Nutcracker Sweet

I really shouldn’t write off teas just because they are bagged as this is amazing. This is an iced gingerbread cookie in a cup and it is amazing!!

I was putting together X-mas cards and tea-trading stuff to mail to people yesterday and one of the teas I sent was this one. I had the box beside me on the kitchen table and it kept tempting me with its wonderful sweet, nutty odor. But as it was late I knew I couldn’t have a black tea (or I’d be awake unil 5 am).

So this morning the first thing I did was open the tea cupboard and pounce on this tea. :D

So apparently there are a couple weather models that claim it’s going to snow her last week. It was 70 for about a week. I can’t deal with this. But it is cold again now, so I am feeling a bit more wintery now and also find myself needing to try the rest of these boxes I bought. This one smells so good after its steeped, like I just baked up cinnamon rolls.

Its taste does not live up to its scent. It seems too fake for me. I find it hard to believe they need to fake cinnamon and vanilla like this, but it just doesn’t taste good. And it’s not the base tea, the black tea is not bad at all for a sachet. The flavors are just not good compared, and it brings the whole thing down. This could be sooooo good if it didn’t taste so artificial.

I added almond/coconut milk and agave and it helps round out the flavors a lot. I love this milk so much, especially in this tea because I think it’s really helping tame the vanilla. The cinnamon, not so much, but I’m not sure what I can do about that.

I’ve really been in the mood for cinnamon vanilla teas but all the ones I had disappointed. Good thing I got an ounce of Glitter & Gold, at least that’s close enough to what I’m after to not have to drink things that taste like stale bread or fake cinnamon.

I think I’ll just use this one too for oatmeal. Or it might be good as a latte with brown sugar.

Ah yes a familiar taste to me. I’ve grown up drinking this tea and picked it up before the quarterly meeting at work. You know it’s not the most astoundingly awesome tea there is but still a good one. I think would add this to my “comfort tea list”. Too much to do before Thanksgiving break and I’m stressing a bit. Like Pizzagirl and I discussed. If stress is a little high a good cuppa and a good poop will make it all right!

I am in a sugar coma right now. In the afternoon I indulged in a delicious sakura flan on my tea trip with Mercuryhime, and afterwards I met up with the boy to check out Doughnut Plant. How can I NOT go to a store that Saveur says has some of the best donuts in the world? Of course I didn’t really plan on eating any tonight, I was going to save them, but the creme brulee and tres leches were calling our names… they are rather small (or at least the creme brulee was), but oh man it’s like all the richness of a real dessert wrapped in a donut. So good, but I feel like I don’t need to eat again for a week at least. And there are still 4 donuts left…

While this does not seem like a tea to reach for when you want the opposite of sugar, I found it in the traveling tea box (along with 2 other holiday ones!) and considering that I missed all of the flavors this year I decided to go for it.

I have a love/hate relationship with Celestial Seasonings. They have a small handful of blends that I enjoy from time to time, namely Sleepytime and Bengal Spice, but most of the time it’s just not quite there. I mean, I do tend to be more lenient in my opinion since it’s a bagged tea, but even then they taste… off. I think this blend falls somewhere in between: not great, but not really bad either.

Nutmeg is one of my favorite spices so I was excited to see a blend featuring it, but I am only getting a little whiff of nutmeg and some vanilla. No cinnamon at all! There’s kind of a generic holiday taste, like if you liquified Christmas potpourri and put it in tea. Which sounds gross but it’s not that bad! Well, not good, but not bad either. A decidedly middle of the road tea. But I am happy to have tried it—I want to get all the holiday blend desire out of my system so I can try them and not end up getting a whole box I will never drink!

I found this at the grocery store and it’s one I haven’t tried before. Of course I do not need any more tea but for some reason this year I’ve been keen on wanting all the holiday/dessert teas.

I hope it isn’t a mistake to have something with caffeine in it now. However, today is the first day of daylight savings time and I already feel like going to bed even though it’s 7 pm. Boo!

Anyway, onto the tea. It steeps up nice and dark, smells like vanilla and a bit of marzipan. I was worried because the box says Nutcracker SWEET and I did not like the Sweet Pumpkin blend from CS. This is actually on the mellow side, no stevia or sweeteners added. I put a bit of soymilk to mine which made it nice and creamy. I was expecting something a bit more flavorful but it’s perfectly acceptable to me, especially considering the price I paid for it.

ps – I actually added a tiny bit of stevia and that made it worse in my opinion. Maybe this is one I will just need to drink without sweetener.

Even after spilling half of this down my sleeve, it was a nice way to start the morning. :)

Pulled this out today since it REALLY feels like winter (hello, snowstorm). I still miss the original blend, which seemed much bolder/stronger, but this is nice anyway. Hopefully I can use up this box in the next couple of months so I can buy a fresh one before they disappear again!

why does a cup of this always seem to finish itself so quickly??

is it laced with something nefarious?

i steep it for 6-8 minutes (never taking the teabags out), add 2 and 1/2 tsps of brown sugar & a fair amount of Silk to give the dark maple colored brew a creamy-looking appearance of chai (sufficiently opaque and a perfect shade of # B48064 (hexadecimal color code). i referred to some charts on google but they weren’t yielding the correct shade of brown so alas, i was forced to open up Photoshop and toggle the color coordinates to my own liking.

sometimes words fall short (at least for this philistine), so it’s always good to have a hex color chart on hand, or a good neutral color palette when elaborating on different shades of beige:
http://tommybeautypro.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/sw_neutral_04.gif

personally, i like mine at Camelback SW 6122 though sometimes it goes to whole wheat, other times baguette.

Made some in our school’s dining hall before art this morning, because I hadn’t had this in a while. Forgot to watch the clock for a few minutes—it may have steeped 7 minutes. You’d never guess I oversteeped it though, and after adding a splash of soymilk I was off. Opened it up and…man. The best aroma. I’ve said this before, but this takes me back to about this time last year, and the memories are incredibly sweet. Tasty, smooth, sweet, excellent body, a little thickness with the soymilk, and a fantastic scent. I’ve generally left bagged tea by the wayside since being turned on to loose leaf, but this, along with a host of Celestial Seasonings varieties, will always remain. It’s perfect in its own beautiful way.