Tardis Tea Ice Cream: Better Astronaut Ice Cream

Remember those super trendy freeze-dried packets of "astronaut ice cream" that every science museum, art museum, or store that considered itself cool sold? While freeze dried foods are a fascinating novelty, do they actually taste that good? Not really. I mean, the freeze dried ice cream was actually pretty good given that ice cream is a delightful mixture of cream and sugar at its core. So even sucking the moisture out of it can't really do that much damage.



But here, I present an ice cream all astronauts, real and fictional alien ones, would probably enjoy. A bit of caffeine, some fruit, and some leaves- all part of a balanced space traveling diet. Though I get the impression that Doctor 12 is maybe not an ice cream type of person, or am I just grumpy old person stereotyping? He could very well be the exact opposite and be that crazy old man that subsists on ice cream. Related to that, ice cream for breakfast, while helpful with the whole natural lighting photography thing (which I still need to seriously work on), does not keep you full until lunch.

So what exactly is Tardis tea? It's this awesome early grey tea blend with blueberry and vanilla notes created in honor of Doctor Who! The blueberry is clearly meant to be associated with Tardis blue, and earl grey I suppose embodies the BBC. The tea leaves from this smell straight up amazing and as close to fantasy and exploration as a scent could possibly come close to. While the tea brews slightly on the bitter side when drinking it, the cream and sugar in the ice cream base more than help balance out the bitterness. For extra measure, I also added in a swirl of blueberry sauce, which gave it a nice pretty streak of purple/blue too.



Of course, Tardis tea ice cream isn't exactly a common Tazo or Twinnings or Celestial Seasonings tea, but normal earl grey works perfectly in this recipe. Heck, the recipe I adapted this from is an earl grey ice cream recipe. I've been pretty successful with my attempts at tea-based ice creams in the past making green tea and chai tea and now this Tardis tea ice cream. That just about covers the bases of my favorite teas. I usually hate drinking fruity teas, but now I'm thinking they might have a redeeming place in tea-infused ice creams now. Even if you're an anti-tea person, tea ice cream might just be the type of tea you've been waiting to be offered your whole life!

Sidenote-isn't it kinda awesome that freeze drying food was invented thanks to NASA and the amazing energy and funding that we poured into scientific exploration back in the day? Take that Ted Cruz! Not to mention like the gazillion other maybe slightly more useful things in our lives aside from freeze dried foods.

Tardis Tea from Adagio Teas
Earl Grey cream recipe via Gimme Some Oven
Blueberry sauce via My Baking Addiction