Celestial Seasonings

Another mug of this, but with some delightful lychee honey for a change! The fruitiness from the honey adds a nice layer of flavor to the mint and really makes the vanilla pop.

I love, love, love this tea for both the taste and convenience! It is a great lazy drink to just leave in the bag, add sugar/milk, and let it sit around while you sip it through the night. Plus, this green tea does not become bitter no matter how long or hot you steep it. Yum, yum, yum!

Oh, Steepster… yes, it is that time of the year again! Time for the holiday line from Celestial Seasonings! I can’t express how surprised I was to find these in store so early, last year they didn’t show up until after Thanksgiving. Anyway, I picked up my two favorite varieties: this one and the Sugar Cookie.

But, we’re talking about Candy Cane Lane right now! I have seriously missed having this tea around, I love having a minty tea in the evenings and this is different that plain peppermint or spearmint. I also love that it is a decaf green because the green base gives it a bit of heft that many other Celestial Seasonings herbals just don’t have. This tea smells and tastes smooth, minty (but not overly so) and has just a hint of vanilla. Mmmm!

I was debating on which tea to drink while watching a scary movie and then I read about Rabs craving she had for this tea…which led to my own Candy Cane Lane craving. Thanks Rabs for helping me make a decision tonight. As always this tea is smooth, minty, and slightly sweet with the addition of vanilla which prevents this tea from being a mint overload. I steeped up a pot in my new, beautiful blue Chatsford 4 cup teapot courtesy of threewhales and added a tiny splash of Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract, honey and a splash of cream. This is so good.

I took athe idea from wombatgirl and made a white russian with this tea. I may have to pick up another box just for white russians. It was absolutely delicious!

Yummm…..I like this more each time I have it.

For the first half of this box I didn’t really see what all the hype was about this tea. I experienced a whole mess of tea fails, but I had this tea the other night and all the stars must have been aligned beause wow!! I totally get it now. A little bit of honey makes all the difference in this tea. I am thoroughly enjoying this mug which is also helping greatly with my sore throat.

Very yummy tea! Tastes and smells very warm and comforting, just like fresh baked cookies. Definitely an evening tea, I think this would make me a little too relaxed at work. I do wish the flavor was a little stronger though – it seems a little weak, regardless of steep time.

This tea is even better prepared with a little bit of real vanilla extract and stevia.

So yummy! I’m not a big mint person, but this tea is perfect. It has a nice mild flavor, rather than an in-your-face kind of mint. I re-steeped, and the second cup was just as good as the first. Tastes great with a little bit of chocolate flavored stevia. I went and bought three more boxes of this today.

Finishing up this box – I don’t think I have another unless it is hiding behind some things in the cupboard so I’ll be decupboarding this one for now. I like this one, but it isn’t my favorite of the CS holiday line – that honor is reserved for the Candy Cane Lane. Anyways, this tea really does smell like fresh baked sugar cookies. The taste isn’t completely spot on, but it is close enough with honey and milk to easily pass as a dessert tea. I’ll definitely buy another box this holiday season!

Holiday lineup from Celestial Seasonings has arrived in my neck of the woods! I’ve having this as a tea latte with honey and it is deliciously reminiscent of true sugar cookies straight from the oven. So good and so comforting before bed with a great book (Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke is amazing! I’m currently on Inkspell.)

I decided to make this in the same manner as the Candy Cane Lane tea last night. I am officially out of both those teas after tonight. I will need to be locating a couple other decaf teas for the evenings, but for tonight I am set.

This may be my favorite from the CS holiday lineup. I think that the taste is very close to what they were going for and I like that this tea seems to be very forgiving. I love to pop it in a big mug with water and go about my evening while keeping the bag in the entire time. For a caffeine free, mess free option I’m pretty pleased with this tea.

After reading some of the reviews on this tea, I seem to be in the minority. I actually like this one and find it remarkably similar to the taste of gingerbread. It isn’t something I would drink daily or even too often, but it is much better than I expected. I bought a total of 2 boxes of each holiday tea that CS had at my grocery store and i’m sure that my 2 boxes of this tea will be finished happily within a couple of months.

I’ve been drinking cups and cups of this today because I’m fighting a nasty cold. I can’t say it’s making my cold go away faster, but the peppermint and eucalyptus is soothing and as usual the warmth of the tea is making my cough a little easier. Sigh.

I keep drinking this at night and then forgetting to review it, so I’m backlogging a bit… I just moved to my own place and have started drinking tea at night again (not sure why I stopped, but I’ve been out of the habit for years, and I also generally hate herbal teas so it wasn’t a terrible loss overall). I realized that I barely had any non-caffeinated blends, so when I saw this at the store, I thought it would be a good candidate. I really don’t love the regular Sleepytime blend, so I was pretty skeptical about the vanilla version, but this is pretty awesome! The vanilla note hides the lemongrass and it’s a pretty pleasant blend. I don’t like to steep it too long or it gets a bit overpowering, but overall it’s a really nice before-bed cup of “tea”!

Brewed, the smell reminds me of toasted marshmallows but with mint added.

The taste is nice. Sweet at first, then minty, then smooth vanilla. It’s tasty. :)

so, obviously, I have a propensity for spiking my tea in the evenings (it’s cold in montana. rum is nice when it is cold). I’ve had this tea plain and it is fine. But, my dear tea friends, here is a great trick: brew two bags, add a touch of agave and a drop of vanilla, and a shot of dark rum. hello wonderful winter drink.

I’m backlogging from last night. I’ve been enjoying my candy cane lane before bedtime, so I wanted another option that would take me past the holiday season. This seems like the classic, so I went with it. I figured it’s not too much of an investment at <$4 a box. And meh. I don’t love it. The spearmint might be a bit much for me. So now I’m left trying to figure out what my bedtime tea might be. I have a box of this+jasmine green decaf on the way. Maybe that will tone down the spearmint a bit… Anyone have a best bedtime decaf/herbal cup?

Oh, I totally forgot how good this is! I totally passed by all the Celestial Seasonings holiday flavors at the store since none of them really struck me, but I just had a cup of this at a work event, and it was delicious! It gets sweeter and spicier the longer you steep it – this is the only tea I can think of where I leave the bag in while I’m drinking. The flavor is quite similar to Good Earth’s sweet and spicy tea.