Happy Holidays from Teatime Tuesday Reviews!

In my typical fashion, I missed Christmas, missed between-the-eves, and with only an hour left of New Years, am here with some holiday well-wishings! Yes, with that mug. Don’t judge me, it was a gift from my best friend! I think he knows me a little too well (both my interests and my sense of humor…)

I started this blog at the beginning of 2017, and have completed 52 weeks — a full year — of tea reviews. This blog does not have many readers — reviews only average around 4-5 views — but how does one measure success?

Tonight I am drinking a rooibos chai from AmberFreda, one of my favorite Etsy shops for herbal teas, as I reflect on the last year. (If you’d like to see my review of this tea, check out my Steepster account!) My very first review was also a Rooibos Chai, from Spice and Tea Exchange. The digital camera I’ve been using for the last year was from the early 2000s and is sold on Amazon for $18, but it was all I had. The pictures in that first review are terrible, but even with that awful camera, I figured out ways to work with it in subsequent reviews. (And I got a brand-new digital camera for Christmas, so starting next year, the picture quality is going to be getting much better!)

I was very new to tea then — that rooibos chai was one of the first looseleaf teas I’d tried, and was responsible for “getting me hooked.” I’ve found going back and trying some of those early teas I reviewed that my palate has changed and I don’t think they are as good as I did back then, but that tea continues to be one of my favorites… and much better than the rooibos chai blend I’m drinking right now (it’s the licorice root!)

I have learned so much about making tea this year. When I started out, I was still making tea with a microwave. Then I learned about using filtered water, and boiling water for different tea types at different temperatures, and using proper steep times to get the best flavor. I switched from teabags, to a “tea ball” infuser when I switched to looseleaf tea, until I started drinking oolongs and realized how cramped they were inside, and then started infusing in a “gravity well” infuser that allowed the leaf to freely float in the water and grow and expand. Each time I noticed how much richer and better the flavor of the tea was, and it was an eye opening experience.

This summer I went from knowing nothing about making iced tea, and while several mistakes were made along the way, I ended the season knowing several different methods of making really great iced tea. I have a good idea of what teas are best suited to cold steeping and which ones are best suited to hot steeping first, and then chilling.

I have slowly watched my palate change from having to sweeten all my teas to not needing sweetener at all, to finding myself enjoying experimenting with mixing different teas together, to adding herbs and spices to blends, and even trying to infuse tea into different foods and desserts. I also discovered that Lapsang Souchong gives me migraines!

And I don’t think I would’ve gained all this knowledge if I wasn’t reviewing tea!

So how does one measure success?

Well, considering all of that… I’d say this blog was pretty damn successful.

So what does 2018 have in store? The Tuesday reviews should continue, unless my health dictates I need a break. I do plan to do more reviews over at Steepster, so please check me out over there if you would like even more tea content — I really want to grow my Steepster presence this year! Since I know it is as hard to get WordPress folks to click a link somewhere else as it is to get Steepster folks to check out this blog, I may try to round up all my Steepster review links in a mass-link-post on “Steepster Saturdays” here on WordPress.

I also have lots of tea topics I have thoughts on, that aren’t necessarily reviews. When I have time, I may write on these in a Brewsletter! (Yes, I’m sure you find that as amusing as I do). This will probably release on Sundays, but sporadically.

Here’s to another year, teaple. Pinkie’s up!

Teatime Tuesday #52: Candy Cane

Hey there teaple! I’m so glad to have you for the final Teatime Tuesday of the year, and hope you all had a most wonderful Christmas holiday yesterday, for those that observe! I figured we’d get a little festive for teatime today, and look at a blend based on the classic holiday treat, peppermint candy canes!

I picked up this sampler of Candy Cane, a black tea from Adagio, which they describe as “premium black tea from Sri Lanka flavored with minty candy canes.” It actually is not one of their seasonal blends, but does tend to sell out around the holidays, so I’m glad I picked mine up last summer and stashed it away for the occassion!

This tea is made from black tea, candy cane pieces, peppermint leaves, and natural candy cane flavor. It smells very, very minty! I feel like I’ve just unwrapped one of those little complimentary peppermint candies that sit next to the register at a restaurant!

It is suggested to steep a teaspoon of tea in boiling water for three minutes. I usually steep my black teas a bit longer, but since I started free-steeping my leaves and my blacks get to open up more, I’ve found shorter steep times are suiting a lot of my teas better, so I figured I’d stick with the suggestion and make another cup with adjustments from there if needed. Looking at the finished steep, all the little bits of candy cane had completely melted even with such a short steep!

