The Best Tasting Teas to Keep You Warm This Winter
You know the specific kind of cold that Canadian winter produces - the kind that isn't just an inconvenience but a full sensory experience. The air that stings the back of your throat the moment you step outside. The steering wheel that hasn't warmed up yet. The way the cold seems to follow you inside and take a few minutes to release its grip even after you've closed the door behind you. It's the kind of cold that makes you want something warm immediately - not eventually, not after it steeps for four minutes, but now.
At Old Growth Beverages, we make five microground tea powders, and we're genuinely proud of all of them. But if we're being direct about what we're most proud of, it's the flavour. Not the format, not the convenience, not even the fact that using the whole leaf means nothing goes to waste - though all of those things matter. The flavour is first. If what's in your mug doesn't taste remarkable, none of the rest of it means anything.
This is the case for each of the teas we make, and why one of them - maybe more than one - belongs in your winter rotation.
Why Flavour Has to Come First
A lot of tea brands lead with health benefits. Some lead with sustainability credentials, or the origin story of a particular leaf, or the fact that their packaging is compostable. Those are all legitimate things to care about. But if the tea itself doesn't taste good, none of that keeps you coming back.
The reason we're confident putting flavour first is that the way microground tea is made actually serves the flavour better than conventional formats do. When you steep a tea bag, you're extracting flavour compounds from the surface of the leaf before discarding most of the plant. With microground tea, the entire leaf is ground into a highly dissolvable powder and consumed whole. Every aromatic compound, every subtle note, every layer of complexity that lives in the full structure of the leaf makes it into your cup - not just what can be leached out in three to five minutes of steeping.
It's a meaningful difference, and you can taste it. The flavours are fuller, more rounded, and more consistent cup to cup. That's the foundation everything else is built on.
The Best-Tasting Teas for a Canadian Winter
Each of our five teas has its own character, and each one earns its place in a winter lineup for a different reason. Here's what makes each one worth knowing.
Classic Chai
If there's a tea that was built for Canadian winter, it's this one. Our Classic Chai is a spiced black tea blend that puts the full weight of its ingredients in front of you with each sip - cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove, and black pepper layered over a strong black tea base. It's not subtle. It's warm in the way that a heavy coat is warm: you feel it right away and the effect holds.
What separates a great chai from a mediocre one is balance. The spices need to be present and distinct without any single one dominating. The black tea underneath has to be strong enough to anchor the blend rather than disappear behind the cinnamon. Our Classic Chai gets that balance right, and because the whole leaf is consumed rather than steeped and discarded, the base tea flavour is richer and more grounded than what you'd get from a conventional chai bag.
Made with hot water, it's a direct and full-flavoured cup. Add milk - dairy or plant-based - and it softens and deepens into something that drinks more like a meal than a beverage. For more on the difference between chai as a tea and chai made as a latte, we've covered it in detail in our piece on chai tea vs. chai latte, and if you want a quick step-by-step, our guide to making a chai at home in under two minutes has you covered.
London Fog
The London Fog is an Earl Grey base with vanilla, and it's the tea for someone who finds most teas either too plain or too aggressive. Earl Grey gets its distinctive character from bergamot - a fragrant Italian citrus that gives the tea a floral, slightly citrusy quality that's difficult to pin down and easy to love. Pair that with vanilla and you have something that's genuinely aromatic from the first pour.
The London Fog is at its best with a splash of steamed milk. That's not a rule, just a strong suggestion - the bergamot and vanilla play beautifully off a creamy base, and the result is one of the more luxurious things you can make yourself in under two minutes. It's a winter cup in the sense that it feels considered and indulgent without being heavy. The kind of thing you make when you want to feel like you've given yourself something nice rather than just caffeinated yourself.
Vanilla Matcha
For anyone who loves the idea of matcha but finds the straight version a bit intense, the Vanilla Matcha is the answer. This is a blend of Japanese green tea and vanilla, and it's deliberately approachable - the vegetal, slightly bitter edge of matcha is softened by the vanilla without being buried by it. You still taste the green tea clearly. It just arrives with a sweetness that makes the whole thing easier to settle into.
It works beautifully in the morning as a gentler alternative to coffee, and it works equally well in the afternoon when you want something warm and satisfying without the full caffeine load of a black tea or espresso. Made with warm oat milk it becomes something distinctly dessert-adjacent - smooth, sweet, faintly grassy, and very good. On a grey January afternoon when you've been inside most of the day, it lands exactly right.
Pure Matcha
Our Pure Matcha is 100% shade-grown Japanese green tea, nothing else. It's for the person who wants the full matcha experience without modification - the vivid grassy flavour, the slight umami depth, the clean alertness that follows. It's the most demanding of the five teas we make in the sense that it asks you to meet it where it is rather than adjusting to your preferences. If you come to it expecting sweetness, you won't find it. If you come to it ready for something genuinely flavourful and complex, it delivers.
Shade-growing - the traditional Japanese cultivation method where tea plants are covered for the final weeks before harvest - causes the plant to concentrate its chlorophyll and flavour compounds in ways that sun-grown tea simply doesn't achieve. The resulting leaf is deeper, more aromatic, and more nutritionally dense. Ground whole into a microground powder, those qualities translate directly into your cup rather than being partially extracted by steeping. If you want to understand what makes matcha distinctive as a tea, our complete matcha guide covers the production process, the grades, and what to look for.
In winter, Pure Matcha functions as a serious morning anchor - warming, focused, and genuinely satisfying in a way that feels earned.
