Laura Brienza

Fall has arrived. As we trade in sandals and swimsuits for sweaters and boots, it’s also time to trade in iced tea for hot tea. Because what’s better on a chilly fall day than a hot cuppa? Nothing, that’s what. While you may miss summer and its plethora of sweet and satisfying iced teas, take comfort in that fact that now you can sip on warm, flavorful hot teas while snuggling under blankets by the fire. Welcome fall with these hot tea recipes that are sure to warm you up and go down easy:

1) Autumn Spiced Apple Tea 

This recipe from Mostly Homemade Mom screams fall—autumn is in the title, after all. Like drinking a slice of apple pie, this tea combines tea with cloves, cinnamon sticks, apple juice, and real apple slices for a fruity, spicy, delectable dose of fall drinking.

2) Hot Spiced Green Tea Recipe

This recipe from Taste of Home spices up a green tea base with cinnamon sticks, ginger, cardamom, lemon, and honey. Hot, spicy, and the perfect way to complement a chilly day!

3) Tea-Infused Hot Chocolate

This vegan recipe from Namely Marley brings together two of the best beverages on the block: tea and hot chocolate. This recipe usesa Coconut Cocoa Tea Bag from Republic of Tea and soymilk, but you can improvise with your own preferences. Enjoy as a sweet snack or dessert to wind down your busy day.

4) Slow Cooker Chai Tea

You probably use your slow cooker for hearty dinners, but you can also use it to make a delicious cuppa. This recipe from Taste of Home uses a slow cooker to make chai tea. Start by slow-cooking a mixture of gingerroot, cinnamon sticks, cloves, cardamom pods, and whole peppercorns on low for 8 hours. Then add black tea bags, steep for 3 to 5 minutes, and serve warm. You’ll enjoy the sweet and spicy fragrances that waft through the air as much as the sweet and spicy tastes that will go down your throat.

5) Genmaicha

For a substantial take on tea that borders on soup, try a cup of genmaicha, aka rice tea. This Japanese specialty combines brown rice and green tea for a more filling cuppa. Some refer to it as popcorn tea since the rice is toasted/popped. Try this recipe from Tasty Kitchen and prepare for things to get poppin’.

6) Spiced Apricot Tea

Apricot nectar gives this recipe from Taste of Home its fruity flavor. Combined with cinnamon sticks, cloves, sugar, lemon juice, and tea, each sip of this beverage is packed with hot, satisfying flavor. Enjoy with a muffin or slice of bread for the ultimate snack break. 

7) Russian Tea

This recipe from Wives With Knives became popular in the US in the 1960s, thanks to its use of then-all-the-rage Tang. The sweet, hot drink mixes tea, Tang, sugar, lemonade, cinnamon, and ground cloves.

7 Pumpkin and Tea Recipes for Fall

It’s that time of year again: the time when pumpkin spiced everything seems to be for sale. For a twist on the yearly trend, add tea to your pumpkin-flavored muffins, beverages, and pies. Consider these 7 recipes that use tea to specialize pumpkin-spiced dishes this fall:

1) Pumpkin Rooibos Muffins

This recipe from Thirsty For Tea pairs rooibos tea leaves with pumpkin. Blooger Bonnie Eng says the two ingredients make for excellent partners, writing, “Both ingredients evoke the warm, earthy flavors of fall.” Eng first toasts the rooibos leaves before adding them to the batter, which she says “helps it to release more of its lightly malty flavor.” She then steeps it in hot water to further release its properties. Pumpkin puree, nutmeg, and cinnamon provide other auspicious flavors.

2) Gluten Free Pumpkin Matcha Muffins

This muffin recipe from Amoda Tea introduces matcha to the pumpkin craze. Theses muffins are gluten-free and get their sweetness from coconut syrup. Oats provide a speckled look and textured topping. For an extra does of matcha, spread the site’s matcha butter recipe on each muffin half.

3) Pumpkin Tea Latte

This latte recipe from The Cup of Life uses a real pumpkin to bring you a fresh, natural pumpkin latte that uses black tea instead of coffee. Spices include cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and optional chocolate shavings and whipped cream can take this beverage into dessert territory.