The tea steeps a nice brown color with some warm cherry notes. It has a very sweet, minty scent. The tea has a very smooth mouthfeel, and the flavor is very strong and full, tasting just like a peppermint candy! It is very naturally sweet from the melted crushed peppermints, that there is no astringency at all from the ceylon tea in the base, and usually I can pick up at least a bit from that type of black tea. The tea has a very strong, minty flavor, that leaves that brisk, cooling sensation on the tongue after each sip. The peppermint flavor is so strong, in fact, I find it overwhelming! If you’ve always wanted a tea with a very strong peppermint candy flavor, then this is the tea for you. To me it just seems like the flavoring is dominating the cup to the point of being cloying. I like peppermint, but I felt like it needed to back down just a little bit… I don’t mind someone wishing me a “Merry Christmas!”, but I’d rather they don’t scream it at the top of their lungs right in my face, you know?

It’s a very good tea, and that strong peppermint flavor definitely brings to mind holiday images of candy canes on a Christmas tree. It’s just a little strong, for my tastes, to take plain. I do find that when a tea has such a strong flavor they are really great for lattes, since the flavor will hold through the milk without having to make an extra strong infusion, so I figured, why not give it a try? So I set to work brewing a fresh cuppa tea. This time I decided to give it a slightly longer steep of five minutes, as I was curious if that might bring out some more of the ceylon black tea notes. (For the record, it didn’t change the flavor profile at all… the mint is strong with this one!) Then I frothed up some warm chocolate almond milk, and mixed them half and half! I decided I wanted to try to go for something sweet, chocolately, and minty!

Mmm! Now as far as I’m concerned, this is the way to take this tea! It goes from tasting like peppermint-candy-overload to a sweet, peppermint cocoa! Tasty and still perfect for the holidays! The milk helps cut back on how overbearingly strong the peppermint flavor is, but the flavor is strong enough to hold up fine through the milk, and using chocolate milk compliments the peppermint flavor well, and gives it a very creamy mouthfeel! Tea saved! *thumbs up*

Thanks so much for joining me for a year of tea! What will next year have in store? Who knows! All I know for certain is… keep that kettle on!

Teatime Tuesday #51: Winter Solstice

Hey there, teaple! Welcome back to Teatime Tuesday! This coming Thursday on the 21st is the winter solstice, the official first day of winter, so today I’ll be looking at a tisane named in honor of this yearly astronomical occurance!

This caffeine-free tisane is Winter Solstice from Fusion Teas. Fusion Teas describes this blend as “a cheerful, comforting blend of sweetness with a hint of spice. Warming notes of star anise and cinnamon bring to mind memories of Christmas morning, while tangy apple and hibiscus add a crisp note and fragrant orange peel rounds it out. Sweet fruity notes, spice and a hint of creamy almond create an enticing blend, reminiscent of spiced coffeecake with almond buttercream. Winter Solstice is light and bright: the perfect tea to represent hope for the new year and the coming spring.”

This tisane is comprised of apple pieces, orange peel, hibiscus blossoms, blackberry leaves, almonds, carrot, star anise, cinnamon, flavor, silver linden blossoms, cranberry, pomegranate arils, and rose petals. Like the Gingerbread Orange tea reviewed a few weeks ago, this tea smells strongly of orange and vanilla, reminding me of creamsicle, and I have to wonder when creamsicles became associated with the winter holidays, as to me the ice cream treat just makes me think of the summer! Huh. I can see some large pieces of cinnamon and anise in the leaf, but it doesn’t smell very spicy… just sweet and citrusy.

The recommended directions is to use a teaspoon and a half of leaf and to steep for five minutes in boiling water.

The tea steeped a very pale pink color, which just… didn’t seem quite right to me. I felt like it must have brewed up too weak to come out that color, but I had followed the recommended instructions, so I decided to try it anyway. It tasted just like the Gingerbread Orange tea, except lacking the sweet spicy finish that tea had. My gut instinct told me another cup was in order… it just didn’t… feel right!

This time I shook up the bag of ingredients well, and upped the amount of leaf from a teaspoon and a half to two teaspoons. I felt like I wasn’t getting a good mix of the tisane ingredients, with so many of the ingredients being so large and bulky, and felt that the first cup may have been lacking in the leafier ingredients like the leaves and petals. I kept the water temperature and steep length the same. Just looking at the steeping ingredients compared to the first cup, it certainly looks like a much better blend of leafy and larger, bulkier ingredients!

