Healthy by 30: Pumpkin Tea Lattes

Happy Friday all! It's been a long week, but it's finally the weekend.

So, if I haven't mentioned it before, I'm a bit of a coffee addict. Specifically, I love pumpkin coffee this time of the year. I look forward to it every morning and used to drink a minimum of 2 cups in the morning and perhaps another in the afternoon. I've weaned myself down to 1 cup in the morning, most mornings of the week, and another in the afternoon if I have to work at night or it's just been a super long day and I need to work out yet.

I recently saw a drink called a Cinnamon WarmUp the Door County Coffee & Tea's Facebook page. It looked good and had cinnamon tea, vanilla syrup, and whole milk. I decided to recreate this to be a bit healthier using apple cinnamon tea and frothed vanilla soy milk. It was pretty good but it also got me thinking that it would be a whole lot better with pumpkin tea!

Enter this morning. I didn't have to be to work early so I had a little extra time to play around with making a pumpkin tea latte this morning. In the end, it was fabulous (though I was missing my caffeine kick this morning)! It would be a perfect holiday drink for those looking for healthy alternatives as there is no alcohol or caffeine in it. I bet adding a tablespoon of pumpkin coffee creamer would make this extra special on Thanksgiving!

Making a Pumpkin Tea Latte is super simple:

Heat 8 oz of water. I have a Cuisinart Single Serve Brewing System (basically a fancy Keurig) that can spit out water for tea in 1-2 minutes so this is definitely something I could do every morning.

Steep pumpkin spice tea (I used Bigelow) for 5-10 minutes, depending on how strong you like your tea. I like strong tea in general and you'll want it a little stronger than normal because you'll add milk to it. I let it go for 10 minutes. Remove tea bag.

Measure out 1/3 cup milk of your choice - place in a narrow bottomed cup. I used vanilla soy milk. Microwave for 30-45 seconds. Using a milk frother (I have an inexpensive BonJour frother that works well), froth the milk for 10-15 seconds. Note - if you have a way to steam milk, use that! I'm sure that would be better!