Tasha made this Spiced Holiday Tea for us one day and we fell in love with it!
Spiced Holiday Tea
by Tasha Hackett
Or as I like to call it the drinkable potpourri. I’ve been simmering water with lemon rinds and a cinnamon stick for the past month just to enjoy the smell, but why only use it for the smell when you can drink it, too?
This spiced tea was introduced to me the first time I went home for the Thanksgiving holiday with my then boyfriend. He’s now my husband, and I won’t claim this drink has brought us together because for some odd reason, he doesn’t like it. Which is completely fine with me and his mother, because that means more for us. My mother-in-law always has a pot of this drink simmering on the stove over the holidays.
Sweeten your spiced tea to taste!
I have stayed true to my mother-in-law’s recipe in all except the sugar content. The original recipe that she used calls for a full cup. But I’ve decreased it to 1/2 cup in year’s past and nobody noticed. This year I will add even less, but please don’t tell them!
To get started, first boil a full gallon of water in a large pot on the stove. Then turn the burner down and add the tea bags. Please never boil the tea! Follow the directions on the package of your tea to brew a full gallon—I use decaf so we can enjoy anytime of day and share with the kids without any caffeine messing up our sleep.
Once you’ve removed the tea bags, add in 5 cinnamon sticks, 10 whole cloves, and one of each limeade and orange juice concentrate. (Not straight lime juice, but the sweetened limeade in the freezer section with other fruit juices.) Basically you just used tea instead of water to mix the juice. You do not need to add extra water with the juice concentrates. Add in the sugar to taste, approximately 1/2 cup more or less. Wait to taste for sweetness until the juice concentrates are mixed in.
Let the holiday spiced tea simmer—but not boil—for at least an hour.
This tea is better tomorrow.
After we’ve all enjoyed a cup, we store the rest in the fridge overnight, keeping the cloves and cinnamon sticks in the pitcher and the tea gets a stronger spiced flavor throughout the holiday weekend. We enjoy it cold or reheated. I can’t really tell you which is my favorite because I like it both ways!
What’s your favorite holiday drink?
- One gallon of tea brewed to instructions on tea package (regular or decaf)
- Limeade concentrate
- Orange juice concentrate
- 5 cinnamon sticks
- 10 cloves
- ½ cup sugar (more or less to taste)
- Brew the tea in a large pot on the stove.
- Once the tea bags are removed, add the rest of the ingredients.
- Simmer for a minimum of one hour, being careful not to boil.
- Enjoy warm or cold.
- Store leftovers in the fridge.
Tasha Hackett is a friend of Laura and has officially been writing since she asked for a journal for her 10th birthday. Her first novel, a historical Christian romance, Bluebird on the Prairie was released just this year, 2021, and she looks forward to sharing many more of her stories with the world. For now, you can read more about her and her fiction from her website: www.TashaHackett.com.
What size concentrates did you use?
Did you consider making the limeade from scratch? Reading ingredients online for store bought limeade concentrate shows most contain HFCS. I won’t buy anything anymore that contains it.
What size concentrates do you use