Recipes | Russtea's

Fruit Tea Green Tea Iced Tea Matcha Recipes

Sparkling Matcha Melon & Mango Lemonade Cocktail

24th May 2018

Hey guys!

Whittard of Chelsea asked me if I’d like to make a recipe for my readers using some of their products, I jumped at the chance and decided I’d like to put together a deliciously refreshing iced tea recipe for the summer!

To make this recipe I’ll be using Whittard of Chelsea’s Mellow Melon alongside their Matcha Mango & Moringa tea. I decided to use Mellow Melon as the base with Matcha Mango & Moringa ice cubes, blended with lemonade for some extra sparkle!

Ingredients

5 teaspoons of Mellow Melon

5 teaspoons of Matcha Mango & Moringa

1 litre of lemonade (diet lemonade or sugar free lemonade is best)

Method

I’m using my cold brew bottle which I highly recommend if you make iced tea on a regular basis but you can also use a normal bottle and strain it at the end.

Add 5 teaspoons of Whittard of Chelsea Mellow Melon to the bottom of your bottle, fill with lemonade and put the lid on. Place the bottle in the fridge and leave overnight to cold brew.

Add 5 teaspoons of Whittard of Chelsea Matcha Mango & Moringa to a tea strainer and top with just enough boiling water to cover the tea and leave to steep for 5 to 10 minutes, this will make a superstrong concentrated tea for the ice cubes.

Leave the Matcha Mango & Moringa concentrated tea to cool and pour into your ice cube mould. Place your ice cube mould into the freezer and leave overnight.

The next day simply add the ice cubes to the cold brewed Mellow Melon and either pour directly from the bottle if using a cold brew bottle or strain if using a normal bottle. Find some sun and enjoy!

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe and had fun making it, it really is the perfect iced tea for the summer months ahead and is super easy to make!

The products used in this recipe are Matcha Mango & Moringa, Mellow Melon and either a cold brew bottle or any tea strainer/infuser but I recommend Whittard of Chelsea’s Mug Infuser or a simple sieve to strain the tea and an infuser to steep the tea.

A huge thanks to Whittard of Chelsea for sending me the tea to make this recipe and thanks to all of my readers!

Bye for Now! xXx

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Fruit Tea Recipes

Christmas Non-Alcoholic Mulled Wine Tea Cocktail Recipe

28th November 2017

This year I decided I would like to make a tea based mulled wine recipe that has all the flavour of traditional mulled wine but with no alcohol, using tea instead of the wine.

This recipe uses Whittard of Chelsea Mulled Wine tea as the base, it was the best I tried and really replaces the wine flavour without losing the traditional mulled wine vibe!

Ingredients

850ml of water
2 teaspoons of Whittard of Chelsea Mulled Wine tea
2 slices of dried orange
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
1 teaspoon dried pimento
12 cloves
1 teaspoon cardamom pods
1 teaspoon of dried ginger
3 teaspoons of chopped dried cranberries
3 tablespoons of sugar

Method

Measure 850ml of boiled water and use a looseleaf tea infuser to steep the Whittard of Chelsea mulled wine tea in the water for 3 to 4 minutes or longer if you’d prefer a stronger flavour but remember a lot of the flavour comes from the dried ingredients.

Pour the prepared tea into a saucepan and add the dried ingredients and the sugar and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes with the saucepan covered to ensure you don’t boil any of the liquid off.

Check the strength, leaving to simmer for longer if required.

Once the tea is the desired strength use a sieve to strain the liquid, making sure that the mulled wine is free of the dried ingredients. Pour the mulled wine in to festive teaware and enjoy warm!

Merry Christmas!

Bye for now! xXx

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Fruit Tea Iced Tea Matcha Recipes

Christmas Matcha Mojito Non-Alcoholic Tea Cocktail

25th November 2017

This is my recipe for an amazing non-alcoholic matcha mojito tea cocktail that is perfect if you want an exciting cocktail with a little kick for this festive season, without alcohol.

The key ingredient is the Bloom Mojito matcha which gives an amazing flavour to the cocktail alongside the matcha vibes. You could probably use unflavoured matcha but the mojito matcha really does bring a special something to this cocktail and is one of the best flavoured matchas I’ve tried (see my matcha comparison post).

