4 Hot Tea Drinks to Get you in the Holiday Spirit

Hi, this is Carly from Full Leaf Tea Company. Today I'm going to show you four different recipes to get you in the mood for the holidays. Each of these recipes is going to be listed in the link below, but first we're going to start with some peppermint hot chocolate. For this I used a method that I really like, which is actually brewing the tea leaves in milk. I'm using oat milk and adding some of our peppermint loose leaf tea directly into the saucepan and letting it brew over low to medium heat for about five to seven minutes, depending on how pepperminty you want your peppermint hot chocolate. Make sure to stir occasionally so that nothing gets stuck to the bottom, but this is super easy and a great way to make sure your tea doesn't get diluted with water when you're trying to make something a little more flavorful. I'm now going to remove this from the heat now that it's reached my desired level of doneness, clean my saucepan, straighten the tea leaves out, and add the hot milk back into the saucepan over low heat. Now I'm just going to break some semi-sweet chocolate chunks into the milk. You can use chocolate chips, you could use a lighter type of chocolate or a darker type of chocolate depending on your flavor preferences, and just whisking that over low to medium heat until everything is really well combined. This is totally optional, but I'm going to break up some of these mini candy canes to have a little bit of a garnish. And now all that's left to do is assemble. I'm just going to pour my peppermint hot chocolate mix into two cups, top it with whipped cream, and some candy canes. You also get an example of how terrible I am at using this whipped cream dispenser. I've had it for about six months and still can't seem to get the hang of it, so if anyone has any tips feel free to let me know. Next up we're going to do a winter brew honey cinnamon latte. Our winter brew tea is one of my favorites for the holidays. It is based with rooibos instead of a lot of holiday teas that are a black tea blend, so this is actually caffeine free. It has some great flavors like peppermint, cinnamon, cacao nibs, and cardamom. I'm just simply brewing the tea. I like to make my tea lattes pretty strong, so I did more in this tea bag than I usually would have when I was just making myself a cup of plain tea. And I'm actually going to over steep this a little bit since we are adding milk. It's going to dilute the flavor a little bit, so I think letting it over steep in this case is a really great option to make sure you get a bunch of those really good holiday flavors. Up next I'm just going to froth some oat milk with a little bit of cinnamon. I'm adding my honey into my tea now and giving it a quick mix before topping with my oat milk and enjoying the delicious flavors of winter brew tea. Okay let's move on to one of my favorites. This is white chocolate chai. So I'm going to use a similar method as my peppermint hot cocoa for this one where I'm going to brew the tea in hot milk. So I'm going to microwave my milk until it's almost scalding, about one to three minutes depending on your microwave. I'm adding a little bit of my white chocolate syrup and just frothing it a little bit to get it nice and blended. For this recipe I'm using our masala chai which is one of our strongest flavored chais, but we do have an herbal chai in case you're going for caffeine free. After that's steeped for about 10 minutes I'm going to top it with whipped cream, again very poorly because I can't use this whipped cream to answer very well, and then I'm going to add a little bit of caramel sauce because you know caramel makes everything better. A little bit of my white chocolate and then some cinnamon and this one is so good. It's a little bit similar to the Dutch Bros drink called A Christmas Morning and it is one of my favorites for the holidays. All right we're at the final drink, a pumpkin spice matcha. So I'm using our organic premium matcha for this which has no sweeteners added or any additives so it makes it a really nice flavor with the pumpkin spice which is quite sweet. I'm just using about four ounces of hot water and whisking until it's very thoroughly incorporated and now with some hot oat milk I'm adding some of this pumpkin spice syrup that I made. The recipe will be linked below and just mixing that in really well with my frother but you could use just a spoon or a normal whisk. Now I'm going to top that with my matcha which as you can see is very nice and smooth and yep I made a I made a total mess. I just can't deny it but this whipped cream actually turned out better than the others surprisingly enough. Add a little cinnamon on top and that's it that's pumpkin spice matcha made easy. I hope you enjoyed this video and that you'll try a couple of these drinks to put you in the fall or holiday mood and that you have a great rest of your day.