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*The 2nd Tea of Christmas . . . *

YUM! I really love this tea. I’m not always crazy about a Ceylon base (I usually only use Ceylon in a blend with other teas to help round it out) but sometimes, a Ceylon can be wonderful. This fine chop CTC is really strong & rich in flavor for a Ceylon but it works beautifully here, offering a bold flavor that pairs really well with the vanilla bean & cookie-ish essence as well as the spices. The cute little snowflake sprinkles do relatively little to the overall flavor except to add some whimsy to the appearance – but it is – as I say – whimsical & fun.

The cup is so pleasant & cozy, the kind of cuppa that I enjoy curling up to, especially on the chilly mornings we’ve been experiencing as of late!

For the 1st Tea of Christmas . . .

Before I get into my tasting notes for this tea, I want to address my tardiness in getting out this year’s box & sincerely apologize to all of my loyal customers who have been there for me. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to get the box out as early as I would have liked to. I have been dealing with a chronic case of cellulitis on both legs which has been extraordinarily painful – thus making it nearly impossible for me to stand for prolonged periods of time, which is absolutely essential when I’m working! If I can’t stand at the table & blend & package the tea – I’m pretty much – well, I probably shouldn’t use that word.

So, that’s what I’ve been dealing with for the past 5 months or so & it’s gotten worse as time passed. Many doctor visits, emergency room visits & many bottles of various medications & pain meds later – I do see the light at the end of the tunnel with this – but I’m still very limited with the amount of time that I can spend working at the job I love so much. It will get better, but as my doctor tells me, it will take a lot of time. This isn’t something that a magical pill or shot can cure, time & proper management is key & part of that management includes getting the rest when my pain demands it.

So I sincerely apologize to all of you who expected to receive the box so much earlier than you did. I am relieved that all of my US customers managed to receive the box prior to the countdown date of today, and to my Canadian customers, I do apologize – I did not get the information about the Canadian postal service strike until a day or two after I had sent off the packages to you guys & I don’t know the status of your shipments as the tracking system has not updated since the end of November. I don’t know if this is because things on the Canadian side just haven’t been updating or if it’s because the Canadian postal service just hasn’t accepted the packages from the USPS due to the strike activity. If I had been aware of the postal strike, I would have instead shipped using an alternative shipping service, but, as I said, I didn’t receive notice of the strike until after the packages were already in the custody of the USPS. My heartfelt apologies for that.

NOW! On to this tea . . .

I was actually quite surprised by not only the request to add this tea onto the poll this year, but also that it won by an astronomical number of votes! Not that I disliked this tea when Frank originally blended it way back in 2013 (in the summer of 2013 at that!) but just that it was one that had not been requested ever before in the near 10 years that I’ve been doing this thing!

Wow, can you believe that? It’s nearly 10 years now since I took over!

Anyway – this tea is really quite lovely. Since it has been more than 11 years since I last tried this tea, I can’t offer you a very accurate comparison of the two teas, since all I have is my previous tasting note/review of this tea. What I can say is that in my SororiTEA Sisters review of this tea, I mentioned that I liked this one better than the Gingerbread Chai – which says A LOT to me because I really LOVED the Gingerbread Chai & I can comfortably say that it was one of my top 5 chai blends from Frank’s era.

I loved the way this recreation of that tea turned out. It’s pleasantly sweet yet warmly spiced. Beautifully buttery & cake-y, just like you want from a cinnamon-y coffeecake with just the right note of ginger. It really is a perfect way to kick off this countdown! (And thanks to those of you who voted for this one!)

I apologize for this rather lengthy tasting note with my status update – I just wanted to let you guys know that I haven’t just been shirking off my duties as a Mad Tea Artist . . . & if you’re still reading this after all that ^ – thanks for hanging in there with me! Have a great weekend!

Also – the BUY NOW button will not take you to this tea, but to a “similar” tea from Adagio (which probably isn’t all that similar to me at all, except that they both have ‘GINGERBREAD’ in the title.) There are more quantities of this tea available & they will be made available to those that ordered the 12 Teas of Christmas box after the 25th & to everyone on the website after the 28th of December. Thanks again!

After taking photos of this tea last night, I decided that I’d cold-brew some of the tea to try it out. Up until now, I’ve only tried it hot brewed (I chilled some of the hot brew to taste it cold too so that I’d have an idea of how this was as an iced tea). After trying this now as a cold-brew, I think I may have to retract my original tasting note that’s found on my website, because this is even better cold-brewed than hot brewed. The vanilla & black tea blend is smoother, the cantaloupe sweeter & the raspberries brighter. It’s just a totally different experience cold-brewed.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love this as a hot brew, but if you’re going to ask me now how I’d recommend serving this one, it’s cold-brew all the way! So very good!

