For Thanksgiving and Christmas gifts, there are seasonal flavors and boxed gift sets for the tea lover. Among the finest are these, from Harney & Sons, include:

 
There’s also a Holiday Tea Blend, a black tea spiced with citrus, almond, clove and cinnamon. It’s available on tea bags and loose teas. A reusable gift tin of 20 silky tea sachets is $8.67 on Amazon.

White Christmas Tea is a white tea with holiday aromas and flavors: nut aromas from almonds, spice from cardamom and sweet creaminess from vanilla.

For Hanukkah, there’s a Celebration Tea gift set. The tea has traditional English flavors of fruits and nuts, and is packaged with caramels from Torn Ranch, mini Star Shortbreads from Walker’s, Chocolate Coins from Lake Champlain Chocolates and a Delphine Jacquard tea towel. All food products are certified kosher.

For anyone who loves tea and wants to learn more about it, we recommend The Harney & Sons Guide To Tea. It’s informative, meant for consumers (as opposed to tea industry professionals), and is full of “Wow, I’m glad to know that” information.

We typically take advantage of the holiday blend coffees to switch up our caffeine consumption. In past years, it was always a bag of ground coffee, and we’d make a whole pot, whether or not others wanted to participate.

But now, with the proliferation of Keurig single-cup brewers and other brands that use K-Cups, it’s easier to enjoy a quick cup.

It’s time to bring on the holiday K-cups. You can find these limited edition coffees at retailers and online. Here’s a selection of coffees for the holiday season:
 
Barrie House Pumpkin Spice K Cups

Arabica beans are blended with the spicy flavor of holiday pumpkin pie. More information.
 
Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Favor K Cups

Grab a seasonal donut when you pick up a box of these! More information.

Green Mountain’s medium roast coffee is infused with flavors of cinnamon, pumpkin and nutmeg. More information.

Get the ground coffee in bags.
 
Starbucks Thanksgiving Blend K Cups

Starbucks doesn’t have a pumpkin-flavored coffee, but produces a Thanksgiving Blend they describe as a “rich fall brew [that] features herbal notes with Sumatran beans and elegant soft spice from the coffee of Guatemala’s Antigua region. You’ll find it pairs well with the entire Thanksgiving meal, from savory turkey to sweet pumpkin pie.” It’s certified OU kosher. More information.
 
Seasonal Sampler

You can get a 30-count K-Cup assortment of holiday and winter cappuccino, chai, cider, coffee and tea from different brewers. Check out the Brewers Variety Pack Sampler with K-Cups from Brooklyn Beans, Crazy Cups, Green Mountain, Grove Square, Twinings and others.
 
Consider holiday K-Cups as a gift for your favorite Keurig owner.
 
FOR TEA DRINKERS

Take a look at Harney & Sons for delicious holiday teas and gift sets.

There are also two good candidates that are enjoyed year-round, but have notes of holiday spices:

 
We think we’ll make a cup right now.

You can buy Christmas sugar cubes decorated with tiny candy canes, gingerbread men, reindeer and snowmen.

Or, you can serve something more subtle in appearance and sophisticated in flavor: a bowl of spiced vanilla sugar. You can make it or buy it.

To buy it, head over to Silk Road Spices, where handmade vanilla sugar* is blended with allspice, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmeg.

In addition to sweetening drinks, you can sprinkle it on cereal, plain yogurt or toast. Try it in whipped cream, too.

For $7.99, give jars as stocking stuffers.

To make your own, try the recipe below. It takes only five minutes to blend the ingredients, but you’ll need to wait 48 hours for drying.

The sugar will keep for several weeks in an airtight container. Since the recipe makes four cups, you can share it with friends.

Ingredients For 4 Cups

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all of the spices in a cast iron pan. Turn the heat to medium and stir until the aroma fills the air. Remove spices from pan just as they start to crackle. Transfer to a mortar and pestle and grind the spices roughly.

2. PLACE the sugar in a large bowl and sprinkle the vanilla over it. Stir thoroughly; the sugar will turn a light brown color.

3. MIX the spices with the vanilla sugar. Leave the bowl uncovered overnight to dry. The next day, break it up until it returns to granulated form (you can pulse it in a food processor or spice grinder).

