Top of the mornin’ to you all this lovely St. Patrick’s Day!
I just couldn’t stay away from writing to you all as I have stumbled across something delicious. I absolutely love tea and I was delighted to find a dessert inspired tea made by The Republic of Tea. They had two varieties for sale at World Market; Blueberry Bundt and Caramel Vanilla. At first I was a little hesitant, but the containers were adorable and I thought if anything they would make for a good photo shoot so I took a chance and bought both. They were a bit pricey at I believe $11.00 a container but considering how many tea bags were in each container I was looking at roughly 22 cents a pop. Pretty cheap when you think about how much money you’d be spending if you went to Starbucks every day.
These teas are absolutely delicious. The blueberry bundt flavor is caffeine free and smells just like a gourmet blueberry baked good. I was concerned by the smell of the tea that it would be far too rich and taste artificial, but I was happily surprised. The dessert flavor is very subtle, and if anything smells more like food than it tastes. Perfect for a morning tea enjoyed with your favorite baked good. The Caramel is caffeinated but still contains about half the amount you would find in coffee. It did it’s job in giving me my full pep on a few of my more groggy mornings.
I was eager to share these teas with my husband after hoarding them all week at work. He and I love trying new teas together, and while he isn’t much of a sweets kind of guy (which really isn’t fair because I can’t blame him for eating all the desserts in the house–that is all on me) I knew he’d be interested in the blueberry bundt. During the week our schedules are very different. I’m up early and off to work, he tends to sleep in and stay up late. Weekends are unfortunately not much different. I’d love to sleep in, but charging full speed into adulthood these past few years have pretty much ruined all chances of sleeping in on a weekend. I decided to make a batch of blueberry muffins to eat along with my new blueberry tea in hopes that the tantalizing smells from the oven would rouse my hibernating husband. Sure enough shortly after the muffins went into the oven, Chet emerged from the bedroom rubbing his belly in anticipation. I found a fantastic recipe online from allrecipes.com which ended up being probably some of the better blueberry muffins I’ve ever had. The cake was moist and fluffy, and the blueberries held position well rather than sinking to the bottom of the muffin. Do give them a try!
It took all my willpower not to shove muffins in my face and finish up my photo shoot. Afterwards I enjoyed a nice cup of blueberry bundt tea with a freshly warmed blueberry muffin and nearly collapsed on the couch out of satisfaction. I made 12 muffins in all, and am not ashamed to admit there was only 1 left in the pan this morning. CHET ATE ALL BUT FIVE, I even took two to work. Enjoy the images and if you are a tea lover check out these dessert teas and other teas from The Republic of Teas!
Charlene Champion Photography 
Gorgeous! I adore that image catching the steam wafting of the hot tea…
Thanks Angelica! I took about 50 photos waiting for the perfect steam to be captured! Thanks for your lovely comment!
Nice crumbs!
Pretty tea time props!
A dish is beset with deep, dark blue beneath freshly rinsed blueberries.