Deltangam: The first tea for my shop

Since the start of Tea Thoughts, one of the most frequently asked questions is: do you sell tea? I understand to a point since there is the word tea in my name but it is something I have considered a lot.
I chose the name Tea Thoughts because it was alliteration and because at the time I was going to be writing about tea. I kept the name because I loved it and thought it would still fit well. I never desired to include tea in my shop but after the Nowruz box, everything changed!

BACKGROUND
I have often been asked to share more about my own culture and Persian heritage but have always been hesitant for two reasons. In my life, I have experienced negative reactions to this and also due to sanctions, using certain words that deal with Iran put me at risk of being shut down even though I am not in any violation. I have seen several businesses be cut off from their websites/payment processors for simply having the word Persian (not even Iran) on their site. Even when I paid for my blend, PayPal flagged the payment and it took several days to go through because it had the work Persian in it. Shafa mentioned that this happens anytime they use the word Persian. This is obviously a mistake of software but it is a real threat nonetheless and a deterrent for me.

Earlier this year, I did create a Nowruz box where I shared items and information about our New Year traditions and I was so happy that many people enjoyed it. From that time, I started thinking of ways that I could share more and also collaborate with other Iranian owned shops in the diaspora. At that time, what I came up with was 2 different Iranian owned shops in Canada and the US. They both focus on slightly different things and I thought it would be great to create a tea with them for my shop.

The first of which is Shafa Blends, they are located in Rockville, MD and are owned by an Iranian family! I came across them several years ago when they were at a different location and under a different name. I walked into a local mall on my lunch break to get a bite and saw a store called Rumi. I instantly freaked out! I went in to see a beautiful tea and spice shop and the Iranian family that owned it. I would often come during lunch breaks to buy tea or spices. They’re now Shafa Blends but are still creating incredible spice blends and have expanded their tea offerings as well! I was very excited that they were able to help me with the blend.

THE TEA
A blend may be an odd thing to add to my shop since it’s not something I drink a lot of but it’s actually something that is very much part of my tea drinking history. I grew up drinking black teas with bergamot oil which is a blend. I enjoy all the oolongs, white and pu’er teas that I’ve had that are mixed with different flowers. The thing I tend to stray away from are teas with flavorings as they don’t always do well on my palette, I’m very sensitive to those so I mostly stay away. I do enjoy teas that are blended with different ingredients like masala chai type blends!

My idea for Deltangam was at first something I went back and forth on. I wanted it to be a daily drinker type tea that is something like I drink everyday. This was a difficult task because the tea I drink everyday is pretty plain, just a ceylon with bergamot oil but I wanted to make it more interesting without overloading it. I started to brainstorm things that are very common in our culture and cuisine. The base is of course a black tea with bergamot. Not a ceylon which I was originally looking for but a tea that Shafa has and uses in some of my favorite teas. It has a similar aroma to my favorite tea and leaves that are a good size.

The first thing I knew I needed to add was rose. Rose is a very common ingredient, not only in tea but in food! Rose and rose water are included in many of our desserts and we even have our own rose! You will also notice if you search for persian tea blends that rose is almost always involved.

Rose can be controversial though since it has such a fragrant smell. Growing up, you learn tea preferences of family members as you learn to make and pour tea. I remember my uncle has a blend that he always serves and it is very floral and fragrant but my dad on the other hand can’t stand the teas he says smell like “perfume.” To not overpower the tea, rose petal pieces are used to give a hint of rose.

The second ingredient in this tea is ceylon cinnamon. Cinnamon is a commonly used in food but not tea so that’s the twist to this blend! Cinnamon is mostly used in sweet dishes like shole zard (a rice pudding) and to sautee meat in certain dishes. It’s this one ingredient that gives big flavor especially to beef (jn my opinion) and you can tell when it’s used. So why use this in the tea?

I wanted to make this tea blend unique, something you may not find but still have ingredients that are important to Iranian culture and cuisine. It is difficult to import Iranian ingredients so using what we have available is what we used. I also took into consideration the items that Shafa carries and uses in their own blends and spices which was important since I am collaborating with them. Ceylon cinnamon was my choice because it’s my favorite to use. While the fragrance is not always as strong as other cinnamon, the flavor is really nice with a bit of sweetness. In this blend you will find pieces of ceylon cinnamon as it’s more of a bark and easier to break up.

