February is drawing to a close, and I’m happy to say we’re settling in well with our new baby, and it looks like I’ll be able to be more active on the blog in the coming weeks. That in mind, I think the time is right for another big announcement that I’ve been waiting on for a long while:
National Hot Tea Day is tomorrow, so in honor of my favorite beverage, I’m ranking the best teas from my Alison’s Wonderland Tea gallery! Of course, choosing favorite teas can be super difficult, since the differences between varieties can make them hard to compare (how do you choose between a rich, robust black tea and a truly excellent herbal tea?). That in mind, I decided to sort them all into categories based on the type of tea (black, green, white, chai, honeybush/rooibos, mate, and herbal) and choose favorites in each category. Let’s get started!
NOTE: Varieties like oolong aren’t featured because I don’t have any blends that use it…yet! 😉
Straight out of the gate, I had trouble choosing and came up with a tie. However, much of my difficulty came from the fact that these two teas are VERY similar. They both have an Earl Grey base and feature lavender, but Miss Mary’s Garden is accented with strawberry and rose petals, while Second Star is mixed with cream tea. I love them both because they’re rich Earl Greys with floral notes that are strong but not overpowering.
I’m not usually a big fan of green tea, but this blend is so fresh and airy with hints of fresh tropical fruit. I could sip this by the seaside for the rest of my life! 🙂
This might be my all-time favorite non-black tea. It’s so fresh and summery! I love to make it as sun tea, and it doesn’t even need sugar (and I say that as a self-professed sugar addict). Personally, I think it’s the inclusion of white strawberry tea that makes the big difference. It adds a level of complexity that I have trouble finding in other white teas.
Tori’s Peppermint Tea is the best mint tea I’ve ever had. I love the refreshing but not overpowering mint flavor, tempered with faint hints of lemon. Add some honey, and it’s divinity (plus, it’s great hot or iced).
This tea is a blend of spiced apple chai and cinnamon that totally tastes like autumn in a cup. I can’t get enough of it!
This is hands-down my best selling tea, and it might be my favorite out of all the blends I’ve ever made. It combines honeybush hazelnut, chocolate, and cream to make a rich, sweet, robust tea. It’s practically a dessert all on its own. I like to think of it as Nutella tea! 🙂
This tea is a tribute to my favorite Agatha Christie character: Hercule Poirot. Since he likes coffee and hot chocolate instead of tea, I made a mocha nut mate blend with chocolate and hazelnut. It’s got a definite coffee flavor, but the chocolate adds sweetness where you would otherwise expect to find bitterness. I don’t normally like coffee, but I LOVE this blend!
There are lots of classic, All-American desserts mentioned in the Little House books, but when I decided to make a tea for the series, I couldn’t get Ma’s pies off the brain. Dried apple pies are a specialty of hers that stood out to me, so I chose it as the theme for my tea! I chose one of my favorite rooibos blends from Adagio (Rooibos Cinnamon Apple) as my base, adding cream, apples, and spice to make the flavor more unique. The result was a tea that conjures of the cozy scent and taste of a winter day bundled up at home. Enjoy!
When planning my Nutcracker tea, I knew I wanted to go with something nut-flavored, but I had a TON of options in that regard. Almond? Hazelnut? Mocha Nut Mate? In the end I decided to make a nod to my roasted chestnut recipe and go the chestnut route. And to make things just a little more festive, I added some of Adagio Tea’s custom gingerbread tea to the mix. Enjoy! 🙂
Howdy, folks! We’re back for the final few days of National Novel Writing Month, and we’ve got a new literary-themed tea to help you mark your achievement! No matter how high or low your final word count may be, starting a new novel is something to celebrate. ^.^
P.S. What are the 5 Teas of NaNo? Check out my intro post to learn more!
Howdy, folks! We’re back for another week of National Novel Writing Month, and we’ve got a new literary-themed tea to help you through the special challenges you’ll face this week. Cheers!
P.S. What are the 5 Teas of NaNo? Check out my intro post to learn more!
When I first started thinking about what I wanted to do for my Moby Dick tea, I immediately drew up a list of white teas and went to work on different combinations. I don’t get to play with white teas very often, so a book themed around a white whale was all the motivation I needed to make sure this lesser-known tea gets some love! 🙂
However, most white teas have a very delicate flavor, and I felt like a whaling book would need something with a bit more oomph. I found it in Adagio’s white chai. It combines a hint of tropical flavor with light spice to make a unique take on traditional chai. I added some gunpowder green tea to give it just a hint of smokiness and some extra coconut to balance it all out.
Howdy, folks! We’re back for another week of National Novel Writing Month, and we’ve got a new literary-themed tea to help you through the special challenges you’ll face this week. Cheers! ?
P.S. What are the 5 Teas of NaNo? Check out my intro post to learn more!
Howdy, folks! We’re back for another week of National Novel Writing Month, and we’ve got a new literary-themed tea to help you through the special challenges you’ll face this week. Cheers! 🙂
P.S. What are the 5 Teas of NaNo? Check out my intro post to learn more!
National Novel Writing Month starts today!!! For those who haven’t heard of it, every November NaNoWriMo provides an online community for aspiring authors. The goal is for each writer to finish a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. When I did it last year, it was a lot of hard work but super rewarding!
I decided not to do NaNo this year, but it was a REALLY tough decision. I’m already itching to take part, and it’s only day one! Still, I promise I have a good reason for tapping out. I’m actually working on a HUGE blog project right now (which I hope to be able to tell you more about soon!), and I knew I wouldn’t have the extra time to devote to NaNo.
Since I can’t participate this year, I thought I’d show support for the other participants by doing a NaNo-themed post series. Lots of NaNoers use tea and coffee as a reward for reaching their daily word counts, so I thought it would be fun to share a special book-themed tea each week of NaNo. Thus the 5 Teas of NaNo were born!