Depending on where you live, you may have seen some snowflakes flying on the air this time of year, which would be the perfect time to brew up a cup of Snowflake tea from Aromatica Fine Teas.
This is an award-winning blend, taking 1st place in the North American Tea Championships in 2011. Thinking about tea championships puts some silly images in my head, like some kind of tea Olympics, with little packs of tea on a snowy downhill ski slope. Anyway, the story is getting away from me.
Like beautiful, white, creamy snowdrifts, this black tea is blanketed with extra vanilla and creamy flavors. This tea is somewhere between a breakfast blend and a dessert blend, so that means it can be brewed up just about any time of day. In addition to the vanilla, there are coconut flakes, which add their usual creamy, buttery taste. Luckily there’s not too much coconut, and this moderation keeps the brew from getting too oily.
What really sets this blend apart are the real slivers of almond. These stylish blonde slivers go beyond the typical marzipan flavoring, and add real, sweet, nuttiness from actual nuts as ingredients. With smooth almond and lush coconut shavings, this tea taste a bit more like a coconut cookie than a simple coconut cream tea.
Overall, Snowflake is a really solid vanilla tea blend, super drinkable and smooth. I drank it black, but it would amazing as a latte or made hot-cocoa-style, topped with marshmallows. The blend isn’t too sweet, nor too plain.
I know coconut is traditionally a tropical flavor, but with a name like Snowflake, this can be your next favorite winter brew.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Aromatica Fine Teas
Description:
A fabulous almond coconut tea. Brew it in steamed milk for a Tropical Fog. Ceylon and China black tea, coconut rasps, flavour, almond flakes.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Christmas Night from Tea Taxi. . . .
Christmas Night. What do you expect? Pine and orange and clove, right? Wrong. This is a black tea with chocolate and ice cream bits and strawberry pieces and it smells ah-may-zing. Like a strawberry milkshake and since I love strawberry milkshakes, this is alright in my book.
To be honest I was saving this and then forgot about it so this sample is old but still smelled great so I had high hopes and since I had about 25 grams to work with, I decided to make this a variety of ways: plain, latte, and a smoothie.
My fear was the ice cream and chocolate would make the plain cup oily. I am pleased to say that is not the case. Unfortunately, in addition to the lack of oil there is also a lack of taste. I wonder if age is the culprit here because as I drink it, there is a faint memory of that strawberry milkshake, one that is far off in the distance and only slightly hanging on.
The latte suffers from the same issue as the plain cup, lack of flavor. This is creamier, obviously thanks to the milk and that is either tricking me into getting more of a slight strawberry ice cream flavor (or that flavor is actually there and the milk brought it out). It also has a little more of a plain black base flavor which doesn’t add anything so I am not too impressed with that either.
Finally, the tea smoothie. Prepped with chocolate pudding, skim milk, frozen strawberries and bananas, and a strawberries and chocolate jam. So, this certainly does not lack flavor. I think the tea is adding a candy/syrup-like quality to the overall flavor. The other strawberry components are more true-to-the-fruit but this smoothie has more of a syrupy sweet strawberry note than others I have had in the past.
I wish I got to this sooner because I feel like it has potential. Alas, despite proper storage (vacuum-sealed bag in a tea tin in a drawer in a dark room), the flavor deteriorated (or there was never flavor at all). That seems to be the case though with these eccentrically flavored teas.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Tea Taxi
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below for teas that are.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Downton Christmas Black Tea from Republic of Tea. . . .
I swear one of these days I will FINALLY start Downton Abbey…really I will! Until then…I have a nice selection of Downton Abbey themed teas from various companies to review…including this one from Republic of Tea. It’s called Downton Abbey Christmas Black Tea.
So what is this bagged tea made up of? Mulling spices including cinnamon, cloves, allspice and other fragrant herbs. Many of these spices have been infused into wine and cider since Victorian England and it’s what inspired this blend. Of course it also contains premium black tea and paired with the warmth of traditional mulling spices it offers a truly festive cup that will fill your manor with an aroma of the holidays, according to The Republic of Tea and it’s paraphrased description of this tea.
Personally, I first sampled this tea post-Christmas. I found it to be lovely, warming, of medium strength, and ending more spicy than when it first started. It was a decent cuppa. A good option for small groups of friends.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Republic of Tea
Description
Mulling spices – featuring cinnamon, cloves, allspice and other fragrant herbs – have been infused into wine and cider since Victorian England. Here we blend premium black tea with the warmth of traditional mulling spices for a truly festive cup that will fill your manor with an aroma of the holidays.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
On the 8th Day of Christmas 52Teas Sent To Me (Spoilers!)
Continuing with our 12 Days of Christmas countdown, today I was excited to scratch off the label and see a flavored green tea. So if you are following along and don’t want to be spoiled on what today’s tea is, you might want to stop reading here. You’ve been warned 🙂
The 8th Day of Christmas Tea is. . . ..Buttered Spiced Rum Green Tea.
Today was a day where I drank a lot of black teas so to see a green tea was such a great change of pace. This tea had all of the aroma of a typical chai with a soft overlaying sweet layer. Steeped up per the parameters indicated on the back of the pouch, I let the tea cool for the 5 minutes recommended and took my first sip.
As much spice as I picked up from the dry leaf, I was happy to see that the spices weren’t overpowering and the tea itself had an incredibly lovely sweet touch. I’m assuming that is the Buttered Rum part coming to play. The green tea base just adds to the sweet buttery feel that this tea really exudes.
