Smoky watermelon cooler

 

Juicy, thirst-quenching, brightly-coloured watermelon is great on a hot summer day. It’s rich in beta-carotene and vitamins A and C, therefore great for your skin and packed with antioxidants. We could eat it all day everyday! We love it mixed with mint or feta (or basil, like in this feta and watermelon salad we spotted the other day!). But we knew it would go really well with our very popular Smoky, Lahloo’s take on Lapsang Souchong. So we tried and succeeded! This smoky watermelon cooler is what you need on a hot summer morning: a healthy dose of vitamins and antioxidants and a great combination of flavours. Sweet watermelon and subtly spicy Smoky belong together!

How to prepare it:

Infuse Lahloo Smoky (1 tsp per cup) and let it cool down.  Blend a slice of watermelon and combine a part of watermelon juice with a part of cold Smoky, or to taste. Try garnishing with a bit of lime, a small slice of watermelon or a sprig of mint! Serve cold.

 

 

Sunshine + Smoky watermelon cooler make work much easier!

Apricot and Green Jasmine cake

Our Chinese Green Jasmine is a true gem. We’ve recently discovered how good it is as a chilled summer drink, but it’s also the perfect afternoon uplift and one of our favourite cooking ingredients. It’s great with chocolate or milk and cream: if you tried our Green Jasmine and Matcha chocolate tart or the Green Jasmine Panna Cotta you’ll know what we mean! This time we’ve used it to make an apricot syrup to top this incredibly moist cake full of summer flavours. Delicious with a dollop of whipped cream and a pot of your favourite tea!

Ingredients

• 265g plain flour
• 265g butter
• 265g caster sugar
• 115ml milk
• 3 eggs
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

For the syrup: 

• 6 apricots
• 480ml Lahloo Green Jasmine (infused)
• 260g caster sugar

Prepare the syrup the night before you make the cake. Place the sugar and the tea in a pan, bring it to the boil and let it simmer for 3 minutes. Add the apricots, cover the pan with a lid, and let them poach for about 3 minutes or until they’re soft. Let them cool down overnight.

Peel the apricots and remove the stones the following day.

Beat the butter with sugar and salt until light and fluffy and add the lemon zest. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add milk, then sift flour and baking powder. Fold into the mixture until well combined.

Place the apricots at the bottom of a baking tin. Tip cake mix on top and bake for 30 mins at 170C. Cover it with foil and keep baking for 45mins. Take the cake out and allow to cool in the tin. While it’s cooling, poke some holes in it and drizzle with 250ml of the syrup. Once it’s cool, turn it upside down (the apricots will be on top). Serve with whipped cream for a delicious afternoon treat!

July Tea Workshop – Try our best cold infused teas!

Do you love cold infused tea? If you’d like to know how to make the best, you can’t miss our next Tea Workshop at Lahloo Pantry on Thursday the 19th of July from 6-8pm!

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 .

Snow Jewel granita, refined and refreshing!

 

Cold infused green tea with fresh mint leaves… which one is your favourite?

 

Smoky Mary on a Sunday morning

Lahloo Pantry manager Holly had a secret: she makes an amazing Bloody Mary. But when we found out, we decided we had to use her expertise! And this is how Holly transformed the classical cocktail into an alcohol-free, rejuvenating drink packed with antioxidants. We’ve used Lahloo Smoky, the whiskey of the tea world, in this exciting recipe. Feeling a bit, ahem, tired on a Sunday morning? Follow Holly’s advice on how to make this delicious Smoky Mary!

The secret is out!

Ingredients: 

• 3tbsp Lahloo Smoky tea (infused)
• Juice of 1 lime
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 240ml tomato juice
• 2 pinches celery salt
• Tobasco to taste (Holly recommends two shakes)
• Worcester sauce to taste (again, Holly recommends two shakes)
• celery stalk
• lemon and lime to garnish

Mix all the ingredients, garnish with lemon, lime and celery stalk and serve with ice!

Green tea and peach ice lollies

No matter how old you are, ice lollies are always exciting! Here’s the proof: since we decided we’d have to try and make our own ice lollies, the whole Lahloo team has been buzzing about it. Tea ice lollies! Think about it. Aren’t you excited now? If you love cold infused tea as much as we do, you’ll love this recipe. It couldn’t be simpler: just three ingredients, and the triumph of making something that is vibrant, healthy, refreshing, colourful and fun!

