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!
I’m CooCoo for White Coco Choco Chai from Nelson’s Tea
When I’m trying to cut caffeine, but still want some chai spice, I often drink nutty rooibos chais or lemony herbal chais. Depending on the blend and my mood, these alternatives can be tasty, but sometimes I find myself wanting more. White Coco Choco Chai from Nelson’s Tea is the perfect solution.
This tea has a white tea base along with the usual suspects of chai spice: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom. But it also has the addition of allspice, black pepper, coconut and chocolate chips. There’s the same heat I know and love from black tea chais, the kick of ginger and pepper, but there’s also a creaminess from the coconut and chocolate that gives decadence and body where the black tea is absent. The white tea base is light on the caffeine and astringency, making for a spice-driven cup that’s okay to drink just about any time of day.
This tea is like an x-ray, just the white bones of a chai; spice, distilled. Even in the bag, it’s lovely to look at with big cardamom clusters, allspice pods, cinnamon bark, and the white curls of coconut shavings. The tea leaves seem so few in proportion! The smell of this blend in the bag and while brewing is strong and cozy, filling my kitchen with its spicy scent. This tea has all the comfort of a delicious baked good, livened up with the zing of allspice and pepper.
I got to taste just a few cups from a small tea sample, but I will definitely be stocking up on White Coco Choco Chai from Nelson’s Tea as soon as I can!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Nelson’s Tea
Description:
Spicy chai blend in a warm and sweet white tea base with succulent chocolate and coconut. It’s dessert in a cup.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Pumpkin Spice Chai from The Tea Spot
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black Tea (Chai Tea)
Where to Buy: The Tea Spot
Tea Description:
Our seasonal Pumpkin Spice Chai may soon become your favorite tea to look forward to each Fall and Winter! This chai blend boasts a perfectly-balanced full leaf Assam black tea base with cinnamon, clove, cardamom, allspice, and pumpkin flavor to get you warmed up for Fall. This tea makes an amazing pumpkin latte with the simple addition of steamed milk. This seasonal treat will have you jumping in piles of rainbow-colored leaves in no time!
Features:
- Premium pumpkin spice tea
- Black tea origins: Assam, India
- 1 LB Bulk = $0.16 / Serving
- Gluten-free & Sugar-free
Ingredients: black tea, ginger root, cardamom, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, pumpkin flavoring
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
It’s been too long since my last REALLY GREAT Pumpkin Chai and this Pumpkin Spice Chai from The Tea Spot is just what I was looking for! Sure the ingredients include black tea, ginger root, cardamom, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, pumpkin flavoring…but it’s much more than that. The flavors meshed well together. Everything was powerful but nothing overpowered anything else. The pumpkin flavoring was outstanding! I make special note of this because I have had some really questionable pumpkin flavors in tea over the years but this was among the best I have had!
Pumpkin Spice Chai from The Tea Spot provided me with a complete tea experience from beginning to end! From the moment I opened the bag until long after my last sip! It smelled wonderful, it tasted exceptional, the quality of everything was top notch, and when I was done with my last sip I craved more! Needless to say Pumpkin Spice Chai from The Tea Spot didn’t last long in my tea stash!
Coconut Cream Banana Black Tea from Murchie’s Tea & Coffee
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Murchie’s Tea & Coffee
Tea Description:
Murchie’s Coconut Cream Banana Tea combines fine black teas with coconut and bananas. This cup of tea is ripe with the flavour of the islands and is as decadent as banana cream pie!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This one comes from a tea friend of mine on Steepster; the store it comes from is located in British Columbia, and not one I’ve had much experience with – just tried different samples in various tea swaps. Their website seems quite nice though, and pretty easy to navigate!
This one definitely has a very banana heavy smell with somewhat of a pudding like quality to it; so I guess that comes from the ‘cream’. I cold brewed this one ‘cause that’s just what I do; it definitely was a lot like I expected it to be but did have a few surprises.
The banana was certainly one of the stronger notes, and very candy like. In addition to having somewhat of a pudding like flavour it reminded me quite a bit of those banana marshmallow candies that you can find in convenience stores for five cents. People tend to have polar opinions on those; you either love or hate them. Personally, I can’t get enough. If you put a big bowl of them in front of me I would lose all self control and eat every last one, and probably get really sick as an added bonus.
