Welcome to April and National Soft Pretzel Month, The Day of the Mushroom, and the Royal Anniversary of the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge! (William & Kate to the rest of us…)

National Soft Pretzel Month-

Spicy Pretzel Stix -

Ginger Cinnamon Braids  

It’s a Royal Wedding Anniversary!

Feast like Kate and William with The Spice & Tea Exchange®!

Start the day like Royalty with the TSTE™ Earl Grey or unique and smooth TSTE™ Earl Grey Crème! Then finish it with a regal English ‘Crown’ Roast of Lamb seasoned with TSTE™ English Roast Rub, decadent Black Truffle Mashed Potatoes and a dessert of Crème de Lemon Tea Cakes! A feast fit for a king! (or Duke and Duchess…)

 

 

 

 

 

The Day of the Mushroom!

Celebrate The Day of the Mushroom, April 16th, with Mushroom Paradise Marsala!

Ever ‘miss’ the mushroom in Chicken Marsala? TSTE™ Mushroom Paradise Blend and TSTE™ Black Truffle Salt showcase the rich, earthy, mushroom flavor of this elegant dish. Served over nutty TSTE™ Pecan Style Rice seasoned with TSTE™ Black Truffle Salt, it’s ‘paradise’ for the mushroom lover!

 

World Health Day & Earth Day

Celebrate World Health Day and Earth Day with veggie rich Earth Burgers! Succulent and savory, these colorful patties re-define veggie burgers! Zesty fresh ground nutmeg and TSTE™ Sweet Onion Sugar from TSTE™ Earthly Delight Grinder Blend complement the nutty sweetness of beet and sweet potato. TSTE™ Pine Nuts and salt-free TSTE™ California Blend both add tasty texture. TSTE™ Horseradish Powder gives a last ‘earthy’

generic cialis

kick!

 

Featured Products & Specials

Click through to learn about Featured Products and Specials designed to put flavor at your fingertips!

Combination Mill

Steep & Chill Pitcher

New Pump & Spice

Olive Oil & Blends

This popular drink is made ‘at home easy’ by naturally creamy TSTE™ Earl Grey Crème and TSTE™ Vanilla Sugar*!  

To Make:

STEEP 1 tablespoon TSTE™ Earl Grey Crème in 1 cup (8 oz) boiled water for 5 minutes.  This will make it nice and strong, which is necessary to carry the flavor through all the milk. STRAIN.  Read the rest of this entry »

…that is the question. The inimitable flavor that makes Earl Grey tea Earl Grey tea is bergamot, an essential oil from the bergamot orange. Before we talk about how much is the right touch, let’s learn a little more about this aromatic ingredient.

What is Bergamot?

Citrus bergamia, the Bergamot orange, is a fragrant fruit the size of an orange, with a yellow color similar to a lemon. It is not grown for its juice, but for the oils of its rind, which is the defining ingredient in Earl Grey tea. The juice of the bergamot orange is reported to be less sour than a lemon but more bitter than a grapefruit. The essential oil derived from its rind is both fruity and incredibly aromatic. Citrus bergamot is Read the rest of this entry »

Flavors from Across the Pond…

In this month’s Tea Talker we’re giving a nod to the folks ‘across the pond’ and their royal tradition of tea.  Tea was actually introduced to England by royalty. Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, introduced the ritual of drinking teas to the English Royal Court. The habit was soon adopted by the aristocracy, then the ‘common man.’ Today, UK citizens consume an average of 4lbs of tea per person per year! Tea Parties and all, the tea-thirsty ‘Brits’ are responsible for introducing tea to the American Colonies, where it is now a staple drink. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not often someone can convincingly say making bread at home is easy!  Especially when you’re talking about a hearty and somewhat rustic French bread, known as a boule.  Rich in whole wheat, nut meal and flax seed, this yeast bread is easily made and, I’d even go as far to say foolproof!  The boule can be made ahead of the Easter holiday and kept in a cool spot or even frozen.  Or, for that warm just-from-the-oven treat, start the bread

in the morning and by the time you’re sitting down for dinner, your bread will be cool enough to slice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whether you choose lamb or ham for Easter supper, you’re going to dedicate some serious oven-time to your meal if you’re the one doing the cooking.  Still, there’s no reason you need to spend a lot of time on the meal, especially if it’s a leg of lamb that’s the centerpiece of your meal.  The Spice & Tea Exchange® Lamb Seasoning is the way to start.  Or finish.  (For ideas on how to perfect your ham, check out our previous blogpost here.  )

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s round and makes us madly anticipate this time of year? Meatballs?!! (In case you were thinking basketball – that’s okay – they go perfectly together!)

