Tag: tea

NovelTea Tins: A Review

Posted July 27, 2023 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 0 Comments

*This post is sponsored by NovelTea Tins. I was given four free teas in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions are my own.*

I’m almost as passionate about tea as I am about books. Whenever I sit down to read, I simply MUST brew myself a cuppa first, which means tea has fueled my free time for most of my life. When I discovered NovelTea Tins, a company that develops tea blends inspired by classic books, I was intrigued and asked them if they would like to sponsor a post. It’s not often that I reach out to companies, so you can imagine my excitement when they said YES!

Within a week, I had in my possession four of their teas: Pride & Peppermint, Anne of Green Tea Gables, Pippi Oolongstocking, and a premium tin of Anise in Wonderland. I love that they sent me a good variety, since this allows me to give you a better sense of their quality and selection. Of course, I was most excited about the Wonderland tea, which I think is why they very thoughtfully sent it in a tin. I’m super excited, so let’s get started! Time to review some teas! 😀

Bruce’s Chocolate Cake Tea

Posted April 24, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 4 Comments

Chocolate teas are among my favorites, so I when I had a chance to make a chocolate cake tea blend for my Matilda menu inspired by Bruce Bogtrotter’s chocolate cake, I pounced on it without hesitation. Of course, an average chocolate tea wouldn’t do. I wanted something intense and complex, befitting Bruce’s legendary cake. So after starting with a plain chocolate tea as my base, I added chocolate honeybush and just a hint of mocha nut mate. The honeybush opens up the flavors, allowing you to experience their full range, and the mocha flavor makes it all stronger. If there was ever chocolate cake in a teacup, this is it. So drink up—before Trunchbull catches you! 😉

What the Wild Things Drink: A Where the Wild Things Are Tea

Posted March 27, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments

My tradition of making a tea to go with each of my menus came in handy at my son’s Where the Wild Things Are birthday party—we had a custom tea to serve with lunch! I don’t normally get to share my teas with such a large group, so I was excited to create something for a crowd.

I’m always on the lookout for chances to use Adagio’s forest berries tea, since it’s such a unique blend, and this looked like a great time to use it. With that as my base, I added blackberry and cream teas for complexity. Throw in some extra dried raspberries, strawberries, and marigold petals for color, and you’ve got yourself a fun, sweet tea blend that’s perfect for a party!

A Toast to National Book Lovers’ Day: 7 Literary Drinks

Posted August 8, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Holidays / 0 Comments

Tomorrow is National Book Lovers’ Day, so to celebrate I thought it would be fun to share a special roundup of book-themed drinks. 🙂

Why drinks, you ask? Well, I figured drink recipes are something quick and easy you can throw together on a whim, which is important for a holiday like this (one that lands on a weekday and is the sort that some people don’t hear about until the last minute). After all, just because you haven’t got time to run to the store doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to toast your love of books, right? 😉

The recipes listed here include cocktails, nonalcoholic punch, hot chocolate, and even Earl Grey lattes. So we’ve got something for everyone—whether you wanna party it up with an Edgar Allan Poe cocktail or get cozy with some of the White Witch’s hot chocolate.

Cheers, and happy Book Lovers’ Day! 🙂

Sabriel’s Toffee Tea

Posted May 9, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 5 Comments

In the book Sabriel, toffee and dried fruit are the snacks that help Sabriel make it through her trek through the wintery Old Kingdom. I was intrigued by the idea of making a toffee tea, so I took a look at some of the custom blends other people had made on Adagio.com to get a sense of how they achieved the right balance of flavors for toffee tea. Chocolate and caramel seemed to be the two standbys, usually paired with a nut flavor (almost always almond). I developed my own chocolate/caramel ratio to get the right balance of flavors and added in some hazelnut to make it unique. Enjoy!

Peaches and Cream Tea from James and the Giant Peach

Posted April 4, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments

Hi, everybody! Our new book of the month is James and the Giant Peach, and we’re kicking things off with a custom peach tea!

I already have a white peach tea I love (Becky’s Peach Tea from Tom Sawyer), so when it came time to design a tea for James and the Giant Peach, I decided to challenge myself and try something with more oomph.

I’ll admit, I’m kinda picky when it comes to fruit teas. I want them to be light and delicately sweet—not heavy or cloying. As I searched for options, two Adagio teas caught my eye: Rooibos Peach and Honeybush Apricot. Both varieties have what I like to refer to as a “sunny” flavor (bright and somehow warm), so I decided to blend them together and see what I got! I also added some cream tea to make the flavor profile a bit more unique and threw in some dried apricot pieces to make sure the peachy flavor didn’t get lost in the shuffle. The result was a blend with bright peach flavor and just enough cream to mellow things out. Huzzah! 🙂

Mudder’s Milk: A Firefly Tea

Posted March 7, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments

Oh, Firefly. How could I possibly design a tea for you that wasn’t based off mudder’s milk? It’s the most iconic beverage in the show! 😉

Described as “all the protein, vitamins, and carbs of your grandma’s best turkey dinner, plus 15 percent alcohol,” mudder’s milk is a pretty tough beverage to replicate in tea form. I knew I wanted it to be something you could add milk to (so that it would have a little substance). I also knew that, in place of alcohol, I wanted to add spice to give it some kick. I created a Masala chai/vanilla/cinnamon mix that goes great with milk, and I added cardamon to amp up the spice just a teeny bit. Let’s have a toast to the Hero of Canton! 🙂

Happy National Hot Tea Day!

Posted January 11, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 6 Comments

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! 😉

National Hot Tea Day: My Favorite Teas

Black Tea: Miss Mary’s Garden and Second Star

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.

Green Tea: Calypso’s Tea from The Odyssey

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! 🙂

White Tea: Becky’s Peach Tea

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.

Herbal: Tori’s Peppermint Tea

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).

Chai: Hallowe’en Party

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!

Rooibos/Honeybush: Abbot’s Chocolate Hazelnut Tea

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! 🙂

Mate: Chocolate Mocha Tea for Ze Little Grey Cells

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!

What’s your favorite tea to brew for National Hot Tea Day?

Nutcracker Christmas Tea

Posted December 6, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments

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! 🙂

White Whale: A Moby Dick Tea

Posted November 15, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments

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.