Cocktail Teas

Cocktail Teas by The Tea Cartel are a unique and delicious way to enjoy your favourite tea in a new way. This product offers the perfect combination of tea and cocktail mixers, allowing customers to create their own unique blend.

Each flavour is carefully crafted using only natural ingredients, ensuring the highest quality product for consumers. The convenience of Cocktail Teas is that customers can have fun making their own custom creations without having to go through the time-consuming process of making a drink from scratch.

With Cocktail Teas, you can quickly make a flavourful and refreshing beverage with minimal effort. Best of all, these teas are low in calories and free of artificial additives, so they're an ideal choice for those looking to stay healthy while still enjoying great-tasting drinks.

What is a Cocktail Tea?

Is the combination of an alcoholic or non-alcoholic cocktail with botanicals added that make the taste more refreshing and enjoyable.  You can convert nearly any cocktail recipe with this simple process. Take your favourite cocktail recipe, prepare a botanical mix to steep for a few days (tea + alcohol) and then create an flavour packed beverage. 

Works well with:

• Gin
• Vodka
• White Rum
• Spirits
• Wine

5 of the Best of Cocktail Teas

1. Long Island Iced Tea
2. Gin and Tonic + Tea
3. French Earl Grey + Gin + Tonic
4. Empress Blue Butterfly + Gin + Tonic
5. Ginger Beer Tea + Gin + Tonic

Making Your Own Cocktail Teas

• Pour 30mls of chosen white spirit into jar.
• Add 1.5 teaspoons tea. Put lid on tight.
• Leave in fridge for 2-3 days to steep.
• Prior to serving, pour over strainer, onto ice and add soda or tonic. 

Pairing Cocktail Teas with Food

Over the years, sommeliers and chefs have connected wine with specific foods. We might all be familiar with the classic pairings: red wines for rich dishes, white wines for white-based animals, fish and vegetarian dishes, and dessert wines for well, dessert!

But over the course of the last decades and centuries, as our cultivation of different grape varieties and farming methods has become ever more sophisticated, so have our palettes and knowledge that these traditional lines can be crossed.

For instance lighter Spanish reds go wonderfully with fish, and heavier Italian and French whites pair marvellously with richer courses and curries.

Many of us are still just beginning to learn of the concept of pairing tea with our food – proper, substantial meals that is. And yet, in the East they have drunk tea with their main dishes for millennia.

The art of tea pairing is still very much evolving in the West… but just as good food augments a good wine, and wine brings out the flavours of your dish, so too with teas.

The right tea can truly enhance the taste of the food on your plate… equally, get the pairing wrong, and the tea can be overwhelmed by the food (or the food drowned by too fulsome a tea).

The general and orthodox rules for tea pairing are fairly straightforward:

• Black teas with their robust flavours pair well with hearty, rich foods such as roast meats like beef, lamb and venison or heavy pasta dishes like lasagna.
• Green with their earthy, vegetative palettes combine well with vegetarian dishes, salads, mild green curries and light chicken dishes.
• White teas tend to be very gentle, and if served with too rich a food will seem totally tasteless. Yet it would be a shame to miss their oh-so-subtle aromas. So these are best paired with very light foods such as white fish like sea bass or mild cheeses and desserts.
• Oolong teas tend to vary but are in general quite smoky and complex and therefore pair perfectly with herby dishes, fruity desserts and smoked cheeses and meats.
• Herbal and fruit teas are perfect for complex desserts, cakes and dark chocolate! Some even blend wonderfully with spicy meats – like Earl Grey for instance.
• While full bodied chai teas match exotic Turkish sweet meats and Indian pastries.

Not only pairing tea with food, but including it as an ingredient in curries, desserts and even cocktails is becoming increasingly popular.

Leading restaurants all over France, the UK and the USA have started employing tea sommeliers in the way they do wine experts. Just as you discuss your preferred tastes with a wine expert, so too with a tea sommelier.

Because it is so new, people often approach tea and food pairing with some scepticism. But if done well, the right tea with the right food can really unlock not only their own flavours to their full potential – but even release a third flavour. For instance a second flush Darjeeling combined with a rich pate such as foie gras creates a heavenly melt in the mouth dream!

Who knew tea could be so multi dimensional? Forget about turning lead into gold, tea food pairing is becoming the new alchemy!

Tea Pairing Guide

By Tea 

Assam (Black Tea)
Continental breakfast, carrot cake, chocolate, eggs, mushrooms, gingerbread, Mexican food, salmon, strong cheese, red meat

Ceylon (Black Tea)
Continental and English breakfast, spicy food, beef, lamb, ham and chicken, lightly salted food, honey sweets, fruits

Earl Grey (Black Tea)
Baked goods, chocolate, dairy, eggs, spices

JasmineTea (Green Tea)
Spicy food, spiced white meat, shellfish, vegetables, potato, tarte tartin and carrot cake

Sencha (Green Tea)
Sushi, shellfish and seafood, rice, vegetables, fresh delicate cheese, egg dishes

By Food

Blue cheeses
Jasmine green, white tea, Chinese blacks

Dark Chocolate
Indian black, Pu'erh

Eggs
Pu'erh, Lapsang Souchong

Fish
Chinese greens, white tea, Lapsang Souchong

Fresh cheeses
Chinese greens, jasmine pearls, flower scented teas

Fresh fruits
Chinese greens, oolong, Indian blacks

Lightly salted food
Chinese greens, oolongs, Indian blacks

Mature cheeses
Smoked tea

Milk chocolate
Oolong

Mushrooms
Pu'erh, Indian blacks, Sri Lanka blacks

Nuts
Yellow tea

Pasta and bread
Indian blacks, Sri Lanka blacks, oolong, green

Pastries
Indian blacks, yellow tea

Red meat
Smoked tea (Lapsang Souchong, Russian Caravan), Chinese blacks, Indian blacks

Shellfish
Chinese greens

Smoked flavours
Indian blacks, oolong

Spicy food
Chinese greens, jasmine greens, oolong

Vegetables
Oolong, Chinese greens

White chocolate
Oolong

White meat
Chinese greens, white tea, yellow tea, Indian blacks