Sugar Plum Fairy

This is such a well thought out blend here. So many ingredients that seem like they make the blend extra special: Organic green rooibos, organic whole cloves, rosehips, hibiscus, sweet blackberry leaf, flavorings, vanilla beans, mallow blossoms and raspberry pieces. The mallow flowers on that green rooibos base just visually pop. Sadly, I wish I loved the flavor of the blend more than I love the effort behind it. Mainly, there is a flavor of blackberry leaves that is the most distinct, which I wish wasn’t here at all. The hibiscus and rosehips aren’t making an appearance at all, even while brewing two teaspoons, which is fine with me. I’m not sure which of these ingredients I can actually taste other than the blackberry leaves which is a shame. On the second steep, the brew color looked like the inside of a plum, which is a nice touch. It even had more of a hint of plum flavor, which was nice, but I’m not sure if that was the other fruity elements… The second steep seemed like a completely different tea from the first steep and I’m glad the blackberry leaves were less noticeable in the second cup. S&V has an excellent black tea blend with plum flavoring, so I’m surprised more (if any) of that plum flavor wasn’t used here.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 15 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep

Sipdown! (8 | 329)

I think I’m over halfway through my S&V holiday teas, hooray! Honestly most of them have been better than I remembered so far, which is a nice surprise when I’m trying to sip them down.

This one is a sort of light mulled wine flavor with some hibiscus. I really appreciate the restraint with the hibiscus though, it adds just enough tartness to make this feel like a spiced fruit juice – maybe cranberry and orange, and I can see plum as well. But it’s not overly sour, which is lovely. The clove makes it taste quite festive.

Honestly, one of the most pleasant mulled wine teas I’ve had, as it doesn’t overdo the hibiscus or the spice and is very well-balanced. Probably not something I would reorder as I just don’t really crave spiced teas, but I would consider having some around for the winter/holidays.

So this is a review of the recipe on the S&V website to turn this tea into sugar cookies…hope you don’t mind.

After a few cups of this tea, I gave up on it and decided to make it into cookies. There’s a sugar cookie recipe on the S&V website, and it turned out pretty well! You steep the tea in melted butter, which is fun. The tea flavor was definitely more obvious in the raw dough, whereas there’s just a hint under the buttery flavor of the cookies. The clove is too strong in the tea, but it works in the cookies, and the plum is tasty in there too. The cookies were pretty addicting when they were nice and soft, but once they hardened up, they weren’t quite as good. I don’t really like sugar cookies, so this was a big test that went…okay? I definitely prefer the tea ice cream recipe that I make, and next time I think I’ll try making an unloved tea into cake. Or maybe snickerdoodles? I definitely recommend cooking with teas though. It’s fun and makes the kitchen smell great.