A guide to holiday teas that make gatherings brighter
It’s here! The month of cheer and colored lights, of red-ribboned parties and evergreen-draped mantles. December. The holidays. Time to get into the spirit!
We love how this dark, cold month invites so much warmth. We gather—family, friends, colleagues, the community at large—and laugh. Shopping turns from dull chore to cheery thrill, especially when we visit small, local businesses. Cooking and baking stoke our hearts.
All of it, from the holiday galas to the downtown strolls, brings us together. It’s really the point of December: Gather! Be merry!
Invite Tea to Spark Holiday Gatherings
Naturally, this emphasis on getting together puts us in a tea frame of mind. After all, tea serves as the OG social lubricant—people have gathered around tea pots for talk, laughter and companionship for thousands of years. Quite a track record!
Why not shepherd more tea into your December? If you live with others—a spouse, roommates, kids—consider brewing a pot, placing it in the center of a table and pouring cups for everybody. Sit together. Sip. Talk about the day. Trade recipe tips. Discuss the shows you’re binging. Dream together about vacations.
Yes, a pot of tea can help bring about all of the above. And there’s no better time to begin a tea-gathering ritual than the holiday season. So many of us gather together already, thanks to tradition and culture. It’s the perfect time to add a tea ritual to the month.
In addition to the teas featured below, visit these links for just a few more tea-gathering ideas. These gift guides will introduce you to key components tea traditions in Japan and China. Why not embellish your tea-centric get-togethers with a little bit of cultural exploration?
Some gift guide ideas
Love matcha? Of course you do. Here’s a gift guide for Ku Cha’s offerings in the majestic world of matcha.
Interested in the Chinese gong-fu tea ceremony? You should be! It’s less formal than the Japanese version—perfectly suitable for every day. And custom-made for hanging out together around a table on a snowy December evening! Here’s another Ku Cha House of Tea gift guide—for gong-fu!
Finally, a pro tip: Honor the winter solstice on Dec. 21, the shortest, darkest day of the year, with pots of tea and loads of bright conversation.
Holiday Gathering Teas: A Wonderful Christmas Chai
The season of merriment tends to involve a lot of gifts. That’s one of its many winning qualities—abundance. The holidays enchant us with the pleasures of giving. So our A Wonderful Christmas Chai aligns crisply with the season’s heart. For with this tea, we do not hold back! It’s packed with seasonal flavors, and immensely popular as a result.
It begins with a dynamic duo of caffeinated botanicals: black tea and yerba mate. This earthy, bold base then invites another common tea to the party—rooibos, which adds grassy complexity to the brew. Following these sturdy plants—what a foundation!—the tea supports a wide variety of other plants. Cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and clove for baking spices. Rosemary, red chile, bay leaves, cumin, cayenne and peppercorn for savory culinary notes. Orange peel contributes holiday citrus zing. And cacao, chocolate and coconut round it out with rich notes of the tropics. It’s gorgeous, and perfect for holiday gatherings.
Holiday Gathering Teas: Winter Berry Green
Given the holiday’s signature colors—green and red—we felt driven to create this bespoke blend. The base? Green tea. That’s a proper holiday foundation! To that we add cranberry and pomegranate, which in addition to seasonal flavors also bring red color to the brew. Hibiscus, too, ups the red quotient. Other components of this ambrosial blend include apple, orange, almond, carrot, aniseed, cinnamon, blackberry leaf, linden blossom and rose.
This dream of a tea is fruity, floral and shot through with spice. We adore it for all-day sipping. And we savor it for hanging out with friends and family.
Holiday Gathering Teas: Christmas Cookie Blend
The cookie bounty stands as one of the highlights of the season for us. Thanksgiving has its pies. Valentine’s Day, chocolate. Halloween hinges on candy, and so does Easter. But Christmas—and by extension, all of the December festivities, regardless of whether people celebrate December 25 or not—revolves around cookies. And this makes us very happy.
It’s so simple, the cookie. Yet potent with its enchantments. December cookies come in shapes like people, conifers, reindeer and more—tasting of gingerbread, or sugar and vanilla, and decorated. They can be shortbreads, wealthy with butter and achingly tender. Holiday cookies incorporate nuts and baking spices; dried fruit and herbs like mint; chocolate and orange zest. We think of them as vest-pocket indulgences.
So of course we could not resist crafting a tea based on holiday cookies!
For this jolly treat, we lead with rooibos, the South African shrub that has spawned its own unique tea culture in South Africa, and increasingly around the world. Rooibos offers earthy, grassy notes which we think pair well with the rest of this beauty’s components.
For more straightforward holiday notes, we incorporate almond (many holiday cookies incorporate almond paste and slivered almonds), apple, walnut, anise and cinnamon. Other botanicals, which we think lift this treasure into a sipping spectacle, include pineapple, rosemary, rose hip, pink pepper, dragon fruit (for red color as well as flavor) and beetroot (also for the all-important red).
The pièce de résistance? Golden sugar stars, which make the brew sparkly and oh-so festive.
A sugar cookie in a cup! We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Happy holidays!