What a difference mixing up the tea and adding an extra half teaspoon of leaf made! With a good blend of ingredients in the steep, the tea steeped up a nice red color, most likely from the hibiscus in the blend.

This cup, which included more hibiscus and cranberry than the first cup, had a much fuller flavor! I can still taste the sweet orange-vanilla creamsicle in the base, but it has a nice tartness from the hibiscus and cranberry which makes it feel different than any other creamsicle tea I’ve ever tried. There is also a slight savory note of the carrot, which is a bit hard to pick up unless you are a big fan of carrot juice. Surprisingly, the tea is quite sweet with a very smooth, somewhat creamy mouthfeel, and despite all the spice in the blend, it leaves very little impression on the taste. There are some very subtle cinnamon notes, but it is mostly just warm, fruity, and creamy. It has a bit of the fruit cider appeal of the Cinnamon Plum tea, with a flavor a bit closer to the Gingerbread Orange tea… if the two teas had a tea-baby, I’d imagine this tea would be it. The sweet vanilla-citrus and tart hibiscus-fruit combination of flavors seems a bit strange, but it oddly works together quite well!

This is a tea where the amount of leaf definitely made a huge difference on the steep, taste, and impression, so it’s always worth experimenting with your teas! I’d almost written this tea off as a less-impressive clone of Gingerbread Orange, but the hibiscus and cranberry that I’d been missing in my first cup made a huge world of difference to the flavor!

Next week will be the final teatime of the year! Can you believe it? Fifty-two weeks of tea! For the penultimate teatime of the year, which falls the day after the Christmas holiday, an appropriately jolly tea will be featured! I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Teatime Tuesday #50: White Chais

Hey there, teaple! It’s that time of year where many parts of the country are turning white with winter snowfall, so this week for teatime we’ll be looking at a few white tea chai blends! These spicy white teas have a much lighter body than the black chais that are more common, making them a bit like a warm cider. Being lighter bodied and not having the astringency of black chais, white chais are typically not taken with milk, giving them a very zesty, strong spicy flavor! If you are looking for something to give you a bit of a kick to keep you warm and toasty by the fireside during the cold winter weather, one of these non-traditional chai blends may be to your liking!

I was introduced to this White Chai at Snake River Tea at their shop when I was on vacation in Boise, Idaho last May. Snake River Tea has three pots of sampler teas out each day, and this was one of them one of the days Todd and I stopped in for our daily dose of tea. Both of us really enjoyed it! I ended up buying an ounce of the tea when I went on my big shopping spree before I left town. After a bit of research into the ingredients of the blend, I’ve determined that they source the tea from Adagio, and it is the same as Adagio’s White Chai blend.

Adagio describes the tea as “white tea with chai spices, lemongrass, coconut, fruit pieces, and peppercorn that combine for a light bodied zesty cup. Light yellow with complex notes of lemongrass, fruit and spice that dance on the palate. A fiery kick of the peppercorn lingers in the soft sweetness of the fruit.”

The ingredients for the tea are ginger root, lemongrass, cinnamon bark, white tea, pineapple pieces, cloves, dried coconut, cardamom, red peppercorn, apple pieces, natural spice flavor, and natural cinnamon flavor. The tea has a very unique scent. It smells strongly of lemon ginger, with strong spicy notes. There are some slightly sweet fruity notes, and something that reminds me a bit of pine tickling my nose. The combination of aromas is incredibly pleasing!

The instructions for the tea suggest steeping at 195 F for three minutes, which is a much higher temperature than I normally see recommended for white teas. However, inspecting the tea, I noticed there are hardly any actual white tea leaves in the blend… most of the ingredients appear to just be herbal ingredients. Therefore I went with the recommendations, and steeped a heaping teaspoon at 200 F for three minutes.

The steeped tea is a rich yellow. The base of the tea is a lemon ginger tea, but the fruit in the blend gives it some natural sweetness, making it just a little sweeter than your typical lemon ginger tea. It is very light and spicy, having a lot of peppery and clove notes that linger on the tongue in the finish. The fruit helps mellow the spiciness a bit, but the lemon and spices are the key flavors in the profile, and depending on your tastes, you may have to add a bit of sweetener; personally I like that bit of a kick! The tea smells heavily of lemon and pine, which reminds me of Pledge cleaner, but don’t let that turn you off; it does not have an unpleasant chemical taste! There is something very refreshing about the finish, and the tea itself leaves such a warm feeling inside. It’s a very different sort of chai, but it’s very good, and compared to typical lemon ginger teas, I really enjoy this particular blend of fruits and spices!