THE NAME
When deciding what to call this tea, I wanted it to first and foremost be something in farsi. I didn’t want it to just be named whatever was in the blend or even Persian blend since that is so common. We have a lot of sayings in Farsi that don’t really make sense in English but have deep meaning and are also used often in everyday speech. I was thinking of some of the most common ones and after consulting with my mom and sister, I decided to use “Deltangam.” This phrase literally translated means “my heart is tight” in English but in Farsi, it’s used to express longing for someone or something.

Growing up in the US with Iranian parents was always an interesting experience because I was taught language, culture and traditions from a different land but grew up in the US which has a very different culture. It was always a struggle to straddle being not quite American enough for Americans and not quite Iranian enough for Iranians.

Many of you are probably aware of the revolution currently happening in Iran, I try to share things about it almost everyday to keep it front of mind for non Iranians. This isn’t a new struggle, in fact Iranians have been fighting against the Islamic Republic since 1979. I’ve never been able to go to Iran for many complicated reasons, but much of it surrounds this current government, the way they rule and having a parent who needed to flee. Deltangam is a phrase I use for Iran. It’s a home that is mine ethnically, it’s a home that is mine in the stories my parents have told me but it’s a home I’ve never physically known. It’s something that not only makes me long for it but also breaks my heart. This tea and my love of tea in general is a love letter to Iran, where I hope all Iranians in the diaspora can go back to together one day.

If you’re wondering how to pronounce the tea, you can break down the word:

del - tang - am
Del: heart
Tang: tight
Am: this indicates the possessive subject like I’m

THE BREW
I’ve included brewing instructions on the tea that I think would be a common way to brew tea but also give you a taste of the way Iranians brew their tea. You can see this in the longer steep time of 5-7 minutes. The way tea was brewed in our house was with a modern samovar set up with a bottom boiling kettle and a top tea kettle. You will boil water in the bottom, then pour that water into the top tea pot with tea leaves. Instead of just leaving the top teapot to brew, you keep it on top of the boiling kettle teapot for a long time. I’m not exactly sure of the time but sometimes 10-15 minutes or more! What you get is a very strong brew that you can dilute somewhat with water if you want a weaker tea. For stronger teas, they are generally enjoyed with a sweet either sugar cube, rock candy, green raisins or other confections.

The 5-7 minute brew will hopefully allow you to experience a stronger flavor that you can have on it’s own or perhaps choose to sweeten. However, I encourage you to play around with it and perhaps you like a shorter brew or perhaps you want to use more tea depending on your teapot. I will mention that this tea isn’t really suited for gongfu brewing.

THE TASTE

The aroma of this tea is very interesting because it is somewhat spicy from the cinnamon at the start but you also get floral and bergamot on the back end. The taste has a nice sweetness from the cinnamon on top of a classic earl grey type flavor but more complex due to the rose. It’s nice on it’s own but I suggest you try it with honey or sugar to taste as well!

I don’t expect everyone to like this tea. I’m not a master blender and this is an experiment of sorts. I’ve blended together ingredients that are meaningful to me and I don’t expect that to be everyone’s cup of tea. Although, I do hope you enjoy it :)

THE PRICE
I will be listing this tea for $16 in the shop and each bag has about 1 oz of tea. The pricing here reflects the fact that this is a collaboration and that I purchased the tea instead of sourcing directly. If the response is good, I will restock in larger amounts and also change the packaging to include a 2 oz package size.

Onyx Coffee Lab's Line of Teas

INTRO

I first learned about Onyx coffee when I was on the hunt for a coffee advent calendar. Throughout the years, I’ve tried different coffees to try to get a taste for it but it’s not really my thing so I stick to tea. My partner however loves coffee. While he does drink tea with me and enjoys it, he prefers to start his day with coffee.

On the hunt for a coffee advent calendar in 2020, I cam across Onyx on Instagram. I liked the way they described their coffees and the information they gave about the beans. This is something I look at when I’m purchasing teas as well. There is also a story behind each coffee as well as impeccable branding. I was sold and purchased a sampler that my partner could use like an advent calendar, he raved about the coffee!

Fast forward to 2022, I started seeing Onyx post about tea! I got so excited because I felt as though this was a company doing everything right with coffee so they would probably be doing the same with tea. Something that I always find interesting is how when I meet people who only drink coffee, they think tea is “complicated” but in reality, a coffee enthusiast is looking for similar things when searching for good coffee that a tea drinker is!

