Literary Teas - Charles Dickens' Black Tea Blend

Blender's Notes:

Unlike many of his characters, Charles Dickens was born to loving parents in February of 1812. However, when he was only 12, his father was imprisoned for debt and Charles was sent to work in a blacking factory where he labeled endless bottles of shoeshine. He would leave the factory four years later to finish his education, but those formative years deeply affected him and inspired many of the boyhood horrors he would later write about. He wrote many of his most famous novels like Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby episodically, with a new chapter appearing in a magazine each month. These works examined the lives of the less fortunate and found humanity amid the most inhuman conditions.

Tea appeared in Dickens’ work as a calming force like in David Copperfield, when the main character recounts how he “sat swilling tea until [his] whole nervous system, if [he] had had any in those days, must have gone by the board.” Or it could surface as a commonality between classes that allowed Dickens to emphasize the stark differences between lifestyles. While a “real solid silver teapot” and “real silver spoons to stir the tea with” are listed among the treasures of Old Lobbs in The Pickwick Papers, “a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes” described in Oliver Twist would provide “a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round.” Our Charles Dickens blend adds a flash of color to a traditional British tea. The blend is a hearty, well-rounded blend of China and Indian teas that has an amber cup with a light currant after-taste.

Ingredients: Black teas, oolong tea, black currant flavoring, and cornflower petals.

Certified Kosher

Brew tea at 212º - steep for 3 minutes.

4 Ounces of loose tea makes approximately 50 cups of tea.

A sampling of Dickens' works:

     The Pickwick Papers
     Oliver Twist
     Nicholas Nickleby
     The Old Curiosity Shop
     Barnaby Rudge
     David Copperfield
     A Tale of Two Cities
     Great Expectations
     The Mystery of Edwin Drood
     A Christmas Carol
     Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy

Check with your local bookstore for more titles or for recommendations for further reading.