Five Spice Tea Latte

I’ve been drinking more tea lately. It’s probably stemming from a few things, but nevertheless, afternoon tea is becoming my jam more often than not. While I’m re-exploring teas we have in our cupboard, I’m also thinking up fun ways to make my own tea – hence this Five Spice Tea Latte.

So I think my tea drinking desires started after talking with some lovely women from Republic of Tea. On their recommendation, I read The Republic of Tea book, written by their cofounders. All of it just sucked me back into the joy of drinking tea, which I did exclusively until I started dating my husband!

Then I was finding our afternoon coffee just a bit heavy. And so began to foray into afternoon teas. Now I should also tell you that my mom only drinks tea and has a drawer (a deep linen-cupboard sized drawer) full of loose leaf and bagged tea she’s been collecting and gifted over the years. It’s been a fun treat to dig in there as well.

Five Spice Tea Latte

Ok. So about this Five Spice Tea Latte. I’d never heard of Chinese Five Spice powder until a luncheon I went to with Katie Chin for her new (at the time) cookbook Everyday Chinese Cooking. For the lunch, we enjoyed her Five Spice Brownies and they were divine.

What is Five Spice Powder?

Chinese Five Spice Powder is made up of a beautiful blends of Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, Chinese cinnamon, and fennel seeds.

You can easily find it at any Asian markets but also likely at your local grocery store. Brands like Simply Organic, Frontier Co-Op, and McCormick sell jars of it. There are also loads of other brands too.

The idea for the Five Spice Tea Latte came, however, from a blending of recipes and ideas. The first is that I’ve been enjoying chai tea lattes on occasion recently. And then there’s my cardamom latte and then the must-have eggnog latte. And then the real kicker is how DELICIOUS my Mexican Chocolate Cake and my Mexican Mocha are.

When I originally thought of creating a Five Spice Latte, I’d originally thought about a mocha. I guess this is a riff on the Mexican Chocolate Mocha with a Chinese Spice Mocha of sorts.

I may do that drink someday still, but for the time, letting the delicious combination of spices take more of a spotlight sounded good, so it’s a mix with a black tea instead!

How Do you Make A Tea Latte?

In short a tea latte is tea topped with steamed milk. To infuse the spices in this drink, dissolve honey (for sweetener) and powder into the boiling water. Then add your tea bag to steep in it the sweetened/flavored water!

And then of course, finish it off with the warm milk and a sprinkle of seasoning!

What to Have with Your Tea Latte?

I personally think this tea latte would pair nicely with a morsel. Why not a scone? These cherry scones with a dash of amaretto and champagne grape and brie scones are both SOOO delicious! And savory cheese scones with herbs might be a good balance with this latte.

And while biscuits aren’t scones, they are positively delicious in just about any situation when I’d enjoy a scone…especially with strawberry thyme jam….or plum jam!

Or if you’re a cookie person (I am that too!), try muesli cookies, these saffron shortbread, and matcha cookies!