Gingerbread notwithstanding, this green tea reads more like a spice cupboard than a Christmas cliché: orange peel, almond pieces, star anise, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, pink peppercorns, rose petals and apricot kernels sit on a Camellia sinensis base. The clove comes through first, backed by a spicy, warming finish, with fruity apricot and citrus notes running underneath and a soft nuttiness from the almond. It works year-round despite the seasonal name.
Green tea gets there by minimal processing after picking — none of the oxidation that turns the same plant into black or oolong — so the leaf keeps more of its original character, which here means a grassy backbone under all that spice. A few of the ingredients carry their own histories: rose petals were reportedly used by Napoleon's army to treat wounds, cardamom has a long history in Ayurvedic medicine as a balancing agent for mind and body, and star anise has been part of everyday life across India, China, Japan and Vietnam for centuries. None of that is a claim about what the tea itself does, just where the ingredients come from.
Caffeine content runs light for a green tea, around 30mg per serving, roughly a third of a coffee's dose, and Tea & Coffee suggests it as a gentler alternative to a full jolt.
Brew it at 70°C for one to three minutes, using a filter or infuser rather than loose in the cup. Best drunk plain — the spice blend is already doing a lot of work, and milk or sweetener tends to flatten it. Worth noting for anyone with nut allergies: almonds are a listed allergen.
