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Happy New Year!
Back today with a few more hot tea and alcohol ideas for you, and then tomorrow, we'll serve up a few chilled tea and alcohol drinks, for those of you planning for some entertaining. You should find a few more boozy tea drinks by clicking on food and drink to in the category bar.
Christmas Tea in Yosemite
The writer shares: have been served a very hot concoction of strong tea, apple cider, and Irish whiskey that was very good at the time -- Christmas in Yosemite, with lots of snow and very cold temperatures. It was warming and tasty.
You may have to experiment a little with amounts, but try 1/2 tea and cider and 1 to 1.5 oz of Irish whiskey.
Irish Tea
In Ireland we might have 'drop of the cratur' in our tea. I like Jameson in Lyons Kenya blend with a wee drop of milk.
Bourbon and Tea
Tea, honey, lemon and bourbon are good for a cold, but also
just plain good!
Blueberry Tea
Blueberry Tea is sometimes served in a brandy snifter, to concentrate and hold the alcohol fumes released by the tea's heat.
1 oz. Grand Marnier liqueur
Preparation is simple -- Add both liqueurs to the snifter and then fill with hot tea to taste. Swaddle the brandy snifter in serviettes or a cloth to protect the hands. Some suggest a sugared rim, or adding sugar to the tea, or a lemon or orange garnish.
Try with Earl Grey or use actual blueberry or fruit herbal tea and reduce the amount of Grand Marnier.
Perhaps you are doing more entertaining through the week and especially on Thursday night... Here are a few tea and alcohol concoctions to try:
Flaming Oolong
Add a tsp or so of Spanish Brandy to a
brown sugar cube, on a tea spoon, lighting it, and then after it flames and caramelizes,
tipping it into a cup of oolong tea.
Sparkling Oolong
This idea is inspired by a recipe found in Gilles Brochard's book, A Tea
Box. Recipe calls for a mix of oolong tea and Brut champagne. Brochard steeps 2 T of oolong in 2 cups of cold water for 6 hours, strains, then refrigerates.
To simplify, you could make up a pot of oolong and then cool to room temperature. Then chill and mix in a champagne glass, 1/2 oolong and 1/2 sparkling wine.
One reviewer/experimenter writes: I was greatly impressed with this drink. So many of the chilled tea concoctions don't seem to grab me, but this sparkling wine/oolong combination turns out one very classy and refined beverage where the tea nuances/complexity come through beautifully.
We'll continue tomorrow with more recipes to plan for you weekend festivities. Don't forgot about our tea sampler giveaway - read the details here.
We're so grateful for you, our Steeped Tea customers, hostesses, consultants, and our delightful blog readers! Wishing you every happiness this Holiday Season and prosperity in the New Year. We look forward to continuing our relationship in the coming year.
We hit 15,000 visits this week and we are SO excited! So we are giving away a Steeped Tea Sampler which contains 6 of our best selling teas in 25 g bags, along with a small teaball and a teaspoon. So how do you win? Just leave a comment on this post and tell us what you like about the blog, and/or what you'd like to see more of - tea videos, tea health news, tea-related recipes, etc. We'll leave this post at the top until next week, and on New Year's Eve, we'll draw the winner. Tell your friends, too!
Thank you so much for dropping by!! Happy sipping!
(sorry consultants, you aren't eligible, but your customers are, so spread the word!)
We've been sharing a lot of tea-inspired recipes this month to help you with your entertaining over the Christmas and new year's season. Sometimes, a heavy dessert is too much after a rich meal. How about some refreshing tea, sweet and tart fruits and a scrumptious cheese selection instead?
The World Tea News recently published an article about pairing cheese and tea, getting suggestions from a variety of chefs, tea lecturers and tea merchants.
What it really comes down to is experimenting to discover what you like, but there are a few ideas to get you started:
*Pair opposing flavors
*Play on similarities
*Consider texture
*Bring out sub-tones and sub-textures
* Follow the seasons
If this is really interesting to you, or you'd like to read about specific suggestions for cheese-types and leaf-types you can read some of the article on the author's blog.
Just for a change, I thought I'd toss a coffee recipe in. This sounds sweet and decadent and 1 would be enough to last me for a month because of that... But at this time of year, we often indulge, so why not?
This comes from the Java Queen blog where the blogger writes: With cherries, chocolate and whipped cream, it’s almost like drinking a cup of liquid black forest cake. You should try this if you have a real sweet tooth.
Ingredients:
6 oz hot brewed or pressed Steeped volcanic coffee
2 tbs chocolate syrup
1 tbs maraschino cherry juice
Whipped cream
Chocolate shavings
Maraschino cherries
Here's a great one to nibble on over the holidays, or to put in a nice container and wrap as gifts for paper and letter carriers, etc.
Caramel Mocha Almond Popcorn Clusters
10 cups freshly popped popcorn
2 cups whole almonds
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup strong Steeped volcanic coffee
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Spray 15 x 10 baking sheet with non-stick spray. Mix popcorn and almonds in large bowl.
Combine brown sugar, butter , coffee and corn syrup in medium saucepan.
Over low heat, stir mixture until sugar dissolves.
Increase heat to high and boil 5 minutes.
Remove from heat; stir in vanilla, almond extract and baking soda.
Pour over popcorn and almonds, immediately stirring gently to coat.
Pour mixture onto prepared baking sheet, spreading evenly.
Bake for 1 hour in preheated oven. Cool completely. Break into pieces and store in airtight container.
Yield: 20 pieces
This recipe appeared first on the Nook & Pantry blog and sounds pretty fabulous! The base is a brownie made with white chocolate that sandwiches a matcha cheesecake swirl.
Green Tea Cheesecake White Chocolate Brownie
Brownie base
8 Tbsp butter (1 stick), cut into 1-in pieces
5 oz. white chocolate, chopped
2 eggs
5 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C flour
Cheesecake swirl
8 oz bar of cream cheese, room temp
1 egg
3 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp green tea/matcha powder
About 2 tsp of water, hot but not boiling
Preheat the oven to 325ºF.
Mix the green tea powder with a bit of hot water to form a paste. Mix the cream cheese, egg, and green tea paste until smooth. Taste a bit and see if it's strong enough.
Melt the butter with the white chocolate. Mix in the sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour (and baking powder if you want to experiment with it). Whisk until smooth but do not over mix.
Line a 8 x 8 square baking dish with a sheet of foil (with overhang for easy lifting) or grease and flour it. Pour in half of the white chocolate batter. Then drop half of the cream cheese mixture on top in spoonfuls. Top the batter with the rest of the white chocolate brownie batter, then finally add the remaining half of the cream cheese mixture on top. Use a knife and swirl the brownie and cream cheese together to create a marbled pattern.
Bake the brownies at 325ºF for 40 - 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs. The center should be almost set. You don't want the toothpick to come out clean because that would mean the brownies have overbaked. Cool in the pan for 5 then lift the brownies out and cool to room temperature. They're best served cold so chill them in the fridge for about 3 hours.
