I love a nice mug of hot, spicy tea on a cold day. It warms my innards (and my hands if I hold the cup just right) and makes my tongue happy.

I learned this recipe for hot spiced tea when I was in Girl Scouts. It was made out of Tang. (Yes, hide your shock: Tang had been invented by then!) Tang was popular at the time because it was the official morning beverage of the astronauts, or some such thing!

Every Fall or Winter I get in the mood to have some of this tea. It’s an old church-lady favorite now!

This tea is also a welcome gift and is easy to make. The recipe is forgiving. You can package it in some fun and creative ways or you can just stick it in a plastic sandwich bag. Either way–it tastes good.

You can put a sandwich bag of it in a festive mug and add a bow. Or put it in a canning jar that you have decorated with glass paint. Or just a plain jar. You could put it in a plastic sandwich bag, cut a large circle out of fabric, gather it up, and tie it with a bow.

Or, you could forget about packaging it up and keep it all for yourself.

How to make Spice Tea with Tang: Printable

1 cup instant iced tea (you can use plain, lemon, sweetened, unsweetened)
2 cups Tang instant breakfast drink
1 tablespoon of allspice or pumpkin pie spice

You can mix that up and use it as is, or you can add some Jello (lemon, orange, lime, or ?) or instant lemonade mix, or powdered apple cider mix. You could even use powdered Gatorade or Koolaid, I’m sure!

To make a mug: Add one heaping tablespoon of the mix to a mug of boiling water. Stir to dissolve, then drink it when it’s cool enough to stand it.

One sip whooshes me back to those Girl Scout days when this recipe helped me earn a cooking badge. Come to think of it, it’s not really cooking. Oh, well…somehow it counted.

And it still makes my tongue happy.

Kathi N blogs at Granddad’s Corner.

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