Ingredients

Half a chopped lime
6 mint leaves
3 teaspoons of sugar
Crushed ice
1 gram of Bloom Mojito matcha sieved and whisked in water
Soda water

Method

Cut the lime into segments and crush with mint leaves and sugar. Add crushed ice on top to stop the mint from floating to the top when you drink. Sieve and whisk the mojito matcha in a little water and add over the ice, top with soda water.

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Fruit Tea Matcha Recipes

Huel Review, Including How to Flavour with Matcha & Tea

17th December 2016

A while back I became interested in finding some kind of meal replacement that’s super easy and good for me at the same time. I found Huel, a nutritionally complete food that I can make in minutes and not feel guilty about it’s effect on my body, I may even lose a little weight too!

Huel has received rave reviews and been featured in numerous newspapers but I wanted to try it for myself and have some fun experimenting. It contains all of the necessary proteins, carbs, fats and essential vitamins and minerals. Huel is also vegan which was one of my other requirements 🙂

The main reason for this post is to do a quick review of my experience with Huel as well as some recipes to get you started, they’re tea related of course! I wanted to see if I could use matcha and tea to add flavours and some extra health benefits to Huel

Review

When I stumbled upon Huel while researching fast healthy meals I thought it seemed like a great idea but was a bit sceptical if it would fill me up and how it would taste. I ordered a little to try and was pleasantly surprised, so I reached out to Huel and they were awesome enough to send me some more Huel to experiment with for you guys.

The best thing about Huel is how easy it is to prepare, it really does only need a few minutes, making it perfect for busy schedules! You can make it using just the Huel shaker bottle or a blender of some kind. I found it did take quite a bit of shaking so I moved on to using my Breville Blend Active, this guarantees almost instant lump free Huel and doesn’t leave you with a messy blender to clean afterwards.

I’ve only tasted the vanilla flavoured Huel, I figured vanilla is a pretty enjoyable flavour and would be easy to add other flavours to. The flavour is overall very pleasant, the vanilla flavour is sweet and enjoyable, there is a little bit of an unusual taste behind the vanilla but it’s so easy to add other flavours that this really isn’t an issue. The consistency is good and it does blend well, it reminds me a bit of a really runny porridge but it’s definitely a positive experience.

I found I could use 2 scoops of Huel (76g) and that would be enough to fill me up, the most surprising thing is it really does fill you up. Two scoops works out to be 304 calories, so I was quite amazed I could replace a main meal with Huel and still be full. Huel works out to be only £1.33 for 500 calories so its also pretty good value and it lasts for over 1 year so you’ll never waste any by it going out of date.

Flavouring with matcha

As soon as I tried Huel I was anxious to try and flavour it with matcha! I always start the day with matcha and didn’t want to have to prepare my matcha and then make Huel as well and then drink both and the vanilla flavouring of the Huel really lends itself to matcha. I found that the correct amount for my personal taste was half a teaspoon of matcha per scoop of Huel, this was enough to still leave it tasting of vanilla but add a nice hit of matcha alongside it, and with no bitterness.

I use matcha from Kiss Me Organics for all my recipes, it’s good enough quality to taste amazing but priced low enough to not be crippling when a recipe requires large or regular amounts of matcha.

Flavouring with fruit tea

Next up I wanted to try and use fruit tea to add fruit flavours to Huel. You can just cut fruit up and blend it with Huel but I felt that adds an extra level of preparation to the process.

To flavour Huel with tea simply steep 2 teaspoons of fruit tea in 200ml of boiling water per scoop of Huel. Adding a teaspoon extra of tea for every scoop of Huel you’re using.

Any fruit tea you have will work, preferably loose not teabags. My favourites were Vanilla Slice from T2 & Strawberry Serenade from Whittard of Chelsea but have fun experimenting with any tea you have and let me know what your favourite is in the comments below!

Huel Matcha Grape Smoothie

While experimenting with matcha I found that I wanted some way to add a little more sweetness, without using a sweetener or sugar. I tried different fruit but found that grapes were perfect alongside the matcha and added a little extra excitement to Huel. These were the amounts I found perfect for me but you can test it out and adjust accordingly.

