Tea and reading is one of life’s most perfect pairings. There’s just nothing like curling up in a comfy space with a plush blanket and a warm cup of the perfect brew for hours of uninterrupted reading. I’m a mood reader and love a curated vibe, and I probably put a little too much thought into what tea goes best with the book I’m reading. Different books call for different brews, or so I tell myself to justify the wild amounts of tea I have in my home.
The tea cabinet in my kitchen houses every kind of tea under the sun, from a basic Assam or Ceylon to an herbal tisane, and I keep buying more because I am a sucker for a themed tea blend. Does a blend of assam, cacao shells, caraway, and almond extract taste any different when you call it The Library blend? Not to some. But do those flavors and aromas evoke the feeling of sinking into a sumptuous chair in a beautiful wood-paneled library? I say yes.
This Book Lover’s Brew is a decadent blend of lightly smoked Earl Grey, Lapsang Souchong, smoked black tea, lavender, sage, rosemary, peppermint, and cardamom. $5+
With “roses” in the title, it’s a no-brainer to make tea inspired by the first book in the ACOTAR series. This Thorns & Roses Court Tea blends rose petals, cloves, and Irish Breakfast tea. $5+
This tea sampler lets you savor the flavors of Middle Earth, from a Jasmine green tea for Gondor to a Cardamom Breakfast for the Shire. $24+
This tea sampler is inspired by the stories of Edgar Allen Poe. The six flavors include The Beating Heart, which blends Nettle, black tea, roiboos, and Goji berry, and Quote the Raven, a mix of black and white teas, Blackberry leaf, dried blueberries and currants, yarrow, and cardamom. $9+
Of course, there’s a tea blend for dragon lovers! This Fourth Wing-inspired Dragons’ Brew tea is a blend of Assam black tea, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and orange peel. $5+
I mostly pick tea for the flavors, but a punny blend name is a bonus. Classic works of fiction inspire this set of three book lover teas; you get a Don Quixotea (a warm citrusy Chai), a Picture of Earl Grey (classic Earl Grey with Jasmine Green Tea and rose petals), and a War and Peach (white tea with notes of peach and pineapple). $30
Here’s another set with fun, punny tea blends, this one inspired by Jane Austen. Pride and Peppermint is a blend of (you guessed it) peppermint with roiboos and chamomile, and Sense and Senchability is a Sencha green tea. The set comes with a couple of bookmarks, and each tin makes over 20 cups of tea. $45
This set is also available as a trio with a Pemberley Pu-erh if you’re feeling fancy!
I’ll be straight with you, I don’t think this Matcha Do About Nothing tea is any different from your standard matcha powder, but I give kudos to the person who could not resist this play on words. Methinks the bard would approve. $15
This is the Library blend I teased in the intro, and it’s one of my favorites. August Uncommon has these very detailed flavor guides for each of their tea blends, and it’s both the notes of buttered toast and almond and the descriptions of strolling through the Long Room at Trinity College that sold me. $14
Don’t go just yet, tea lovers. Here’s a guide to adding a tea station to your reading nook and a delightful list of book and tea pairings.
The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.
This week, we’re highlighting a post that had our Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz feeling a type of way. Now, even five years after it was published, Vanessa is still salty about American Dirt. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
Picture it: The United States, January 2020. A book with a pretty blue and white cover is making the rounds on the bookish internet. The blue ink forms a beautiful hummingbird motif against a creamy background, a bird associated with the sun god Huitzilopochtli in Aztec mythology. Black barbed wire, at once delicate and menacing, cuts the pattern into a grid resembling an arrangement of Talavera tiles. The package is eye-catching, ostensibly Mexican in feel, and evocative of borders and the migrant experience.
The book tells the story of a bookstore owner in Acapulco, Mexico, who is forced to flee her home when a drug cartel murders everyone in her family except for her young son at a quinceañera. She and the boy are forced to become migrants and embark on a treacherous journey north to the U.S. border, evading the cartel and befriending fellow migrants along the way. The book is being lauded not just as the “it” book of the season but as the immigration story. It gets the Oprah treatment and is praised by everyone from Salma Hayek to the great Sandra Cisneros, who called it “the great novel of Las Américas.”
It’s been over five years, and this book is still the bane of my existence.
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