INTERVIEW

After reaching out, I was put in touch with Ivana who is the Director Of E-Commerce and worked on the tea curation. We ended up doing a product swap which was really fun and I thought I would share more about her!

1. Can you introduce yourself and Onyx Coffee Lab?

Hello! I'm Ivana Chan, and I'm currently the Director of E-Commerce at Onyx Coffee Lab. I started as a barista at Onyx just wanting to learn all about coffee, coffee service and the overall supply chain, but I previously worked in corporate marketing and advertising for many years. Since 2020, I've had the opportunity to work on the e-commerce side of the business and some other projects including the curation and start of our tea program!

Onyx is a team of specialty coffee roasters seeking truth, quality and accountability in coffee. This translates to journeying around the world to find the finest and most unique coffee offerings, setting a high bar for quality from roasting to the final cup, and being responsible and committed in trade relationships with producing partners. Additionally, Onyx has always been very active in the coffee competition world, which keeps our team at the top of their performance across service, education and hospitality. Recently, Onyx has begun sourcing cacao and specialty tea, and it has led to new Terroir chocolate offerings and Onyx Tea offerings.

2. What does your daily tea & coffee ritual look like?

My day always starts with a coffee pour over using a Kalita Wave dripper. It's become a daily ritual that helps me frame my morning with positivity and gratitude. The manual elements of measuring, grinding, timing and pouring brings me peace of mind. In the afternoon, however, I turn to tea. I love that steeping tea can be less methodical. Tea time is a soothing reprieve from the work day to enjoy a fragrant, comforting cup.

3. There are so many wonderful teas and herbals out there, how did you decide on the selection that Onyx currently offers?

We wanted to offer a range of teas in the spirit of the "Traditional to Modern" scale (we use to describe coffee roasting levels/styles) with the hope that anyone can enjoy one of the Onyx tea offerings. Thinking through that and my own tea experiences as a Chinese-American person, I thought the Rose and Chrysanthemum herbal/tisane offerings could be a fun caffeine-free "modern" experience, while the Earl Grey tea might be considered more "traditional." The Sedogawa Sencha is a very umami-forward green tea experience, while the Ma Wei Moonlight white tea is simple, sweet and approachable. To me, the Long Kou Champagne is a beautiful expression of oolong tea at a 65% oxidation process with a great bouquet. I see it as somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

4. Do you have a favorite among the tea offerings?

Gosh, I find myself craving each tea on different days and at different times frequently, but I always recommend the Ma Wei Moonlight as a "must try" to my friends and family. It's super sweet and delightful, and it is an exceptional tea to share with someone through multiple steeps.

5. Something that really stood out to me was the packaging colors, not only are they beautiful but I feel that they really capture the vibe for the teas. Is this the goal?

Thank you! Jon Allen, our co-founder, and Jeremy Teff, our lead-designer are responsible for the overall brand & packaging design. The colors are definitely inspired by each tea, and the multi-color combinations are really fun and reflective of each offering inside.

6. Are there plans to expand the tea offerings in the near future?

Yes, we are planning to release some limited tea lot offerings and expand our current "staple" tea catalog, as well.

7. Anything about the current or future collection of tea that you want to share?

We're really excited to be offering specialty tea and highlighting tea producers in general. We hope you and others will enjoy the new tea offerings in the future!

THE TEAS

As a coffee lab that does a great job sourcing coffee, I can tell this has transferred over to their teas as well! I’m not super picky when it comes to teas but I can tell that they have some great choices and the quality is clear, I really enjoyed this collection and am excited to see what other teas they release!

The Chrysanthemum and rose are such lovely choices for the collection. I grew up enjoying rose in many things from food to tea and then later on my tea journey I discovered Chrysanthemum too. I have been enjoying these two flowers before bed! I like them alone but I also love to mix them together to brew them.

The moonlight white is my favorite tea of the collection! I discovered this tea a couple years back when I was starting to drink more white teas and fell in love! The Onyx moonlight white has a lovely aroma of honey that translates into a sweet liquor for the tea. It’s a light treat that is lovely hot but I bet would also make a great cold brew. I would love to try kouridashi with this tea, I think it would be interesting to see how the large leaves do with the ice.

Another treat in this collection is the Long Kou Champagne oolong. This is an oolong that you might have also seen be referred to as white tip or Bai Hao. You all probably know that I am an oolong lover so this tea was delicious. I felt as though it was a bit more floral that some of the other versions I have in my tea collection which was a welcome surprise because I love floral teas!

