52 Teas had a Holiday tea kickstarter a few months back and I was able to preorder for the entire set! All the teas sounded pretty good – Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, Eggnog Chai, Gingerbread Houjicha, Cranberry Orange Cider Rooibos, and Peppermint Marshmallow Melting in Hot Chocolate.
It looks like you can still purchase the teas at 52 Teas from their Holiday Tea section, but you’ll want to act fast as they are seasonal teas.
I wasn’t in a Christmas mood until this week, so now I finally got around to sampling the entire lineup (barring I drank 2 of the teas as I could not resist). My dad is visiting from Canada, so it was pretty fun sampling all the festive teas together!
Tasting of 52 Teas’ 2015 Holiday Teas
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire – this tea is a blend of black teas (Thyolo OP1 Black Tea from the Satemwa estate in Malawi and Lapsang Souchong), along with cinnamon, nutmeg, roasted & salted sunflower seeds and all-natural flavors. Smelling the dry leaf, whoa lapsing souchong alert! The scent is strongly of smoked spices. The leaf looks interesting as it is full of sunflowers, something you don’t see in many teas.
I steeped the tea with boiling water for 2.5 minutes. I went stronger than the instructions for all these teas going with a smaller cup and 4 grams (about 1.5 to 2 teaspoons) of tea.
The tea steeps up smelling like a camp fire and the taste is a roasty deep lapsang souchong. The smokeyness is moderate, like the fire charred the chestnut shells. The blend has some warm cinnamon flavor and some nutty notes. The malty brisk darjeeling base is great with the nutty notes, along with the lapsang. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire is great for smoky tea lovers and would make a decent latte. Out of the entire set, this one I liked the least personally as I’m not into smokey lapsang, but it is still pretty decent.
Eggnog Chai – is a blend of organic Indian assam and Chinese teas, honeybush, secret spices and vanilla bean. The dry leaf smells quite spicy, of cardamon and nutmeg. Totally eggnog scented but if you went heavy with the spices.
This tea is quite heavy from the whole spices, so a serving worked out to be 6 grams. I steeped it with boiling water for 3 minutes.
Eggnog Chai sips in a brisk malty black with a smooth vanilla sweet and moderate spice level. The spices are of cardamon, nutmeg and cinnamon, like a strong eggnog. This tea would make an excellent latte out of the bunch. This blend was the most brisk and malty of the black teas. Eggnog Chai would be perfect for a chai tea lover and I love the festive spice flavor.
Gingerbread Houjicha – is a blend of houjicha (Japanese roasted green tea), ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and calendula petals. The dry leaf is the strongest spiced scented out of them all, like concentrated ginger nutmeg.
I steeped this tea at 200F, 4 grams, for 8 minutes. The 6 minute mark was good, but longer the steep the more ginger I milked out of it. Upon pouring water into my cup and leaf, the scent switched from ginger to mega roast Houjicha.
Gingerbread Houjicha tastes of nutty, toasty and roasty Houjicha with a sharp ginger finish. The ginger get firey and you can feel the sip go down the throat. I love the toasty pairing of houjicha and ginger spices. I added a dash of agave and it became dead on gingerbread tea, like drinking gingerbread men. Gingerbread Houjicha is really nice if you love ginger, high spice and chai teas. This one is my second favorite of the bunch, I love ginger and houjicha so it was a great match!
Peppermint Marshmallow Melting in Hot Chocolate – is a Laoshan black tea blended with organic peppermint, organic cacao nibs, cacao shells, mini vegan chocolate chips, organic marshmallow root and organic, all-natural flavors. The dry leaf smells like chocolate and peppermint, can’t go wrong with that! The leaf has lots of chocolate nibs and marshmallow root too!
I steeped this tea with boiling water for 4 minutes, using 5 grams of leaf. Admittedly, I found this tea is a little tricky to get just right. If you over leaf or over steep the peppermint overtakes the flavor.
Peppermint Marshmallow Melting in Hot Chocolate sips in with peppermint being the first flavor. The rich milk chocolate melts in and then I get a marshmallow taste. The base is pretty smooth, earthy and woodsy, I like this base more than the others, though the flavoring is quite strong.
This tea is very much a chocolate dessert tea and many would love it! I had a bit extra (bonus kickstarter stretch goal thing) and I drank it right away and got sad – Peppermint Marshmallow Melting in Hot Chocolate needs to be on the permanent collection, I hate to see this one disappear for a year as it is my favorite of the set.
Cranberry Orange Cider Rooibos – is a blend of red and green rooibos (so festive!) with cranberries, orange pieces, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and all-natural flavors. They weren’t kidding about the cranberries and orange pieces, there are whole cranberries and bit chunks of orange! The tea smells strongly of orange with a hint of spice. So many cranberries, I took two out if my spoon to get a balanced scoop.
I steeped the rooibos blend with 200f water temperature for 8 minutes, using 5 grams of tea. The longer steep makes for a more spice flavor. The cranberry floats!
Cranberry Orange Cider Rooibos tastes mellow orange that brightens up end of sip. The base is mostly of the green rooibos with just a little red rooibos woodsy. The spice is light, like a light apple cider but with orange. With a bit of agave the orange gets sweet and candy-like, closer to cider. Before getting these teas, I thought Cranberry Orange Cider Rooibos was the weakest of the pack, but I found I liked it for the citrus and spice flavor. Cranberry Orange Cider Rooibos is also great iced!
Comments
Lots of tea gems in the 52 Teas 2015 Holiday Tea line! I quite liked Peppermint Marshmallow Melting in Hot Chocolate, Gingerbread Houjicha and Cranberry Orange Cider Rooibos. 52 Teas also has a few more holiday teas like Gingerbread Chai and Mulled Cider Green available.
Again, these teas are seasonal, so I’d snap them up if you are curious! 52 Teas sells in sample and 2 oz sizes.