We’ve used our South Korean Nokcha as the base for these lollies. It makes a fantastic cold infusion, refreshing and invigorating. But adding just a dash of peach puree to our cold infused Nokcha (also great with Japanese Sencha) will amaze you! It’s nothing  like those peached iced “teas” that you can find everywhere during the summer, with no tea flavour whatsoever and all packed with sugar. The cold drink is unbelievable good, but freeze it and you’ll become rapidly addicted. Here’s how to make it!

Ingredients: 

• 500ml water
• 2tsp LahlooNokcha
• a small tin of peaches in light syrup

Infuse 2 tsp Lahloo Nokcha in half a litre of cold water for 3 hours. Strain and leave aside. Blend the peach segments (without the syrup) until smooth. Pour the peach puree into the ice lolly mould and top up with the cold Nokcha (we use 1 part peach puree per 2 parts of tea). If you do it carefully, you’ll get an ombre effect that looks quite pretty! Carefully place the sticks and freeze for at least three hours until solid.

Our tip: if you don’t have a mould, use an ice cube tray and toothpicks as sticks!

Ice cubes with fruit and herbs

Ice cubes! They’re certainly a summer party essential, though they rarely are the focus of a conversation -unless you’ve forgotten them and it’s too late to get hold of any!  An easy way of making your drinks a bit more exciting is adding an unexpected element to your ice cubes: herbs, flowers or spices. The idea is not merely to embellish the ice, but to enhance the flavours. Whatever you add to your ice cubes should complement your drink! We’ve been playing around with some ideas and here are our favourites.

A fresh mint ice cube in your cold infused Sencha!

• Raspberry ice cubes: they will look striking in iced matcha or sencha.
• Strawberry ice cubes: we love them in cold infused Rosebud.
• Lemon zest ice cubes:  These look and taste fresh, try them in matcha or your preferred green tea.
• Pomegranate ice cubes: lovely with Sencha.
• Strawberry and basil ice cubes: they give a great twist to your glass of water.
• Fresh mint ice cubes: they’re fabulous in a glass of melon or watermelon juice. Also great in your cold infused Sencha.
• Lavender ice cubes: amazing with Earl Grey or White Peony.
• Pink rosebud ice cubes: will look and taste delightful in a herbal lemonade made with cold infused Lemon Verbena.

Have you tried any other variations? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Take your pick! These ice cubes are also great in a glass of water

Snow Jewel granita

With such an evocative name, it seems natural that Snow Jewel is perfect chilled over ice.  This Chinese Baihao Yinzhen, or White Hair Silver Needle, is rare and special, with the pure and clean flavours of peaches, lychees and ripe pears. The downy, silvery buds are plucked in spring just before they open, and they’re only lightly oxidised. This Snow Jewel granita will give you a moment of calm, making you feel refreshed and giving you a boost of antioxidants.

Cold infuse some Snow Jewel overnight (we use 4tsp per litre of water) and strain in the morning. Freeze the drink in a container for around eight hours. Take it out of the freezer and scrape the tea with a fork until fluffy. Serve immediately!

Go stargazing

Did you know that the period that comes between mid-July to mid-August is the best time  for spotting meteor showers? A crisp, clear night away from the pollution and city lights is perfect for stargazing… so definitely something to try if you’re camping! Grab a few blankets, warm up and stay awake with a cup of Smoky tea, and stare into the sky as humans have done since antiquity, fascinated by infinite spaces and the mysterious gleam of stars and planets.

But why this time of the year? It’s not because of the chances of having a clear sky are greater, but because there will be two different phenomena reaching their peak!

The Delta Aquarids will be visible in late July, an hour or two before dawn. The weekend of the 27th of July could be an interesting one to plan a road trip out of the city centre, as the moon will start waning from the 26th. A sky with little light makes it easier to concentrate on the stars. There’ll be new moon on Thursday the 2nd of August too.

The Perseids seem to appear from the constellation Perseus, named after the Greek hero who killed Medusa, the monster. You might also know them as the Tears of St. Lawrence: they always appear around the date of the saint’s martyrdom, on the 10th of August (Friday this year!) If the night is clear and the sky is dark, you can count up to 50 or more meteors in an hour.

We love this original photograph by Victoria – Inmost Light.

It’s taken with a vintage film camera and you can find it on Etsy !