It was a little late in the day and the light was fading so the photo doesn’t really do it justice, it tastes amazing though! 😛

Add the following to your blender:

3 scoops of Huel

550ml water

1 – 2 teaspoons of matcha

10-15 grapes

Then blend throughly.

To keep things quick and hassle free I really recommend using the Breville Blend Active to prepare your Huel, it’s great for smoothies too so well worth buying:)

Final Thoughts

I’ve really enjoyed my time with Huel as it fits perfectly in to my lifestyle, has helped me lose a little weight and is also amazingly convenient. It works as a meal replacement and really does fill you up, I’ve been having Huel a couple of times a week at dinner time but you can really have it as often as you like.

You can find the full range available from Huel here and a super helpful guide for using Huel here.

I’d like to say a massive thank you to the guys at Huel for sending me these products to review and experiment with. Also a huge thanks to my readers, I hope you’ve found this post useful 🙂

Bye for now! xXx

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Fruit Tea Iced Tea Recipes Rooibos

Sparkling Blueberry & Strawberry Cream Soda Iced Tea

9th June 2016

As it’s finally a bit sunny in the UK I figured now would be a good time to have a play in the kitchen and come up with some new iced tea recipes.

Last summer I made a Strawberry Lemonade Iced Tea recipe that was really popular, everyone liked the fizzy element of the lemonade. I decided I’d do another fizzy iced tea recipe but switch the lemonade out for cream soda, which had me reminiscing of childhood quite a lot actually!

I LOVE blueberries so I decided to use Blueberry Rooibos from Whittard of Chelsea, a long time favourite of mine. Using rooibos as the tea base is great as it has sweeter more fruity tones and is also caffeine-free.

To make this Sparkling Blueberry & Strawberry Cream Soda Iced Tea you’ll need:

Blueberry Rooibos tea from Whittard of Chelsea (or a similar tea but theirs is incredible).

2. Cream Soda

3. Strawberry syrup (I used the ice cream kind but I’m sure it would be even better with strawberry beverage syrup)

4. Ice cubes

How to make it:

I love to make iced tea in my kilner jars, this is the perfect infuser as it fit's right in to them so you only need a little water.

I love to make iced tea in my kilner jars, this AdHoc infuser is perfect for them as it fits right in to them and sits on the bottom so you only need a little hot water 🙂

1. It’s really easy to make and only takes a few minutes. First up you need to steep about 1 teaspoon of Blueberry Rooibos tea for every mug you make, in a small amount of boiling water. Only use a little boiling water so you can make the rest of the drink as cool as possible.

2. Fill the rest of the bottle up with chilled cream soda

3. Add a squirt of strawberry syrup and mix

4. Top with ice and you’re good to go!

This is the perfect drink for spending days in the sun, it pairs amazingly with fresh fruit and kids will love it too. You can swap the tea for a different blueberry or berry flavoured tea but I really recommend Blueberry Rooibos from Whittard of Chelsea for that vibrant blueberry flavour.

Be sure to share this with your friends and family 🙂

Thanks for reading, bye for now! xXx

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Matcha Recipes

Matcha Halloween Zombie, Sugar Skull & Pumpkin Chocolates & Lollies

17th October 2015

With Halloween approaching I decided I’d do some Halloween themed cooking with matcha. Matcha makes the perfect green colour when added to white chocolate which is convenient for zombies and it’s much healthier than food colouring!

I love sugar skulls and zombies, ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ & the return of ‘The Walking Dead’ has made me even more zombie obsessed recently which inspired these chocolates.

There’s not really much of a recipe to be honest, basically just melt some white chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan full of water and then add matcha until the chocolate is the right colour and taste. I’m actually really quite pleased with the results, only downside is some of the matcha chocolate is dotty, not sure why :/

Here’s the finished matcha chocolates and lollies:

The two colour chocolates were made by pouring the matcha chocolate in first and leaving it to firm up (but not totally set) and then pouring the milk chocolate on top.

