Every December we happily look forward to the Christmas teas that 52Teas puts together for their Christmas box. Our Sister will be giving us the daily low down on which teas made their way into the box this year . . . . .
The First Day of Christmas
Coconut French Toast with Cardamom Maple Syrup Black Tea
For the First Day of Christmas, 52 Teas gave to me….coconut crusted French toast with cardamom syrup! This was the tea of the week for June 15, 2015 and at that time I had not yet heard of 52 Teas, so I am really excited to have the chance to try this. It sounds like pure Heaven!
The dry leaf smell is creamy, maple-y, and coconut-y! There are big chunks of coconut and cardamom pods. Maple and cardamom tend to go well together and, in my humble opinion, coconut just goes well with almost anything!
I steeped this tea for about 3 minutes with very hot water and I also added just a tad bit of agave. This is so, so good! The cardamom shines through so well, its not overpowering though. Sometimes I feel that cardamom can add such an intense flavor and end up outshining the other ingredients, but here it just accents everything. The combination of coconut and maple add this nutty sweet and creaminess. I am very much enjoying this one, so this holiday TEAson (see what I did there?) is off to a fantastic start! I am going to enjoy the rest of this cup now and also finish the entire sample bag- and can I be honest with you guys? I feel like I haven’t done that in a really long time. I mean yeah I’ve found the teas I’ve been ordering to be very enjoyable, but to finish off the cup and the rest of the tea leaves? That’s rare for me these days so i’m really happy to be loving this tea so much.
So cheers to you and yours, enjoy this lovely symphony of flavor, and come on back tomorrow to see what I have to say about Day #2!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
I think we should kick off this holiday countdown with some BREAKFAST – don’t you? How about some delicious coconut crusted French Toast with a touch of butter and some sweet maple syrup that’s been infused with the warmth of cardamom? Sound good? Yeah, it sounds good to me too!
Here’s our original description for this tea:
This tea was inspired by a very memorable breakfast. Coconut crusted French toast that was topped with melted butter and a cardamom syrup. I went a step further and added maple flavoring because it sounded like a good idea. It tastes even better than it sounds!
I stuck close to the recipe here although there’s a bit more cardamom here than in my past versions. I wanted to highlight the cardamom!
organic ingredients: black teas, toasted coconut flakes, cardamom pods & natural flavors
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
My Morning Blend from The NecessiTeas. . . .
This robust tea is made from two simple, quality ingredients: black tea leaves and roasted cocoa beans. This tea has everything that is good about hot bold black tea, hot chocolate, and coffee. The black tea gives enough fresh tartness to keep the chocolate from being too sweet, and the roasted cocoa beans add a decadent smoothness that hints at the rich and nutty tones of coffee. No matter how long I steeped the leaves, the blend stays strong and smooth, with no bitter astringency.
Many black teas in people’s cupboards are English breakfast blends. I feel like My Morning Blend could easily be called American Breakfast, with all that Hershey chocolate flavor over the top of a welcoming tea brew (if we Americans weren’t already drinking coffee as the breakfast beverage of choice, that is).
I recently tried some cocoa shell tea for the first time, and found it to be a tasty, unique experience, a mix of sweet and salty, almost like chocolate-drizzled popcorn balls. Cocoa shells are well and good, but as a tea-lover, sometimes I just need that black tea undertone. My Morning Blend from The NecessiTeas was the perfect fix.
This blend takes milk like a champ, only growing more delicious and creamy with rich chocolate and toasty tea notes. This blend should be an essential on everyone’s tea shelf for those mornings when you want a cup that feels like putting on your favorite sweater and smells like your favorite cookies baking in the oven.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The NecessiTeas
Description:
If you are looking for a wake-me-up, perk-me-up cup in the morning, that’s off the beaten path of coffee, look no further. This strong black tea has the smoothness of chocolate, and the boldness of roasted cocoa beans. Doctor it as you would a cup of coffee, with milk and sugar to start off your day!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
D’s Teas– Pancake Breakfast, Marshmallow Treat, Graveyard Mist from 52Teas . . . ..
If you missed the announcement in my previous post, our beloved and super-talented tea-blending friends at 52 Teas have recently launched a permanent line (yes friends, you heard me correctly) of teas! D’s Teas features all of the ultimate fan favorites from 52 Teas over the years: Pancake Breakfast black tea, Marshmallow Treat genmaicha, and Graveyard Mist green tea. If you’re curious about the history behind these beloved blends, check out my previous post. If you’re ready to hear the low-down on their delightful sip-ability, you’ve come to the right place! Let’s chat about each one individually:
Pancake Breakfast: is where we start. A robust black tea with calendula petals offering a lovely, maple-syrup-y variance in color, this tea smells like straight-up starchy, delicious pancakes. When my samples of these three arrived, this was the one that I could smell through the package. THIS was the one that my dark-and-malty-tea-loving fiance was ready to tear into at a moment’s notice. It brews up beautifully strong, almost like an English Breakfast, with syrupy maple notes perfectly balanced alongside the starchy, bread-y flavors of cooked breakfast cake. There’s something magical about 52 Teas’ flavors: a maple tea is never just a one-note maple tea. Sure, you can add maple to a black tea and call it a day, but this blend harnesses all the nuance of a true pancake (sweet, bready, starchy, slightly savory, fully syrupy, a little buttery) and packs it all into one cuppa. This one, I’m happy to say, makes an incredible tea latte, sweetened with a hint of– you guessed it– maple syrup.
Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha: As a fairly new fan of genmaichas– roasty, toasty, popped-rice greens– I was eager to dive into this one. How would the flavors vary from the few standards genmaichas I’ve begun to dip my toes into? First things first– this one boasts the addition of marshmallow root, my favorite creamy-herbal addition to tea, kicking the flavors to next-level sweet n’ creamy. Still harnessing the traditional toasty-green that I’ve come to love from genmaichas, this one uses a matcha-infused genmaicha (as Anne explained in our interview) that gives this green the perfect vegetal kick to round out the sweetness of the marshmallow-y notes. I drank this one straight, but I’d love to see what a touch of foam on top does for that already-present creamy factor. Yet again, D’s Teas knocks it out of the park!
Graveyard Mist: Oh, this tea. This delicious, magical tea. I’d been lucky enough to give this one a try before, when Sororitea Sister Nichole aka CuppaGeek- shared a sampling from her precious stash. I’d heard Nichole rave about this one– minty, creamy, green, fresh– so frequently that she practically had me salivating. This tea truly lives up to the sense of place set by its slightly spooky name– picture a foggy, chilly morning, mist rolling in across a centuries-old stone graveyard– yup. If that mist had a flavor, it’d be green tea-meets-marshmallow-with-some-spearmint-for-fun, yah? Yeah. This tea is crisp and bright, with a pillow-y vanilla mouthfeel that is unmatched by any green I’ve ever had. It’s minty, sure, but it’s a more delicate, fresh, and vanilla-y mint than say, a traditional peppermint. Think those green star mint candies as opposed to the red. But better. This one is as spectacular on ice as it is hot, and defies all logic to be perfectly appropriate morning or night, any season, in any mood. It’s one of those tea, you guys– simply magical.
It’s clear why these three are the teas that Anne and her team chose to bring back permanently. 52 Teas devotees and newbies alike can now stock up on some of the blends that make this brand such a crowd favorite! And if these three are any indication, I’d recommend you stock up on as much as you can find. Even permanently-stocked, these are bound to be snapped up quickly.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black/Green
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
Every once in a while, we craft a very special tea – well, we think all our teas are pretty special! But sometimes, one is so special that it’s beloved by our customers and requested for reblends on a regular basis.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Lemon Chiffon from The Love Tea Company. . . .
I am not a fan of plain rooibos, but I have found a few flavored tisanes that use it as the base that are quite good. (I am speaking of red rooibos when I say the cherry flavor is too medicinal for me most of the time. Green rooibos is another animal entirely.)
This blend is really tasty! It smells great and the dominant flavors I get up front are lemon myrtle, lemon, and honeybush. The rooibos really comes as an aftertaste and is not unpleasant. The lavender and marigold are a nice side note, and if I am tasting pomegranate I must be honest and say I wouldn’t recognize it but it isn’t a flavor I am terribly familiar with.
This reminds me a bit of those lemon drops that come in a little tin. Thumbs up for me and I can’t wait to try it iced because it is going to ROCK as an iced tea!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: The Love Tea Company
Description
There’s a reason why we call this a brilliant blend. Remember that Lemon Chiffon cake that Grandma made? It’s like that, without the cleanup or pinches to your cheek. A rooibos blend that smells like you could eat it straight out of the jar. Since it has no caffeine, it’s the perfect compliment to any after dinner treat.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Peach Melba from Traillodge Tea. . . .
Caffeine doesn’t bother me as much as it does for some people but now that I have to go to sleep at a decent hour most nights to get up early for work, I try to make sure I have a selection of caffeine-free teas for the evenings. So now I am always on the lookout for good caffeine-free options. That is why when I saw this Peach Melba tea by Traillodge Tea in a traveling teabox, I had to give it a try.
This tea is made of organic rooibos, organic honeybush, organic apple bits, organic raspberry bits, organic marigold, and natural flavor. I decided to cold brew it overnight because more often than not, cold brewing tames the base flavors and allows the other ingredients to shine. That was my hope for this tea.
That doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case because there is a lot of honey notes from the rooibos and honeybush. The flavorings are subtle so they are taking back seat to the base which luckily is not medicinal or woody. I do get some raspberry but honestly I am just left wanting more. More raspberry. More peach. Just more flavor overall. If I had blindly tasted this tea, I don’t think I would have determined it was Peach Melba.
As far as rooibos and honeybush teas go, this is not bad but the flavors leave something to be desired. It was an okay drink but by no means Peach Melba. I don’t think this will be added to my line up of caffeine-free teas but it was fun to try.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Rooibos/Honeybush
Where to Buy: Traillodge Tea
Description
This is a Trail Lodge Exclusive tea. The inspiration for this herbal tisane came from eating a peach melba sundae, and just like the desert, this tisane is a refreshing treat. The sweet taste of fresh peaches combines perfectly with the tartness of raspberries. It’s as if summer has been captured in a cup of tea. This tisane is great hot or iced. Ingredients: organic rooibos, organic honeybush, organic apple bits, organic raspberry bits, organic marigold, and natural flavor.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