March 9th was National Meatball Day and The Spice & Tea Exchange® broke out three marvelous meatball recipes that are perfect in grinders, as game-time ‘apps’ or as a pre-game dinner!   And – they don’t require a ton of perishable ingredients from the grocer!  Each uses a Custom Blend for the up-front seasoning and a TSTE™ powder to fill out the body.  The result is mouth-watering meatball madness! Read the rest of this entry »

Surprise!  Today is the day to begin your St. Patty’s Day celebration!  It may seem a little early, but if your looking for maximum flavor along with that pot of gold, take a few minutes

to prepare the ultimate feast of the Irish!

You’ll need:
a couple things from the grocers (a beef brisket, a 2 gallon zip-top bag…)
a couple things from The Spice & Tea Exchange®
about 20 minutes.

You’ll get:
the most amazingly flavorful Corned Beef & Cabbage your tastebuds could imagine, with just a hint of smoke! Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to March and a wealth of ‘roaring’ flavor from The Spice & Tea Exchange®!  This month has traditional food events like St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, as well as the much anticipated start of Spring!  We’ve got some new recipes, some new products and a brand new store opening in St. Augustine!  We’re especially proud to announce our second location there as St. Augustine is where we got our start back in 2003!

Check out some of our ‘spring products’ like some fun new spring-themed infusers and classy tea-related gift sets.

And don’t forget about our Spring Fling Limited Time Offer Teas! They’re special blends just for this season – only available until May 31st!

Last but not least – let us help you ‘season’ March perfectly in the kitchen.  We’re proud to share some great March Recipes to spice up St. Patty’s Day, Easter, and any ol’ Tuesday.  From TSTE™ Pickling Spice

for “Smoky Home-made Corned Beef & Cabbage” to a creative “Pink Pepperberry Deviled Eggs” recipe for Easter…our recipes, specialty blends and seasoning spices will make your table mouthwatering.

Tune into these fun March Food Holiday Recipes and The Spice & Tea Exchange® Spices that go with them.  Happy March!

Beef-Up the Flavor of your Corned Beef and Cabbage!

Smoky Corned Beef and Cabbage

Commercially-cured Corned Beef can sometimes be more salty than flavorful.  Powerful TSTE™ Pickling Spice and TSTE™ Applewood Smoked Sea Salt pack a ton of natural flavor into this favorite meal and make it easy to do from scratch!  By making your own brine you can avoid additives and take all the credit for the outstanding, smoky flavor!

Read the rest of this entry »

White Tropical Tea Shortbread

The organic peach and pineapple flavors of TSTE™ White Tropical Tea add a subtle zing to these cookies while its base of organic Chinese white tea makes them elegantly rich.  

Ingredients:
From TSTE
2 Tbs (0.5oz) TSTE™ White Tropical Tea
a few drops TSTE™ Mexican Vanilla Extract OR “TSTE™ White Tropical LTO Tea-Infused Vodka” Read the rest of this entry »

With thoughts to the warmer months to come – The Spice & Tea Exchange is thrilled

to announce our “Spring Fling” Collection of Limited Time Offer Teas!  These incredibly aromatic teas are exclusive to us and are available in our stores and on our website for a limited time only! From now until May 31st, you will delight in the spring flavors of Pineapple, Peach, Lemon and more, hand-blended with the highest quality tea from all over the world. Enjoy as a gift for yourself or a friend – while they last!

TSTE™ White Tropical Tea

One sip of this tea will transport you to a tropical oasis. Organic Chinese white tea combines with luscious chunks of pineapple and organic peach to tell your tastebuds it’s vacation.  Enhance the tropical flavors with our lime and coconut sugars.  $5.89/OZ.  Check out our recipe for White Tropical Tea Shortbread Cookies!

TSTE™ Crème de Lemon Tea

This green rooibos blend is a rich, full-bodied crème de la crème tea…fit for royalTEA. Experience a crisp clean flavor balanced by notes of cream, lemon and vanilla. TSTE™ Vanilla Sugar adds sweetness but keeps the flavor clean and comforting. $5.89/OZ.

