Still Water – Eduard/ Besos de Café

If you are in Berlin, you simply must visit the KaDeWe. The food aisle in particular is full of interesting things to discover. This time, I tried a black tea with coffee beans and bought some immediately! Of course, I also prepared a cocktail with it.

The Eduard/ tea is the brainchild of tea sommelier Eduardo Molina. The Besos de Café blend combines black tea from Colombia with coffee beans. The tea is grown at an altitude of 1,800 metres, and I especially loved the subtle coffee flavour, with the tea shining through nicely. To make the drink, I used a cold drip infusion, but it might benefit from being left to brew overnight.

White Negroni of some sorts

I wanted to create a cocktail that preserved the subtle aromas of the tea while adding a few extra layers of flavour. I used unaged armagnac as a base and added a splash of vanilla eau de vie because it goes well with the coffee notes. Instead of gentian liqueur, I used a white aperitif liqueur, but kept the Kina Lillet-style wine aperitif.

As mentioned above, leaving it to brew overnight would have brought out the tea and coffee notes more prominently. Nevertheless, the combination of roasted flavours and White Negroni notes worked well. Apart from that, the armagnac’s pronounced fruitiness worked perfectly.