In preparation for my holiday gingerbread party, I bought more tea. I love drinking tea, but more than simply drinking tea I like to drink the right tea.

What is the right tea?

It’s a tea that seems perfect for the occasion at hand! Tea that compliments the flavor of any food being served alongside it, tea that appeals to the palette of those partaking of it, and tea that provides a nice aroma and atmosphere. In the wintertime, I particularly like spicy dark teas that smell like the holidays. When I went to my favourite tea shop, Tea Gschwendner, and I picked out a few teas that I hoped would satisfy my hopes of “winter” coziness.

No. 908 Gwendalina’s Baked Apple Tea
Apple Flavoured Black and Green Tea

This is a truly fantastic fall and winter tea. I buy this in fairly large quantities as soon as the weather starts to cool. This is like having apple pie in a cup, but is most certainly a tea and not a cider.

The use of both black and green teas in the blend creates a rich tea that has somewhat sharper notes (from the green tea) and a full body. Pieces of dried apple add a distinct apple flavour. You can smell the apple very strongly when the tea is brewing or sitting in the cup, and the apple hint is very distinguishable as an aftertaste with each sip. Almonds add a pleasant nuttiness, and cinnamon accents the apples superbly. This tea is good served black, but becomes even more dessert-like when served with sugar and cream.

No. 998 White Christmas
Vanilla-Almond Flavoured White Tea

This white tea has a fresh hint of lemon, paired with vanilla and almond. The package states that it is reminiscent of sugar cookies, and I agree. As this is a white tea, the much less intense flavours of lemon, vanilla, and almond can really stand out. The tea itself lends a pleasant backdrop to the other flavours. It’s a very nice tea for when you want something that isn’t very heavy~

No. 1320 Winter Magic
Cinnamon and Cardamom Flavoured Rooibos

This tea has an intense blend of spices that seems to be amplified by the rooibos. Although rooibos is not technically a tea, I still very much enjoy it. It has a rich, earthy flavor that is already fragrant and aromatic. I always think of this red “tea” as spicy. When cinnamon, cardamom, and sandalwood are added, it becomes a blend that is filled with spices without having any of the “heat” traditionally associated with spicy things. I think it feels very warming~ The sandalwood is one of the more interesting tastes in the tea, because it’s very woodsy and smooth.

No. 1588 Banana Chocolate Crêpe
Choco-Banana Flavoured Black and Green Tea

This tea isn’t really holiday-ish, but it’s pretty amazing–so I wanted to mention it anyway. I bought this tea because it sounded like a neat concept; I do very much like the banana and chocolate flavour combination. The tea contains dried banana–not “banana flavouring”–and bits of actual cocoa, so the smell is heavenly. It doesn’t have any of those odd smells that tend to accompany artificial flavourings. (I think that most of the time those don’t taste anything like the real thing, anyway.) The blend of black and green teas is a very enjoyable one–not so strong as to overwhelm the banana, but strong enough to support the cocoa.

With a little bit of sugar added, this becomes even more amazing. Everyone who tried it at the party was very surprised to find that it did really taste as good as it sounded like it would taste. I consider that a success!

When loose leaf tea isn’t practical, for whatever reason, there are a few inexpensive bagged teas that I’ve really been enjoying–those sold by Trader Joe’s. I normally drink their Duchess Earl Grey, a lemon-accented Earl Grey, as my bagged tea of choice, so I was interested in trying their new winter teas when I spotted them in the store. At an incredibly affordable price–roughly $2 per box–I’m not heartbroken if they don’t meet my expectations.

Vanilla and Cinnamon Black Tea
This is a warm, spicy black tea with a hint of sweetness. The “sweetness” is actually vanilla, and thus it isn’t truly sweet, but it adds a nice high note to the tea. The black tea is laced very heavily with cinnamon; it leaves a “warming” sensation with each sip, but the tea itself is strong enough to avoid being overwhelmed by the spice. The combination of flavours is exactly the sort of thing I hope for in a winter tea.

Candy Cane Green Tea
When I first went to the store to pick up new teas, I passed up this one. The flavour combination seemed strange and perhaps unpalatable. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I wanted to try it. Green tea, when brewed correctly at a lower temperature than boiling point, has a very refreshing taste that sometimes seems to have notes that remind me of freshly-cut grass. Peppermint is also refreshing. Thus the two would have that in common. Additionally, green tea doesn’t have the same tendency towards astringency that black teas can have, so there would be less chance for a sourness to compete with the peppermint.

I went back and bought a box, and I’m very glad that I did. This a very cooling, soothing tea. It’s the sort of thing I want to drink when I have a headache or an upset stomach. The peppermint is strong, but not too much so. It blends nicely with the leafiness of the green tea.

I do so love tea! ♥