Christmas Tea

This morning I was straightening my tea cabinet, and came upon these two bags that Jaime sent to me – thankfully!!! – because if I hadn’t found them by the day before New Year’s Eve I would have had to wait until next Christmas to drink them! (I’m serious!) I put them right in front of my tea kettle so I would remember to have them for afternoon tea – and here we are!

I think it’s really tasty! I’m having it with milk and sugar, and I’m experiencing a definite spiced tea creamcicle thing :) The orange must be blending with the milk – and it’s nice!! I’m completely enjoying it. No bitterness, and the spices and flavorings are natural tasting and not cloying.. Another bagged tea which I think is fantastic! I would totally buy this next holiday.

Thank you thank you thank you Jaime for yet another super yummy tea!

Had a cup of this and the teabag itself smelled of cinnamon and clove. Hhhmmmm, I put on the kettle. As I was waiting for my water I read the box. Cinnamon….check. Clove…check. Artificial flavoring…….I wasn’t expecting much. Still, I gave it a go.

In the cup, I could smell the spices, but I honesly couldn’t taste much of anything. Not even the black tea. Very bland, I will not be having this for Christmas, or any other time. My tea tastings for March can only improve!

Cupped: Thursday, March 1, 2012.

Reviewed: Sunday, March 4, 2012.

This tea has cinnamon and cloves and falls into the “medium”, leaning towards light spiced “chai” category. Twinings does not reveal other details, but I’m definately getting an orange flavor in this mix. Since cinnamon and cloves are my 2 favorite chai spices, I’m finding this tea good … very good if you want a light take on chai.

The orange is making me wonder how this would taste with a smidgen of cream … hold on … mmmm, creamier (good). Btw, this orange is more of a fresh orange taste (not bergamot). And it stays bright underneath the cream (for the record, I use Coffeemate “Natural Bliss” Sweet Cream).

Another tea from my recent World Market trip. Couldn’t figure out what to have this morning, so I chose this one. Normally I would have set Chloe up with something last night, but I was very tired and went to bed at an unholy early hour. Expected to be up insanely early as a result, but no: I rolled out of bed a good 2 hours later than my normal time. Thus, I’m running a smidge later than I wanted (and being sore from moving furniture isn’t helping me in the speed category).

Brewed this for 3 minutes, and I think I’ll try it at 5 next time. It seems a bit watered down, but I can detect some spice and a hint of citrus. The tea is there, but still rather weak. Will wait and rate after I’ve tried the 5 min steep.

Couldn’t resist picking up a box of this at the grocery store today. Nicely spiced… not too strong. Can taste cloves with a little bit of cinnamon. Enjoying this cup while the kids are napping.

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, it’s Christmas day!

Here I sit at the computer, playing the Blue Velvet Jazz score, tasting my first sip of my best friend’s Christmas gift to me, Twining’s bagged Christmas Tea. I’m using my new little Gingerbread Christmas For-One Tea pot set I nabbed at Goodwill this month. It’s adorable and looked especially so with the little Twining’s tag hanging out of it while steeping.

Pleasantly surprised? Yep. The smell was barely existent but the taste is strong and filled with delightful Cinnamon. Christmas tea is really just a Chai Tea, but I love Chai so this is perfect. It’s ironic but recently, after trying some Chais, almost all dissappoint. I first found Chai years ago in teabag form and swooned. I have since tried Thai Chai by Adagio – yummy different sort of tropical Chai. I nabbed some Oriental Spice to hopefully serve as a Chai and Orange Spice but sadly disliked it. I also nabbed another Masali Loose Tea Chai from the local tea shop and sadly it was lackluster as well. Must I only find blissful Chai solitude within a teabag? Surely not!

This one is very rich on Cinnamon, which I enjoy, followed by a pleasant orange taste resting on the tongue. Skimming through reviews, it looks as if others sometimes note a lack of cinnamon. Odd. Perhaps the cinnamon is brought fuller out with sugar, I think. It is not heavy on other spices like traditional Chais, so it not a perfect replacement for other Chais, just a nice Christmas hot Cinnamon sweet taste, delicious.

A yummy tea that I will guarantee shall dissappear quickly from the cupboard. The box is a pleasing red design as well. It is not the stand-up shown here but mine is horizontical.