4) Iced Pumpkin Green Tea Cocktail

When you need something a little stronger this fall, try this recipe for a green tea-infused pumpkin cocktail from We Are Not Martha. Even though it’s iced, it contains vodka, which is known to warm you up. Other ingredients include pumpkin puree, cinnamon, and Pure Via, a liquid sweetener. Garnish with cinnamon sticks for extra flair.

5) Green Tea Pumpkin Shake

You may already start your day with green tea, but try doing so with a green tea that’s part of a pumpkin morning smoothie. This breakfast shake recipe from Food Recipes HQ is easy to make and delicious to taste. Combine prepared green tea, pumpkin puree, a frozen banana, and Coconom (a coconut sugar alternative) in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a glass, top with cinnamon, and start your day off right! 

6) Pumpkin Chai Scones with Black Tea Glaze

This recipe from A Cozy Kitchen gets creative by pairing pumpkin scones with a black tea glaze made from black tea, milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.  The blogger claims, “The black tea glaze is so good and so simple to make. It ties the chai vibes [of the scone] into a beautiful ribbon that you’ll want to eat.” Looking at the picture, we believe her.

7) Pumpkin Chai Snickerdoodles

This cookie recipe from My Darling Vegan is—you guessed it—vegan. Says baker Sarah McMinn, “These cookies are everything you love about snickdoodles – the crunchy outside giving way to a soft chewy inside, the slight tang of cream of tartar lingering a little bit after your last bite. But mixed with pumpkin, black tea, and all your favorite Autumal spices, these cookies are a little taste of nirvana.” For your own taste, try this recipe out!

As temperatures drop, you’re likely starting to crave soup. If you’re a tea lover, you can have your soup and drink it too with tea-infused soup recipes. Soup is the perfect medium to introduce the flavors of black, green, and other teas, adding a new and exciting element to your fall meal. When it’s cold outside, warm up with one of these tea-spiked soup recipes:

1) Ochazuke

Ochazuke is a traditional Japanese soup also known as “Japanese Steeped Rice.” Any version of this classic dish includes green tea poured over rice in a hot water broth.  This recipe from Bon Appetit builds on those basics with the addition of ginger, furikake, nori, spinach, mushrooms, and a poached egg for a heartier take on the Japanese staple.

2) Black Tea Miso Rice Soup with Miso Pork

This recipe from bacon+egg+cheesecake draws inspiration from ochazuke, but pours black tea miso soup over black tea-infused rice. Other ingredients include napa cabbage, mushrooms, and miso-marinated pork. Top with chopped scallions for a textural finish.

3) Miso Green Tea and Ginger Zucchini Noodle Soup with Tofu

This recipe from She Knows uses a green tea broth to set the stage for a confluence of Asian flavors. Miso, soy sauce, and sesame oil join tofu, zucchini noodles, and ginger for a bowl of soup that She Knows claims to be “comforting, light, satisfying, and extremely flavorful.” The use of zucchini noodles—as opposed to “regular” noodles—also cuts down on calories, making this a good option for soup-craving consumers watching their kcals. 

4) Thai-Inspired Chicken Noodle Soup with Mint Green Tea

Chicken noodle soup gets the Thai treatment in this recipe from Delish. The broth is made from a combination of chicken broth and Green Tea with Mint tea bags from Lipton (but you can improvise with your favorite brand or loose leaf) in addition to shallots, ginger, and lemongrass. Added flavor courtesy of soy sauce, fish sauce, and lime juice. Use green tea soba noodles for an extra dose of green tea flavor.

5) Green Tea and Chickpea Soup With Garlic Tortilla Triangles

This hearty soup recipe from Top With Cinnamon will warm and fill you up this fall. The base is made with green tea and vegetable or chicken stock, and it’s filled with carrots, celery, kale, chickpeas, and spaghetti. Wholemeal tortilla chips provide extra texture to finish things off.

