If you’re having the summer of your life and the early arrival of Halloween decorations at stores everywhere seems rude, stop reading. Enjoy the pool, we’ll see you in a few weeks.

If however, you agree that fall is the most delicious time of the year, get ready! All of your favorite fall flavors will be returning to our site soon along with new creations like Pumpkin Roll coffee (see below). Excited? Well, the truth is they’re already here. You can have them. They never really left. All of our seasonal flavors are available year-round by phone. You can have your Autumn Harvest flavored coffee, or your Candy Cane, or your Chocolate Bunny, any time you please. Give us a call.

Pumpkin roll: gooey pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese filling. Coming to your coffee cup.

Waiting for fall? Tell us your favorite flavors of the season, coffee & tea related or not!

Like long days lounging at the Jersey shore, enjoying buckets of fried seafood and spectacular people-watching, Strawberry Wave Cheesecake coffee is a seasonal delight you won’t find anywhere else. Inspired by the glorious cake below — baked by our shipping supervisor Lori — it’s here for only a short, sweet time, so enjoy it while it lasts!

Cheesecake may not be the first dessert that comes to mind if you’re in the mood for something light, but this recipe, adapted from a letter published in a 1962 issue of Gourmet magazine, promises to be just that — for 1962 anyway. The original recipe, titled “Mrs. Davis’ Unsinkable Cheesecake”, was named for the creator’s unsinkable determination to create a fluffier, less disastrously caloric version of the classic dessert.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb cream cheese

14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

4 large egg yolks

1 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon Confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest

Strawberry jam

For the topping:

2 pints fresh strawberries

3-6 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Beat together the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. While beating, add the egg yolks one at a time and beat until very smooth.

2. Add the sour cream, Confectioners sugar, vanilla, and citrus zest.

3. In a separate bowl, beat 4 egg whites with 1/2 t salt until stiff. Fold into the cheese mixture.

4. Pour batter into a 10-inch springform pan lined with a cookie or crumb crust.

5. Drop spoonfuls of strawberry jam into the batter and cut through the jam and batter with a knife to create a swirl effect.

6. Bake at 275 degrees for 1 hour. Turn off the heat and let sit (door closed) for 45 minutes or more. The cake should cool completely in the oven. Remove from the pan when cold.

7. For the topping, mix 2 pints of fresh strawberries, sliced, with 3-6 T granulated sugar and 1/2 T fresh lemon juice. Serve on the side if you’re proud of your swirling knife work or just smother the whole thing in gorgeous juicy berries.

For most tea drinkers (in this country anyway), tea equals tea bags. Unless you’ve happened upon a bum bag, you may have never seen what’s inside. And if you have had one bust open, you probably think that tea is a dusty mess. If your pursuit of a better cup has led you to loose leaf teas, you know that’s not so. Whole tea leaves are quite a bit larger than anything you will find in a tea bag. Why is this important? The aromatic oils responsible for flavor evaporate quickly when tea leaves are broken. Whole leaves retain their flavor longer and a larger bag, or no bag at all means they are free to fully expand and express themselves (yield flavor and brew a delicious cup).

If you are a loose leaf convert, you probably know how to brew your favorite teas. If you don’t, we tried to make it simple on our Tattle Tea site by providing some general  guidelines as well as specific brewing instructions for each tea, including amount of tea, ideal water temperature and steep time. But that’s per cup, hot. How does that translate to iced, especially if you’re used to throwing a bunch of teabags in a pitcher?

How to Brew Loose Leaf Iced Tea

Green, white, herbal, flavored — if you like it hot, try it iced. The hot water method may be the easiest place to start. This method creates a concentrated shot of hot tea you can then pour over ice and serve immediately. Start by calculating how much tea you would need to brew 16 oz double-strength (our instruction on the site and our packaging are for 8 oz, so double the tea quantity). 8 oz of hot Orange Pekoe, for example, requires 1.5 tsp of tea leaves. 16 oz would be 3 tsp, or 6 tsp for a double strength batch. Now, if you will be pouring this over ice, so you only need about 4 oz of hot water total to account for ice melt. That means you will be brewing 6 tsp in 4 oz of near-boiling water. The steep time and water temperature is the same as for regular hot tea, regardless of strength or quantity. Here’s the recipe:

16 oz. Iced Orange Pekoe

• Place 6 tsp of loose leaf black tea into an infuser or disposable tea bag
• Add 4 oz. of near-boiling water
• Steep for 3.5 minutes
• Remove tea and add sweetener
• Pour over a 16 oz glass of ice and serve

For larger quantities, the same tea: hot water: ice ratio applies, just adjust your amounts accordingly.

