A Tea lover’s dream (Afternoon Tea at the Biltmore)

There are two types of people in this world. Tea lovers and people who haven’t discover how awesome tea really is. I my friend  fall in the former. I’ve always liked tea over coffee but when I started transitioning  to becoming a pescatarian ,that preference for tea grew. I started researching the different types of tea and their benefits and how adding it to your daily intake can do great wonders.  Slowly but surely I was drinking at least 3 cups of tea a day varying from Green ,Black Oolong and Rooibos.

By the time my birthday came around this year, I was pretty much enamored with tea that I wanted to incorporate  it into my birthday festivities somehow.So I did Afternoon Tea at the Historic  Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The experience was so much fun that from that moment on ,I sought out to find the perfect tea set to have Afternoon Tea at home. Up until last week,I found a cute starter tea set that served 4 and was perfect for Matcha tea. I finally received it in the mail today and had my very first Afternoon Tea party at home with my family. It was so much fun that I’m thinking this might be a weekly or monthly thing for us in 2015.

I don’t personally have a preference of any brand of tea, but I am particular about the ingredients in my tea. Being that I drink my teas without sugar or cream I like the  teas to only contain organic tea leaves.  The closer to nature the better in my book! But sometimes that is not always the case especially when dealing with gourmet tea companies. Below I’ve added a list of the teas that I like and have tried in the past few months. Most of them are one ingredient teas and the others aren’t but they taste so good we’ll give them a pass. Happy Sipping!

• Prince of Peace Organic Oolong Tea
• Prince of Peace Organic Green Tea
• Prince of Peace Organic White Tea
• Prince of Peace Organic Black Tea
• Rishi Sencha Green Tea
• Republic of Tea Moringa Tea
• Republic of Tea Dandellion Tea
• Uncle Lee’s Organic Green Tea
• Choice Rooibos Tea
• Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Rooibos Tea
• Yogi GreenTea Kombucha Tea
• Guayaki Yerba Mate Organic Tea
• Teavana Green Moroccan Mint Tea

 

Overnight Ice Tea

Lately I’ve been working on drinking more teas along with my daily green smoothies. I have cut down my soda intake tremendously, replacing soda with unsweetened ice tea or coconut water. I’ve always love drinking tea since i was little, but the process of boiling , steeping, and cooling really takes out the fun of drinking tea. The million dollars question I’ve always had in the back of my head when i was little was: why do you need to boil water to make ice tea? Never understood it and also tried experimenting on it but never had the patience to come to an actual conclusion.So I decided to try it out again a few weeks ago, and it worked out perfectly!  I grabbed one of my mason jars, but i think any container will do. I poured a bottle of  spring water and added a bag of Celestial Seasonings  Hibiscus tea along with a Whole Foods Yerba Mate tea bag.  I sealed it and left it in the fridge over night, that morning  i had a perfect jar of ice tea to go. Thanks to the Yerba Mate and its caffeine , i was wide awake with no need for coffee. I’m not actually sure of the specific brewing time, but a few hours will definitely do the trick so this is best if done ahead of time. If you think about it and actually sit down and do the math, which I’m not going to do lol… Its cheaper to make you own ice tea than buying a bottle everyday. On top of that, you can make different flavor combinations that you would never find in your grocery store. For instance i  added a splash of coconut water to the spring water along with my green tea mint flavored teabag. Doing this I get my antioxidants and potassium all at the same time, it’s genius i tell you. If you love ice tea i definitively recommend trying this at least once.