Drinking tea and drinking a cocktail are both wonderful things to do, but we generally tend to think of them as mutually exclusive events. When was the last time you walked into a bar and said “Ooo, I really hope they have my favorite tea cocktail here.”? Well, according to an article we read recently in the London Evening Standard, tea cocktails are a pretty big thing right now in England and they may be trickling over to the U.S. faster than we realize.
Richard Godwin, the journalist who wrote the story in the London Evening Standard, made jokes about this new trend and how he’s not sure what to make of it. He notes seeing a Teajito at The Diner in Soho, a Clover Tea Club at the Punch Room in the London Edition Hotel, and variations of the MarTEAni all around town. He also acknowledges that though it seems a little weird, the tea/liquor combo actually makes a lot of sense. Tea has been used to dilute punch for centuries, and a spirit of about 40-50 percent ABV has about the same efficacy as a solvent as boiling water. That means you can leave a teabag in a teapot of gin for a few minutes to make your very own alcoholic tea infusion.
Although you may not be noticing tea cocktails in the U.S. quite yet, they are definitely here. Just a little bit of research online shows that many different bars and restaurants are tinkering with tea and alcohol and there are some creative concoctions out there for you to try. Tracy Stern, who owns Tracy Stern Tea & Co. Iced Teas, also recently told Miami New Times that she believes the biggest trend “without question” is tea cocktails.
In Boston, a new “tea bar” named Limoo has opened and it’s definitely nothing like your average Starbucks. They’ve got non-alcoholic tea and a great food menu, but they also have their own drinks that include alcohol and tea, including: strawberry green tea with vodka, coconut black tea with rum, milk black tea with Jameson, and matcha tea with Baileys.
We’ve never been ones to take a break at tea time, but if tea time is starting to include awesome drinks like coconut black tea with rum, we might be jumping on-board with this trend pretty darn soon.