Victorian Christmas Tea – Traditional Black Tea

Some teas warm the hands.

This one, Huatua says, awakens memories.

Among the hundreds of glass jars lining the shelves of The North Pole Tea Shop is a black tea whose recipe has changed remarkably little for more than a century.

It is simply known as Victorian Christmas Tea.

The story of the blend begins during one of the most extraordinary periods in Christmas history. Throughout the nineteenth century, old winter customs were being rediscovered, new traditions were appearing and Christmas was becoming the great celebration of family, generosity, feasting and wonder that we recognise today.

Santa's Village felt the change too.

Letters arrived in greater numbers. Workshops grew busier. Christmas trees glittered behind Human windows. Cards travelled through the winter post. Crackers appeared upon Christmas tables and tales of ghosts, goodwill and redemption were read beside roaring fires.

And at The North Pole Tea Shop, the kettles rarely stopped boiling.

Huatua discovered the recipe in one of the Tea Shop's oldest blending books: a rich black tea prepared for the Elves working through those long Victorian Christmas nights.

He has preserved it ever since.

Its deep aroma and wonderfully nostalgic flavour possess what Huatua calls the peculiar quality of remembrance.

Close your eyes over a freshly brewed cup and the modern world seems to retreat.

There is polished mahogany and old leather. Gaslight flickers beyond a frosted window. Somewhere a clock ticks steadily upon a mantelpiece. The fire settles in the grate while holly and ivy decorate the room, handwritten Christmas cards stand upon the dresser and footsteps hurry along a snowy cobbled street outside.

Perhaps that should not be surprising.

For according to the oldest teaching of the North Pole Tea Masters, tea remembers.

It remembers rain and sunlight, distant hillsides and the hands that gathered its leaves.

And occasionally, when blended with sufficient care...

it may even remember Christmases that we ourselves have forgotten.

Ingredients: Blended Black Tea & Natural Flavour
Character: Rich, Traditional & Wonderfully Nostalgic
North Pole Tradition: An old Tea Shop blend inspired by the great Christmases of the Victorian age
Prepared by: Huatua, The North Pole Tea Shop, Santa's Village