Holiday Tea

Thought this would be a no-brainer since I’m usually a fan of holiday teas…..but this, to me, was like drinking a giant piece of Big Red gum. Obviously, cinnamon and I have a weird relationship……..sometimes I get the baking-type cinnamon and sometimes I get the Red Hots Candy cinnamon. I get the latter here and it overwhelms everything else….not in the sense that I can’t taste anything else, just that I can’t really get past it. The other notes are there but my brain is too hyper focused on the cinnamon……Ah well, it happens.

“During the holiday season, Michaels (the craft store) gets a smell. A distinct scent. I don’t know if there’s some “holiday smell” that they’re pumping in. Maybe it’s like Abercrombie & Fitch, where they dump perfume through the vents.
If you’re not familiar with that smell, and don’t have a local Michael’s, I will attempt to describe it to you as gingerbread-y. It has a chai-and-clove, spice-and-sugar vibe. It’s a delicate balance of every gingerbread house and Christmas cookie tray you’ve ever eaten. It feels like something your grandma made.
When you smell it, you have a manic desire to make your very own from-scratch Martha Stewart holiday for yourself. You do not sleep for days, considering how gold-foil could best be used in an array of handmade ornaments.
Holiday Tea by Harney & Sons is Christmas music and that smell stirred together into one kit-and-kaboodle. It’s like they ground down Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’s very essence for you to boil and sip.”

All this and a HUGE tangent about “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/12/16/holiday-tea-alert-holiday-tea-from-harney-sons/

I wanted to try something different with this last purchase of Harney & Sons. I was in the mood for a chai tea, but I figured that a chai tea wasn’t what I really wanted. Luckily, the Holiday Tea was on sale. I read the list of flavors, and thought, “Well, I like clove, vanilla, and almond.” So, I bought a 4 oz tin.

I must say, the aroma is very Christmasy. Just the smell reminded me of the times when my family would visit my great aunts in Tennessee over Thanksgiving breaks. My one aunt loved making hard tack. She especially loved clove hard tack.

Anyway, I love the flavor. It’s rich, spicy, Christmasy, and it has a nice clove kick. I had my first cup with the tea on its own, and it’s a solid tea. The second cup, I added sugar, which was still good. The third, I added cream, but it wasn’t necessary; the cream overpowered the tea. All in all, I think I’ll buy more while there’s still a chance. It’s good to have a lot of a great tea when it’s unavailable throughout the majority of the year.

I was so captivated by the delightful aroma of my first cup that it had cooled to merely warm by the time I finally took a sip.

As others have said, the taste paled in comparison to the scent. The sweet, spiced, and bright notes seemingly disappeared. Yes, the spice is still there, but in a form that my tastebuds experienced as almost bitter. Maybe I taste a hint of orange, or maybe I am reaching. The sweetness in the aroma, perhaps a combination of the almond and orange, is eluding me.

After steeps at 4 and 5 min, I brewed one more cup to try it with sweetener (simple syrup, in this case). Big improvement: the addition quieted the bitter-ish notes and brought forward the bright orange flavor in a nice balance with the sweetness. Quite drinkable now. It is my biased belief that a tea like this should be enjoyable straight, but that said, I haven’t loved chai straight either.

The aroma, though: just wonderful.

Their best cinnamon related tea yet. I’ve tried their ultimate cinnamon tea but it was too water taste with red hot candies for me. Their chai was okay but not the best chai. This Holiday tea was a great, smooth, even black coated with a nice dusting of cinnamon – also pretty to look at and great smell. I ordered a sampler pack so not much left, but will have to keep in mind when the holidays come up again.

I received a tin of sachets of this tea for Christmas. I’m pretty happy I did.

The two dominant flavors are citrus and cinnamon. There is a stronger cinnamon aftertaste that feels like it doesn’t belong, but it’s not particular unwelcome either. The tea reminds me of Constant Comment overall, if that’s helpful.

In short, not the best spiced tea I’ve ever had and I’m not sure I’d buy it for myself, but I wouldn’t be sad to see it under the tree again.

Wow, this stuff is SPICY! I smell the orange, but the flavor is mainly lots of cinnamon and clove that warms up my whole mouth and leaves a tingly aftertaste. Black, I’m finding it a bit too spicy for my tastes, but I’m guessing it would make a nice chai latte! Thanks for the sample, Kyla!

This was in my mug constantly throughout December…
I found that I liked it best with a tiny bit of sugar and a splash of milk, although it’s great without.
To me, it tastes like the absolute best version of Bigelow’s ‘constant comment’ that one could ever possibly have… Growing up, that was my favourite tea, so finding something similar, but ever so much better, was really fun.

This tea came from my Secret Santa. :)

Smells like a Christmas store. Tastes like one too. It’s like holiday potpourri, but not floral. Must be the clove? I also taste a little citrus. It’s not bad, but not one I would restock.

Sipdown (119)!

Thanks Marzipan for the holiday package; I’ve been slowly plucking away at the teas in it. Conversely, I finished the tasty treats in no time at all. The Stroopwaffles were especially good! I honestly meant to share one with Tre, but I swear before I could even blink I’d gobbled them all.

I used both of the tea sachets you sent me in a latte; I was craving milk pretty badly and this was the first tea I pulled from the sample drawer that seemed like it would go reasonably well with milk. I knew one sachet wouldn’t be enough to flavour a 12 oz. mug of straight milk though, so I used both.

Sadly I really didn’t love this one; it was very heavy on the clove flavour which, though I’d normally be ok with it since I like cloves, didn’t work with that much milk. And secondly, there was a weird conflicting dryness to the flavour which was likely from an excess of nut or cinnamon in the blend. I guess there’s also supposed to be orange in this as well but there was no evidence flavour wise to support that claim. Maybe that’s for the better overall though; I can’t see how orange would have cooperated with everything else I experienced.

Sorry Marz; I certainly appreciate getting to try this one but didn’t work for me though.