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If you’re looking for a festive drink infused with the sweet flavours of the holidays, look no further than this hot spiced Christmas Tea!
It’s perfect to warm up a chilly morning or relax on a cozy afternoon and can be enjoyed on its own or as part of a Christmas Afternoon Tea or holiday brunch.
Reasons We Love This Spiced Christmas Tea Recipe
- all-natural ingredients with no artificial flavours,
- brewed black tea has loads of health-promoting benefits,
- delicious served as part of a Christmas Afternoon Tea or Brunch,
- a lightly sweet, low calorie, non-alcoholic festive drink for adults,
- can be doubled or tripled and kept hot in a crockpot to easily serve a crowd.
Is Homemade Christmas Tea Good for You?
Is homemade Christmas tea good for you? Yes! Homemade tea is more economical and has more health-promoting properties than holiday tea mixes you can buy in a store.
Tea brewed at home is fresher, contains only natural ingredients and no preservatives or additives. And, unless you’re making a Southern-style sweet holiday tea, no added sweeteners.
According to Harvard researchers, tea is the most popular beverage in the world after water. Black tea is the most popular, followed by green, oolong, and white tea. The first recorded use of tea as a medicinal beverage dates back to 3rd century AD China.
Tea is also rich in polyphenols or flavonoids, the plant chemical compounds that act as antioxidants and control the damaging effects of free radicals in the body.
Antioxidants may help fight inflammation, boost heart health, reduce stress hormones and much more.
In addition to the antioxidants in black tea, this Christmas tea also features fresh orange and apple slices which add a boost of vitamin C. That could help you feel better if you’ve got a cold or are feeling under the weather.
Hot Christmas Spiced Tea Ingredients
- Loose dried Orange Pekoe black tea (or tea bags)
- Water (filtered, purified or distilled)
- Fresh oranges
- Fresh apples
- Cinnamon sticks
- Whole cloves
- Nutmeg
- Allspice
- Star anise
Optional: If you have dehydrated oranges or lemons, they make a beautiful garnish for tea and a wide variety of festive drinks. They’re easy to make in a dehydrator or oven.
For equipment, you’ll need an infuser tea pot, a tea ball, a French Press Coffee maker or a pot and a fine-mesh strainer for the tea unless you’re using tea bags.
Whole cloves can be a choking hazard (much like bay leaves) if inadvertently swallowed. So it’s best to use an infuser for your Christmas spice blend. Or you can use a square of cheesecloth and kitchen twine to make a bouquet garni to hold the sweet spices in.
Inexpensive and reusable cotton spice bags with drawstrings are available online and are handy for creating holders for sachets, potpourri, tea and bouquet garni.
What Type of Tea is Best for Christmas Tea?
This recipe calls for black tea as it holds up the best to the addition of fresh fruit and sweet spices. It also keeps its slightly astringent flavour for hours. I like to use loose tea in either a tea ball or infuser.
But you can also use tea bags if that’s what you have available. However, many commercial brands of tea bags contain tea dust and fannings (small particles) leftover from broken tea leaves. They contain less of the oils and aroma which contribute to the overall flavour of the tea.
So if you do use tea bags try to choose a brand that contains whole-leaf tea.
The best type of black tea for this spiced Christmas tea recipe is orange pekoe.
While all tea (except for Assamica tea) comes from the camellia sinensis plant, black tea is aged longer and is more oxidized than green and white tea. Although it’s stronger, it’s still light bodied and naturally sweet.
Fun Fact: Contrary to popular belief, the term orange pekoe doesn’t refer to its colour or the flavour orange! If you’ve ever had an orange flavoured tea, it was likely Earl Grey. It’s citrusy flavour comes from natural or synthetic bergamot oil added to the tea.
Other popular types of black tea include English Breakfast, with a robust flavour best served with milk and sugar, while Scottish tea is even stronger and has a malty flavour.