Rooibos Turmeric Chai
The Rooibos Turmeric Chai is the evening tea in the lineup - naturally caffeine-free, warm and spiced, with a depth of flavour that holds up completely without needing the support of black tea underneath. Rooibos is a South African red bush tea with a naturally sweet, slightly earthy character that works as a base the way black tea does, but without any bitterness or caffeine. Paired with turmeric, cinnamon, and warming spices, it becomes something that's genuinely comforting without being stimulating.
This is the cup for 9 PM in January when the heating has been running all day and you want something that tastes like warmth rather than something that will keep you up. The flavour is rounded and rich - not a consolation prize for people avoiding caffeine, but a genuinely great tea in its own right that happens to let you sleep afterward.
What Microground Means for Flavour
There's a common assumption that tea bags and loose leaf and powdered tea are all roughly equivalent in terms of what ends up in your cup - just different formats for the same thing. They aren't. The format shapes the flavour significantly.
With a tea bag, you're steeping dried leaf in hot water for a few minutes and then removing it. What ends up in your cup is what the hot water managed to pull from the surface of the leaf during that window. The rest of the plant - including a meaningful portion of its aromatic compounds and flavour complexity - goes in the bin. With microground tea, there is no bin. The leaf is ground into a highly dissolvable powder and the whole thing goes into your drink. You're tasting the full leaf, not a partial extraction of it.
That's why our teas taste the way they do. It's not a matter of higher-quality ingredients alone, though that matters too. It's that the format we use is inherently better at delivering flavour. For a more detailed look at how the two formats compare, our breakdown of tea bags vs. microground tea covers it thoroughly.
Getting the Most Out of Your Cup
Microground tea is straightforward to prepare, but a few small things make a real difference in the final cup. Water temperature is the main one - for matcha (both Pure and Vanilla), water around 70 to 80 degrees Celsius produces a smoother, less bitter flavour than boiling water. For the chai blends and London Fog, full boiling temperature is fine and often preferable, as it brings out the depth of the spices and the black tea base.
Whisking or shaking rather than just stirring produces a better texture - the powder disperses more evenly and the result is smoother. A small handheld milk frother works well if you don't have a whisk. And for any of our teas made with milk, warming the milk separately before combining tends to give you a more consistent, café-quality result than adding cold milk to hot water.
Beyond that, the preparation is genuinely simple. No steeping time, no strainer, no waiting. Which, on a February morning in British Columbia when it's minus ten and you need to be somewhere in twenty minutes, is exactly the point. We've been writing about the experience of warming up with chai and London Fog since the early days of our cozy season posts - if you want to read more about pairing these teas with the rhythm of a Canadian autumn and winter, our piece on cozy drinks for cooler weather is a good companion read.
Whatever the winter looks like where you are, there's a version of a great cup of tea that belongs in it. Start with what sounds right to you - or start with all of them and figure it out from there.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Teas for Winter
Which tea is the most warming in cold weather?
In terms of flavour and sensation, a spiced black tea like Classic Chai is the most immediately warming - the combination of cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, and cardamom creates a physical warmth that you feel from the first sip. Rooibos Turmeric Chai delivers a similar warmth without the caffeine, making it a strong choice for evenings. Any hot tea will warm you up, but spiced blends tend to feel most suited to genuinely cold weather.
What is the best tasting tea for beginners?
Vanilla Matcha is the most approachable of our lineup for someone new to tea - the vanilla softens matcha's distinctive edge without hiding it, and the result is a cup that's easy to enjoy without any acquired taste. London Fog is another good starting point, particularly for anyone who drinks Earl Grey or enjoys something floral and slightly sweet. Classic Chai works well for coffee drinkers transitioning to tea, as the bold, spiced character tends to feel familiar and satisfying.
Can I make these teas iced in winter?
Yes, though in the depths of Canadian winter that's a personal choice. Vanilla Matcha and Pure Matcha are excellent iced - they're popular as cold drinks year-round. The chai blends are traditionally served warm and the spices tend to be more pronounced and satisfying hot, but there's no reason you can't make them iced if that's your preference.
What makes microground tea taste better than tea bags?
With a tea bag, you're steeping the leaf and discarding it - only a portion of the leaf's flavour compounds end up in your cup. With microground tea, the entire leaf is ground into a highly dissolvable powder and consumed directly. The result is a fuller, more complete flavour that reflects the whole plant rather than a partial extraction. The difference is noticeable, particularly in teas with complex flavour profiles like chai or matcha.
Which OGB tea is best for the evening?
Rooibos Turmeric Chai is the clear evening choice - it's naturally caffeine-free, deeply warming, and has a spiced flavour that's satisfying without being stimulating. If you're sensitive to caffeine but still want a green tea option in the evening, Pure Matcha and Vanilla Matcha can be made with a smaller amount of powder to reduce the caffeine load, though they do contain some caffeine by nature.
Do I need any special equipment to make microground tea?
No. The powder mixes directly into hot or cold liquid - no infuser, no strainer, no teapot required. A small whisk or a handheld milk frother gives you the smoothest result, but even a regular spoon or a shaker bottle works. The preparation is genuinely as simple as it gets, which is part of why it holds up as a daily routine rather than a weekend project.
How does Old Growth Beverages compare to buying tea bags from the grocery store?
The formats are quite different in practice. Conventional tea bags steep part of the leaf and discard the rest - you're getting a partial extraction of the plant's flavour and compounds. Microground tea uses the whole leaf, consumed directly, which produces a richer and more consistent flavour. The preparation time is roughly the same or faster with microground tea, since there's no steeping involved. Taste-wise, the comparison tends to speak for itself.