Ginger Spice

I LOVE YOU, GINGER SPICE. What a babe! I’ve tried this tea a bunch of different ways – black, black sweetened (with a sprinkle of sugar/honey), white, and white sweetened. My favourite is black sweetened, but all the ways are just fine, and serve to make this tea totally versatile. The black tea is light enough that you can leave steeping for ages, and there are no bitter notes to the flavour so at no point does it ruin. The cinnamon, ginger and orange work so deliciously together.

I first tried Ginger Spice labelled as a Mother’s Day special “Apple Crumble” and I couldn’t resist that kind of advertising (or packaging). Delighted (and a bit dismayed, to be totally honest) to find that the specials were just renamed standards, and “Apple Crumble” was actually Ginger Spice. Such a relief, because I’m almost out of my first batch and I was starting to fret.

This is my first tea in my “Sara’s Old Tea” advent calendar! Sara creatively re-used a DAVIDsTEA box and sent me some old tea to enjoy!

I screwed this one up yesterday and way over-leafed it. Oops. Today I did it right, and ooh, I like it. Reminds me of gingerbread! The ginger is the most apparent flavor, but it’s balanced well with the other flavors. Now I really want to eat an entire gingerbread house and all the gingerbread people inside.

Solid, enjoyable tea. Thanks, Sara!

Happy Grandparent’s Day! Today the prompt is to drink a tea that reminds you of a grandparent.

While none of my nuclear family are tea drinkers, both of my grandmothers drank tea. My grandmother who passed in 2020 was a firm English/Irish Breakfast drinker. As a child I strongly associated the smell of black breakfast blends as being the “smell of tea” and still remember it fondly when I drink one of those teas.

My other grandmother (still alive, but in a care facility with severe Alzheimers/Dementia) was a fan of Orange Spice tea. I don’t have any teas specifically branding as orange spice blends in my stash, but this particular chai is very heavy on orange peel, making it more of an orange spice tea in my eyes. Brewed up a pot to drink during K-drama watching with Todd.

Has a nice aroma of vanilla cream, clove, and ginger. The citrus comes out on the sip more than the nose. It’s not as strong of a note as a proper orange spice tea would be, but there is an undertone of tart and pithy orange, a strong mix of clove and vanilla mid-sip, and a warming sensation of ginger against the back of my throat at the end of the sip. The ginger is strong with this one; normally I prepare this tea as a latte to take some of the heat off, but in the spirit of making it closer to the Orange Spice I remember drinking with my grandma, I am taking it plain today. I have a mild headache and the ginger feels nice on my head and stomach, despite being a little warmer than I tend to prefer.

The ginger note is not as heavy as I expected.

Got this tea in a sampler after my last order and GOSH IT IS SO BLIMMIN GOOD! Spicy, cinnamon, Orange peel sigh

Will definitely repurchase and I recommend to lovers of chai.

You can find this tea at T2

This is the first tea in the T2 flavored black tea sampler that I’ve felt “ehh” about. It wasn’t bad, just only okay. I tend to prefer my ginger teas as green or herbal and drink them for health reasons, rather than for a morning pick-me-up, so perhaps ginger black teas just aren’t for me.

I do see some comments about adding some sweetener. I’ll have to give that a try in the future!