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New Year offers a great opportunity to start something new.

Sound like just another New Year cliché? Maybe, but it’s also true.

If your goal for the next year is to drink more tea or to improve your wellbeing, it’s time to discover how to make your tea journey more interesting and flavorful.

Tea may help you live a better, more interesting and happier life, and we’re not talking about the potential health benefits only. Benefits will differ from type to type and from person to person. But tea may help in many other ways and make your life more flavorful, inspired, creative and fun.

Here are some tea ideas to try in 2023 and discover a whole new side to tea + explore your own creativity.

Why tea is so amazing?

What makes tea so amazing is that even though all teas come from the “same” plant, they are also all very different. No other plant in the tea world is processed is so many ways as Camellia sinensis is. Depending on the processing, tea can come in different shapes and colors and can mimic the flavors of fruits, flowers and vegetables.

Also, tea offers many ways to be super creative. You can use it for baking, cooking, making cocktails, making DIY face masks and even fertilizing plants. Tea brewing is getting more creative each year.

While there’s no doubt that replacing sugary drinks with tea is always a good idea, you don’t need to stop there.

Here are some tea ideas to add to your bucket list for 2023.  

10 tea ideas to try

1.      Try a recipe with matcha

Matcha is a Japanese green tea powder that’s traditionally prepared during the tea ceremony. But it’s also an incredible tea for baking and making lattes. It gives a vibrant green color and a gentle tea note to recipes and it’s super easy to use. You can use either culinary or ceremonial grade matcha and a ½ to a teaspoon will usually be enough. You can try it with your favorite sugar cookies, buttercream frostings or white chocolate desserts.

2.      Learn how to make a perfect latte

There’s a difference between adding milk to tea and making a proper latte. Latte will be creamy and frothy, while milk tea will simply be a cup of milk with some cold milk. Even if you heat the milk and add it to tea, it still won’t taste as delicious as a latte. Learn how to froth the milk properly and always use at least 1:1 ratio of tea to milk. Creamy and frothy latte will taste great even with no sweeteners. Black teas and red rooibos are perfect for making lattes.

3.      Make your own tea blend

If you want to get really creative, try making your own tea blend. Choose a loose leaf tea that you love as a base and add ingredients that match the same flavor profile. For example, you could blend Darjeeling black tea with jasmine flower or rose petals or raisins. Or try blending green sencha tea with dried papaya chunks or coconut.

4.      Learn how to make boba tea at home

Making boba at home is actually quite simple. You don’t need a boba tea kit or unusual ingredients. A pouch of pre-made boba pearls will be enough for 5-10 servings and you will need a flavorful tea – black or oolong will work great. Learn how to make it here.

5.      Make your own tea syrup

Learning how to make a tea syrup will open up a whole new world of opportunities for baking with tea. Not only can you use a tea syrup for sweetening other drinks (including coffee!) but you can use it for baking and making cocktails. You can start with ½ cup of white sugar and ½ cup of strong brewed tea, melt the sugar first, then slowly bring it to a boil and reduce and simmer for a few minutes. Any tea will work, but chai blends, earl grey and fruit teas taste amazingly well.

6.      Learn how to make chai

If you still haven’t tried a proper chai, new year is a great opportunity to learn how to make it at home. The most important thing to keep in mind is to simmer tea leaves in water and milk rather than steeping them. Plus, try out the pulling method before serving it by pouring chai from one cup into another a few times.  

7.      Try cold steeping in different liquids

Cold steeping is a brewing method that requires virtually no effort – only time. If you haven’t tried regular cold steeping, give it a go first. It will change a flavor profile of your tea and reduce bitterness and caffeine [1]. it’s great for stronger green teas and flavored blends. However, you can cold-steep tea in other liquids too, including sparkling water, tonic and milk.

8.      Start practicing mindfulness with tea

Mindfulness is one of those skills that you can learn by yourself and that may provide many benefits – including reducing stress and anxiety [2]. You can practice mindfulness with just about anything but practicing it with tea makes it even better. It will allow you not only to gain an exceptional skill, but truly enjoy the scents, shapes and flavors of tea.

9.      Try a tea type you never tried before

There are 6 different types of teas – white, yellow, green, oolong, black and dark - and all of them may provide benefits. If there’s a type of tea you haven’t tried yet or maybe you tried it only once and didn’t quite enjoy it, give it another chance or try brewing it differently.

10.  Add a shot of espresso to your black tea latte

If you love both tea and coffee, you can mix it up. In fact, this is a great way of enjoying both drinks at the same time in the morning. Chai latte with a shot of espresso is called dirty chai, and it’s super delicious. You can also try it with other black teas, including flavored black tea blends with chocolate and nutty notes. Make latte first and then simply add a shot of espresso.

Tea Ideas for 2023

If you are new to tea, you are in for a surprise about what tea can offer. There are dozens of brewing methods you can try, and many flavors to explore. The best way to create a new tea drinking habit is by finding flavors you love and fun ways of brewing. Suggested tea ideas will give you a good starting point to enjoy tea in different ways, not just steeped in hot water.

Have other favorite ways of enjoying tea? Share with us in the comments below.  

Sources:

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4648929/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2848393/