It is always a thrill to find a new favorite fall tea. With so many sweet caramel pumpkin teas or apple-pie-spiced blends, Sweet Tea O’Mine from The Goat Tea was a wonderful new take on the pumpkin spice tea.
This is a honeybush and rooibos based tea, which makes it naturally caffeine free and perfect for late night brewing. Along with the herbal leaves, there is puffed rice like a traditionally green genmaicha tea. I have a soft spot for the starchy, almost savory genmaicha teas with puffed rice, so I was thrilled to find a new tea with this ingredient. The honeybush and puffed rice compliment each other’s nuttiness, making for a rich and warming flavor combination.
Meanwhile the familiar autumn spices are still there, nutmeg and mace to name the key players. This makes the tea have plenty of that pumpkin spice taste, but with a pleasant woodsy undertone from the herbal leaves. I also appreciate that the blend isn’t too sweet or artificial. There is a medium sweetness with lingering flavors like brown sugar or molasses.
With its roasted wheat and toasted rice flavors this tea captures all the best parts of corn mazes and hay bales and gets me suitable excited for the upcoming 2019 fall season.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: herbal
Where to Buy: The Goat Tea
Description:
Who says Pumpkin can only be for one season? Enjoy a cup of this sweet tea, swirling with the taste of pumpkin, caramel, and cinnamon. It is like fall in your mouth.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
52Teas’ the 12 Teas of Christmas – Day 10-Spoilers!
Day 10!
Day 10 and we are really getting festive now with Yunnan Eggnog.
I feel like eggnog gets a lot of love and hate over the holidays. I get it, it’s not for everyone. But I like a cup of lactose-free nog now and then over the holidays. It’s like a cross between milk and vanilla pudding. It’s weird, I know.
This Yunnan Eggnog tea has a very appealing scent in the dry leaf. There’s spice, but it is not the usual chai tea trio of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger; instead there’s something a little more unusual like nutmeg or allspice. There is a sweet peppery flavor that might be from the spice or the tea itself.
Brewed, the tea is both bold and mellow, with lots of raisin and fig flavors and an undertone of crushed leaves earthiness. Without milk, this blend focuses on yunnan and all of its golden caramelly goodness. Just a touch of spice reminds you this is a holiday blend, suitable for sipping while you deck the halls.
A splash of milk does wonders to bring out the eggnog part of this blend. The milk adds a thicker mouthfeel that is more similar to eggnog, and lets a little more of the spice peek through. Not to mention, you can enhance the whole experience by grating some fresh nutmeg into your mug and filling your kitchen with the scent of the holidays.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description:
Organic Royal Golden Yunnan infused with organic eggnog flavors, cinnamon chips, marigold petals and a touch of nutmeg. This long, tippy-leafed Yunan steeps a smooth cup with rich aroma and superb taste. The hints of creamy eggnog and spices just makes it an extra special treat.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Organic Masala Chai from Hope and Glory
We’ve been having some tropical weather lately, so today was much cooler and rainier than usual for this time of year. I do appreciate cool weather when I can get it, especially because after a few days/weeks/months of summer I get tired of not being able to have any hot tea after 8AM without overheating and getting a migraine. So to celebrate the great rainy weather, I decided to have a big mug of milky chai right in the middle of the day; and fortunately for me, I was lucky enough to have a sample of Hope & Glory’s organic masala chai on hand!
The back of the sample packet said to simmer the tea with milk and water for 5-10 minutes, so that’s what I did. (I know this means my review won’t be much use to people who can’t drink milk, and I apologize. I once tried to make my lactose-intolerant brother a chai latte but I was unprepared to adapt to using soymilk and to make a long story short, he probably still dislikes spiced chai. But I digress.) I then strained it into my tall latte mug and added a few teaspoons of sugar and a little cream.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Hope and Glory
Description
A full-bodied blend of organic Ceylon black tea and spices, Masala Chai derives from the Hindi literally meaning ‘mixed-spice tea’. Spices such as cardamom and cinnamon have been expertly blended to give a warming, rich blend of flavours and a sweet aroma.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Rajah Collection Organic Masala Chai from Hope & Glory
I have to say I have being having so much fun going thru the Hope & Glory Shipment that was sent and Rajah Collection Organic Masala Chai from Hope & Glory is one of those teas that I am VERY MUCH enjoying thus far!
I LOVE the packaging! It goes along with their brand. It’s colorful and clean. The packaging also explains a lot with very little wordage. It’s eye-catching and easy to comprehend while on-the-go! On the back of the package I am looking at for the Rajah Collection Organic Masala Chai from Hope & Glory offering I noticed the ingredient breakdown and ratio.
The leaf grade of the Rajah Collection Organic Masala Chai from Hope & Glory is Orthodox Leaf – FBOP. This blend of ingredients are 70% Organic Ceylon Black Tea, 30% fresh blend of organic spices which are made up of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, and black pepper.
I really appreciate the fact that Hope & Glory used 70% for the ratio of black tea base to the 30% chai spices. The chai spices are perfectly done to my own personal liking. The spices are not over powering nor are they too weak – they are JUST RIGHT! Rajah Collection Organic Masala Chai from Hope & Glory is quite thrilling and certainly a tea I will be sharing with MANY.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Chai (Black Tea Base)
Where to Buy: Hope & Glory
Description: A full-bodied blend of organic Ceylon black tea and spices, Masala Chai derives from the Hindi literally meaning ‘mixed-spice tea’. Spices such as cardamom and cinnamon have been expertly blended to give a warming, rich blend of flavours and a sweet aroma.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Angry Pumpkin Black Tea from Design a Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Design a Tea
Tea Description:
A nice hardy blend of pumpkin and nutmeg with a black tea base. Served hot, will fill the room with the aroma of a “beautiful pumpkin”. Those were his words- I know, lame! .
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I hate to admit it, but I have a double standard when it comes to tea names. I absolutely hate it when a company will skirt around what type of tea something is, “It’s a deeply shaded fukamushi sencha harvested in the summer, steamed to perfection.” I get it. Just say it’s a gyokuro already! But when it comes to blended and flavored teas, the more ridiculous the better.
That is why I had to try this tea from Design a tea. I have so many questions. Why is this pumpkin angry? What happened in this tea’s life to make it so furious? Will it make me angry when I drink it? There is only one way to find out.
I brewed up 5g in my 12oz teapot for around 4 minutes. The resulting brew was like an autumn hug. Usually pumpkin flavorings fall short for me, but in this tea, the pumpkin was at the forefront of the brew. Luckily, it wasn’t an aggressive pumpkin. It was sweet and complimented the spices and the black tea base.
I suppose you cannot have a pumpkin tea without putting in some pumpkin pie spices. This particular blend highlighted the use of nutmeg. It was a good idea in theory, but the blend also had cinnamon chips. Yes, it is listed as the last ingredient, but the cinnamon tried it’s hardest to overpower the nutmeg. Throughout all this fighting for attention, what I get is a sweet slice of pumpkin pie. For my first fall-themed tea of the year, it definitely gets me pumped up for more. Bring it on!
I still don’t know what makes this pumpkin so angry, and the other flavors are not that aggressive either. The black tea base is mellow, sweet, with notes of sweet potato. This is a tea with a soothing profile, but I think the name Mellow Pumpkin would not sell as well. Thankfully, it did not make me angry to drink it, and I happily gulped down my pot of Angry Pumpkin to celebrate the beginning of October!
