For Christmas, Andy gave me a voucher for a tea blending workshop from Bird and Blend Tea co (my fave tea shop), and one Friday in July I went to one of the events. (They have them fairly often at their shops but as we are not that local to one it involved travelling into London after work so logistically was a bit tricky to sort).
For Andy’s birthday I had booked tickets for Hamilton, and that was on the Saturday, so we opted to stay in a hotel for the Friday.
The workshop was at 6:30 so I had to head to the train station straight from work, and Andy met me having ordered an early dinner of pizza. (He had also been to the Crosstown cart close to the station and got us a doughnut to share later, and some of their cinnamon scroll almond butter which I have been keen to try). We had time for a short walk around Borough Market before I went in to the shop.
I was a little apprehensive as I was going there on my own, and when I got there everyone else was in pairs/ couples, but it was all so friendly and welcoming that I didn’t feel odd being by myself. During the evening you can have tea cocktails (or mocktails) or any of the teas they make, so I went for an iced chai (because theirs is amazing). There was a little warm up matching game to play when we arrived, matching up samples of tea to their type, and we impressed them by getting them all correct!
When we arrived each person had their name tag given to them, along with a tote bag containing some samples (including a pouch of their Bucks Fizz tea because a couple of people were celebrating birthdays), paper to make notes on and the empty pouches for blending.
Throughout the evening we were given samples (one of each type of tea, eg one fruity tea, one green tea), some were hot, some cold brewed in water or lemonade, and even had a proper matcha demo, whisking it up first before letting us try one pure matcha and one flavoured topped with coconut milk.
Finally, we got to make our own blends. They had tins of base tea (black, green, rooibos, white etc) and then add ins (rose petals, chai spices, lemon peel- all sorts).
I decided I would do one black tea, one rooibos and one fruity, as those are my favourite types. I really love their Belle’s Breakfast tea (black tea with rose petals) so I made my own even more floral version with rose, lavender and cocoa shells. I added chai spices and cardamom to my rooibos base, and then did a mix for hopefully cold-brew tea with hibiscus, chamomile, rose, orange peel, lemon thyme and lemongrass.
Special cinnamon scroll almond butter plus the tote bag and my tea blends
At the very end we could also purchase anything from the shop with a discount, and handily we needed some top ups so I bought a few too- the tote bag was very handy then!
I thoroughly enjoyed it and would happily do another one at some point too.
It was super hot that weekend (it was just before the ridiculous climate change heatwave) so the air con in the hotel room was very much enjoyed as we shared our doughnut!
Saturday morning was of course parkrun day, but I will get to that on another post as this will be too long otherwise. After checking out of the hotel we had a wander around the centre, getting sandwiches from Pret and eating them by the river before walking to the theatre to see Hamilton. This was our third time of seeing it and it is still just as impressive- the energy from the performers is intense and it was just fantastic to see a live show.
London in the sunshine, cool sculpture at Kings Place, junior parkrun and Hamilton set
Sunday started at junior parkrun. I was going to meet my niece and nephew there again (they’ve been enjoying it) but they were not well, so I offered to volunteer. I ended up doing the funnel manager job, which I’d not done before. We only had 39 runners and not many coming in at the same time so it was not too tricky to keep track, but I think I’d find it very stressful at a busier event.
Then we were off to London in the afternoon again, this time to go to see Reasons to be Cheerful podcast at Kings Place (right by Kings Cross station). It’s a really nice venue- we’ve seen a few podcasts there- and the discussion was really interesting (it’s called Cabinet of Chaos if you are interested)- a range of guests in the first part and then Sadiq Khan in the second part.
What is your favourite show to go and see?