6) Beef & Noodles in Smoked Tea Infused Broth

This recipe from McCormick calls for Lapsang-Souchon tea bags (a Chinese black tea) and beef stock to make the base. You’ll get your protein from the recipe’s boneless beef sirloin steak strips and vegetable servings from snow peas and green onions. Additional flavor from minced garlic, anise seed, crushed red pepper, and sea salt makes this Asian-inspired recipe a standout.

7) Butternut Squash Soup with Keemun Black Tea

This recipe from The Cup of Life brings black tea to a classic fall soup: butternut squash. Specifically, this recipe uses Keemun, a black tea from China, in its broth base. Blogger Lu Ann Pannunzio describes the tea’s flavor as “strong and rich” with “toasty notes” and “some slight smokiness.” Joining tea and butternut squash are potatoes, carrots, thympe, sage, pumpkin seeds, and hemp seeds.

This Thanksgiving, gather round a tea-infused table. Baking and cooking with tea this holiday will give classic Thanksgiving dishes extra flavor and interest. From main dishes to dessert, tea can be used as an ingredient to spice things up:

THE MAIN EVENT

It’s not a law per se, but just about everybody agrees that you must eat turkey on Thanksgiving.  If you’re looking to try something a little different this year, add tea to your brine with one of these tea-spiked turkey recipes:

1) Roasted Tea-Brined Turkey Breast

This recipe from Thirsty For Tea uses Lapsang Souchong tea, known for a flavor the author describes as “smokey, savory, [and] fiery.” Here, the tea is used in a low-salt turkey brine application, and is “savory enough to add a wonderfully deep layer of meaty flavor to the brined meat that will leave you so happy to have eased up on the sodium.” Use any leftovers in Thirsty For Tea’s recipe for Tea-Brined Turkey and Roquefort Baguettes.

2) Orange-Tea-Bourbon Brined Turkey With Honey Mustard Butter

This recipe from The Food Network calls for black tea bags, orange juice, and bourbon for its brine. The turkey is also slathered in a butter made with Dijon mustard, spicy mustard, and honey, the leftovers of which are combined with gravy to top the turkey. Talk about flavorful!

3) Grilled Tea-Brined Turkey with Tea and Lemon Gravy  

This recipe from Epicurious calls for a turkey to be brined for 36-48 hours in a mixture of earl grey tea, lemon, rosemary sprigs, salt, and sugar. The gravy also calls for earl grey tea, which joins chicken broth, celery, carrots, onion, rosemary, lemon, butter, flour, and whipping cream.

SIDES

Classic sides like cranberry sauce and stuffing are traditional, but that doesn’t mean you always have to prepare them the same way.  Remix your favorite recipe by adding your preferred loose leaf tea, or try one of these recipes:

1) Spiced-Tea Cranberry Sauce

This sweet and spicy recipe from My Recipes calls Earl Grey its secret ingredient. Early grey tea joins cranberries, sugar, cardamom, whole star anise, and cinnamon sticks in this twist on a classic side dish. The author cautions cooks not to over-steep, which could turn the product bitter.

2) Green Tea-Infused Vegetable Stuffing

This recipe from The Washington Post calls for green mint tea and a symphony of vegetables that includes spinach, yellow onions, fennel, mushrooms and artichokes. Feel free to add more for extra nutrition!

3) Tea-Infused Vegan Sweet Potato Soup

Instead of classic mashed potatoes, try serving a healthier sweet potato-based dish, like this tea-infused sweet potato soup. The sweet potato and black tea share the spotlight with apple, onion, paprika, cinnamon, salt, and lime.  Bonus: it’s vegan!

SWEET FINISH

Turn to these tea-infused desserts to satisfy sweet tooths as Thanksgiving gatherings come to an end:

1) Roasted Pumpkin Pie with Earl Grey Whipped Cream

This pumpkin pie recipe from Humble Dish has two twists: roasted pumpkin puree filling and tea-infused whipped cream dollops. The author promises that a roasted filling is not a lot of extra work: “You can roast the pumpkin whole, no cutting required at all. Then you scoop out the seeds, remove the skin, and blitz the pumpkin flesh in the blender.” And for the tea-infused whipped cream, simply steep loose earl grey tea and whipped cream in a container for 24 hours ahead of time, then strain through a mesh sieve when it’s time to plate dessert.

