[Tea Review] Tin Roof Teas "Festivus" Tea

I love local tea shops! Tin Roof Teas has been one of my favorites for years! I stumbled across them in 2013 while in Raleigh, NC for a sci-fi con and have made it a point to visit them every time I am in Raleigh since. 

This year they did a whole line of Holiday teas, I went in for their Nutcracker tea, but sadly they were out, after smelling all of the ones available I decided on the "Festivus" tea because it smelled and sounded amazing! This tea has strong smells of apple, orange and cinnamon in it, which are things I love, so of course this stuff has to taste amazing. Also look at how beautiful the tea looks!

The taste also did not let me down. It is a black tea, but has an amazing fruity taste to it, you can really taste the apple in it, but it is not sweet fruity, it has a great balance to it. I would highly recommend this tea to anyone who wants a tea that has a fruity taste to it, but while not being too sweet. However adding some honey would definitely help anyone who wants something sweeter.

Here is an entire list of Tin Roof Teas Holiday teas along with the pricing for them as well. You can check them out in the Cameron Village shops in Raleigh or on their webpage here!

[Tea Review] Lupicia Tea's "Soleil Levant" Holiday Tea

Lupicia sent out samples of their "Soleil Levant" tea in their monthly tea newsletter that they send out to customers who purchase more than $30 with them. I was really excited to get to try one of their holiday teas since I haven't gotten to purchase a lot of teas recently. Since I try to review holiday teas each December!

Soleil Levant is a green tea, the name means "The Rising Sun" in French. The tea has grapes and citrus flavors with matcha. You can really smell the matcha and the grape and citrus when you smell the tea bag. This tea smells amazing! Once it has been steeped you can really smell the matcha. 

Art from Lupicia's packing for Soleil Levant

The taste of this tea was really surprising. It has a matcha taste with a grape taste as well. It is really refreshing. I did not expect it to have such a wonderful grape taste to it. I would highly recomemd getting some of this green tea before Lupicia sells out of it, since it is a limited release. You can find it online here. Also I really want to comment on the super cute package design for all of Lupicia's holiday teas! The deer and hedgehogs knitting is super cute and random!

[Tea Review] Tea Hugger's Organic Eggnog Chai

Tea Hugger is a small tea company located in Greensboro, NC. I stumbled across tins of their tea at the Spice Shop at Friendly Center in Greensboro NC and then did some snooping to find out more about them. They have a small booth at the Greensboro Original Farmers Curb Market, where they sell cups of tea and their blends. I made my way up there on Saturday so I could check out their teas and picked up a lovely Holiday Tea set with 5 winter tea blends in it! The first one I'll be reviewing is their "Organic Eggnog Chai", an Assam black tea with lots of other goodies added into it!

This tea has an amazing look to it. It has lovely tea leaves and lots of cloves, cinnamon and vanilla from the smell of it. This stuff smells amazing.  I was a bit worried because I am not a huge fan of eggnog as a drink but I was really excited to drink this tea based on the smell alone.

After steeping this tea does have a slight smell reminiscing of Eggnog. It also has cinnamon and cloves and vanilla scents to it. The taste is spicy and nice, not in your face, you can taste the cinnamon and cloves in it and its very refreshing. I was pleasantly surprised since the name "Eggnog Chai" scared me at first, but I really like the taste of this tea.

You can check out Tea Hugger every Wednesday (8am-1pm) and Saturday (7am-12pm) at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market. Or if you are not local to Greensboro, NC you can check them out here online to order their teas!