As much as I love this tea, my only complaint is… why is it called a White Chai when there is no white tea in it? The leaf has barely any white tea, and I’m not entirely sure what little white tea there is in the blend is even doing for the flavor, when the lemongrass and spices are so dominant. When I tasted this tea, I had a very strong deja vu of another tea I’d tried…

Last summer I tried Lemon Spice, an herbal blend from Strand Tea, as an iced tea. Something about White Chai reminded me of it, so it was time to pull it back out of the cabinet and try it again, this time as a hot brew, and do a comparison.

Strand describes this caffeine-free, all naturally grown tisane as “refreshingly fruity and spicy at the same time.” It is made of lemongrass, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, pink peppercorns, ginger, coconut, and pineapple. It’s no wonder I was having tea deja vu, since the ingredient list is incredibly similar between the two teas! The main difference is the lack of the white tea, which is hardly present in the White Chai as it is, and the lack of apple pieces and the use of flavoring in the tisane. The amounts of the ingredients are a little different between the two blends, as well. The flavor differences will be incredibly subtle! The leaves smell like lemon and spicy cinnamon gum. It has a very different aroma than the White Chai, despite being so close in ingredients, which is quite surprising!

The recommended steep time for this tea is one teaspoon for six minutes. There was not a recommended temperature, so I used boiling water, which is what I generally use for herbal blends. It is very easy to see that this blend is heavier on lemongrass than the White Chai, and also doesn’t have quite as much fruit.

Steeped, the Lemon Spice tea looks just like the White Chai. The lemongrass produces a very strong yellow tea! This tea also has a lemon ginger scent, but it smells a bit spicier, and the pine-aroma isn’t quite as prominent as with the White Chai. This tea indeed has a very similar flavor profile to White Chai, but it is much spicier! Though the fruit notes were subtle in the White Chai, their natural sweetness becomes more apparent compared to this Lemon Spice tea, which doesn’t have as much sweetness in its base to help balance the spice a bit, so the spice notes come off much more strongly. Therefore the tea has more of a peppery bite to it! The Lemon Spice still has that spicy, warming appeal, but doesn’t quite have that sort of refreshing pine aftertaste that I was getting from the White Chai. Of the two, I prefer the way the White Chai is blended, which I find a little more balanced in sweet and spicy flavors, but if you want a tea that is very close in flavor that is caffeine-free and all-natural, Lemon Spice is a very good alternative! This is also a good choice if you just love spicy flavor profiles, as this tea has a bit more kick of the two!

I have one other white tea chai, which is White Winter Chai from Art of Tea, which I got in a holiday tea sampler last year. This is a seasonal tea, and Art of Tea only offers it from October to the end of February.

Hey, look at that, White Winter Chai actually has white tea in it! (See Adagio, would it be that hard?) It’s quite plain to see this particular blend actually has a lot of actual tea leaves in it! The full ingredient list is white tea, organic black peppercorns, organic cinnamon, organic fennel, organic cloves, organic cardamom, star anise, and natural flavors. The leaves actually smell like evergreen trees! The aroma of the tea makes me think of a fresh-cut Christmas tree, and the spices delightfully tickle the nose.

Since this white chai is actually a white tea base, it is recommended to steep a tablespoon of leaf in 175-185 F water for 1-3 minutes. I do use a bit more white tea than a teaspoon since it is very light and fluffy, but tend to use a teaspoon and a half for my first cup and adjust from there. I steeped using 185 F water for 3 minutes. Most white tea I have is a brown-colored leaf, so I found this green leaf very beautiful as it expanded in the water!

White Winter Chai also steeped a beautiful marigold color. This tea is so refreshing! It has that wonderful pine aroma, but without the lemongrass of the other White Chai, it doesn’t really remind me of Pledge. The tea has a nice spiciness to it, but it isn’t as zesty as the White Chai and Lemon Spice; it doesn’t have that peppery bite, and instead leaves more of a clove and anise taste in the finish. Of the three teas, this one is easily my favorite! The other White Chai is great, but the white tea base of this just has this really brisk, fresh taste that takes me straight to a wintery evergreen forest, while the spices keep me warm and cozy from the frosty weather. It’s just such an oddly perfect winter tea, without needing any special gimmicks.

If you like a spicy tea, I would easily recommend both White Chai and White Winter Chai! White Chai is a better price, but White Winter Chai does have samplers available, and I’d highly recommend at least trying a sampler since it’s such a unique chai experience. And if you can’t have the small amount of caffeine that is in white tea, then try out the Lemon Spice herbal blend instead as a pretty good alternative to the White Chai blend, or simply as a nighttime substitute!