I discovered some bags in a plastic bin leftover from the holidays, and brewed it up for nostalgia’s sake. It’s an excellent quality tea! I scored it a smidge toward “middling” just because the heavy clove and other flavors aren’t quite a hit with me. But it is a good change of pace, a reminder of the warmth of the holidays, and well worth the occasional sip. For clove enthusiasts, this might be a favorite!

I have had a couple of cups of this tea over the past week, but forgot to log it. Needs sweetener to bring out the cloves and cinnamon flavor, os it is not overly spicy. Tastes like the spices in mulled cider, though without the apple flavor. A pleasant tea for a winter’s day.

At the end of October I was at Epcot in Orlando wandering around the World Showcase and found a Twinings store in England. I bought this one with so many expectations and deep rooted excitement. Not sure if that is what would later ruin the experience for me. I put in my cupboard and forced myself to wait until after Thanksgiving when the Christmas tree and all the decorations were out so I could get the full experience. I brewed a pot and sat in the living room by the tree with my husband (we even put the Yule log thing on the tv that we found on Netflix for the full effect). First sip….. complete disappointment. Bland tea that just seemed to be a weaker version of Chai. That whole month of eyeballing it every time I got a tea out of my cupboard and THAT is what I get? It was a sad day. :(

Fourth tea bag in today’s sipdown. Vastly unimpressed with this one. Dry, the bag smelled of paper. The cup when brewed had some slight scent that was nice but overly mild. First sip I got cloves and orange, but not in large quantities. Now I’m about ten sips in and am getting . . . spiced paper. Also the more I smell the mug, the more I’m getting a pu’erh smell from the tea. This is definitely not a tea I’ll be craving next Christmas. :(

It is not just for Christmas, I love the flavors, like a Chai lite…

Although it’s got cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in the mix, Twinings Christmas Tea isn’t overly spiced. It’s easy to go overboard with holiday spiced teas…I’ve had some where I’ve seriously wondered if I haven’t accidentally steeped potpourri instead of tea.

This isn’t like that. It’s lovely for an afternoon or evening…I hesitate to recommend it as a morning cuppa, simply because like a lot of Twinings bags, I don’t think it’s strong enough. However, it should be noted that I like my black teas very, very strong, so to each their own.

This was one of the first two teas that started my tea journey and is so delicious. Very rich flavors for a bagged tea and I was lucky enough to get some tins of the loose leaf which of course was so much better than the bags. Wonderful hints of cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves but not quite like a chai. Very Christmasy but I love drinking it all year.

For $4 for 3.5oz this is an excellent value in loose leaf tea.

Having this again after chatting with a friend today who I’d given a bag to and she described it as being like a chai but without the spice and she really liked it. Steep time on the first 24 oz pot of 3 minutes and the second closer to 5 and I get 4 pretty strong 12 oz cups.

Grabbed a box of this for the holidays because I was feeling in the spirit of the season.

The tea has a wonderful aroma of cinnamon and clove, which is great for making the house smell nice. The problem is that the actual taste of the tea is extremely bland. There really is no flavor whatsoever. I was pretty disappointed.

I have an old box of this tea, and it’s really not bad. It tastes a little weak but that might be because the tea is old. (Though judging by other tasting notes maybe this is a weak tea.)
I usually drink it was just a little sugar, that way all I could taste was the black tea and spices, I tried adding milk and it brought out the orange flavor- which was an improvement.
I’ve also tried brewing this tea with other teas, like the Pumpkin spice from Scripture tea, this tea was weak and made a good blend.

Given that it smells nice when brewing, I expected more flavor than what I got, even after steeping for 4-5 minutes. Not much in the way of flavor. However, I have an English friend/former colleague who swears by this stuff and says they can’t always find it in London. For me, it’s just so-so. I guess I would rather brew my own black tea and maybe add a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg if I wanted Christmas-y tea. (By the way, the “artificial flavors” thing caught my eye as well… why would you add artificial flavors to something like this tea, and then not make them… well… flavorful? It is a mystery.)

Absolutely lovely with a tablespoon of honey! The orange flavor and spices just warm the soul!

A bit too heavy on the spices for me, but a good blend nonetheless and with classic Twinings quality.

First tea of the day

This is our annual Christmas morning tea, served with gingerbread.

I like the fact that this doesn’t taste of just cinnamon, you really do taste the other spices as well.