A classic Earl Grey! Or is it?! This tea is a staple for most tea drinkers and most tea drinkers have probably enjoyed many versions of this tea. What was so interesting about this tea was that the base of the tea is a dianhong! I thought that was a very interesting choice and it worked wonderfully for the flavor. This earl grey is also very aromatic. There are strong notes of grapefruit which I thought was a lovely aroma to take in while drinking. I did enjoy this plain but I also made a cocktail with it!

The Sencha is the one tea in the collection I haven’t tried yet but I have taken in the aroma a lot! I have less to compare it to since I don’t drink a ton of green tea but It is reminiscent of savory vegetables. I think as it gets hotter I will ice brew this to enjoy :)

Christmas Traditions - Tea Infused Eggnog

It’s no surprise that Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year! I know that it can be stressful for a lot of people for many different reasons and because of this, the “holly jolly” attitude can be off putting. Like for so many, this season is tough in it’s own way. I shared before that for whatever reason, in recent years and even when I was a child, so many of my loved ones who passed away did so in the November to December time frame. My way of coping and honoring their memories is to be jolly during this season. It helps me through and I think it’s what they would have wanted!

The actual day of Christmas has always been the most stressful due to trying to please everyone with how much time is spent with what part of the family. Some of my favorite parts about Christmas are all the fun things I get to do leading up to the day!

In no particular order, here are some of my favorites that are probably on your list too!

• Picking out a Christmas tree and decorating it

• Watching all my favorite Christmas movies

• Wrapping Gifts

• Christmas Baking

• Going to see Christmas light displays

• Opening my homemade tea advent calendar

• Christmas Morning Sausage bread + baileys & Jameson!

Some of these traditions intersect with tea besides the tea advent calendar!

I’ve always known eggnog as a Christmas tradition but it was never something that we had in our house. I didn’t grow up drinking it and the few times I’ve had a sip, I always thought it was too sweet! This year though, I thought I would try tea infused eggnog!

After searching through lots of eggnog recipes, I decided to cut the stress and get some store bought eggnog. Every week, I get a produce box called The Imperfect Box. Last week they offered an almond milk eggnog so I grabbed it!

I decided to do an experiment and infuse tea into this eggnog but I wanted to use whatever tea that my tea advent calendar would give me.

Watch my Instagram Reel

The recipe is simple:

• Heat your eggnog. I wanted until it started to boil. While it was getting to a boil, I noticed a little separation, this might have been because it’s almond milk but I’m not sure. So I stirred it until it was together again

• I then took the eggnog off the stove and poured it into a glass teapot. You could also keep the eggnog in the saucepan.

• I dumped in the tea I was using, stirred it around and then let it infuse for 10 minutes.

• I strained the tea and tasted it!

• It was definitely still very sweet but I noticed that the tea made it more robust in taste and aroma and definitely cut the sweetness!

A few notes about this experiment.

I used the tea that was in my advent calendar for days 19 and 20. These both happened to be raw pu’er teas. I don’t think that these were necessarily the best teas to infuse into eggnog but I went with the flow! Here are some other options that I would have gone with first if I wasn’t doing an experiment.

• My Morning Tea: I drink a ceylon tea every morning and I think this would be so delicious in the eggnog. I never drink this tea with milk but I do often sweeten it with honey so the sweetness of the eggnog might be a good replacement!

• Masala Chai: I could totally see this being an excellent substitute for milk when making stovetop chai! Instead of starting off with water and adding in the tea then milk, I would just bring the eggnog to a boil then add in the tea. Definitely let the flavors infuse for several minutes and then strain! This is also a tea that I would usually sweeten a little so the eggnog provides the whole package here

• Black Tea Blends: I have a feeling most black tea blends would taste good with eggnog as well. I don’t think everything would be suitable but Imagine a blend that has some spices in it or maybe even your favorite fruit!

• Oolong: The eggnog has such a powerful flavor, I don’t think any oolong would work. Specifically, I think a roasted oolong would be best. I originally wanted to use some da hong pao I had but looked in my stash and saw that I was out :D I think a nice yancha would also be so good. The roasted flavor would definitely compliment and also lessen the sweetness!

