Teatime Tuesday #27

Welcome back to teatime!

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This Teatime Tuesday is brought to you courtesy of Mother’s Day. My sister and I purchased a strawberry cake from our local grocery store for my mom to try. (She’s allergic to chocolate, unfortunately, so she’s always looking for tasty fruit-topped desserts like this one!) She was kind enough to share it with everyone in my family, so we all sampled a piece. Naturally, I decided to pair my slice with some tea.

For my tea, I chose a flavored one called Vanilla Rose Ceylon, courtesy of Flying Bird Botanicals. They’re a smaller tea company with a lot of interesting blends. I first discovered them while on vacation in Sedona, where a local store had some of their teas in stock. This particular blend is very well-balanced, with a strong black tea base and a subtle rose flavor, which is softened nicely by the vanilla. It’s a perfect tea for Mother’s Day, feminine and a little sweet.

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As always, thanks for joining me for tea!

Teatime Tuesday #26

Welcome back to Teatime Tuesday!

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This week, I wanted to talk about a special teatime I had during a recent visit with friends. We got cupcakes from my favorite cupcake shop, Sprinkles–including a special flavor in honor of their tenth anniversary. These sprinkle-flavored cupcakes definitely lived up to their name: they were covered in tiny rainbow sprinkles, and even the cake was spotted with rainbow colors. The creamy vanilla frosting went well with the other flavors.

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For my tea, I had an old favorite: the decaffeinated vanilla black tea from Harney & Sons (which is sometimes called Vanilla Comoro). It’s the perfect tea to have with sweet desserts, because the sugar in the cupcake highlights the vanilla flavor in the tea. Plus, it’s nice to have an option that’s lower in caffeine, for drinking later in the day.

As always, thanks for joining me for tea!

Teatime Tuesday #25

Welcome back to Teatime Tuesday! And thank you for your patience with last week’s delays.

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Today’s tea was fairly typical for me. For my afternoon treat, I had a Triple Berry scone from Paradise Bakery. (I’m not actually sure which three berries were used in the recipe! I even checked their website, but couldn’t find the answer. I’ll have to ask them next time.) It had a sweet glaze on top, so it felt a little redundant to add jam and clotted cream–but I went ahead and did it anyway.

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For my tea, I steeped up a cup of Sansia Black, purchased from Butiki Teas (which is now closed, sadly). Sansia Black is very smooth, especially for a straight black tea, and it has a honey-like undertone to it. As I’d hoped, the honey notes went really well with the sweetness of the scone.

Thanks for joining me for tea!

Teatime Tuesday #24

Hello again, everyone! I’ve been working on a blog post about protagonists (specifically, female protagonists in YA), but for today, I have another Teatime Tuesday post to share.

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This week, I had a special treat in the form of some lemon poppyseed tea cake from Wolferman’s, courtesy of my grandmother. It was dense and moist and surprisingly sweet–particularly the frosting, which I loved. (This cake did not last very long at my house!) I tend to be a chocoholic, but I really enjoy lighter flavors like lemon, especially during this time of year.

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As for my tea, I’ve been hooked on Verdant’s Laoshan Autumn Green lately, which is probably my favorite green tea at the moment. (Verdant’s spring harvest teas will be coming in soon, though, so I may have some new favorites to share soon!)

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I also have a bonus teatime picture to share, courtesy of my friend and former college roommate, who made Earl Grey cupcakes last week. (She even let me take some of them home!) They were light and spongy, and had Earl Grey buttercream frosting. Also featured in the photo is a Hufflepuff mug, purchased from our epic visit to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter a few years ago. (I have the matching Ravenclaw mug, of course!) We had Lavender Earl Grey tea from Rishi to go with the cupcakes.

Once again, thanks for joining me for tea!

Teatime Tuesday #23

It’s Teatime Tuesday again!

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This week, I’m revisiting an oolong tea from Verdant called Shui Xian Wuyi Oolong, which I described in a previous post. It’s both a uniquely delicious oolong, and a good example of one with a classic floral profile (as opposed to the more heavily roasted types).

This week, I paired my tea with an extra special treat, a cupcake from Sprinkles. They have a shop in Scottsdale, where they make tasty cupcakes that just might be my favorite dessert ever. (I’ve even had them instead of cake on my birthday.) My favorite flavor is Chocolate Marshmallow, but they’re all excellent. This particular cupcake is a new flavor, Triple Cinnamon, with buttery cinnamon frosting. It pairs surprisingly well with oolong tea; the cinnamon creates a contrast with the juicy floral notes, and enhances them.

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That’s it for Teatime Tuesday! Thanks for joining me. I hope to have more writing-related posts to share with you over the next few weeks.