I also made some normal white chocolates and orange white chocolate, in a selection of more child friendly shapes:

Anyway that’s the first of my Halloween creations, I have matcha cake pops and doughnuts coming up, both with a Halloween twist! 😉

I used Kiss Me Organics Culinary Grade Matcha which I highly recommend for taste and also to produce vivid green colours in your cooking. We used Dr. Oetker food colouring gel for the pumpkins which was worthless, we used an entire tube in the chocolate for two lollies and it was nowhere near the colour we wanted 🙁

The moulds used are these Sugar Skulls and these Zombie moulds. You can get the lolly sticks from loads of places but I recently found these Halloween Coloured Lolly Sticks which I kinda wish I found before I made these!

Thanks so much for reading, I’d love to hear from anyone who makes these and if you have any questions just hit me up!

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Matcha Recipes

Carrot Cake With Matcha Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

3rd October 2015

Bluebird Tea Co. recently launched Matcha Honey, what could be better than the combination of Bluebird’s matcha and local Brighton honey?! 😀

They sent me a jar to experiment with and it’s a really fantastic product, the honey is incredible and the sweetness of it blends perfectly with the matcha. It’s great on toast, crumpets or added to tea but it’s also great in frosting! 😉

I thought this cream cheese frosting would be paired perfectly with the subtle spiciness of moist carrot cake and this recipe was born!

After some taste testing I struck the perfect balance, which is roughly 3 teaspoons of matcha honey. It depends largely on how strong you want the matcha flavour to be, I wanted it to be definitely matcha flavoured but without bitterness and without the honey flavour becoming sickly but feel free to alter the quantity to your taste. I also wanted to keep the traditional colouring of carrot cake, with beautiful cream frosting! 😀

Cake Ingredients

3 eggs

300g soft light brown sugar

300g plain flour

300ml sunflower oil

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (plus extra to decorate)

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3/4 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

300g grated carrots

Matcha Honey Cream Cheese Ingredients

2 1/2 – 3 teaspoons Bluebird Tea Co. Matcha Honey

300g icing sugar

125g cream cheese, refrigerated

50g unsalted butter, room temperature

I used 3 x 7″ cake tins but you can vary this a bit depending if you want thicker or thinner layers 🙂

Method

Cake:

Beat sugar, eggs and oil with a handheld electric whisk or mixer until well incorporated.

Slowly add bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, flour, salt and vanilla, continue to beat until mixed.

Stir in the carrot and transfer the mixture to 3 cake tins, with greaseproof paper on the base. Smooth the mixture over with a palette knife or by tapping the trays on the work surface.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Let the trays cool a little bit and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Frosting:

Beat butter and icing sugar together with an electric whisk on a slow speed until combined. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat gently until incorporated. Turn the mixer up to a high speed and continue beating until light and fluffy, approximately 3 -4 minutes. Be careful not to overdo it to avoid the frosting becoming too sloppy. Finally add the matcha honey and whisk in on a slow speed, your best bet is to add it gradually and keep tasting it to get the flavour to your desired strength.

Pick the layer with the most even dome to be the top of your cake, then use a bread knife to slowly take a layer off the top of the other two layers to flatten them out. This will make frosting easier, make the cake more stable and also look better when the cake is cut.

All you have to do now is spread frosting on the bottom layer, add the middle layer and do the same to add the top. Then spread remaining frosting on top of the cake and work it down the sides. You can either try for a flat smooth look with an offset spatula or keep it rough and fluffy like mine.

That’s it! You have the best carrot cake in the world 😉

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe, I adored making it and I was thrilled with the results. It’s the perfect cake to share, I divided mine up and gave some to my mum and my boyfriend’s parents and they loved it!

Definitely check out the matcha honey from Bluebird Tea Co., it’s such an easy way to get more matcha in to your diet and tastes amazing!

Bye for now! xXx

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Green Tea Matcha Recipes

Matcha White Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

5th September 2015

Recently I’ve been trying out a few new matcha recipes, including these Matcha White Chocolate Chip Cookies. I wanted their main flavour to be matcha but without any bitterness that sometimes accompanies matcha, I finally perfected the amount of matcha and white chocolate with buttery goodness.