Alternate method for infusion: The above recipe calls for enjoying the eggnog hot/warm. If you like to enjoy it cold you can either allow it to cool or try cold brewing! I cold brewed tea into milk before and you can use a similar method to cold brewing tea. When choosing your tea, I like to rinse it with warm water to open them up a little before placing it in my liquid. I would probably place the eggnog with the unbrewed tea leaves into it at night before bed and then take it out about 12 hours later to strain and enjoy!

Pomegranate Ginger White Tea Mocktail

I’m so glad I’ve been able to stick to my new blog post every sunday for 3 weeks in a row! I’ve been thinking about fall because it’s been chilly for a week or so here. What do you think of when you hear the word fall? Pumpkins? Apples? Pears? For me, all of those but also pomegranates! They have been one of my favorite fruits since I was a kid and I enjoy them any time but in the colder months especially.

I get a weekly produce box called Imperfect Box that is trying to fight food waste. The box uses Imperfect produce and excess inventory on lots of items that would otherwise get thrown away. It’s especially cool because someone I went to high school with started this business! If you click the link above you can check it out and if you sign up through my referral link you’ll get $10 towards your first order. I’ve found this to be super convenient especially during the pandemic to get some essentials delivered to me. Please note that if you sign up through my referral code, I am also awarded $ towards my purchases.

Back to pomegranates, I had that as an option to me and was so excited to receive them in my imperfect box this past Tuesday. Using pomegranates as my base, I looked at my tea to see what would go well. I debated between an oolong and white tea and finally landed on a white tea. Next, to make this mocktail more interesting, I purchased some spicy ginger beer to add some sweet and spice!

This is basically the entire recipe but I wanted to share a few notes about it. For the pomegranates, I made a juice. For these two glasses I made juice from one pomegranate. After seeding the pomegranate, I put the seeds in a food processor, the pulp is almost purple! Then take the pulp and juice and strain it. I wanted a little pulp in mine so I wiped the strainer back and forth to get some of the pulp in the juice. This still keeps out the larger pieces.

If you’ve never seeded a pomegranate, here is a video showing you how I was taught to do it.

For the tea, you can cold or hot brew it. Due to timing, I brewed mine hot then ran it through a press brew that had ice to cool it down to make the process quicker. I would suggest adding a little bit of extra tea so the brew is stronger and will come through with the other flavors.

A note about the ginger beer. I only used ginger beer but I think to make it less sweet you could always change the proportions and do something like 1/2 the glass with tea then fill the rest with a combo of pomegranate juice, ginger beer and a plain seltzer.

This was made to be a mocktail but I took some of it and added a bit of whiskey to enjoy so it can easily be turned into a cocktail if you’d like that too!

Lotus Lemonade!

I decided to try out a lemonade recipe since every day seems to be getting hotter and it’s harder for me to stand the heat for my outdoor tea sessions!

This recipe isn’t actually “tea” as it uses a lotus flower for the base. I chose this because I worked with The Qi during their launch and have fallen in love with their flowers ! I have been restocking my collection every time I run out because they are such a beautiful and easy brew.

You can get $10 off your first order if you want to try them!

One of their flowers are the blue lotus and I thought this would provide a unique flavor for the lemonade!

I love tart things so I used quite a bit of lemon and I added some of my other favorite ingredients like seltzer and ginger!

I started with two lotus flowers and cold brewed them for about 12 hours but you could go longer if you wanted to! This is the base for the lemonade. I add the brewed lotus flowers last. In my big pitcher I added the juice of two fresh lemons and some ginger infused water.

For the ginger infused water, I cut up about 8-10 slices of ginger and boiled them in about 3 cups of water. I let it boil until the water was fragrant and boiled down a bit.

After adding the lemon and ginger to the pitcher, I added the lotus flower brew. Fill whatever space is left in the pitcher with water, mix them all together and voila!

If you want to add a little sweetener to your drink, you can definitely do that. I liked having the tang of the lemon and slight spice of the ginger.

The other note I have is that even after adding some water, this mixture if quite strong on it’s own. What I did was filled half of my cup with the mixture and then filled the rest with a seltzer water to give it a little bit of fizz!

I left the flowers in the pitcher so that I could garnish my drink with one of them but that is totally up to you!

Uncle Nearest Whiskey + Peach Infused Oolong

Ok, so I’ve discovered a new whiskey that I LOVE. I found it by chance, it had an incredible story so I decided to give it a try! I got sucked into learning about the greatest whiskey maker the world the never knew. Read about Uncle Nearest here!

