Posted January 9, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments
Yaaaaay I am LOVING this book of the month! Making chocolate covered strawberry ballet slippers for “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” was lots of fun and weirdly cathartic (there’s just something really satisfying about dipping a strawberry in chocolate). I also can’t wait for you guys to see the recipe I have planned for this Thursday.
With all fun I’ve had thus far, it won’t come as a surprise that I really enjoyed designing this tea! I decided a while back that I’d base the tea on whichever fairy tale got the most votes in our December poll, and “Hansel and Gretel” blew the others away. I was glad, because I knew if that story won, I wanted to make a tea inspired by the witch’s gingerbread cottage.
It turned out exactly as I hoped: cozy and sweet with a strong spiced flavor reminiscent of a gingerbread cookie. So brew a cup or two and grab a book of fairy tales to read as you sip!
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Posted December 12, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 1 Comment
Our Tea of the Month is here, and of course it had to be something Christmasy! 🙂 Adagio Teas (the company I use to design my teas) offers lots of festive options, such as gingerbread, chestnut, and a Christmas spiced tea. I’ve used several of these in the past and wanted something different, so I decided to start with their candy cane tea. With the sweet peppermint flavor as a base, I knew I could go in two directions: further sweeten in with a chocolate tea or balance the sweetness with a bit of lemon tea. I tried both and loved it with lemon! Grab a tin of this for Christmas to share with friends, and if you feel your heart grow a couple sizes, don’t worry. That’s normal. 😉
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Posted November 21, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments
Of course, we all know it had to be waffles. How could I create a Stranger Things tea that DIDN’T taste like Eleven’s waffles?
But how to achieve it? My mind immediately went to caramel tea. If I added just the right amount, it would combine with other flavors instead of overpowering them. Combining it with cream tea made the most sense, since it would mellow out the flavor without losing sweetness or richness. But how to get the actual WAFFLE flavor?
This part was trickier. I thought of doing an English Breakfast tea, but Adagio doesn’t offer that yet in their custom tea creator (Dear Adagio: If you’re reading this, add it!). Irish Breakfast was the closest comparison, so I used a little less than I originally intended, since the Irish Breakfast blend is a bit more robust than the English version.
It had just the effect I wanted! The normally robust Irish Breakfast hovers in the background without being too strong. In the end, I got a tea that ACTUALLY tastes like waffles. I was so excited! As I write this, the sample I ordered for taste testing and pictures is already almost gone, so that should say a lot about how good it is. 🙂
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Posted October 10, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments
I’ve had this tea blend waiting in the wings for almost a year now. I’ve known for AGES that I wanted to do a Phantom menu, but it took me quite a while to figure out exactly what I wanted to make for it. In the mean time, I designed this tea through Adagio Teas and saved it until I was able to make a Phantom menu. And now that time is here, so we can finally enjoy some Music of the Night tea!
I wanted something rich, indulgent, and romantic, so I went with a blend of chocolate and strawberry tea. For a little extra flair, I accented it with strawberry pieces, cocoa nibs, and rose petals. Brew yourself a cup and lose yourself to the Music of the Night!
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Posted September 26, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments
I know what you’re thinking: there’s no tea in the Amelia’s Notebook series! True fact, but there IS hot chocolate. In Amelia’s Are-We-There-Yet Longest Ever Car Trip Notebook, she mentions that Mel’s Diner has thick mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. Throughout the series, it’s clear that Amelia has a soft spot for diner food, and I could totally see her relishing a steaming cup of Mel’s hot chocolate.
Before now, I never tried to make a tea blend inspired by hot chocolate, so I really enjoyed the challenge. My goal was to create a sweet dessert tea with the creamy, rich flavor you’d expect from a mug of hot chocolate.
I started with a Honeybush Chocolate base (it’s a little lighter and more complex than regular chocolate black tea, allowing other flavors to shine through). Then I added a little Chocolate Chai to deepen the flavor with cinnamon and ginger. The final addition was cream tea to replicate the flavor of whipped cream. Throw in some cocoa nibs for some extra intensity and sprinkles for fun, and you’ve got a cup of tea just like the hot chocolate at Mel’s!
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Posted August 15, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments
Truth be told, I was little stuck when it came time to create a tea for Man in the Iron Mask. There’s not a drop of tea to be seen in the book, and the only beverage Dumas mentions is wine. The idea of making a wine-themed tea was intriguing, but I knew it would take a LOT of experimentation to get right. With a cookbook in the works and the Little Mister cutting teeth, I knew I couldn’t give a wine tea the attention it deserved.
Then I remembered Fouquet’s peaches. Dumas describes them with so much care that you almost get the feeling he’s eaten a few! I had fun making peach tea in the past (like Becky’s White Peach Tea and James’ Peaches & Cream Tea), so I was eager to try again. But to increase the challenge, I set out to create a more unique blend than the previous two.
I used Adagio’s Peach Oolong as a base. Oolongs are new to me (I’ve only had them a few times in the past), but I loved how mild yet distinctive this tea was. I combined it with some apricot green tea and extra apricot pieces to lend a little complexity to the flavor. I love how it turned out, and I hope you will too! 🙂
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Posted July 18, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 0 Comments
I’ll admit I wasn’t sure how I felt about Serpentine as a character while I was reading Neverwhere. I got the sense that she was manipulative and maybe even cruel, but the air of mystery surrounding her kept me intrigued. I was especially fascinated by the green “restorative drink” she serves Richard when he has a nasty hangover from Islington’s Atlantian wine. So I decided to make a tea time tribute to it here on the blog!
For this tea, I wanted something subtle yet refreshing—and of course green! I whipped up a blend of Adagio’s Citron Green tea and lemongrass. This will definitely help you feel restored—Atlantian wine or not! 😉
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Posted June 27, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 3 Comments
Though Vulcan Mocha isn’t mentioned in Star Trek: Original Series (or maybe it was and I just don’t remember), it’s a very popular drink in later series, and it’s considered to have been part of Vulcan cultural cuisine for centuries. The preferred drink of many Vulcans and non-Vulcans alike, Vulcan Mocha is said to be incredibly potent in its effects, yet sweeter than Earth coffee. I was intrigued by the idea, so I decided to make a tea for it!
I’ve made several coffee-inspired tea blends in the past (like Elementary: A Sherlock Tea and Chocolate Mocha Tea for Ze Little Grey Cells from Hercule Poirot), so I relished the challenge of making something new. Like most of my “coffee teas,” I started with Adagio Tea’s Mocha Nut Mate, a toasted mate blend with distinct yet subtle nutty flavor. It’s a great foundation for building blends, since it marries well with other flavors. For this blend, I wanted something subtle, faintly sweet, and complex—the perfect go-to beverage for the universe’s most logical alien race.
I added chestnut tea to the mate for a lighter, less dominant flavor. Then I put in just a hint of Tiger’s Eye, a unique Adagio blend with flavors of chocolate and caramel. I LOVED the result. Enjoy! 🙂
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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!
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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! 🙂
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