I cold-brewed this overnight. We’ve been experiencing some uncomfortably warm weather this past week, so I wanted to keep a jar of cold-brewed tea in the fridge at all times & this is one that I grabbed for that purpose. This is so refreshing as a cold-brewed tea!

The coconut is sweet & smooth & melds beautifully with the green tea base. the lime adds a bright burst of flavor while the spearmint offers a soft, crisp coolness that works so well with an iced cold tea. This is one of those teas that I made kind of on the fly when I didn’t have all the ingredients I needed for the blend I had originally envisioned, but, after tasting it, I was wondering what took me so long to come up with it. It’s just so good!

I’ve never actually had Mango Coconut Pancakes – I don’t know if any such thing actually exists, but if I went to a restaurant and saw such a thing on a menu, I’d definitely order it.

Actually, my original plan was to go with a mango pancake idea, but after I did my initial taste test, I found myself wanting more from it, so I decided to add a little bit of coconut & vanilla to the blend. I’m glad I did that, because I love the way the creaminess of these two ingredients enhances the starchy pancake notes & the maple. The mango & coconut – not surprisingly – play so well together. While this tea does have a lot going on – it all comes together really nicely. It’s really a flavorful medley of tastes in one teacup.

I drank this hot today, mostly because I tend to prefer our pancake teas as hot beverages, but I think it would be delicious iced too.

Currently sipping this tea – cold-brewed – and it is so good!

The Chinese Sencha is light & creamy. The creaminess is enhanced further by the note of marshmallow. The banana, strawberry & raspberry are not on their own super distinct & individual flavors unless you really focus on it to pick out each flavor, instead, it’s more like a medley of the three flavors to create a sweet yet pleasantly tart profile. Like a smoothie of sorts, but in tea form. Very refreshing & it makes a really delightful iced tea.

I am not a huge rhubarb fan. It’s not that I dislike it, I don’t. I just don’t have a lot of experience with it. I had never even had rhubarb until just very recently (as in the last few years) & my first experience with it was in tea form, back when I was reviewing teas. I recently have sampled strawberry rhubarb pie after it was requested that I make a rhubarb tea (which became the “Never Rub Another Man’s Rhubarb” tea) & sampling that pie was an effort for me to understand better the flavor of rhubarb.

But after trying that pie, as well as trying several teas that I’ve crafted – I am slowly reaching a point of appreciation for the vegetable. I like the jammy, tarty note of the rhubarb. I love the way strawberry & rhubarb play together – as though they were made for one another. This tea seems to highlight that union quite beautifully.

I cold-brewed this tea overnight – and I love it. The vegetal note of the Young Hyson plays really well to the sweet strawberry notes & the tart notes of the rhubarb. Really lovely – very refreshing!

I cold-brewed this overnight last night for iced tea today because I knew it would be very hot today. I’m so glad I did because this is so good iced!

The lemon is bright & refreshing, with an invigorating bite from the ginger & a vibrant kiss of black pepper & cinnamon. The black tea base is smooth & flavorful. The overall cup is not overly spicy/peppery, but there’s enough kick to it that the taste buds are doing the happy dance. I did add some sweetener to it to enhance the overall presence of the spices & I like the way it brings out the flavor of the spices without making it taste too sweet.

This is a blend I had contemplated for a while now, I’m glad I finally decided to just make it!

I crafted this tea to try to be an improvised version of Black Silk Chocolate Milk Qu Hao from Frank’s era because trying to source the Qu Hao at a price and/or minimum purchase within my budget was proving an impossible task for me. Frank’s source for the tea no longer carries it, and one of my sources was able to locate it for me but I would have had to purchase so much of the tea that I wouldn’t have been able to store all that tea, much less sell all of it at a price that would have even allowed me to break even. So, reblending it is not going to happen, at least not for the foreseeable future.

so, instead, I decided to try to improvise and create something similar, without being exactly that tea. The blend of teas I used for this blend is one of my favorites: Gu Zhang – which has a natural chocolate-y tone to it, then I added a small amount of Yunnan & Assam to it to help round out the flavor just a bit. I like the base, it is really rich & flavorful.

It’s been AGES since I last had the Black Silk Milk Chocolate blend from Frank, but, I think this tea hits the mark. It’s chocolate-y in a way that reminds me of chocolate milk when it’s chilled & lightly sweetened, but when it’s hot as I’m drinking it right now, it tastes a lot more like Pinwheel cookies, hence the name. (I hope those that make the cookies will not notice little old me and want to seek legal action, I just like the name, really.)

Anyway, I really love how this one turned out!

It’s back – for a very limited time! It’s a great wake-me-up kind of tea. A very bold, rich CTC Assam blended with marshmallow root & vanilla bean. It’s so good!

Please don’t click on the “buy now” button on Steepster’s page for this tea as it won’t take you to my website to purchase this tea, it will instead take you to a tea from Adagio that is not at all like this tea. Instead, visit my website if you’re interested in this tea! Thanks!