups and saucers as a centrepiece, to display fresh flowers. They create a unique, vintage and very British touch.

Flowers in teacups by Flowers for Eddie at Lahloo Pantry

3. Re-imagine your old tea tins: 

 Use old tea tins to make candles, as planters or to display your flowers.

More display ideas by Flowers for Eddie 

June Tea Workshop- Come and try our fresh new season teas!

If you’d love to try our fresh new season teas, come and join us at Lahloo Pantry on Thursday the 21st June from 6-8pm! Try our Darjeeling First Flush and discover why Darjeeling is called the champagne of teas, or experience the freshness of Mr. Shao’s Mao Jian, a delicate green tea from China with a lingering sweetness.

Founder Kate will guide you in this evening of #teadiscovery! You’ll be able to taste the teas, learn about the story behind them and take home your favourites! Tickets are 100% redeemable so at the end you’ll be able to choose your goodie bag worth £15 to recreate the Lahloo experience at home.

Tickets cost £15 and places are limited, so book fast! E-mail hello@lahloopantry.co.uk or give us a call on 0117 329 2029 .

Magical Midsummer herbs

It’s the longest day of the year and it’s been celebrated all over the world for thousands of years. Midsummer (on the 21st of June) is the celebration of summer solstice, and for many years it was believed that picking midsummer plants on the night of the 20th would increase their healing powers. It was a night of bonfires too, as the fire was supposed to protect against the evil spirits that could wander freely on the solstice. Some of our favourite plants and herbs are typical midsummer herbs. They can be picked for several purposes: essential oils, perfume, cooking… and of course herbal teas! This is a list of our favourite midsummer plants and some tips to use them well. If you fancy celebrating midsummer in the traditional way, pick these gorgeous herbs once the sun is set. (Dancing around the bonfire optional!)

1) Lavender:

Beautifully coloured and with a soothing scent, lavender is a herb to treasure! Try popping some flowers in a glass of champagne. They’re also great in many sweet or savoury recipes.

Pick the flower heads when they’re looking their best. Picking them at night is ideal, as heat weakens their scent. Keep them on their stalks, tie them up in little bunches and hang them upside down in a dark, dry and well ventilated spot, for about two weeks. Then you can use the dry flowers to put in small cotton bags to perfume your wardrobe, or place a little lavender sachet under your pillow to help you unwind. We also love these bunches that we spotted on Pinterest!

2) Lemon Verbena:

We love the fresh, heady aroma of this versatile cupboard essential. Great for aiding digestion and easing stomach ache, it makes a fabulous tea and an amazing herbal lemonade. If you have a lemon verbena plant, pick the younger, tender leaves early in the morning, before it’s too hot. Add some dry leaves to your boiled rice for a lemony taste. You can also preserve it with sugar and use it in desserts.

3) Chamomile:

With a sweet, earthy taste and many health properties (though not recommended during pregnancy), chamomile tea is a pantry essential. To make your own, pick only whole flowers, no stems or leaves. Wash them, shaking any excess water, and let them dry. You can also bake them in the oven for a few hours at a very low heat. Store your chamomile in a tin and infuse it to enjoy its soothing properties. It works well with lemonbalm or with a hint of lavender (like our own Calming Chamomile). Great for calming your skin when applied externally: simply dip a cotton pad in cold chamomile tea.

4) Elderflower: 

These sweet scented flowers have diuretic properties, and have been used to treat colds and sinus infections. Pick the flowers on a sunny day and use them to make desserts, cordial or tea (2-4 flowers infused for around 10 minutes)

Tajiri Truffles

Tajiri is our #teadiscovery this month, an intriguing black tea from Kenya with a strong, sweet flavour and hints of warm, cinnamony apple pie (yes, really!). Its natural sweetness and robust flavour made us think it could be perfect with chocolate -and it is indeed! These decadent, creamy truffles have been infused with Tajiri and they make truly original presents too, perfect for tea lovers and chocoholics alike.

Perfect as a present… if you can stop yourself from eating them all. 

Ingredients (for about 20 truffles)

• 120ml double cream
• 1  1/2 tbsp  Lahloo Tajiri
• 40g muscovado sugar
• pinch of sea salt
• 125g chocolate

for the coating:

• 1 tbsp finely ground Lahloo Tajiri
• 1 tbsp cocoa
• 1 tsp finely ground brown sugar.

Put the Tajiri in a pan with the cream and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and let it infuse for an hour. Strain. Put the cream, salt and sugar into a pan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil again, stirring to dissolve the sugar, reduce the heat and simmer very gently for 1 minute.

Meanwhile, put the chopped chocolate in a bowl. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the mixture over the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture looks smooth.

Divide the mixture evenly between two bowls, let it cool down and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Place 1 teaspoon of the truffle mixture into the palm of your hand, rolling it into a ball. Place on a lined baking tray and repeat the process. Chill the truffles until firm.

In the meantime, prepare the ground Tajiri, the cocoa and the ground brown sugar for the coating.

Once everything is ready, coat the truffles with the tea mixture and leave them to harden. They’re exquisite!

This recipe is inspired by the original from Gifts from the Kitchen by Annie Rigg 

Lahloo Jubilee Photo Competition!

What are your plans for celebrating the Jubilee? At Lahloo, we’re planning on drinking even more tea than usual and living on Lahloo Pantry’s Jubilee-inspired afternoon tea menu… Not a bad plan, huh?

But we also wanted to celebrate it with all of you Lahloo friends, so we’ll be holding our first ever Photo Contest! Join us for some Jubilee fun and for a chance to win our Jubilee Tea Hamper,  including a made in Britain Village Pottery tea set and a collection of British tea classics!

HOW TO ENTER: 

Tweet us a photo of one of our teas next to a British icon (this could be anything, from a landmark to an object or a person!). The more creative you get, the better chance you’ll have to win! Make sure you include the hashtag #LahlooJubileePhotoComp when you submit your image!

We will collect all your submitted images on Pinterest! More fun, as everybody will see each other’s photos, and easier for us to choose the winner!

Go on, get shooting!

TERMS AND CONDITIONS: 

1. This competition is only open to UK residents.

2. Not open to employees of Lahloo Tea and Lahloo Pantry.

3. Only one entry per person.

4. The winner will be chosen by the Lahloo Tea team. Entries will be valued for being visually appealing, original, creative and fun.

5. All entries must be received by midnight of the 30th of June.

6. The winner will be announced on Monday the 2nd of July. Winners will be contacted via Twitter. If the prize winner fails to respond to correspondence from Lahloo Tea or to claim his/her prize within 14 days of receipt of notification, Lahloo Tea shall be entitled to select an alternative prize winner. The prize winner who has not responded won’t be entitled to a prize.

7.  By entering the competition you agree that your photo may be reproduced in our social media channels next to your name.

8.  The prize will not be transferable to another person and it is not exchangeable for cash.

It could be yours!