What's your favorite New Year's tea tradition?
New year’s is almost here, so I thought it would be fun to find out how people incorporate tea into their celebrations / resolutions.
I think my wife and parents will celebrate with some chai in the morning, while I’ll probably have my last Nantou Four Seasons from the Steepster Select box.
What about everyone else? Any tea themed champagne cocktails for NYE, or perhaps some special tea preparations for New Year’s Day itself?
Don’t really have any tea traditions as of yet, perhaps we’ll have to create new ones. My Steps grandmother was of Scottish descent and had several traditions ..1 the Xmas tree and ornaments had to be down before New Years or it brought bad luck.
2. If possible the first person past the threshold should be tall and dark and bring gifts representing wishes for the family for the year. When she was a child they’d bring coal representing warmth and safety. Home and hearth as you will. We used to share a bottle of ice wine and if at home we would stay up and watch Blade Runner on CityTv for a dystopic start to the new year.
Not tea related also but my family’s tradition was the oldest male child had to leave the house before midnight (11:59pm) run around the house once and enter after midnight (12:01am). I have no idea why we did this, it was something like out with the old, in with the new.
I usually ask for tea for Christmas, so I try to open a new package for the new year. In non-tea related New Year’s activities, I always take down the Christmas decorations on New Year’s Day, and go on a cleaning spree (mostly to sweep up all the glitter).
No one has a favorite NYE tea cocktail? I can’t do the one in the Steepster email – I’m not a fan of gin. This Rachael Ray recipe looks interesting, but it’s almost too late for the “steep for 6 hours and refrigerate for one more”:
2 tablespoons green tea leaves
1 750 milliliter bottle brut Champagne or prosecco, chilled
Mint leaves, for garnish (optional)
directions
Steep the tea leaves in 2 cups cold water for 6 hours. Strain, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.
To serve, fill champagne glasses halfway with the green tea and top off with the Champagne and mint leaves if desired.
sorry I missed your comment. this is the recipe that was linked: http://community.epicurious.com/post/sparkling-green-tea-cocktail
My family didn’t have any growing up, and this is my first year celebrating New Year’s on my own. Maybe I’ll have to start a tradition…
My plan for tonight right now is to use up my sample of DAVIDsTEA’s Bubbly by making it into a tea soda (you know, actually bubbly…)
For a tea resolution I am planning on going through all my old tea, trying them once more, reviewing them and getting rid of the teas I don’t like. I also want to try all the tea I have that I haven’t tried yet and getting rid of what I don’t like. I have had fun this past year trying all sorts of new teas and letting my cupboard explode a bit. This new year I will focus on dialing in what I like, what I want to keep as staples in my cupboard and making my collection a little more lean. I’m going to try not to buy any tea while I do this, so I may go a little swap crazy to get through the buying hiatus.
As for a non tea resolution… exercise more, spend less time on the computer and more time at my jewelry bench creating.
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