[Spice Review] Savory Spice Shop "Mulling Spices"

One of my favorite places to get spices and other fun ingredients to cook with is the Savory Spice Shop in Greensboro, NC at The Shops at Friendly Center. They have everything you could possibly want to make your food amazing, from spices and mixtures for meats, dips, flavored extracts, sugars, salts, etc.

They also make  Mulling Spices, that I decided to try out with a wonderful red holiday wine I had from Mount Hope Winery when I went to the Pa. Renaissance Faire a while ago.

Using the Mulling Spices was pretty normal, you simmer them on the stove top for a bit ( about 20 minutes) then discard your water and add the wine. I have used Milling spices before, so this was pretty typical for preparing it. (I used a form of Mulling Spices in my Face Hugger Wassail from my Cookbook Shut Up and Eat!The Unofficial Doctor Who Series Ate Cookbook)

I would highly recommend trying out these spices if you like hot apple ciders, or mulled wines, they work for really anyone who likes hot spiced drinks. Savory Spice even has some recipes on their webpage to help you come up with ideas for using their products.

You can find Savory Spice Shop online at

[Tea Review] Teavana White Chocolate Peppermint Rooibos Tea

If you havent noticed by now with my recent tea reviews I have had a theme of Holiday or winter tea releases! This weeks is no different with Teavana's White Chocolate Peppermint Rooibos Tea. This is the most deceptive tea I have ever tasted and I will explain below why!

This tea smells amazing! It reminds me more of a chocolate latte drink or hot cocoa than tea! It has amazing hints of chocolate and peppermint, and they fill your nose with wintry goodness of wanting to be by the fire sipping this tea! The tea itself has pieces of chocolate and peppermint that melt when you make the tea along with the actual tea in it as well.

And once you actually take a sip of this tea you have to give it a second look (and sip) to realize you are actually, in fact, drinking tea, because this stuff really tastes like Cocoa to me... very deceptive! I tried a sample of this in the store, and had to take some home to drink for the winter season because it is light enough to drink at night, while still giving you that fun chocolate and peppermint taste! The White Chocolate Peppermint Rooibos tea is $9.98 for 2oz at Teavana.

Also while at Teavana I picked up this super cute French Macaron tea case.... I couldn't resist since I love French Macarons (and it was in mint green, one of my favorite colors!) I also used the Vanilla Bean Sugar from the Savory Spice Shop (located in Greensboro, NC) to sweeten my tea, and let me tell you, this sugar tastes AMAZING! and this is coming from someone who normally never sweetens her tea with sugar.

You can find the White Chocolate Peppermint Rooibos Tea Here

and you can find the Savory Spice Shop Vanilla Bean Sugar Here