Next week the official first day of winter is upon us! I have a special blend just for the occassion, so be sure to stop by! Can you believe only two reviews remain until Teatime Tuesday hits one full year of weekly reviews?

Teatime Tuesday #49: Gingerbread Teas

Welcome back for another teatime! This Tuesday happens to be National Gingerbread Day, so I figured we’d take a look at some gingerbread teas!

Recently I’ve been getting my feet wet over at Steepster, which is the online community for tea lovers! It is sort of a social community based entirely around tea, where you can find teas in their database (or easily add ones that are missing!) to add to your “cupboard,” and then you can rate the teas and add tasting notes to them. You can follow other users on the site, and then see their tasting notes through your dashboard. There is also a large discussion forum where folks chat about all sorts of tea topics and arrange tea swaps and traveling tea boxes. If you like tea, I recommend making an account there. I will admit, I’ve been toying around with the idea of closing this blog down around the start of the new year and just using Steepster instead, because… things just aren’t picking up on WordPress, with the tea community so used to using Steepster instead. It’s been a lot of work as I’ve been trying to slowly move a year’s worth of my tasting notes from WordPress over there. Slowly but surely…

Recently I participated in the Here’s Hoping Traveling Tea Box run by tea-sipper on Steepster. This teabox has gone through seven rounds around the United States, and this was its final round with only two stops, to me and then onto one final stop before being discontinued, and I’m extremely grateful for the chance to take part! A traveling tea box is a box that is initially seeded with a variety of tea and then sent on, with the next person sampling from the box, adding new samples, perhaps taking a few teas from the box, and adding fresh bags of tea from their own collection for anything that is removed. It is then sent onto the next person who does the same. In this way, the contents of the box slightly change and grow with each stop.

This particular tea was not part of my collection, but a sample I got from the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox, Gingerbread Black by Simpson & Vail. The box arrived Thanksgiving weekend and I already had this review planned, and when I saw this particular tea in it, I got quite excited and knew I had to add it onto the review! So you can all thank tea-sipper’s Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox for this one!

This tea is made of organic China black tippy tea, organic cinnamon, organic cloves, organic ginger and gingerbread flavoring. The tea has a very sweet, spicy aroma that does make me think of gingerbread cookies set out to cool, with perhaps a hint more clove.

I recently upgraded my steeper. While my Apace Living Loose Leaf Stainless Steel Strainers were a great entry-level strainer that hardly ever had issues with floaters (I only had issues with one I had at work on very fine teas like rooibos or finely ground blacks), but after I got into oolongs, I realized just how little space the tea really had to expand in such little space. When I cold brewed tea making iced tea over the summer, the tea had a whole mason jar to open up and expand, allowing the flavor into the water, and I wanted something similar for making hot tea. So I recently got a “gravity-well” style steeper. This is most commonly known by Adagio’s name, the IngenuiTEA steeper, but lots of teashops sell them, with their own branding on them. I purchased a set (one for home and one for work) from California Tea House, the Sleek Steep Infuser. There is a very fine mesh filter in the bottom (so fine, I have not had a single tea particle make it through yet, even rooibos!) Just put the tea and your boiled water into the steeper, time your steep, and then place the steeper over your tea cup or mug to dispense the tea when you are done. The tea will drain out, leaving the leaves behind, which you can resteep. The whole thing comes apart, so you can remove the lid, the mesh, and the bottom to deep clean it. This allows the tea leaf to freely float in the water, fully expand, and produce a nice, rich flavor for the tea. In a small tea ball, most of the leaf doesn’t even touch the water!

I would highly recommend one of these if you do a lot of tea drinking! You will really be able to tell the difference when you make the switch! I do recommend before you start using a gravity-well steeper to take your mugs, fill them with water, dump them into the infuser, and mark the side with a Sharpie marker so you know the fill line for your common mugs. It holds 16 oz. of water, but I only have two mugs that are that large, so I have lines marked on the sides for 16 oz. and 12 oz. so I know where to fill the infuser depending on if I’m using my large mugs or one of my standard mugs.

The recommended steeping instructions is three minutes using boiling water. I tend to use water just under boiling for Chinese blacks, so I set my kettle on 200 degrees F and steeped for four minutes. The color was lovely, and really reminded me of gingerbread, as the tea brewed up a warm gingery orange color. I could really smell the clove and cinnamon wafting off the cup, but it also seemed to have a warm sweetness before even tasting it.

