Hello all and welcome to the 9th day of Blogmas! Tonight I thought I’d share one of my favorite drinks for a cold winter’s night. Not that it’s actually winter yet, as my 6-year-old reminded me this morning, but it certainly feels like it around here!

You can make a tea latte with any sort of tea, some foamed milk (I use soy or almond), and vanilla flavoring (or any other sweetener/drink syrup). It’s an absurdly simple and delicious concoction–my kind of recipe! My favorite mixture uses ingredients from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Sadly, there are no Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations around me (perhaps there aren’t any in New York at all?). They do, however, have a fairly decent online shop, so I have to make do with that. I was addicted to their vanilla flavouring powder before switching to local honey in my morning lattes, so I still have loads of it around. It’s perfect for tea lattes.

My favorite tea to use is Winter Dream Tea. It’s a spicy black tea/rooibos blend that tastes of cinnamon. I think it’s somewhat comparable to chai, but in my opinion, much better. I generally don’t follow the recipe on the mug above, because it ends up much too sweet, without enough of the tea flavour. This is likely personal preference, as I generally don’t sweeten my tea, but I would recommend using less sweetener to start with. I used about 1/4-1/3 cup of the vanilla powder and slightly more than 12 oz. tea. I foamed the milk with my Nesspresso Lattissima, and used just enough to top off the cup. Then, after a sprinkle of cinnamon, the latte was perfect!

As you’ve likely gathered from the photo Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are serious about their tea lattes! I received this mug as a gift a few years ago. I think it came with a small whisk and container of the vanilla powder. I don’t see the set on their site this year, but a DIY tea latte gift set would make a great Christmas present (i.e. tin of good tea, syrup or powder sweetener, small whisk, and large mug).

Now that the kid is in bed and work is done for the night, I’m planning to curl up with a good book and the (above) tea latte, for a quiet night in. (:

Until tomorrow,

-Cate