4. COVER the sugar bowl and let it rest overnight. The following day, sieve through a mesh strainer. Store in an airtight container.
 
*You can make regular vanilla sugar by placing a vanilla bean in an airtight container of sugar. Try a turbinado sugar like Sugar In The Raw for a more aesthetic effect. Or, purchase it from premium sugar companies like Nielsen-Massey.

They’re also made in pumpkin shapes and maple leaf shapes; then individually shrink-wrapped to preserve freshness.

 
They can be eaten at room temperature or straight from the fridge, and they freeze beautifully.

Get yours at CranberryIslandKitchen.com:

The whoopie pie is Maine’s Official State Dessert, but the now-defunct Berwick’s Bakery in Boston (1898-1977) may have been the origin: A retired employee said that the company first started to bake whoopie pies in 1926, earlier than any other reference.

But Lancaster, Pennsylvania claims to be the originator, with an anecdotal story that the recipe originated with an [unknown] Amish housewife. As the story goes, when Amish husbands and children would find the baked treats in their lunch bags, they would shout “Whoopie!”

The whoopie pie is actually a sandwich cookie: two round, mound-shaped pieces of devil’s food chocolate cake with vanilla frosting in-between. The recipe first appears in cookbooks during the Depression, in recipe collections from several states.

As the story is variously told, Amish housewives would bake these treats and put them in their farmer husbands’ (or children’s) lunch boxes. When the lucky recipients would discover what was for dessert, they would shout “whoopie!”

Today there are dozens of flavors of cakes and fillings. There’s nothing left to do but take a bite.
  

It’s an easy recipe from Nestlé. In fact, you can let kids old enough to work with hot liquids make it as their contribution. Prep time is 10 minutes, cooking time is 20 minutes.

RECIPE: PUMPKIN SPICE FUDGE

Ingredients For 48 Pieces (About 3 Pounds)

Pumpkin Spice Fudge. Photo and recipe courtesy Nestlé.

Preparation

1. LINE 13 x 9-inch baking pan with foil, letting the foil drape over two ends of the pan to serve as handles.

2. COMBINE the sugar, brown sugar, evaporated milk, pumpkin, butter and spice in medium, heavy-duty saucepan. Bring the mixture to a full rolling boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 10 to 12 minutes or until a candy thermometer reaches 234°F to 240°F (soft-ball stage).

3. QUICKLY STIR in the chocolate chips, marshmallow creme, nuts and vanilla extract. Stir vigorously for 1 minute or until the chips are melted. Immediately pour into the prepared pan.

4. COOL on a wire rack for 2 hours or until completely cooled. Refrigerate the pan, tightly covered. When ready to serve…

5. LIFT the fudge from pan using the foil handles; remove the foil. Cut into 1-inch pieces.

WHAT IS EVAPORATED MILK?

Evaporated milk, also known as dehydrated milk, is a shelf-stable canned milk product. Approximately 60% of the water is removed from fresh milk.

Prior to the 19th century and refrigeration, milk was highly perishable. In the summer heat, it spoiled in a matter of hours. In addition, there were sanitation problems: Milk straight from the cow was contaminated harmful with bacteria.

Gail Borden conceived of a shelf stable canned milk product in 1852. His first condensed milk product, launched in 1854, lasted three days without souring. Borden was granted a patent for sweetened condensed milk in 1854. Commercial production began in 1857.

In Borden’s early product, sugar was added to inhibit bacterial growth. Competitors perfected the technique of sterilizing the product to vastly improve shelf life. Today, evaporated milk has no added sugar; a separate product, sweetened condensed milk, is evaporated milk that contains sugar. [Source]

While not a hit right out of the gate, evaporated milk soon became popular as a safe and reliable substitute for fresh milk. It could be shipped easily to locations lacking the safe dairy production and/or refrigerated storage.

The Florida Keys were an example of a hot and remote area that had no dairying. Evaporated milk made it possible for residents to finally enjoy milk in coffee and in cooking. Key Lime Pie, initially made with evaporated milk and now with sweetened condensed milk, is a legacy of Mr. Borden’s vision.

The shelf life of canned evaporated milk will vary from months to years, depending on the sugar content and its proportion of fat. Carnation Brand makes evaporated milk from whole milk, nonfat milk and 2% milk.