The tea itself has a nice body with no astringency, just how I like my black teas! The flavors are very rich in this tea! The tea itself is on the sweeter side, much like a gingerbread dessert, but the flavor profile has a strong spicy note. A medley of ginger, cinnamon, and clove tingle along the tongue with every sip. The start is a bit sweeter, tasting a bit stronger of the cinnamon and ginger flavors, but the finish holds a very strong burst of clove. It’s a spicy tea, but at the same time the subtle sweetness of the tea keeps the brew very balanced; it isn’t nearly as potent as your typical Indian chai blend, and while you probably could add milk to create a more creamy mouthfeel, I never once felt the need to (as I often do with chais!), as the flavors were so smooth.

While the tea has a nice natural sweetness and lack of astringency, I decided to try a cup with a small dash of sweetener for comparison. If you find spicy teas a bit much, or just want to create a flavor profile a little closer to gingerbread desserts, I recommend a small amount of sweetener! The sweetener mellows some of the spices just a bit, allowing the sweet base a little more emphasis. The flavor profile is still very similar, but comes out a little more dessert-like. It’s very good!

I was very impressed with this tea! It couldn’t hold up to Cody’s gingerbread cookies (to be fair, no gingerbread tea is ever going to do that… they are really good cookies!) but it is a very tasty tea! It resteeps well, is a nice spice tea taken straight, really reminds me of gingerbread when taken with a bit of sweetener, and it leaves a very warm, cozy feeling in the stomach, which is really perfect for setting the mood during cold winter weather. If you are looking for a good gingerbread tea, this Simpson & Vail holiday blend has you covered!

This next tea I got in a holiday sampler from TeaSource last year, Gingerbread Orange. Though it is a holiday blend, I believe TeaSource makes the blend available year-round. This rooibos blend is described as “full-bodied yet very smooth; sweet and luscious, with just a hint of citrus spiciness.”

This tea contains red rooibos, almond pieces, pistachios, orange peel, coriander, flavor, and peppercorns. It is caffeine-free, but is not suitable for those with nut allergies. This tea has a much different scent than the Gingerbread Black tea above, which has a very “classic” sort of gingerbread scent; this does have some gingery, spicy notes, but the aroma reminds me far more of a bowl of creamy, orange-vanilla ice cream. The orange notes are strong with this one!

The recommended preparation for this tea was one rounded teaspoon steeped for 4-6 minutes in boiling water. I followed the instructions, using a five minute steep time, as I tend to find that works well for my rooibos blends.

The tea steeps to a nice deep red rooibos color, and the aroma wafting from the cup still smells heavy of oranges and vanilla. There is a very slight pop of spice right in the finish, but it is subtle; the tea is very smooth and sweet. It tastes like a creamsicle ice cream bar to me, similar to the Blood Orange Smoothie that I reviewed in the past. And compared to the flavor profile of the Blood Orange Smoothie, I actually prefer this blend more. I recently revisited Blood Orange Smoothie, and the vanilla-orange flavor seems stronger and more defined here, and I have to use far less tea to achieve it; with Blood Orange Smoothie, I have to use a tablespoon or the flavor seems a bit weak, but with Gingerbread Orange, a teaspoon produces a very strong flavor. I really only like Blood Orange Smoothie as a latte with vanilla almond milk, but Gingerbread Orange has a nice flavor and sweetness that makes the tea hold up great on its own, and that very slight spicy finish gives it a nice warmth and a bit of depth. Between the two, I’d pick this blend every time, to be honest.

But the reason I picked this tea out of my cupboard to review for National Gingerbread Day is because it was named Gingerbread Orange… I was expecting a gingerbread taste, and in that regard, it fails miserably. It’s a fantastic creamsicle tea, the best I’ve had yet, but there is nothing about it that makes me think of gingerbread. There are subtle spice notes, but they are very subtle, and don’t really evoke a gingerbread flavor when paired against such strong orange and vanilla notes. If you want a creamsicle tea with a really nice flavor that has a nice subtle spicy pop in the finish, I take back all the good things I said about Blood Orange Smoothie in the past… forget the name of this tea, this is the creamsicle-flavored tea of choice! But if you want a gingerbread tea to warm your tummy this holiday season? Look no further than the Simpson & Vail Gingerbread Black above… it’s perfect!

Thanks for joining me for another teatime! Next week we’ll be checking out some White Chais to keep warm as the weather outside also turns white for so many of us! I’m looking forward to seeing you then!