2) Pumpkin Earl Grey Tea Cakes

This recipe from Food52 is vegan and gluten-free, so it’s a great choice for a large Thanksgiving soiree sure to be attended by guests with dietary restrictions. Almond and oat flours combine with ground flaxseed and pumpkin puree, with extra help from loose earl grey tea, almond milk, sugar, and orange zest. Light and flavor-forward, this cake is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

3) Matcha Shortbread Shots with Pumpkin Milk

Milk and cookies is an American classic, which makes it a great choice for Thanksgiving dessert. Matcha cookies with pumpkin milk? This recipe is the perfect twist for any on-trend baker. These cookies come in the unique form of a shooter that’s coated with chocolate, then filled with pumpkin milk that’s made from almond milk, pumpkin ice cream, and pumpkin puree. Adorable to behold, these sweet treats make for a delectable dessert and a fun visual.

If you want to be historically accurate this Thanksgiving, serve cider. If you want your spread to be historically accurate and unique, serve tea-infused apple cider.

The Golden Age of Cider 

The first Thanksgiving, held in 1621, happened during a time when cider enjoyed great popularity, an era spanning the 16^th and 17^th centuries that beverage historians call The Golden Age of Cider. Recall that during this time, safe drinking water was not readily available, so cider joined beer and other spirits as common everyday drinks. And as Great Britain expanded its global trade industry in the 15 and 1600s, cider emerged as an ideal export since it didn’t spoil over long journeys. According to the Daily Beast, the Pilgrims definitely brought beer over to America on the Mayflower, and probably brought cider, too.

Historian Elizabeth Pearce told WGNO, “What the pilgrims drank was fermented apple juice, or what we call hard cider. And that’s because it was something they were used to drinking back in England. Cider was very, very popular in Europe and they were lucky – several varieties of apples are native to America.”

New England’s native apple species included: garland, sweet crab, prairie crab, and southern crab.

Cider’s Modern Surge in Popularity

Cider continued to be popular in America throughout the 18^th century. The Daily Beast even reports that in 1767, the average colonist drank 35 gallons of cider a year, and one in 10 New England farmers worked a cider mill.

But cider’s popularity declined as the nation changed.

Serious Eats explains that the large influx of early 20^th century German and Eastern European immigrants didn’t have the same appetite for cider as Western Europeans, and beer production enjoyed improvements in quality thanks to refrigeration technology, boosting its status over cider. But the biggest impediment to the cider industry was Prohibition. Even after Prohibition ended, Americans didn’t significantly revive their taste for cider.

Until now.

Cider production has been on a meteoric rise as of late. Apples are cheap to import, making orchard maintenance optional for cider producers. Millennials are flocking to cider as a “new” culinary experience, and cider producers are making the product even more attractive to their adventurous palates with unique flavor infusions. Plus, it’s gluten-free, making it an on-trend choice for today’s gluten-phobic consumers.

NPR reports that cider sales rose 65% from 2011 to 2012.

Per the Cider Journal, the industry has continued to grow, but has not maintained that 2012 boom in growth:

One of the ways that cider is staying on-trend is with flavor innovations. Which brings us to tea:

Sweet apple cider pairs perfectly with bitter tea, evening out the drink’s flavor profile. A tea infusion drives interest and can offer an alcohol-free spin on cider, perfect for G-rated family functions.

Apple Cider Tea Recommendations for Your Thanksgiving Table

This year, bring history and culinary trends to the Thanksgiving table with these tea-infused apple ciders.

MAKE IT:

1) Earl Grey Apple Cider Cocktail

This recipe from Healthy Delicious blends earl grey tea and hard apple cider for a tea twist on the alcoholic treat. Lemon and vanilla provide extra flavor, and lemon twists provide a fun finish.

2) Smoked Apple Cider

This recipe from Fresh Cup Magazine is simple to make and delicious to taste—the ultimate combo. Black tea and apple cider are the stars of the show, sharing the stage with cinnamon sticks and cloves.