So, I broke two of my rules to make this cocktail but I’m not mad about it. A whiskey like Uncle Nearest is not one that I would create a cocktail with. It’s what I would enjoy neat. I also rarely ever drink blended tea or fruity tea but here I’ve infused the oolong with slices of peach. It turned out a lot better than I thought!

The idea I had for this drink was pretty simple. Oolong and whiskey go really well together because of their complimentary taste profiles. Peach is also a flavor that goes well with both oolong and whiskey. Peach also symbolizes the south in so many ways and because Uncle Nearest hails from Tennessee I thought this was fitting.

Cold brewing these two together gave the oolong a slightly sweeter flavor and softened the peaches even more. You could opt to sweeten this brew if you’d like but I personally decided not to as I don’t like super sweet cocktails.

When drinking this cocktail you get the punch of the whiskey that is then softened by the oolong and peach. On it’s own, it’s not very sweet at all but when you take a bite of the peach slice, it’s the perfect amount of sweet. The slice that is muddled at the bottom also has a whiskey kick!

While the pulp of the peach doesn’t make this the most attractive cocktail, I would argue that these three are an incredible mix. I can’t wait to get my hands on some more uncle nearest and make this again!

I think the flavor of uncle nearest goes well with the other flavors but you could use a whiskey of your choice. In terms of oolong, I would go with an unflavored, large leaf oolong for sure and a dancong oolong if you can as that is the type I used.

The container I used to cold brew the tea in took about 5 cups of water and that allowed me to create two glasses! You could split this up more into small glasses and have a more potent drink.

Sencha Margarita

Spring is finally here and I’m excited to bring you a new recipe for a spring themed drink! I got to work with First Leaves tea and their Sencha tea! What better way to celebrate spring than with a green drink?

If you’re unfamiliar with Sencha, it is a Japanese green tea. First Leaves tea’s sencha comes from Fuji City in Shizuoka. You can choose loose leaf or for an easy, on the go solution, the tea sachets. Check them out here to get 15% off your purchase!

Although I made a recipe with this tea, I highly encourage you to brew the tea first to try if you’ve never had sencha! When it comes to brewing in this recipe, you can do either brew it hot and let it cool down or cold brew in advance.

If you want to cold brew, run warm water over 2 teaspoons of leaves just to wake them up a bit. Place the leaves in a container and fill with 2 cups of water and leave in the fridge for about 12 hours. Make sure to taste it after 12 hours to see if the flavor is strong enough, if not you can leave it a bit longer.

The way I brewed the tea for this recipe was with hot water and let the mixture cool before creating the drink. The tea pot that I used (pictured) can hold about 2 cups of water and it is suggested to use about 1 teaspoon per 8 oz so I placed 2 teaspoons of loose leaf sencha in my tea pot.

At this time, I also placed the honey that I used to sweeten the margarita in with the leaves. I normally wouldn’t sweeten tea this way but it’s nice for the margarita to have a little bit of sweetness to it!

Brew the your water to no more than 175 F. It is really helpful for teas like sencha to have a kettle that shows the temperature. If you don’t have one don’t panic! You can let the boiling water stand for a little bit, maybe 5-10 minutes and it should cool enough to use.

Pour your water into the tea pot with the leaves + honey and brew for 30-40 seconds. Give it a stir so that the honey dissolves and strain your tea!

Let the tea cool enough to use in your drink! You can refrigerate it to speed up the process or use ice in your drink to wait less time. I wanted to note that I used a matcha honey in this recipe because I had it and thought it might be fun but it is not a necessity!

Salt! Who doesn’t love a salt rim?? If you don’t, skip this part :) If you do, take a lime wedge and wet the rim of the glass and then dip the glass in a plate of salt. What salt to use? You don’t have to have that margarita salt that you see at the store. If you don’t have that, you can use most sea salts that aren’t fine grain and they’ll work well. I used maldon sea salt flakes I had for this drink!

In your salted (or non salted) glass, combine the juice of half a lime + 1.5 oz of your favorite tequila! I used Altos tequila. It is my go to because it’s priced well and tastes great in margaritas! I also love espolon tequila!

Please feel free to alter amounts of lime + tequila to your liking!

Finally, fill your glass up with the sencha + honey brew, mix, garnish with a lime and enjoy!

Tea Infused Mulled Wine

I’ll admit that I’m not a wine drinker. I’ve tried to like it but I don’t usually find it tasty, especially red wine. Most of my drink recipes are made with whiskey which is what I prefer. However, I know that many of you like wine and I’ve always wanted to try making mulled wine so here we go!

