Peppermint Coffee Stirs

The quickest way to add a little holiday flavor to a cup of coffee is by stirring in a little peppermint. I like to use candy canes most of the time. They’re already shaped like stir sticks, and are inexpensive and handy. It also gives them a purpose in addition to being tree decorations. If you want to go a little bit fancier, you can seek out some spoon-shaped peppermint coffee stirs, like the ones pictured above from Crate and Barrel. They accomplish the same goal – adding some sweetness and peppermint flavor to a drink – but are a bit less sticky than candy canes since they have a wooden handle.

Lipton Green Tea with Mandarin Orange

Lipton’s Green Tea with Mandarin Orange is not a new release, but the holidays really get me in the mood for citrusy flavors, so I couldn’t resist giving it a mention. This tea has a wonderful orange flavor to it, in fact, it is so orangy that you can’t really taste the flavor of the green tea base much at all. This may be a bad thing in some cases, but not here. The orange flavor is smooth and not too sweet on its own (if you add sugar to your tea, that’s a different story!). It doesn’t have the bitterness that is the result of overusing orange zest, and it also doesn’t taste artificial, even though the flavor is strong. I suppose that means there is something to be said for the use of “pieces of real fruit” in with the tea.

I like this tea as a light, orange flavored drink. I think it would be a huge hit with anyone who wants to try out green tea but isn’t a fan of the grassy flavor that can accompany the tea sometimes. I also want to applaud Lipton on their packaging. Their pyramidal nylon tea bags are packed neatly into a small box that doesn’t compress the tea leaves or waste space with a box that is excessively large, like the TJ’s Cranberry Green Tea I tried recently.

Create MyBlend, at the Roastery

There are so many different types of coffee out there – beans from different parts of the world, light and dark roasts, etc. – that it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to find a coffee that you like. And it’s not, but finding that “perfect blend” is pretty dough. Unless you have your own roastery and have access to many different types of beans, the odds of getting a custom coffee blend that really suits your taste to a T is slim. One roastery, The Roasterie, is offering the opportunity the create your own custom blends through their shop. MyBlend walks you through the process of creating a custom blend, offering suggestions about the roast and the different flavor notes that are out there (fruity, floral, etc.). The descriptions are given in such a way that even a coffee novice will find it easy to customize their blend. My choices led me to a coffee that is “Vibrant and round with subtle nutty undertones.” Once the coffee blend is chosen, you can make a custom label for your product and have your own “house” blend – at home, of course!

Squeezing tea bags into tea?

If you’ve ever used a tea bag, chances are that you’ve squeezed the last bit of liquid out of it and into your cup after the tea has finished steeping – and possibly burned your fingertips doing it if you don’t have some ind of tea bag strainer. You might also have heard that squeezing a tea bag, once brewed, into a cup of tea will turn the tea bitter and that you should never, under any circumstances, do this.

If you put this to the test, you’ll probably find that it’s true, to some extent. Tea, especially black tea, contains tannins, a plant polyphenol that is known to have a bitter, astringent taste to it. It is not the same as tannic acid, a chemical present in different types of wood (such as oak) that is, among other things, used to tan leather. This astringency is more noticeable when your tea is stronger, and often squeezing the bag after steeping will release an extra little burst of well-steeped liquid from within the tea bag – and this can add a slight bitterness to the tea. That being said, if you are steeping your tea for a reasonable amount of time, you’re not going to notice a huge change.

It’s worth noting that herbal teas, as well as white and green teas, contain little to no tannins depending on the makeup of each individual tea. Those tea bags can be squeezed to your hearts content without any worry about adding unwanted bitterness to an otherwise good cuppa.

Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade Guatemalan Coffee, reviewed

Although they do offer the same basic line of coffee all the time, one could easily buy all their coffee from Trader Joe’s and never get bored because they constantly bring in new (often limited) blends to their stores. Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade Guatemalan Coffee hit shelves recently, and is noteable not just because of its brightly-colored label, but because it is a light roast and a lot of their other recent picks have been much darker.

This coffee does have very lightly roasted beans that seem a bit dry when you grind them, leaving a slight powder behind in the grinder. Brewed, the coffee is very smooth and, although light, has a clear chocolatey flavor (it is outstanding for bringing out the flavors in a mocha) with a slightly nutty edge to it. It’s a versatile coffee with a nice, bright flavor, and one that light roast drinkers can enjoy over some of TJ’s darker selections.