Ingredients · Other

Yogurt

Yogurt
Yogurt pieces — dried, sweetened yogurt coating, in an eggnog blend. One product carries it. It does what no plant ingredient in a tea can: it makes the cup taste creamy and slightly tangy without any milk being added.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partDairy
KindOther
CaffeineCaffeine-free
TasteCreamy and lightly tangy with a sweet coating; it makes a cup taste of milk without milk

How to use it

It melts into the cup rather than steeping, and sweetens as it goes. Stir it. Best in a blend drunk hot.

With food

Nutmeg and cinnamon. Vanilla. Rum. Almond. Shortbread.

With spices

Nutmeg above all. Cinnamon. Vanilla. Cloves. Cardamom.

With tea

Black tea and rooibos, in a dessert blend.

Its story

Where it comes from

Our lot does not name a manufacturer or give a composition; yogurt pieces of this kind are typically a sugar and vegetable-fat coating with yogurt powder in them, rather than dried yogurt alone.

What happened

Yogurt in a dessert tea is a modern blending trick and not a very old one. The interesting part is what it is standing in for: eggnog, the drink this blend is named after, is a spiced dairy punch whose ancestors run back through posset — hot milk curdled with wine or ale and spiced — which was being drunk in Britain from the medieval period. George Washington served visitors a version made with rye whiskey, rum and sherry. A tea that tastes of eggnog without any dairy being poured is, in that light, a fairly inventive piece of shorthand.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.