Making a cup of tea is a very personal thing, I gasped the other week when I discovered my son making me a cup of tea by putting the milk in after the water…I now know why his tea making skills are a little dubious. Ahhh, only joking, I know there are a lot of people out there that do it like that…however…

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Twining the other week, I wonder if you say the same thing that many of my friends have said “There is a Mr Twining? He is real? ” He is indeed and tenth generation at that because Twinings tea shop in The Strand, London has been serving customers since 1706.  It was fascinating hearing about the history of tea and also the processes that are done before it gets anywhere near our shops. I hadn’t realised that to the experts tea is like a fine wine and to become a Master Blender tastes five years. “The Master Blenders taste every batch of tea at least seven times between field and cup.” In 1837 Queen Victoria granted Twinings tea the Royal Warrant. Twinings buy two hundred different teas from fifteen locations every year and have 25,000 different lines of tea to work with. Their blends are secret recipes.

Make the best cup of tea ever:

• Always fill the kettle with fresh cold water
• Use freshly boiled water for black tea
• When to put in milk is a personal preference, apparently milk in first is the traditional way because it was thought to protect the delicate bone china cups. BUT…I think it tastes better put in first! So if you invite me around for tea now you know.
• Only brew the tea for as long as recommended on the packet, if left too long the tea can become bitter.

As well as trying out some speciality teas such as Oolong, Keemun and Assam we tried a beautiful 2013 first flush Darjeerling which I fell in love with. It is quite expensive, I won’t tell you how much but was very lucky to be given a bag and I am treating it like gold dust. We then moved onto green teas…of which I am only just starting to like.

Twinings already have nine green teas including ‘mango and lychee’ and pineapple and grapefruit but the ones we tried are from the Twinings Sweet Greens Range, flavours are; Salted Caramel Green Tea, Caramelised Apple Green Tea and Gingerbread Green Tea. Oh…my…goodness… the Caramelised Apple is divine, it smells good and tastes good. However I have now found out why I didn’t like green tea before, it is because I was leaving the tea bag in the water too long.

Rules of making green tea are;

• Always use fresh cold water in the kettle
• Once boiled allow the water to cool for five minutes
• Pour the water over the green tea bag
• Brew the tea for one and a half to maximum of two minutes otherwise it becomes bitter.

I have now been drinking green tea everyday and even cooling it in the fridge, adding sparkling water and chopped lemon and loving it!

Even better do this, which is what I was treated to at the Twinings tea shop…a Caramelised Apple Martini…delicious!

The Sweet Greens range is available at major retailers with a RRP of £2.49

Disclosure: Thank you to Twinings for a really enjoyable day and for my tea and teapot.