TSTE™ Carrot Cupcake Tea

Put that fork down! All the flavors of your favorite carrot cake are in this tea, minus the calories. This cozy Chinese Keemun black tea is blended with carrots, apples, oranges, cloves, cinnamon and vanilla to create a flavor worth celebrating. $5.89/OZ.

Welcome to the March edition of our ‘Tea Talker!’   At The Spice & Tea Exchange®…we know A LOT about tea and recognize that you tea lovers out there might want to know more.  Every month we plan on posting a little ‘tea-info’ for the ‘tea-curious.’  Subscribe to hear about releases of new teas, as well as creative ways to use tea in your kitchen. Happy Tea Time! 

This month we’d like to clear up the tea terms: oxidization and fermentation, as they are both important processes – but very different.  To do so, we’re going to use two of our most popular teas, TSTE™ Coconut Oolong and TSTE™ Mint-Chilla Chai-Nilla, as examples.

TSTE COCONUT OOLONG

Halfway between green and black tea lies oolong, a tea classification that can fluctuate between 8 and 80% oxidization (see below to learn more). It is

a labor intensive and time-consuming tea to produce: rolled and left to oxidize repeatedly. This repetition builds a complex flavor profile. With smooth, soft astringency and rich flavors, oolong is a great choice for the tea novice. Creamy, smooth coconut is nicely blended with Bao Zhong oolong tea to form our Coconut Oolong. Emerald colored tealeaves provide a delicate infusion with fresh floral notes. Contains: oolong tea & natural coconut flavors.  Contains caffeine, $4.89/OZ.

OXIDATION vs.

FERMENTATION:

All teas: green, yellow, oolong, black, white, and pu-erh, come from the Camellia Sinensis plant. Variations in “manufacture” decide the leaves’ final state and distribution across these categories. Regardless of class, all tea processing involves plucking, sorting, cleaning, primary drying (withering), manufacture, final firing (drying), sorting, and packaging. The midway manufacturing process, oxidation, is the most crucial aspect in later classification. Despite the fact that oxidation involves moist, oxygen-rich air it is often mislabeled fermentation (see below), which by definition occurs in the absence of oxygen. The cell walls are broken apart and enzymatic juice is released during the rolling process, allowing the tealeaves’ enzymes to interact with oxygen. Differences in preparation for and the duration of this process divide tea into the basic categories by which we display teas from The Spice & Tea Exchange®. Green tea escapes the oxidation process all together (and retains its color) by applying heat to freshly plucked green tea leaves. Heat can either slow or halt the oxidation and resulting browning process that occurs with exposure to oxygen.

PU-ERH

Pu-erh is a fermented tea. It is sold compressed into shapes, most commonly as round, flat, disc forms called “beeng cha.” Originating in China, traditional sheng (raw) pu-erh is not oxidized and is left natural after fermentation. With proper storage this pu-erh is said to improve with age as “living tea,” in the same fashion as wine. Shou (ripe) pu-erh, introduced in the seventies, is considered part of the heicha family. By Chinese classification, Shou pu-erh is not true pu-erh as it utilizes oxidation to accelerate the fermentation process.

MINT-CHILLA CHAI-NILLA

A great example of a pu-erh style tea is our TSTE™ Mint-Chilla Chai-Nilla.  It is not sold compressed, as many pu-erh teas are, to make it easier for you to purchase exactly the amount you need.  This creative blend is an organic pu-erh chai tea with creamy vanilla and bright peppermint. Popular with ‘latte lovers,’ it is a rich, smooth tea that adds a refreshing twist to the traditional chai tea flavors. Moderate caffeine. Contains: green pu-erh tea, vanilla, peppermint, ginger, cinnamon, licorice root.  $4.89/OZ.

Rachel Snow is a Massachusetts native newly residing in New York City. She’s an avid cook and active volunteer for hunger, health and social justice related causes.

Her blog, foodrefuge.blogspot.com, is her hommage to cooking, eating and helping others to do the same. She teaches cooking classes in the manhattan area and can be contacted at foodrefuge@gmail.com.