For this recipe, I used Orange Pekoe loose leaf black tea from the Porto Formoso Tea Factory on São Miguel island in the Azores archipelago of Portugal.
Founded by Amâncio Machado Faria e Maia in the 1920s, it produces organic tea free of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
During the factory tour and tutoured tasting, I fell in love with the delicate scent and rich flavour of Porto Formoso tea and went overboard purchasing bags of it to take home .
Fortunately, dried tea keeps its flavour for up to two years (three years if it’s in an aluminum foil bag) if stored properly. So making a batch of Christmas tea is a great way to use up excess loose leaf tea you may have in your pantry.
Step by Step Instructions
Please scroll down to the recipe card for the exact quantities of ingredients and full method.
1. Prepare your tea bags or loose tea.
2. Bring filtered water to a boil, reduce to a low simmer and remove from the heat. Once the boiling has completely stopped and is at 100C or 212F, pour it over the dried tea (or tea bags).
3. Let it steep for 3 minutes.
4. While it’s steeping create your Christmas spice blend. Combine the whole nutmeg, star anise, cloves and allspice within an infuser. Or use a cotton spice bag with a drawstring or a piece of cheesecloth tied with kitchen twine.
5. If you’re not using an infuser and have added the loose tea directly to the pot, strain the tea with a fine-mesh strainer.
If you’ve used a tea pot with a built-in infuser, allow the tea to cool slightly so you don’t scald yourself with steam when transferring it to the serving container.
6. Transfer the tea to a heat-proof pot. This recipe calls for Orange Pekoe tea which is naturally sweet, but if you’d like to add honey or other sweetener do it now.
7. Cut the apples and oranges into thin slices. Add half the slices of orange and apples (reserve the other half for garnish), the spices (within the infuser) and cinnamon sticks. Bring to a low simmer and allow the mixture to simmer gently for a minimum of thirty minutes.
8. If you’re serving a crowd, transfer the tea mixture to a crockpot set to low after its simmered for 30 minutes.
9. When ready to serve, remove the infuser of spices, fruit and the cinnamon stick, ladle the tea into mugs and garnish with a fresh apple and orange slice.
Use a fresh cinnamon stick as a stir stick. Enjoy immediately!
Tips for Making Spiced Tea
- Allow the tea to infuse naturally. Although it might be tempting to squeeze the teabags or swirl the infuser around in an attempt to extract more flavour or colour, don’t do it! The pressure will release bitterness into the tea.
- If you’re using a tea infuser, fill it loosely. Tea leaves will expand in the hot boiling water so there should be some space available for them to do so. For large batches of Spiced Christmas Tea you should use two or more infusers.
- To prevent the delicate tea leaves from getting scorched and producing a bitter taste, wait for one minute before combining the tea with the boiling water.
- Use filtered, purified or distilled water to avoid the taste of fluoride and other additives in tap water.
- If your spices are more than two years old, you may need to use more spices to achieve the same flavour and aroma as with fresh spices. Feel free to adjust the spices according to your taste preference. The licorice-like flavour of star anise can be quite strong so can be omitted if you’d prefer a mildly-spiced tea.
How to Serve this Spiced Holiday Tea
- This spiced Christmas tea should be served warm but not boiling hot.
- For a crowd, serve the simmered tea mixture in a crock pot set to low. It will stay fresh-tasting for up to three hours which makes it the perfect drink for holiday gatherings such as afternoon tea or brunch.
- Serve this festive tea with Chocolate Eggnog cookies, champurradas (Guatemalan sesame seed biscotti) or a cute mini dessert such as this Kiwi Coconut Chia Parfait popular at the Shangri-La Hotel Toronto.
- This tea would also be delicious served with Apple Scones or Lavender Sugar Cookies with Earl Grey Tea Glaze.
