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cocktail recipe:
1 teabag Celestial Seasonings Peppermint/5 oz boiling water
steep for 10 minutes
add 1 oz Kahlua
add 1 oz Bailey’s Original
stir
microwave 20 secs on high

Minty boozy awesomeness! Coffee, cream and mint blend perfectly, with a nice alcohol kick. This reminds me of peppermint bark. A word of caution: the alcohol is definitely present in the flavor, but this is such a smooth drink that it goes down faster than expected. Huzzah for no work tomorrow!

Many thanks to MissB for the inspiration :-)

I was planning on a different cocktail for the stroke of midnight, but I was still sipping on this when the ball dropped. Happy New Year everybody! I’m so glad to have found Steepster in 2013 and look forward to being part of this wonderful community in 2014 and beyond. Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and safe year. May all the bad events of the past year stay in the past and may this year bring only good tidings. Hey, a girl can dream. :-)

Ahhh. I am so very very excited about the fact that I got to leave work early today and don’t have to do any work tomorrow. I plan to try out some tea cocktail recipes tonight. I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

But to kick the evening off right, I shall begin with one of my all-time favorites. I had this with some cheese (Humboldt Fog) on toast. The jasmine aspect of the tea complemented the cheese well. As always, a comforting and delicious cup.

This is a consummate summer drink. It’s grapefruit, through and through, with a slightly floral finish and substantial body. It was nice enough warm, but it works best as an iced tea. Be warned: this is crazy caffeinated. I made a teapot for my family yesterday around 8pm and ended up finishing off the last two cups myself. Big mistake. I couldn’t fall asleep until near morning.

I got this from Laurent at Nina’s Paris at the Taste of France festival back in September. Thanks!

I tried this at David’s Tea today. It’s not bad, but not something I felt the need to buy either (even at a 40% discount, though I am a little tea shopped out after Black Friday).

It starts out nice and ginger-y, not very strong but definitely present. It reminds me more of gingerbread cookies than gingerbread proper. After a while, the flavor becomes creamier, almost like dunking a gingerbread cookie in milk. A creamy, slightly ginger-y flavor lingered for about 10 minutes after I finished the cup. I think the big issue with this one is that it tastes too artificial for me. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

This one makes me wish I could drink black tea regularly :-( This is a nice bold cup. I got a solid four steeps out of these leaves (Western-style brewing). Each steep had a nice thick mouthfeel and zero astringency. The first steep was full of malty nutmeg creamy goodness, as was the second. The third steep really caught me off guard because it was so lush with honey notes. The fourth steep was slightly weaker than the rest, but still quite solid. Overall, an impressive blend.

Mmmm. Creamy vanilla nutty goodness. I don’t like eggnog, but I do like this tea. The vanilla and pecan are well balanced in the first steep. The nuttiness really takes center stage in the second steep (190F, untimed). Stacy, does this tea share a flavoring with the pistachio ice cream? The nutty aspect of this tea seems really similar to that one. More pecan than pistachio, but the same undertones. This is definitely a good winter tea!

EDIT: Reading other people’s notes, it seems that I’m the only one picking up vanilla here… maybe I’m confusing vanilla and eggnog?

I want to tear into my new BF Butiki teas, but I want a nice cup of this beloved classic even more. I put the salt directly in the brew basket this time, which gave me the lovely savory broth that has eluded me the past few brews. Thank you for making such a brilliant blend, Stacy! I just keep on coming back to it and it is never disappointing.

Mmmm. The flavor here is dead on. I don’t even know what else to say. It’s just liquid white chocolate. I imagine this would take quite well to milk. The flavor stays the same as the tea cools, so I think it would make a fabulous frozen hot chocolate-style drink in the summer. I picked this up during BrewTEAlly Sweet’s stash sale and I’m glad I did.

Whoa. This is some seriously dead-on flavor. Creamy caramel goodness, yum! It holds up well to a second steep too. This is making me feel all warm and cozy. Thanks for putting some in my Secret Turkey package, RogersCK!

BrewTEAlly Sweet kindly sent some of this along as a bonus when I bought a few teas during her stash sale. Thanks!

Meh. There’s a distinct vanilla scent here, but I’m not picking up any vanilla flavor. There’s a creaminess that’s probably attributable to the vanilla, though. It complements the slight astringency of the base tea. As the tea cools, the vanilla flavor comes through more clearly. I’m not picking up any rose scent or flavor to speak of. Overall, this is passable but not worth the risk of hurting my stomach by drinking a black tea.