The coconut is also very strong, though it tastes a touch off. It has an almost oily or greasy buttery flavour to it, which I find is something I’ve come to associate with shredded coconut that’s just starting to turn bad. Despite not totally meshing, it did sort of work with the tea though; that buttery flavour I dislike tied in a bit with the banana marshmallow vibe to create something that kind felt a little more confectionery instead causing me to feel wary.
I didn’t like the black base a whole lot either; I felt like it was noticeably a lower quality base with a lot of flavourings intended to cover that up – some I kind of observed with another flavoured black from this company, though it wasn’t as noticeable with that blend. And, something about the use of it here reminded me a little bit of ash. Only very lightly; but that’s still not a flavour you necessarily want to be experiencing with a “Banana Cream” tea. As for the all spice, that’s actually one thing about this that I felt pretty neutral about; it was barely present but what I could taste was nice and meshed fairly well with everything else going on. Though, I don’t think an absence of the allspice would have really affected the flavour either.
But I’m honestly probably making this out to seem a lot worse than it was in reality. The truth is I drank the entire 25 oz. cold brew with very little complaint or criticism until after finishing it and it wasn’t all that difficult to just tune into the fun, sweet banana notes. Overall, this probably balances out to be a relatively average tea. Wouldn’t necessarily recommend or serve it, but it’s not like I’d deliberately avoid it either.
Organic Teatox Tea from Fit Life Tea Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Fit Life Tea Co.
Tea Description:
Say goodbye to weight gain, bloating and digestive stress. Two daily cups of Organic Teatox can help burn fat, stimulate weight loss, boost your immune system and cleanse your digestive system.
Our pyramid tea bag extracts maximum flavor to infuse more essential oils and flavor into your cup. Steeping releases purifying dynamic ingredients that can ease bloating and, together with proper diet and exercise, help promote weight loss.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve never been one to go for the whole ‘detox’ or weight loss tea fads that are going around because I basically don’t buy it. I’ve been drinking tea for years and I simply do not believe that simply drinking tea (or a specially crafted tea blend) will cause significant weight loss. If you want to lose weight, you need to change your overall diet and you need to exercise. Drinking tea isn’t going to be your miracle weight loss cure. If it was, after drinking all the tea I’ve consumed over the last ten years, I’d have a body like Jennifer Aniston. I don’t.
But, that doesn’t mean that drinking tea doesn’t offer you some great health benefits because I believe that there are health benefits to tea. I just don’t think it’s the cure-all that some tea companies try to suggest in an effort to sell their product. But as long as you find a tea that also tastes great, there’s nothing wrong with adding tea to your diet to enjoy some health benefits.
But you’re not going to know if it tastes great until you try it – .so I decided that I’d give this Organic Teatox Tea from Fit Life Tea Company a try
To steep this tea, I placed 1 sachet in an 8 ounce teacup and heated freshly filtered water to 195°F. Then I poured the heated water over the sachet and let it steep for 6 minutes. Then I let it cool completely before I poured it into the Fit Life BPA-Free Plastic Bottle (I’ll review that in a few days!) and refrigerated it to get it nice and cold.
Before I let it cool, I did take a sip of the hot tea to determine if I liked it better hot or cold. (Since they did send me the bottle, I decided that I needed to try it iced!) And so I’ll start by saying that this tisane is definitely better iced. The hibiscus loses some of its biting tartness. Oh, it’s still tart, but, it’s not quite as tart as what I experienced from the hot tea.
Fortunately, the apple in this softens the tartness of the hibiscus just a bit. And the allspice gives it a nice little hint of spice. I think hibiscus is much better when it’s in the midst of some spice like it is here. The contrast between the warm spice and the tart hibiscus works nicely.
Overall, this is actually quite tasty. The combination of the tart hibiscus, the sweet apple and the warmth of the allspice creates a very palatable taste. I would recommend to not oversteep this, at 6 minutes, there is a pleasant texture to the drink, but I think if I had steeped it longer, it might have been a tad too syrupy. If you like that kind of texture from your hibiscus beverages – then go for it!
It surprises me to say this, but I’d drink this again. That’s not something I’d say often about a tea with hibiscus as the main ingredient, so kudos to Fit Life Tea!
Fit Life Tea Company has this Teatox in two different sizes, a 14 day detox and a 28 day detox.
