Sugar Plum Tea Recipe for the Holidays

The holidays are here, and what better way to celebrate than a creamy tea latte creation made with our very own Sugar Plum tea. This tea is a mix of green rooibos, black tea, lemon peel, cardamom, plum extract, and strawberry essence. Sugar Plum tea is sweet, fruity, and spiced, perfect for the holiday season wherever you are.

To really bring out that plum flavor, I whipped up a plum simple syrup to drizzle into a sugar plum tea recipe that's perfect for celebrating, relaxing, or getting a bit of caffeine into your system to finish all that elfing that needs to be done.

While I would normally suggest you don't mix lemon peel and milk, with this sugar plum tea recipe, it works. I had no problems with curdling when I made my Sugar Plum tea latte.

Plum Simple Syrup

Making simple syrups is, well, simple! Just mix together one cup of sugar to one cup of water, and bring it to a simmer until the sugar dissolves. To make this a plum simple syrup for our sugar plum tea recipe, add four washed and quartered plums to the simmering pot. Any plum will do, just make sure to remove the pits.

Let this simmer for ten minutes. Then, we are going to use an immersion blender to blend this mixture together to get the most flavor out of our plums. If you don't have an immersion blender, let it cool and use a regular blender, or try going at it with a potato masher.

Once your syrup and plums have been blended together, you'll want to use a small mesh strainer to strain out the solids, leaving you with the most beautiful, ruby plum syrup for our holiday sugar plum tea recipe.

Sugar Plum Tea Latte

Now that we have our gorgeous syrup, we can create our tea latte. Lattes can be made with any type of milk, though some will froth better than others.

You want to start by boiling water and making a cup of tea with our Sugar Plum tea, but you want the flavor to be concentrated to make a base for the latte. When your water reaches boiling, only pour about four ounces, or half a cup, of water over your generous teaspoon of tea. You can always increase the amount of tea for a stronger taste.

Let this steep for three to five minutes. The longer you steep, the stronger the spice and black tea flavor will be. You don't want to oversteep, however, as this will cause too many tannins from the black tea to release, and your cup will become bitter. If ever you want stronger tea, add more tea, not more time.

While your tea is steeping, froth four ounces of warm milk. I like to measure the milk with a mason jar, warm it in the microwave for 45 seconds, then froth with a hand frother. Electronic frothers also work incredibly well. If you don't have either, try capping the warm milk and shaking the mason jar to create some bubbles.

However, if you enjoy lattes, it may be worth adding an inexpensive hand frother (or the more costly electronic version) to your holiday wish list.

Once your tea is steeped and warm milk frothed, you are ready to assemble your sugar plum tea latte. Remove your tea strainer, add plum simple syrup to taste, top with some frothy milk, and drizzle some of that ruby plum syrup on top for aesthetics and good holiday feelings.