teapigs Spiced Winter Red Tea

teapigs Spiced Winter Red Tea* - £4.49

Nothing gets me in the festive mood more than some seasonal food & drink. So I was rather excited to hear that teapigs make a tea with claims of being like 'Christmas in a cup'. I couldn't have described their Spiced Winter Red tea better myself! The tea temples contain rooibos tea, orange peel, ginko, orange blossom, cinnamon, ginseng root, cloves & safflower. Each packet comes with 15 tea temples so there'll be plenty of cups for all of your Christmas visitors. The taste is simply wonderful. It's spicy, sweet, warming & comforting - perfect for curling up on the sofa with on a cold Winter night. As you may know I love anything with cinnamon in & I often drink some cinnamon tea at night to reduce my cravings for sweet stuff. It's all too easy to binge on a whole box of chocolates at this time of year so drinking a tea like this one is a good way of keeping off those pesky holiday pounds. Rooibos tea is naturally caffeine free so you don't have to worry about it keeping you up at night either.

This tea also smells totally amazing. It's quite a powerful spicy scent that hits you as soon as you open up the packet. I remember being in year 5 at school and we made oranges stuffed with cloves as Christmas presents. The scent of this tea is exactly like those pomanders & for me that's the ultimate nostalgic Christmas smell. The Spiced Winter Red tea is truly versatile. You can have it simply brewed with water, with a splash of milk or my favourite method is to add a shot of brandy to turn it into a festive punch. Alcohol at Christmas is always a winner!

If you're still searching for Christmas gifts you should definitely take a look at the teapigs Christmas gift shop. They have some great gift ideas for any tea lover. teapigs currently have a 20% discount code which you can use on everything other than their cheeky deals, mix & match and matcha kits. Just enter XMAS13 at the checkout. It is valid until the end of December. However tomorrow is the last day for standard delivery before Christmas so place your order now to make sure you don't miss out on trying this beautiful festive drink.

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Spiked Peach & Lemon Iced Tea

On a hot sunny day like today there's nothing better than sitting outside with a cold refreshing cup of iced tea. How can you improve on regular iced tea? Add in some alcohol of course! This spiked peach & lemon iced tea will help keep you cool & relaxed all day long. And the best part? It's incredibly easy to make & if you're a fan of iced tea you'll wonder why you never tried to make your own sooner.





I was sent a selection of tea temples from teapigs so I could try out some new flavours of iced tea. teapigs are a great brand to use for iced tea because they make such a vast range of flavours. They also sent me a recipe card with some ideas of how to mix the teas with other ingredients. I'm obsessed with the Lipton peach and lemon flavoured iced teas so I decided to combine the two flavours using the Lemon & Ginger tea temples as a base. These taste amazing on their own but they work really well in iced tea too. This might sound weird but I find the teapigs tea temples really interesting to look at because they contain proper ingredients rather than just dried tea leaves. The lemon & ginger ones contain pieces of ginger, lemongrass, lemon peel and liquorice root. It's actually quite difficult to find peach drinks in the UK so I settled for Welch's white grape & peach juice and of course I had to use some peach schnapps! Anyway here's how I made this delicious iced tea cocktail:





Ingredients

3 teapigs Lemon & Ginger tea temples
500ml boiling water
250ml cold water
250ml White Grape & Peach Juice
150ml Peach Schnapps
2 fresh lemons
Lots of ice

Method

1) Boil 500ml of water and pour into a large jug. Add the 3 tea temples and allow to steep for 5 minutes.

2) Top up with the cold water and white grape & peach juice. Then add in the peach schnapps. Feel free to use more or less according to taste but schnapps is pretty tame so you can afford to be generous ;)

3) Leave to cool before putting the jug in the fridge. Otherwise the drink will go cloudy. Once fully chilled remove from fridge and add slices of lemons and ice to the jug.

4) Garnish each glass with a slice of lemon and pour out the drink. Enjoy!

If you want to make your own version of this cocktail you can pick up some tea temples from www.teapigs.co.uk and you can still get 15% off using the code BLOGGERS12 (discount does not apply to gifts and cheeky deals as these are already discounted)! To receive teapigs news and the latest discounts don't forget to sign up for their newsletter on the homepage. You can also like them on Facebook & follow them on Twitter.

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Matcha May With teapigs

Next month teapigs are celebrating Matcha May. Matcha is basically a souped up version of green tea. Instead of loose leaves or teabags, matcha is tea ground down into a superfine powder. You can then utilise it in a variety of ways. I love regular green tea so I've been wanting to try some of this stuff for ages. When I was offered the chance to try a sample sachet of tea I simply couldn't say no.

The first thing I tried making with my sample was a Matcha Latte. I added one spoonful of powder to a glass, topped it up with almond milk and then heated it in the microwave for two minutes. Then I used my Aerolatte to froth up the milk. It was really good! The taste is very similar to normal green tea but almost milder in a way despite being a more powerful drink. The main thing I don't like about regular green tea is that it often leaves me with a very dry aftertaste in my mouth. This organic matcha powder doesn't do that at all. The recipe card also suggested adding it to porridge so I mixed one spoonful with my normal oats, almond milk & banana concoction. Green porridge doesn't look particularly appetising but it was seriously yummy. You can mix the powder with loads of stuff such as water, juice, smoothies, ice cream & yoghurt. You can even bake with it!

Green tea is packed full of health benefits but one serving of matcha is the equivalent of drinking 15 cups of normal green tea! The most immediate difference I noticed was how energising it is. It really helped to take the edge off my tiredness. It does contain caffeine but it's so much healthier for you than drinking regular tea or coffee. Matcha is packed full of antioxidants, much more than what is contained in any other 'superfood'. A lot of people claim that drinking matcha tea every day has helped them to lose weight as it boosts your metabolism and helps burn fat. I'm forever struggling with my weight so I'm thinking of buying a full size pot to test that out. Drinking this is also supposed to help improve the condition of your hair, skin and nails. I've had quite a few blemishes lately so I'm sure my skin would welcome the addition of matcha to my diet.

teapigs organic matcha powder costs £25 for a 30g box (30 servings) or £50 for an 80g box (80 servings). If you're interested in trying out some matcha or any other of their delicious teas, teapigs have kindly treated all of you to 15% off at www.teapigs.co.uk using the code BLOGGERS12 (discount does not apply to gifts and cheeky deals as these are already discounted). To receive teapigs news and the latest discounts don't forget to sign up for their newsletter on the homepage. You can also like them on Facebook & follow them on Twitter.

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