Butter is the name of a bakery in Christchurch, not a style of tea. Well it’s a patisserie. That’s like a bakery but it’s in Paris. But this one is in Phillipstown. It’s the kind of bakery that opens a little window at 10 on a Saturday morning and people line up down the street waiting to Instagram the latest iTart.
Waiting in line on behalf of my brainwashed better half, I spotted Earl Grey & Peach Sweet Tea on the Butter menu. Was it two options? Surely. Earl Grey and peach have no business being together in a drink. Was it a milk tea or a classic iced tea?
Earl Grey absolutely belongs in desserts and sweet things. Earl Grey cakes. Earl Grey-infused cream. Earl Grey bubble tea. I want tea with my snacks, and in my snacks.
And I don’t believe in the concept of Earl Grey without milk. I don’t have a problem if that’s your dogma, but it’s just not what I believe, y’know?
Not wanting to sound like an uninitiated acolyte to the Butter cult, I cunningly opted to add “… and I’ll have a sweet tea” to the end of my order. Corentin Esquenet, the extremely chirpy bakery owner, did not ask for my flavour preference.
He reached for a pitcher of clear vaguely peach-coloured liquid. He must have assumed I wanted peach flavour. Fair enough.
I sipped. Nay. I dipped my tongue into a puddle of heaven.
Sweetness: medium. Peach: fragrant. Earl Grey: perfectly balanced and complementary. Perfectly.
This infusion uses Noble & Sunday Earl Grey, the same tea Corentin uses in the mascarpone on the apricot tart.
You could never have convinced me my first perfect score would go to an iced tea served in a biodegradable plastic cup from a hole in the wall. I hold on to those stars like an evangelical gripping his pocket Bible.
Perfectly. Balanced.
