I returned home on Sunday night from a terrific concert in Ilkley. The Airedale Symphony Orchestra played 'The New World' Symphony and bits of tuneful ephemera, and we played them well. I knew I would find an open bottle on my return, and was surprised Claire had chosen 'Tea'. This is not one of her preferred flavours - it is both too sweet and too bitter, but only slightly in each case. I had a glass to bring me down from that feeling of having perfomed, which is one of energy and joy and not conducive to sleep.
The remainder of the bottle was drunk slowly over the next three evenings - mostly by me as Claire has declared it nasty. By the end of the bottle the clarity had deteriorated into a brown sludge, but the taste was no different. I suspect this batch will be Tea Wine's last hurrah.
Never drunk tea wine Ben. However I have drunk bottles of cold tea. My grandmother used to bring a bottle of tea (with milk and sugar) down the fields in a old sock when we used to make hay with pitch forks and horse and cart. It sounds daft but it is a great thirst quenching drinking
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel. What a fabulous image. I've had iced tea - which is a popular drink in America, and without the milk - but not tea just left to go cold, or not intentionally.
ReplyDeleteHeavens! After reading Dave's account of cold tea drinkage, I now imagine your tea wine as tasting EXACTLY like cold tea! I heard a joke once that: in hell, only the coffee is cold!
ReplyDeleteTea wine? I'm undecided as to whether you were brave, mad or took the devil-may-care attitude when you made that one Ben! After reading your post it's definitely not on my list of future wines to make!
ReplyDeleteTea wine isn't that bad. It certainly isn't in my 'Chamber of Horrors' list - though it is some way from my 'Delicious Regulars' list too. It tastes quite like cold tea, but alcoholic cold black tea, with at least one sugar. If you are short on demijohns, I wouldn't bother with it.
ReplyDeleteI'll take your advice then as I don't have many demijohns. So what's on your 'Chamber of Horrors' list then? Could do with some tips of what to stay clear of!
ReplyDeleteStay clear of most things beginning with a P. Pear, Pumpkin, Potato, Plum - all of them horrid. Rosehip isn't great. Claire reckons that Nettle was dreadful, though I quite liked it. I have my suspicions about Quince, but I will find out when I bottle it over the next month or two.
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