3) Apple Cider Rooibos Hot Toddy

This recipe from The Minimalist Baker uses apple juice and rooibos tea as its base, adding lemon, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and pepper for extra flavor. Optional add-ons include a coconut sugar or maple syrup sweetener, cayenne, or bourbon.

BUY IT: 

1) Ruby Spice Cider Tea Blend from Teavana

This tea blends Spiced Apple Cider Rooibos tea and Mulled Pomegranate Herbal tea for a deliciously sweet concoction. 

2) Maple Apple Cider Herbal Tea from Stash Tea

This caffeine-free option gets its sweetness from maple and caramel flavors and fruity goodness from a mix of hibiscus and rooibos tea. Cinnamon and apple flavors complete the profile.

3) Apple Cider Herbal Tea from Bigelow

Go classic with this apple cider tea from Bigelow. Apple, hibiscus, and cinnamon headline, with featured performances by orange peel, rose hip, licorice root, and clove.

Throwing a bash this Halloween? You’ll need tasty beverages on hand for your ghoulish gathering, and that’s where we come in. We’ve gathered some scarily delicious tea-infused cocktails that will make your holiday soiree a total scream. This Halloween, tea will be a party treat:

1) Haunted Lantern Martini

Earl Green tea from Silk Road

This martini recipe from Silk Road puts a devilish spin on earl green tea. Start by infusing the company’s Earl Green tea in gin. (Or simply blend your favorite earl grey and green teas together.) Mix the Earl Green infused gin with mandarin juice in a cocktail shaker with ice, and shake. Pour into martini glasses, garnishing with orange slices.

2) The Goblin’s Lunch

This cocktail recipe from Numi Tea brings together the star power of Earl Grey tea and vodka. Start by brewing a pot of earl grey tea. Let it cool. Combine the tea with physalis (or mango), sparkling water, and vodka in a blender. Blend until smooth, then serve chilled.

3) The Gin Goblin

This cocktail from Sugar And Charm combines green tea, cucumber, and gin for a cocktail that will have others green with envy. Additional flavor comes from mint, lemon juice, honey, kiwi, and salt. Not too sweet, it’s a great choice for guests craving relief from the magnetic candy bowl.

4) The Vampire’s Dinner

Blood red, this cocktail is the perfect signature drink for a Halloween fête. The cocktail gets its color from rooibos tea, and its R-rating from rum. Start by brewing a pot of rooibos tea. Once cooled, combine with squeezed oranges, sparkling water, and rum.

5) The Peddler’s Moon

This recipe from Martha Stewart creatively incorporates oolong tea syrup, made by simmering one part oolong tea and one part sugar in a saucepan. Combine the syrup with bourbon and lemon juice in a shaker, then strain into glasses. Top with ginger beer for or garnish with lemon zest as desired.

6) Spiked Cider Tea

This cocktail recipe from Real Simple employs a black tea bag, gin, and vanilla extract to upgrade apple cider. Easy to make and refreshing to taste, this drink’s a delicious way to enjoy any Halloween party.

7) Wicked Black Forest Punch

A hibiscus simple syrup gives this Halloween punch a deliciously sweet and unique flavor. Make the tea syrup by simmering equal parts brewed hibiscus tea and agave syrup together in a pot. Once cooled, it’s ready to join a very busy witch’s cauldron…Combine the syrup with Jagermeister, pineapple juice, cherry brandy, lemon juice, passionfruit juice, orange juice, velvet falernum liqueur, and Angosturra bitters. Refrigerate this concoction overnight. When it’s party time, top the mixture with ginger beer and garnish with lemon wedges, orange slices, or hibiscus flowers.

8) From Hell

This cocktail recipe from What Do You Crave is downright devilish, and chief among its ingredients is a strongly-brewed dose of earl grey tea. Other ingredients include: gin, an egg white, lemon, and a rose and lemon simple syrup. Combine in a shaker, and strain over ice, garnishing with rose petals.

~

Drink responsibly!