These work well as soft gooey cookies but are also equally divine if you leave them in a tad longer and let them morph in to the best biscuits ever!

I used Culinary Grade Matcha from Kiss Me Organics for this recipe, as it’s fantastic quality at a great price! I found their matcha to be an all round winner, especially at culinary grade prices and it produces a vivid green colour without needing so much matcha that you sacrifice the flavour.

These matcha white chocolate cookies are so incredibly easy to make and don’t take long at all! 🙂

Ingredients

240g of plain flour

130g of caster sugar

2 large egg yolks

pinch of salt

10g of matcha

150g of unsalted butter, left at room temperature to soften

roughly 1/3 of a cup of white chocolate, I just kept on adding until it looked chocolaty enough/the bag was empty 😛

Method:

1. Sift the matcha and flour, matcha lumps is definitely not what you want!

2. Cream the butter sugar and salt until light and fluffy, then add the egg yolks

3. Slowly combine the matcha and flour combo with the wet ingredients

4. Fold in the white chocolate chips (feel free to nibble some at this stage!)

5. Once everything is well mixed you’ll want to roll the dough in to a log shape and wrap it in cling film, then refrigerate for a few hours. Refrigerating firms the dough up and allows you to cut the log in to roughly 8mm thick slices, depending on how thick you like your cookies.

6. Place the cookie dough slices on a tray lined with grease proof paper and bake for 15-18 minutes at 150°C / 300°F

7. Remove the cookies from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

8. All that’s left to do is devour them! :p

Thanks for taking the time to read this recipe and I hope you enjoy making these fantastic tasting matcha cookies! I’d love to hear how you get on, you can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you’re looking for the perfect matcha for these cookies I really recommend culinary grade matcha from Kiss Me Organics.

Have fun! 🙂 xXx

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Green Tea Matcha Recipes

Matcha White Chocolate Blondies Recipe

22nd August 2015

I love brownies and their white chocolate sibling more than anything. That fudgy chewy moist centre and the slightly crispy top, add matcha and white chocolate and you’re on to a winner! I’ve fine tuned the amount of white chocolate and matcha and believe this amount is perfect, the matcha is subtle but definitely there and the white chocolate is divine.

The ingredients you’ll need for this recipe are:

240g of white chocolate

2 tsp of matcha (I used Bluebird Tea Co’s matcha)

30g of white chocolate chips

3 eggs

200g sugar

110g butter

80g of plain flour

Method:

1. Put the butter and white chocolate in a heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water, then add the sugar.

2. Add the eggs one at a time.

3. Sift in the flour and matcha.

4. Fold in the white chocolate chips but hold some back to sprinkle on top.

5. Pour the mixture in to a tray lined with greaseproof paper

6. Bake the brownies at 200° C for 5-10 minutes and then remove from the oven, cover with foil and bake for a further 25-30 minutes. I made these at my house and also my partners and I found the cooking time varied between the two so keep an eye on them and test them by dipping a knife in the middle

7. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the remaining white chocolate chips over the top, you’ll find that they soften and melt (heaven!).

That’s it, it’s that easy. The results are mind-blowing and they’re a real crowd-pleaser. I’d love to hear how you get on making these, if you have any questions or issues making them I’d love to help via email or Twitter.

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Green Tea Matcha Recipes

Matcha Green Tea Coconut Ice Cream Recipe

4th August 2015

Last week I joined The Hectic Vegan and his ice cream makers and made my Matcha Green Tea Coconut Ice Cream. This ice cream is really easy to make, tastes amazing and is 100% vegan which is also a massive bonus.

After perfecting the recipe I decided I’d write it up as a guest post which you can read here. If you make it I’d love to hear how it went in the comments below! 🙂

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Older Posts

Hi there, welcome to my blog about my biggest passion, tea!

My name’s Russell, my lifetime nickname has always been Rusty or Russtea as my friends now call me (my surname even begins with T!).

Not much beats the feeling of taking a moment at the end of a busy day and relaxing with your favourite mug, filled with sweet fruit tea, or waking up with black tea infused with vanilla shortbread.

Why not take a moment now, make your favourite tea and join me as I share my tea related experiences?