1 Gallon Iced Orange Pekoe

• In a 1 gal. pitcher, add 1 dry measuring cup of loose leaf black tea to an infuser or large tea bag (if infuser is not large enough, leave tea loose in the pitcher and pour through a strainer later)
• Add two quarts of near-boiling water
• Steep for 3.5 minutes
• Remove tea and add sweetener
• Add ice until the pitcher is full
• Tea is ready to be served or stored in a refrigerator or freezer and served as needed

Cold Steeping Convenience

As always, a little bit of planning can make life so much easier.  The beauty of cold steeping is that the tea will never over-steep and become bitter, which is often a problem for green teas and anyone forgetful in the kitchen. Also, the ratio of tea:water needed is the same as for hot tea, which makes it the better choice for the math-impaired.*

There are dozens of cold steep jugs available. The Mist Iced Tea Jug works well for loose leaf tea because it has a tea strainer built into the spout, so no infusers or tea bags are necessary. Cold steeping takes time – overnight is best. There is something about cold steeping that makes me want to get creative. Add some herbs or fruit to the jug and allow it all to infuse together.

50 oz Iced Orange Pekoe

• Add 3 heaping tablespoons of black tea to the a 50 oz. iced tea jug
• Fill with water
• Leave in refrigerator overnight or for minimum of 8 hours
• Sweeten if desired. Simple syrup mixes easily with cold tea
• When ready to serve, pour over ice

*Since the tea will already be cold, it is unnecessary to compensate for ice melt with extra tea or with less water.

June is a month full of the promise of summer fun and we’re a little sad to see it go. About a third of our staff has a birthday in June which made for a cake fueled roller coaster of a good time and a professional atmosphere like the one pictured below.

Our annual kickball game divided us into two blood thirsty, trophy-eyed groups. Mouthy underdog team “Cat Attack’s” brave but ineffectual fight against “Unicorn Slaughterhouse” made for an exciting viewing experience. Of course as always, the real show was in the office rivalry.

 The winners, above.

The losers. They’re cure though.

June also marks our 10th anniversary in business, a cause for celebration! Nomad pizza’s wood-fired brick oven on wheels brought the party to us and a Friday afternoon parking lot party put to rest any lingering kickball rancor (for the most part). We’re ready to move on as a team united (next year, Cat Attack).

June’s been great, and we’re ready for more summer. Next month brings exciting new iced coffee flavors and we will continue to offer our popular Anniversary Blend. Tea drinkers, check out our iced tea sampler and watch for new samplers soon on Tattle Tea!

June is a beautiful month, especially the June I fantasize about in February, which does not include hay fever. That is a surprise every year. This June is extra-special because it marks our tenth anniversary. Ten years of roasting, blending, and creating some of the most unique flavors out there! We’re celebrating with cake, and not the ten year old frozen kind. Some of our featured flavors in June:

Strawberry Shortcake

Red Velvet Cake

If you’re a tea drinker too, celebrate the warm weather with a pitcher of Blueberry Lemon Cake iced tea (it’s great hot too).

Blueberry Lemon Cake Rooibos

Usually our customers fall into one of two categories: flavored coffee lovers and flavored coffee haters.  Lucky for you, we try to have something truly special each month for our customers in both camps. For you flavor haters (aka coffee purists,) our brand new anniversary blend is a mix of some of our all-time favorite coffees, or if you’re looking to try something new, give our smoked coffees a try. Smoked the old fashioned way, it is truly in a class of its own. In addition to our original smoked coffee blend, we’re also offering a new, slightly more mellow blend, Cafe Fume.

Although we’re thrilled that purists love the subtle smoke flavor, we also know that our flavor lovers might need something extra to keep their taste buds interested.  For these wild men and women, we’ve made Campfire S’more smoked coffee, Vanilla Bourbon Smoked Coffee, and flavor favorite Maple Bacon smoked coffee.

A decade of playing with coffee and flavor has produced some weird and delicious cult favorites (Jamaican Me Groggy, Zombie Cure, etc). Because we now have over four hundred flavors and we can’t stop experimenting, we regularly change what we offer on our site. Never fear. We can make just about any of your favorite flavors or blends for you year-round. Just call and ask!