Gingerbread Spice

Another holiday blend from the Traveling Tea Box! It’s funny that Candy Cane Lane seems to get such amazing reviews (and I finally have a sample of it to try, hooray!) but the rest of them have low ratings. I was disappointed in the Nutcracker blend but I must persevere!

This is, hmm, interesting. Doesn’t taste a whole lot like gingerbread, though there is definitely ginger and cinnamon in here. But I am tasting this odd almost chocolatey element which sounds like it would be good but it’s oddly fake and waxy. And at the end of the sip it’s sour for some reason? I greatly prefer the Bigelow Gingerbread one, this is just a little funky.

I saw this displayed at my local grocery store. I’m a bit peeved at them for not having the holiday teas until after the holidays but better late than never. I was hoping for sugar cookie but there wasn’t any.

This needs a loooong steep to taste good. At 5 mins it was pure ginger. Medicinal. I left the bag in as I sipped and then the cinnamon came forward. Mmm cinnamon. Then a sweetness developed. Nice. Needs some other spices to be real gingerbread but this is ok. Not my favorite, but I’ll drink it.

I should have read other users tasting notes before trying this, but I was intrigued by this as it is an “herbal” tisane and not a flavored black tea. I don’t know how they made it taste like gingerbread, but it does. It just tastes like what’s at the bottom of your cup of tea after your ginger snaps have gotten soggy and disintegrated after dipping them in your tea. I don’t really know how else to explain it. I took a few sips but it is thick as mud and has cooled down too much. Maybe this will be added to my english breakfast tea 2:1 to see if they pair well for a spicy sweet cup….hrm…not my cup of tea without tweaking.

I haven’t bought bagged tea in months, but I was tempted by this because I wanted holiday tea and I had nothing gingerbread-ish.

I couldn’t tell you how it is on its own, but I can tell you that it tastes great with frothy cream and brown sugar. I don’t think I’ll bother making it any other way! I like that I can have a decaf dessert tea for late night cravings.

A 20 bag box should last me months, and I’ll probably buy this again. So, guess I’m not 100% loose leafed.

My first cup of the day. I was afraid it would taste too strongly of ginger upon opening the bag since the smell was SO STRONG. It made me sneeze. But, brewing, it started smelling just like these ginger cookies I like from Wal-mart. Alone, it’s ok, but with a bit of sugar and some milk, I get almost that exact flavor. Pretty tasty! The ginger is not so strong that you gag from it, but it’s most definitely a ginger tea. I like a tea that is what it’s supposed to be and carries it well. That can’t really be said for a lot of teas. I know, it’s just Celestial Seasonings, but it is still GOOD!

Ouch, I just poured half of this down my shirt by accident. But this doesn’t impact my review in any way. Though steeping this for a while, I find this tea a bit weak. I do taste some delicious ginger, but I’ve had much much better versions of ginger tea, chai, etc. I suppose I’m being too hard on a cup of Celestial Seasonings, but I’m just not a huge fan. Am dragging the little rating slider to right under the ambivalent face.

It’s that time of year…got excited when I saw the holiday CS display at the co-op and picked some of this up to try. Opened up the box—got a heady whiff of gingery spices, something that smelled, somehow, like Asian food (maybe it’s the mix of the ginger and the barley?), and cookies. I was intrigued. I’ve had good spiced teas from Celestial Seasonings that smelled a little odd dry, so I continued on. While the tea was steeping, I scanned the comments on Steepster, and after doing so I was kind of prepared to not like this for all of the reasons people posted—weird barley taste, watery tasting, etc. Also, I tried an herbal this summer that was just plain roasted barley and was disgusted. (I may have to give it another try. That, or cook the barley.) I started to sip and was very very pleasantly surprised! This is a nice blend of spices, not overpowered by the taste of cinnamon red hots like some other spiced teas, has a very true gingerbread cookie aroma (just sniffed the empty mug…mmmm), and has a lingering sweetness that remains between sips. I can still taste it…and that quality is one of the most important to me in a tea—that I can taste it even when I’m not drinking it. This is a nice, light, sweetly spicy blend…a lovely holiday excursion in a cup.

Oh, I totally forgot how good this is! I totally passed by all the Celestial Seasonings holiday flavors at the store since none of them really struck me, but I just had a cup of this at a work event, and it was delicious! It gets sweeter and spicier the longer you steep it – this is the only tea I can think of where I leave the bag in while I’m drinking. The flavor is quite similar to Good Earth’s sweet and spicy tea.