- Unlike herbal teas such as chamomile or peppermint, black tea contains caffeine. According to the Garfield Medical Center, an 8 ounce serving of black tea contains between 40 and 70 milligrams of caffeine. So, although that’s less caffeine than coffee (95 to 200 milligrams), it might be enough to cause insomnia or nervousness in some people. I welcome a slight caffeine buzz on a busy day, but if you’re sensitive to caffeine, you might want to opt for decaffeinated tea in this recipe.
- This festive tea also goes beautifully with our Holiday Potato Soup.
More Hot Winter Drinks, You Might Enjoy These:
Hot Spiced Christmas Tea
Equipment
- Tea ball or infuser
- Kettle
- Knife
- Spice bag
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon loose leaf tea or 1 black tea bag
- 8 cups water filtered
- 1 orange
- 1 apple
- 1/8 tsp allspice whole (around 5)
- 1/8 tsp cloves whole (around 5)
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg freshly grated
- 1 star anise
- 2 cinnamon sticks
Garnish
- 1 orange
- 1 apple
- 4 cinnamon sticks
Instructions
- Prepare your tea bags or loose tea.
- Bring the filtered water to a boil, reduce to a low simmer and remove from the heat. Once the boiling has completely stopped and is at 100C or 212 F, pour it over the dried tea or tea bags.
- Let it steep for 3 minutes. Then, remove the tea bag.
- While it's steeping, create your Christmas spice blend. Combine the nutmeg, star anise, cloves and allspice within an infuser, a cotton spice bag with a drawstring or a piece of cheesecloth tied with kitchen twine.
- Transfer the tea to a heat-proof pot and bring to a low simmer. If you’d like to add honey or other sweetener do it now.
- Cut the apples and oranges into thin slices. Add half the slices of orange and apples (reserve the other half for garnish), the spices (within the infuser) and cinnamon sticks. Allow the mixture to simmer for a minimum of thirty minutes.
- Once the tea, spices and fruit have simmered for 30 minutes, remove the infuser and cinnamon sticks and discard. If you're serving a crowd, transfer the tea to a crockpot set to low.
- When ready to serve, ladle the tea into mugs and garnish with a fresh apple and orange slice. Use a fresh cinnamon stick as a stir stick.
Notes
- Allow the tea to infuse naturally. Although it might be tempting to squeeze the teabags or swirl the infuser around in an attempt to extract more flavour or colour, don’t do it! The pressure will release bitterness into the tea.
- If you're using a tea infuser, fill it loosely. Tea leaves expand in hot water so there should be some space available for them to do so. For large batches of Spiced Christmas Tea you should use two or more infusers.
- To prevent the delicate tea leaves from getting scorched and producing a bitter taste, wait for one minute before combining the tea with the boiling water.
- Use filtered, purified or distilled water to avoid the taste of fluoride and other additives in tap water.
- If your spices are more than two years old, you may need to use more spices to achieve the same flavour and aroma as with fresh spices. Feel free to adjust the spices according to your taste preference. The licorice-like flavour of star anise can be quite strong so can be omitted if you'd prefer a mildly-spiced tea.
Nutrition
If You Liked This Festive Tea Recipe, You Need to Try These Holiday Drinks:
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Dividing her time between Canada, Guatemala and Mexico (or the nearest tropical beach), Michele Peterson is the founder of A Taste for Travel. Her award-winning travel and food writing has appeared in Lonely Planet’s cookbook Mexico: From the Source, National Geographic Traveler, Fodor’s and 100+ other publications.
Read more about Michele Peterson.
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Nora
Do you take the tea bag or tea diffuser out of the water after it has steeped 3 minutes?
Michele Peterson
Yes, take the tea bag out of the diffuser or it will be too strong.
Makhaya
Loved this cozy drink recipe. Thanks for sharing!
Michele Peterson
Glad you enjoyed it!
Chef Dennis
My wife will surely love this!
Michele Peterson
It is the perfect recipe for tea lovers…I hope she enjoys it.
Rosario Arecco
So good!
Sunrita
A non alcoholic version of mulled wine. Perfect
Elizabeth
Great recipe!