In a last-ditch effort, I idly Googled 'tea and chocolate' and somehow ended up at a site advertising chocolate and green tea face masks. Now, we all know chocolate makes us more beautiful thanks to its powerful antioxidants and green tea is often heralded for its detoxifying properties, but did you ever think of mixing them together and slapping them on your face?
While I was playing around with a homemade version - mixing a bit of green tea that I'd smashed to bits with a mortar and pestle with cocoa and a spoonful of manuka honey (also good for the skin) - it occurred to me that this trio could also make a delicious drink. In the time it took the kettle to boil I'd spread half the chocolatey goo on my face and scooped the remainder into a tea cup. I'm not sure that it made me any more beautiful but my skin did feel nice afterwards - and the chocolatea was delicious.
We drink buckets of peppermint tea at our house and so a peppermint version was the logical next step. I didn't spread this one on my face (there's only so much beautifying a Kitchenmaid can take in a day), but the tea smelled and tasted like a liquid After Dinner Mint. If I could distill this into a perfume I reckon I'd make a, err, mint...
Beautiful Chocolate Honey Tea
If you'd prefer to spread this on your face than drink it, here are a few handy hints. Use green or peppermint tea from a teabag (or matcha tea powder, if you're posh) to save yourself the trouble of grinding up leaves in a mortar and pestle. Otherwise you'll end up with scratchy twiggy bits on your face, which will be rather more exfoliating than you may like. Just mix the cocoa, tea and honey into a paste (add a drop of olive oil if it seems too thick), spread it on your face and lie down for 10 minutes. Wash off gently with a facecloth.
2tsp cocoa
2tsp honey
2tsp green or peppermint tea (about a teabag or two's worth)
Put all ingredients in a fine china cup and mix to a paste. Add just-boiled water and stir briskly. Sit and drink while thinking beautiful thoughts. Pin It
Honey and chocolate sounds good to me.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a combination of all of my favourite things! I have made my own contribution to Sweet Sweet "NZ" Friday (given that I have another day to wait until the end of the Canadian week) and have just put into the oven chocolate brownie: 1 packet of chocolate brownie mixture, 1 egg, 1/3 cup of water and 1/4 cup of oil - voila... it's cooking! (Can you even call this baking?! I feel like a fraud) Have a lovely weekend xx
ReplyDeleteOoh it's been years since I've had peppermint tea, and with chocolate, delicious!!. It's at the top of the shopping list tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteVery creative and I'm so pleased you didn't give up altogether. It was a tough challenge this month but it has been so much fun seeing what everybody has come up with. Thanks for taking part ;0)
ReplyDeletewow! that sounds amazing!!
ReplyDeleteI love that you made a drink... such a refreshing departure.. and mint and chocolate a surely a classic combo... much love to you and yours during what must be a tuff time xx
ReplyDeleteI loved this post and did a suitable amount of guffawing as I did so. Great to have a beauty mask entered as well as the drink. I had initially thought the yellow blob was egg yolk so was rather relieved to see it was honey. Glad you came up with something and thanks for entering.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a fun time for you all in NZ at the moment. Keep meaning to ask you where you live - not anywhere around Christchurch I hope.
I do love a good After Dinner Mint so will definately give this a try!
ReplyDeleteI must say this is a really simple and intriguing sounding recipe! I'd love to drink it and slather it all over my face. Much better than those chocolate spas where you aren't allowed to eat the products (duh). :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Hope everything is okay for you in NZ. I'm assuming you are not in Christchurch if you are still blogging. However, having lived through the plane coming down in Lockerbie only five miles away, I know that the repercussions affect everyone. Thinking about you. X
ReplyDeleteThis sounded so simple yet yummy I dashed straight downstairs to make it, only to be discover we have no cocoa or chocolate in the house! Never mind, I imagine this will make a great monday-morning pickme up tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so yummy. Must try it, not on the face since lazy on that front (bit late now, anyway) but hopefully on drinking it would lead to a better complexion! Lovely combination of flavours and good for you, too.
ReplyDeleteahhh, the wonderful power of "idle googling"! The number if things I've eaten, cooked, bought, discovered through thinking, "I wonder what will come up if I put that into google"
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Cocoa, honey and tea; simple but sur' the best ideas are, aren't they!
ReplyDeleteI love the flavour combinations. I'm also prone to idly googling with occasional disastrous and mostly hilarious results! :)
ReplyDeleteNew to me but I think it is a very nice drink. A friend taught me to make a drink with tea and coffee combined....delicious. Thanks very much for sharing. MaryMoh at http://www.keeplearningkeepsmiling.com
ReplyDeleteI love this post, a face mask and a drink - who would have thought. I didn't make the deadline and have been faffing with earl grey truffles which have been disastrous and are currently being reinvented into biscuits.
ReplyDelete