High Tea with Lipton

Sponsored by Nuffnang

Things I love: Cake. Hanging out with friends. Going somewhere special. New experiences. Great food and drink. Did I mention cake? Combined with a great cup of tea!

Lucky me got to indulge in all these things last Sunday when I attended the Lipton High Tea at the Masterchef Pop Up Restaurant. Lipton was sharing their new Pyramid Tea Bag range, and matched them with a gorgeous selection of goodies inspired by Masterchef contestants and some of Australia's most talented chefs. There are 16 flavours in the new Pyramids range, across all tea categories including traditional black teas, fruit and herbal teas. You can see from the picture below that the new pyramid shaped tea bag means that there are much larger tea leaves as well as real fruit pieces in the tea bags, allowing for a much richer and intense flavour. The tea has room to swirl around in the tea bag like it would if you were using a traditional tea pot. It was great being able to try several of the blends as mix and match them with the high tea cakes.

I actually didn't know that the event was to be held at the Masterchef pop up restaurant so arriving up on the Crown Rooftop to find this amazing tent buzzing with the Sunday lunch crowd was great fun. After we were seated and began checking out the teas on the sample paddle, Kylie from Masterchef Australia season 4 came over and had a chat with us. She was a firm favourite of ours during the series for her bubbly and sweet personality and in real life she was just as lovely!

First up I tried the Refreshing Mint tea. It's my herbal tea of choice as I don't drink coffee or black tea. I know, I'm weird. It was really lovely quality and had a crisp minty flavour. There are two mint teas in the range - Refreshing Mint and Green Tea with Intense Mint. Many of the herbal and green teas have lovely infusions - there are several varieties of green tea that are blended with Jasmine, Mandarin & Orange and Lemon. The specialty blends have a hint of the exotic and make them a perfect choice for treating yourself or to serve to guests. The fruit teas, including Forest Fruit, Peach & Mango and Passion Raspberry are ideal to drink without tea or sugar.

Our platter of goodies was divine. You know the classic Waldorf Salad? It was recreated in those yummy finger sandwiches. Seriously - they gave my Nan's finger sandwiches a run for their money and she is well known in my extended family as being the sandwich master. We also enjoyed buttery almond friands, popcorn macarons (amazing), caramel vegemite cups - yes! vegemite - just a salty hint, and the lolly bag cake. We looked around and everyone else was daintily trying a bite of this, and half of that - not us! The whole lot was delicious and we finished everything on the platter. It would have been rude not to, right?

I came along with my gorgeous friend and neighbour Bec. We agreed that our favourite High Tea goodies were the sandwiches and the popcorn macaron, but we differed in our favourite tea. While the Refreshing Mint was lovely, on a whim I decided to try the Orange Jaipur. It sounded quite exotic, like many of the Lipton Pyramid blends. I've definitely discovered a new favourite - it has a lovely flavour, but not too overpowering as orange can sometimes be. You can see the pieces of orange peel in the tea bag so you know it's the real deal. Bec's pick of the tea was the Russian Earl Grey. I was also able to take home some of the Green Tea as my husband loves it.

Now don't just take my word for it that the Lipton Pyramids range is great - try some for yourself!

*NOW CLOSED* Lipton is giving five of my readers a sample pack that includes eight different flavours in the range. Just pop over to the Lipton Pyramids site, check out the flavours and leave a comment telling me which one you are most keen to try first! Click here for the full giveaway terms & conditions.

Sssh I may have snacked on a few of the strawberries on display ;)

Thanks again to Lipton for having me at such a fantastic event.