Whittard Chelsea 1886

As we have now officially entered the Autumnal drinks season I decided I wanted to have this experience at home.

I think the big thing for me is that I don’t enjoy sweet hot drinks and I don’t like milky hot drinks, so a PSL is often more of a disappointment than a highlight of the season.

I do quite like a Mocha and Costa used to do a spiced apple drink that didn’t have milk at all and while it was sweet, I enjoyed it and always looked forward to it.

Looking through had noticed a few Instagram posts showing Dunkin Donuts ground coffee and other brands, but it was always people in America. I googled it but the cost was ridiculous. I do know they have Dunkin shops in the UK but at the time it didn’t occur to me to go and look in a physical location.

Google led me to Whittards Chelsea ground coffee and this seemed promising, I’ve also been getting adverts for a Pumpkin Spiced tea from another brand and I noticed Whittards had  their own version as well this led me down the rabbit hole of doing a full order to make the order up to get free delivery and a free gift. What did I buy?

Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Flavour Ground Coffee

The description reads:

Conjure up a mug of wickedly warming spices and moreish mellow pumpkin – but be warned, these fang-tastic flavours have been known to tempt those vampires out for a daylight drink…

 The full ingredients list is:

·       Coffee

·       Flavouring (what they are seems to be a mystery)   

·       No added sugars or sweeteners

The reviews are also pretty good. Lots of 5 stars, not many descriptive comments other than I love this coffee, but one or two saying as good if not better than coffee shop coffees as it doesn’t use syrup.

We have a Swan Retro coffee machine, and it works well, being made that way but I’m not really up on my coffee terms. The website lists the grind type as: Omni-gride and is suitable for many different coffee machines, cafetieres, and other such methods.

What I also like is that it lists the preferred way to enjoy the coffee but for this blend, it seems like pretty much anything goes.

I’ve been having it just like an Americano with (oat) milk and I now have a milk frother and setting it to heat and the frothiest setting. I’m guessing that’s a bit cappuccino-like. I’ve been using Barista-style oat milk because that’s all we had in the back of the cupboard. We do usually have skimmed milk but we’d run out and I turned to the long life we had in the cupboard. I do go through a phase of using oat milk and it’s been working well. I’m yet to try it with cow's milk.

The enjoyment factor is there, I prefer it to Starbucks or AN Other coffee shop because it’s not as sweet, there is a sweetness there but I’m not sure if that’s from the milk. Yes, I miss the whipped cream, and do they dust it with something? I could do that myself if I got my shopping list organised.

Halloween Pumpkin Spiced Chai

Website description:

A rich, soft and mellow drink to keep you company as the nights draw in. Brimming with real pumpkin pieces, ginger and cinnamon for an aromatic, creamy drink that will leave you wanting more. We like to make a velvety chai latte, using warmed, frothed milk and a pinch (or two) of sugar.

I haven’t been drinking it this way, I’ve just been drinking it as black tea. I can’t remember the last time I drank tea with milk in but I might try it as it does sound delicious.

This time we do have a full ingredients list but flavouring is also mentioned:

Black Tea, Pumpkin (15%), Ginger (10%), Carrot, Flavouring, Cinnamon (5%), Cloves (3%)

There are only 4 reviews and they are all positive, one mentions they “cook” the tea in milk on the hob to infuse it more. I’m not sure I’d go down that route as I’m not a milk lover but I could see it working well.

As this is loose leaf tea, I did buy some fill your own tea bags as I wasn’t sure if we had a tea strainer but luckily one of my papa’s presents last year was this cute black cat infuser which we found in Kenji. It looks so good in my Halloween cups.

Drinking it as black tea has been very enjoyable, it’s warming, not overwhelmingly sweet and it feels like autumn.

I did pick up a couple of other items, as mentioned I bought the fill your own tea bags, which are exactly what it sounds like. Empty bags to fill with your own loose tea. I’ve used one and it worked well. I’m going to fill a few up to take to work with me.

The other items I haven’t tried yet are Afternoon Tea Loose Tea and standard coffee bags, was a free gift for spending £30. £30 is also the point at which you get free delivery and the amount I spent.

Once I try the other Items I might do a separate post on them or at least share them on Instagram but overall I’m happy with what I go.

It is more than what I would normally spend on tea and coffee. For reference, we get the giant drums of coffee from Costco. My dad’s heard it's made to the same “recipe/blend” as one of the big chain coffee places. I won’t name them as I don’t know how true that is but it’s decent and we get through a lot of it, tea wise we tend to stick to PG with the odd dabble into Twinnings if they’re on offer and the odd fruit or green tea but I do tend to buy supermarket own brands so this was a treat order for me. But It’s probably saved me more than £30 buying coffees out that I wouldn’t have enjoyed as much. This is a long-winded way of saying I think it was well worth it!

S x