Intriguing. Gingerbread is my thing after pumpkin spice, I like them at least equally but as soon as the Starbucks Gingerbread latte gets in I get that instead of pumpkin spice for the rest of the season. Also, Bath and Body Works gets a candle in that is gingerbread scent and it’s amazing. So this stuff, the ingredients are “cinnamon, ginger, roasted chicory, roasted barley, natural flavors (contains soy lecithin) and luo han guo.” Luo han guo, as best I can decipher, is a sweetener sort of like stevia. It’s not very strong but I think with two bags it could be if that’s what you want (which is what I want and what I’m going to do next time). It’s sweet and cinnamon-y and ginger-y. I bet if I made it in hot milk (with a little sugar and vanilla? hm!) it would be delicious. I don’t like tea generally but I swing this pretty well, well enough that I will try the Apple Cinnamon one I almost got with it. It’s a nice way to feel festive without any calories which I can totally get on board with. Steeping it for a looong time in hoooot water seems necessary to coerce the flavors out.

Just seems like the day to hit all the holiday favorites. With a little sugar and milk, eminds me of cinnamon spread (which I don’t know actually exists, but sounds reasonable) on a graham cracker. I think I still prefer my Ginger Snappish with the little extra kick of lemon.

After cringing at buying Candy Cane due to the ravings on this site & hating it, I was hesitant at trying another holiday tea from Celestial Seasonings. Good thing I took the leap of faith.

I love this tea!!!

As soon as I got home I opened up the box & the aroma of gingerbread filled my nose. I was whisked away to a holiday of long ago, eating gingerbread men & feeling so happy.

I heated the water & dropped in the teabag. I let that smell fill my nostrils with joy.

Then I decided to set the mood. The lights are off, my Christmas tree is lit up, I’m watching ‘Miracle on 34th Street’, a plate of tea biscuits sit before me & oh yes, the amazing smelling cuppa Gingerbread Spice tea is joining me.

The first sip is a test to see how hot the water is. Come on….we all do it. The second sip really lets me soak in the flavor. After that, I will have come to whatever conclusion about this tea.

So let me say it again…
I love this tea!

It’s a very strong ginger & cinnamon flavor. If you don’t LOVE either, then pass on this tea. You will not appreciate it. If you do love either flavor, then you will love this tea.

The aroma is as strong as the taste & is just as pleasing. There is a spice to it. Very well done.

I made my cuppa with a little local made honey. (Queens County Farm in Glen Oaks makes the best local grown honey!)

I did enjoy dunking a tea biscuit into this cuppa tea….just wish maybe I had an actual gingerbread man cookie!

Enjoy!

Had an opportunity to try this tea this weekend. I decided to steep it in hot milk to make kind of a gingerbread latte. It wasn’t very strong but that was probably due to the milk. I was definitely getting a gingerbread flavor! It was nice a warming on a chilly February afternoon.

After reading some of the reviews on this tea, I seem to be in the minority. I actually like this one and find it remarkably similar to the taste of gingerbread. It isn’t something I would drink daily or even too often, but it is much better than I expected. I bought a total of 2 boxes of each holiday tea that CS had at my grocery store and i’m sure that my 2 boxes of this tea will be finished happily within a couple of months.

YUCK! A friend gave this to me at work today so I thought I would try it. Can’t even finish my cup. Soooo gross. I really enjoy their Candy Cane Lane, but this one was a huge dissappointment!!!

This smells delicious, but the taste sadly does not live up to it. I’m really not fond of the taste of roasted chicory or barley or whichever one it is they always add to give herbal teas “body.” I was given a cup of this; it’s warm and smells nice and I’ll probably drink all of it, but I’d have a hard time getting it down without the honey and milk I added.

Probably should have read some other reviews before getting it. It /is/ quite weak, but still enjoyable. Perhaps I’ll double-bag it next time. Hum.

I mean, this tastes alright, Not my favourite of gingerbread teas.. After a while it tasted like almonds, so I guess as an almond tea it’s alright haha.

I really cannot bring myself to drink this. My friend gave me an entire box of this tea a while ago. The blend smells delicious both wet and dry, and the murky orangey cup it creates smells like liquid gingerbread. But the taste just isn’t there! This doesn’t really taste like gingerbread; just a muddle of spices without any real direction. Surprisingly enough, even when I steep this for a long time, it still has a watery taste. Not a favorite at all.

Do NOT add sugar to this. It makes it taste ridiculously awful. I couldn’t even down most of my cup today as a result.

The ginger flavour is pretty strong. It’s alright with a little soy milk.

I like Celestial Seasonings holiday teas a lot, but not this one. Well, not as much as the others. I don’t tend to like spice in my tea, though.

I read other reviews before steeping this one, and left the bag in for a good ten minutes. Next time, I’ll steep it less, and see if I can tone down that “OMG! SPICY!” thing that is going on here.It was okaaaayyy without additions, but I thought I’d “fix” it by adding milk and sugar. Um, no. I think I made it worse. (Although, I’d be interested to see what would have happened if I had just added milk, and no sugar.) Oh, and I agree with the other review that says this one smells better than it tastes. I was sooooo excited when I opened the box.

All in all, I wish I had spent my money on hoarding away another box or two of Candy Cane Lane instead of taking a chance on this one when I found them on clearance last night.