All in all, a wonderful tea that reminds you of a chai without having those strong chai flavors. Basically a chai for non chai drinkers like myself. I love the fact that the tea base is green tea too. Just calms those spices down so they don’t smack you in the face at the beginning of every sip.
Here is the official tea description and Mad Musings. I write my review before looking at the official description.
Tea Description: Hot Buttered Rum is a traditional winter drink – something that will help warm you up when it’s cold outside. As I’ve often mentioned, I’m not much of a drinker of alcohol – tea is my drink of choice – but I still enjoy the idea of a warm, soothing cup of hot buttered rum – so I decided to create a tea that brought those flavors to life while still enjoying my favorite drink.
I chose a buttery Chinese Sencha as my base because I felt that the natural buttery tones of the tea would highlight the ‘buttered’ part of the buttered rum. Then I added a few spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. The spices aren’t overwhelming because I wanted a gentle, warm spice flavor but not something that would overpower the flavors of creamy butter and rum. A couple of the recipes that I found online for Hot Buttered Spiced Rum called for orange zest – instead, I added some dried orange segments. The orange flavor is delicate here, just a touch of orange to brighten the cup. As I already mentioned, my goal was to highlight the buttered rum flavor so I didn’t want those flavors overwhelmed by other profiles in this blend.
The result is a gentle, warm, soothing beverage. Something that makes me want to curl up next to a crackling fire and read a good book. This one’s really nice!
organic ingredients: green tea, oranges, cinnamon, ginger, clove, allspice, nutmeg and natural flavors.
This one required a little bit of tweaking for me to get it just the way I wanted it. The first time I tested it, I wasn’t getting enough of a buttered rum flavor. Oh, I could taste them, but they seemed to be lurking somewhere in the distance. The second time I tested it, the buttered rum flavor was a little more dominant which made me happy, but I wasn’t getting enough from the spices. So I added a few more spices to the blend before I tested it for the third time.
Now that’s the stuff!
I managed to get a nice balance between butter and rum here – and it ends up tasting a lot more like the candies (you know, the popular candies with the hole in the middle?) – like, imagine if you were to liquefy the candies and add that liquid to a cup of green tea – yeah, that’s the flavor I’m getting here. I haven’t really had a hot buttered rum recently (I seem to remember being offered a sip of the drink once when I was young but it either: a) not memorable, or; b) I was either drunk or well on my way to getting there so I don’t remember what it tasted like. I was a bit more of a drinker in my youth than I am today.
The orange is delicate but it develops as I continue to sip. Now that I’m more than halfway finished with my cup, I’m picking up on just a little more orange. Still not a dominant flavor – it’s still much more there than it was at the start and I also notice a hint of tangy citrus lingering on my palate in the aftertaste.
The spices are not strong – this isn’t meant to taste like a chai – but they’re definitely there.
Overall, I think that this drink comes together really nicely. It’s warm and cozy – like something you might want to sip after coming in from the snow. Something soothing and calming and really pleasant.
To brew: Give the pouch a gentle shake to make sure that the spices are incorporated throughout the blend. I used a rounded teaspoon – with Chinese Sencha, it might be easier to use a regular teaspoon from the cutlery drawer rather than one of those ‘perfect’ teaspoons because the leaves are long and spear-like and they don’t fit very well in that perfect teaspoon measuring spoon. Steep in 12 ounces of hot water (heated to 180°F) and let steep for 2 1/2 minutes. Strain and let cool for about 5 minutes. Enjoy.
I personally think that this tea is better hot rather than cold so don’t let it cool too long! Also, a small dollop of honey will accentuate the spices in a very pleasant way so I highly recommend it!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Flavored Green Tea
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below to see what is.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Enjoying some Winter Cheer from The Virginia Tea Company
Over the weekend, we received some winter weather. Ice, Sleet, Snow. . .just a good ol fashioned winter storm that makes you want to snuggle down in your favorite pajamas, wrap up in your favorite blanket, and drink insane amounts of tea all day long while binge watching your favorite show.
Well, I wasn’t able to get all of those items knocked off my list today, but I did drink insane amounts of tea. Of this tea to be exact!
If you aren’t familiar with The Virginia Tea Company, take a moment and check out their teas and what they have to offer. I’ve been quite impressed with their hand blended creations that are both delicious, fresh, and quite simply as soul soothing as you can get.
This particular blend, Winter Cheer, is chalk full of all the wonderful holiday spirit. Black tea, peppermint, and cinnamon. And when I say cinnamon and peppermint, I mean huge gorgeous chunks of cinnamon in a bed of black tea leaves and peppermint. This is one of those teas that you find yourself just enjoying the dry leaf aromas so much. At least I did.
After finishing my first cup of this tea, I have to say this tea delivers. Delivers on taste, quality, freshness,. . this tea is Winter Cheer personified in a cup. The black tea notes gorgeously mingle with the sweet cinnamon and the peppermint provides a much welcomed freshness that keeps you drinking this tea. I’m on my third infusion of the same tea leaves and I’m still getting all of the love I got from the first cup. . .just slightly weakened.
What a fabulous way to enjoy the holidays and winter weather we are now experiencing and will continue experiencing. Highly recommend this one to keep you snugly and warm this winter!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Flavored Tea
Where to Buy: The Virginia Company
Description
Sit back and relax with your family this holiday season while sharing this delicious, guilt-free tea.
Ingredients: Organic Black Tea*, Organic Peppermint, Organic Cinnamon
*Fair Trade Certified™ by Fair Trade USA. This product is 66% Fair Trade.
Caffeine: High
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!