After looking at a lot of recipes, I realized most of the ingredients added are just to spice it up a bit. I don’t know much about wine but I do know that I don’t want to waste a really good wine by cooking different ingredients into it. I went to the store and bought a cheap bottle because I would be enhancing the flavor. Feel free to use whatever wine you like best for this recipe!

I also noticed that most of the recipes have some sort of citrus in them. What I chose to do was to use lemon and then a citrus herbal tea. I used Tangerine Ginger from Rishi Tea that came in my Sipsby box. This tea has hibiscus flowers, orange peel, ginger root, citrus oils, licorice root and schizandra berries! Yum yum yum!

I chose to use tea sachets for ease but If you want to use loose leaf, you have to strain the mixture anyway! I wanted to note that this could probably taste good with many teas but I chose an herbal tea because of the high heat. The wine is already potent and I think putting something like black tea in it might run you the risk of getting a bitter flavor.

A few notes about making this recipe. I like to use honey and because of that I added the wine and honey in the pan first and let them mix a little bit. The heat should be on low the entire time. After I added all the other ingredients (except tea bags) I kept it on low with the lid on and just let it simmer. I didn’t really time it, I did it my aroma. Making this wine is delicious but it also makes your house smell so good!!!

Once I felt that the aroma was strong I took off the lid and saw that the mixture was bubbling a little and everything was a bit darker. The cranberries had softened etc. This is when measured the heat of the mixture. My tea bags have the temperature set to 200F and so I made sure the wine was around that temperature then added in the teabags for 5 minutes. If your tea has a lower temperature, let the mixture cool a bit!

Take out your tea bags, strain and serve in mugs! This amount of ingredients was enough for 2 large mugs and a little more. At a party, it would be best to use smaller mugs and this batch could stretch a bit farther. I also garnishes with fresh cranberries, lemon peel and cinnamon!

Enjoy! Do you have a favorite mulled wine recipe?

Pomegranate Green Tea

Fall is coming and while most people are screaming for pumpkins ( l do love pumpkins), I’m over here like woooohooooo anar season! Anar is the farsi word for pomegranate! I grew up eating this delicious fruit and when I was in High School/College it started becoming more popular in the United States particularly for it’s health benefits. More popular = available more places so it’s a win win for me!

I got this gunpowder green tea from Bare Leaves Tea Co in my Sipsby box and wanted to create a simple drink with it! I was thinking of fall flavors and decided to try it with pomegranate!

I decided to cold brew the tea. If you’ve never done this before it’s really simple! There are a bunch of ways you can do it but I like to take the leaves and run some warm water over them just to wake them up a bit. Then I place them in a container with water and let it sit overnight in the fridge! These leaves were probably steeping for about 12 hours. You can then drain and use!

The drink is mostly made up of the cold brew tea, you should fill most of your glass with the cold brew and just top it off with the pomegranate.

The pomegranate that is being added in is a syrup I made. If you want to make a large amount of syrup you’ll need to use more pomegranates but I combined the seeds of one pomegranate with 1/2 cup water and touch of honey. I let the mixture boil until the water was fragrant and had boiled down a bunch. Let the syrup cool before adding it into your tea!

I took a few pomegranate seeds and placed them in the cup for decor and a little surprise at the bottom of the glass!

I also left a few leaves in my cup for fun! I hope you enjoy it!

Rooibos & Blood Orange Mocktail

It’s not technically fall, but I’ve been feeling the fall vibes with the cooler weather so I decided to start making it FALL in the kitchen hehe.

When I received this rooibos + honeybush tea from tea pigs in my sipsby box, I knew I had to make a drink with it! The flavors of this tea are perfect for fall and after brainstorming a bunch I decided to keep it simple!

This recipe is as simple as brewing the rooibos and then cutting the garnish which is of course optional!

You can either brew the rooibos hot and let it cool down or cold brew it! If you brew it hot, make sure you give yourself time to let it cool down. Brewing hot, use boiling water and brew for 5-7 minutes to make sure it’s strong. If you are using tea bags I would use 1-2 depending on how strong you want the tea flavor and 2-3 tablespoons loose leaf. If you want to cold brew, run a bit of warm water over the tea, then place it in a container with water (not hot) and place it in the fridge over night. The next day you can make the drink immediately!