Fill Your Teacup and Cheer! Making 2024 a Great Year…Teatime Style!
Celebrate New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with Tea Flavors and Tea Drinks
Steeped in Worldly Traditions.
Whether we gather with a small group of family and friends, head to a big, loud New Year’s Eve party, or simply enjoy sharing a quiet evening with our special someone, New Year’s Eve 2023 can be a time of reflection, giving thanks and dreaming big, beautiful dreams to make 2024 our best tea-loving year ever.
New Year’s Eve
You’re dressed in your holiday best and ready to celebrate and have a great time socializing. You may be attending a party or throwing one, but either way you’re ready to make merry and have a good time. On New Year’s Eve, celebrating usually means sipping champagne with a big champagne toast at midnight, but have you ever thought about bringing your love of all things tea into your Happy New Year festivities? Consider sparkling teas which have all of the sparkle with none of the alcohol, or a Kombucha as choices to sip and toast with. It’s a Party in a teacup (or champagne flute)!
Sparkling tea is a Danish tea treasure that can bring a new element to your entertaining. Try Copenhagen Sparkling Tea LYSERØD. This very sophisticated tea, with its juicy blend of fruity and floral notes, is based in green, black and white tea. Comparison can be made to rosé wines, as LYSERØD is Danish for “pink.” Introduce yourself or you guests to this unique take on a holiday beverage with all the enjoyment New Year’s Eve holds.
Kombucha, with its roots in China and Eastern Europe, has all of the nose-tickling fizz of champagne with lots of good-for-you properties, including gut-health and probiotic-like benefits ingredients. It comes in lots of fun flavors from mango passion to ginger lemon and more. This non-alcoholic Kombucha is filled with spice and tang, and is a medium amount of caffeine. It’s sugar-free, so fill your champagne flute for sipping, toasting and enjoying!
If you’re the host or hostess with the most, how about whipping up a Champagne Tea Cocktail to wow your guests? Darjeeling tea is known as the “champagne of teas” partly because of its grapey, yeasty fruity flavor, reminiscent of muscatel. This elegant champagne tea drink, served in fancy champagne flutes, will surprise and please any guest who is over 21.
Pair your tea beverages with traditional 12 round fruits of the Philippines which are eaten on New Year’s Eve to bring prosperity in the coming year. This tradition combines 12 pieces of fruit, one for each month of the coming year. The round shape of the fruits, such as apples, grapes, and plums, is thought to mirror the shape of coins, thus bringing prosperity in the new year
New Year’s Day
A bright and beautiful New Year’s Day is what we all hope for as a harbinger of the wonderful year to come. Whether rain or shine, these teatime takes on New Year’s Day “good luck foods” traditionally eaten to start the new year right will be a fun and optimistic way to start your day…and new year 2024!
Both greens rice are on the New Year’s “good luck” foods list, greens due to their obvious tie to the color of paper money, with rice symbolizing prosperity and fertility (think of the past tradition of throwing rice after a wedding). These two good luck foods are combined in a soothing and invigorating cup of Gemaicha tea, which combines Sencha, Matcha and roasted brown rice teas. After a late night on New Year’s Eve staying up until midnight, a hot cup of Gemaicha on New Year’s Day is just want you need for a smooth, rich and nutty taste!
Pork, also a traditional “good luck” food at New Year’s is supposed to inspire progress in the year to come. An easy way to prepare a pork chop teatime style starts with preparing two cups (16 oz) of Allegro Organic ginger peach tea (two bags) and allowing them to steep. Meanwhile, coat both sides of the chop with ginger powder, garlic powder and onion powder with a little sprinkle salt and pepper. Pan sear the chop on both sides. Add one cup of the ginger peach tea to pan, and allow pork to simmer in the tea. The fragrant spices and ginger peach tea will fill your kitchen with the most pleasant aroma. When the tea is mostly cooked down in pan (approximately ten minutes), flip the chop and add the second cup of tea. Simmer another 10 minutes or so. It is important to thoroughly cook pork, so be sure that you use a meat thermometer to check doneness of chop which should be 145 degrees internal temperature. Continue cooking as needed to proper temperature.
Move chop to plate and pour pan drippings over it. Serve with rice, black-eyed peas and greens for a super “good luck” meal.
Another delicious way to celebrate New Year’s Day “good luck foods” is to choose oranges, as their bright color is associated with happiness and good fortune. Enjoy steeping Celestial Seasonings Mandarin Orange Spice Tea in an elegant orange teacup with spoon. While your tea is steeping, cut a slice a mandarin orange peel, twist it and drop it into your tea. As you relax to savor your cup, take in the heady citrus scent, gently stir the peel in the hot tea to release its fragrant oils, and take a moment to dream of a peaceful and prosperous 2024 for yourself, your family and friends, and the world. Anything is possible over a cup of tea.
So make the most of every minute left in 2023, enjoy New Year’s Eve and Day, and look toward a tea-tastic 2024 for all. Enjoy every cup!