Smokey Mocha Tarts with Applewood Smoked Sea Salt
(Vegan and Gluten Free)

It may not be obvious from my blog foodrefuge, but I generally gravitate more toward the savory than the sweet. Lately, however, I just can’t get the thought of fluffy cakes and decadent tarts off my mind. Perhaps it’s because my birthday is next week and I’ve got a serious case of cake on the brain (I’m pretty sure that’s an actual medical term). Or, perhaps it’s because I haven’t baked anything sweet in ages. Either way, I pulled out all the stops with these bad boys!

The inspiration for this recipe came to me last fall when I visited the amazing city of Portland, Oregon. While I was there, I bought a selection of specialty salts at The Spice & Tea Exchange. In addition to Ghost Pepper Sea Salt (super hot!) and Cyprus Black Lava Sea Salt (totally elegant!), I bought a delicious blend called Applewood Smoked Sea Salt that I thought would taste wonderful with some dark chocolate. I was right!

So, with no further ado, here are the recipes that compose this rich and decadent, sweet and salty tart. There are several components but everything is straightforward and more than worth the effort.

Summary:
Fill the cooled tart shells with the room temperature, slightly firmed ganache and top with whipped cream and a pinch of ground Applewood Smoked Sea Salt. It’s delicious eaten right away but I liked it even better after it had chilled for a few hours!

Components:

Gluten Free Flour Blend
Recipe from the blog, Oh Ladycakes
2 1/2 cups brown rice flour
2 1/2 cups white rice flour
2 cups sweet rice flour
2 cups arrowroot starch

Combine well with a whisk and store in a cool, dry place.

Note: When using this gluten free flour blend for recipes, add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum per every cup. Don’t add the xanthan gum to the main batch of flour blend itself but rather to the recipe directly.

Smokey Sweet Tart Crust
1 heaping cup gluten free flour blend (or regular all purpose flour if you aren’t gluten intolerant)
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if using all purpose flour)
3 ounces of cold vegan butter
1 Tablespoon organic coconut oil
3 Tablespoons cold water
1 heaping Tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Applewood Smoked Sea Salt

Add everything to a food processor except for the water, pulsing until you get a crumbly mixture. Add the water one tablespoon at a time, pulsing to combine. Turn the dough out, pat it together and wrap so it’s airtight. Chill for at least 20 minutes or overnight for even flakier results.

Preheat your oven to 410 F. Grease and flour (with vegan butter and the gluten free flour blend) the tart pans. Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator.

If you are using small 4″ tart pans like I did. Roll up a piece of dough about the size of a gold ball and flatten with your palm to about 1/8 inch thickness onto a piece of wax paper or whatever your wrapped the dough in to chill it. Tip the wax paper up and transfer the flattened dough to the tart pan, pressing it in evenly. Repeat until all your tarts pans are filled. This recipe makes enough for one 9″ tart or about eight to ten 4″ tartlets.

Dock the dough with a fork and place the tartlets on a sheet pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Wait for them to cool before adding the ganache.

Applewood Smoked Bittersweet Ganache
7 oz. dark bittersweet chocolate, roughly

chopped
1 Tablespoon vegan butter (optional)
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon Applewood Smoked Sea Salt
1 cup strong hot coffee

Roughly chop the chocolate and toss it with the cornstarch, vanilla, vegan butter and Applewood Smoked Sea Salt. Add one cup of the very hot, strong, freshly brewed coffee and stir until everything is melted and combined. Set aside to cool to room temperature and firm up a bit before adding to the cooled tart shells. Top with whipped cream and an additional sprinkle of Applewood Smoked Sea Salt. Enjoy and if you like this recipe, and want to see more like it, please subscribe to my blog foodrefuge !

Looking for a way to spice up your Valentine’s Day?  This easy recipe just might do the trick!  It’s a nice alternative to a big-night-out-kind-of-meal, but still lets you enjoy that glass of red wine with your loved one (not to mention it also has bacon in it!).  TSTE™ Spiced Caramel Corn gets its kicked up flavor from our new World Festival Blend.

Read the rest of this entry »

When a group of us here at TSTE™ got together intending to create an all-purpose seasoning that would raise the red-wine-affinity of just about any food, we had no

idea what we were on to.   TSTE™ World Festival Blend turned out to be a sensory delight, from its bright, jewel-toned look, to its heady aromatic profile.  But most of all, in test after test after test, this blend does exactly what we intended it to do!  Sprinkle TSTE™ World Festival Blend on anything either before or after cooking, or mix into sauces, stews, braises to heighten the flavors and aromas.  It’s that simple.

Read the rest of this entry »