zezooteaparty – zezoo cooks

Chai-spice Pumpkin Brownies

american, baking, black tea, chocolate, cookies, dessert, fall, freezer friendly, gluten free, seasonal, snack, sweet, tea, tea pairing, tea pairing cover, vegetarian, winter

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to Simple Loose Leaf products. ZezooCooks may receive a commission if purchases are made via these links (at no additional cost to you).

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The Simple Loose Leaf Pumpkin Spice Black tea is Fall in a cup for tea lovers. It is the tea lover’s answer to all the “Pumpkin Spice Latte” madness that takes over the United States come September – temperatures in the 90s notwithstanding – and can be a bit much if you are not a fan of adding cinnamon to everything just because its “Fall”. As it usually is with tea, the Pumpkin Spice Black is understated, warm and delicious, and a perfect accompaniment to these easy, one-bowl, gluten-free pumpkin brownies.

To elevate the brownies to the tea’s level, I added some homemade ground Chai Spice to the mix, along with cinnamon (I’m strong but not that strong…it is October after all). It adds a layer of warmth to the brownies that goes really well with chai spice in the tea itself, making this a perfect fall treat!

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Savory Tea Biscuits (shortbread cookies with carom seeds)

baking, black tea, cookies, eggless, indian, maharashtrian, make ahead, savory, snack, tea, tea pairing, vegetarian, whole grain

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Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to Simple Loose Leaf products. ZezooCooks may receive a commission if purchases are made via these links (at no additional cost to you)!

You can use my discount code AMRUTA10 to get 10% off a one-time purchase on @simplelooseleaf teas via links in my post!

To get this delicious tea, and to browse many other Fall and Winter teas, check out the Simple Loose Leaf website!

It’s not often that the world changes so dramatically in a span of just a few weeks. When I started this tea pairing challenge a few weeks ago, none of us had any idea what was coming our way. In most parts of the world at this point in time, life as we know it is upended. In some parts of the world, people are fighting for a chance to live in the resources their hospitals can afford them, while elsewhere, others are separated from their families, far far away. Such stories are normally reserved for third world countries, but it is heartening to see it happen in US and Europe. This pandemic has brought the world to its knees, and we don’t know how life will be in its wake.

Whoa, not something you would expect to read if you were browsing for a nice teatime biscuit recipe, huh? Well, it is rather uncomfortable – talking about tea and biscuits like everything is alright in the world. I’ve written myself into a corner here – there are no elegant segues from this topic to tea pairing, so I’m just going to put a pin in it for now (as we are all trying to do by self-isolating…here I go again!), and talk about my favorite thing in these bleak times: tea.

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Baked Mandazi (Swahili Sweet Bread)

african, baking, cookies, dessert, green tea, make ahead, purple tea, snack, sweet, tea pairing, vegetarian

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Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to Simple Loose Leaf products. ZezooCooks may receive a commission if purchases are made via these links (at no additional cost to you)!

You can use my discount code AMRUTA10 to get 10% off a one-time purchase on @simplelooseleaf teas via links in my post!

To get this delicious tea, and to browse many other Fall and Winter teas, check out the Simple Loose Leaf website!

One of the things I’m loving about this tea pairing adventure with Simple Loose Leaf is the opportunity to think beyond the usual pairings that we are so comfortable with. Nothing wrong with reaching for Parle-G biscuits with your hot and sweet milk tea, but every so often you come across something so new and different, it stumps you, and in a good way.

The tea that stumped me this week, was Simple Loose Leaf Purple Jasmine Tea: a very unique blend of Tumoi purple broken leaf tea from the Nandi hills of Kenya in Africa, and Jasmine green tea, presumably to round out the intense fragrance of the purple tea. This was the first time I had purple tea, and I found it to be fragrant and very delicate. Combined with the Jasmine green tea, it took on a floral quality, and made me wonder why I had overlooked an entire continent in my tea adventures!

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Cream Cheese Cookies

american, baking, black tea, california, cookies, cuisine, dessert, fall, freezer friendly, make ahead, sweet, tea pairing

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Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to Simple Loose Leaf products. ZezooCooks may receive a commission if purchases are made via these links (at no additional cost to you)!

You can use my discount code AMRUTA10 to get 10% off a one-time purchase on @simplelooseleaf teas via links in my post!

To get this delicious tea, and to browse many other Fall and Winter teas, check out the Simple Loose Leaf website!

Apple Cinnamon is so quintessential “October”, I don’t think anything else can even come to mind if you tried. Especially in the US, where it is synonymous with Fall, and all things cozy, warm and annoyingly, tooth achingly sweet.

Which is why, when tasked with pairing this bold, rich and fragrant “Apple Cinnamon Black Tea” by Simple Loose Leaf, I turned to one of my favorite fall-themed cakes for inspiration: apple cinnamon cake with brown sugar cream cheese frosting. The tea brings the Apple and Cinnamon to the table, and the Cream Cheese Cookies you see on the top, bedazzled with turbinado sugar, do the rest!

These are actually simple sugar cookies, transformed by King Arthur flour into something much more complex (yet retaining all of the ease) with the addition of cream cheese and almond extract, adapted again, for simplicity, by Smitten Kitchen.

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Cinnamon Sugar and Chai Spice Khari (puff pastry twists)

american, baking, black tea, eggless, fall, indian, make ahead, snack, sri lankan, sweet, tea pairing, vegetarian, winter

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Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to Simple Loose Leaf products. ZezooCooks may receive a commission if purchases are made via these links (at no additional cost to you)!

You can use my discount code AMRUTA10 to get 10% off a one-time purchase on @simplelooseleaf teas via links in my post!

To get this delicious tea, and to browse many other Fall and Winter teas, check out the Simple Loose Leaf website!

I ramble about tea, or something tea related, in most of my posts. Many of the things I make are tea accompaniments – this is simply because “teatime” is sacred around here. And it is sacred in many other parts of the world – something we’ve learned and experienced in our travels.

One of the most classic teatime accompaniments back home in India is “Khari”. In essence these are baked puff pastry rectangles, sometimes flavored with roasted cumin or caraway seeds. But the best kind of Khari is plain, buttery and delicious. Dipped into hot and spicy milk tea, it is one of the highest callings for butter and flour pounded together.

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