Witches Hollow Pumpkin Chai – Magical Spiced Halloween Tea

There is a place beyond the northern edge of Santa's Village where the pine trees give way to an ancient hollow.

The Elves call it Witches Hollow.

Nobody seems entirely certain how it acquired the name.

Huatua, however, knows considerably more than he is prepared to tell.

Every autumn, when the nights begin drawing in and frost first appears upon the windows of The North Pole Tea Shop, he retrieves an old wooden recipe box from the highest shelf.

Inside is the recipe for Witches Hollow Pumpkin Chai.

It is one of the shop's oldest autumn blends.

Its base is rich black tea, but Huatua surrounds it with ingredients whose histories reach deep into old herbal traditions, folklore and magic.

Ginger brings heat and vitality, while cinnamon has long been associated in magical tradition with warmth, prosperity and protection. Aromatic cardamom carries old associations with love and good fortune, while clove was traditionally used for protection.

Then comes nutmeg — once a spice so valuable that fortunes were made transporting it across the world, and one that acquired a lasting folkloric reputation for luck.

Huatua adds black and white pepper for fire, hibiscus and rosehip for their rich fruitiness, and apple, a fruit woven deeply into European mythology and tales of enchantment, immortality and journeys into the Otherworld.

But no Witches Hollow blend would be complete without pumpkin.

As the harvest ends and the boundary between autumn and winter draws near, pumpkins have become inseparable from Halloween, lanterns, old tales and nights when ordinary rules seem temporarily suspended.

Calendula and sunflower petals bring the last golden colours of autumn to the mixture.

And according to Huatua, that is important.

Because Witches Hollow Pumpkin Chai is not really a tea about darkness. It is about carrying a little warmth into it.

There is an old North Pole story concerning the blend.

Many years ago, an apprentice from the Tea Shop was returning from the Biodomes late on an October evening when a sudden snowstorm forced her from the path.

Through the trees she noticed a tiny orange light.

Following it, she eventually reached a cottage she had never seen before.

An elderly woman opened the door.

She said nothing.

She merely placed a steaming cup of extraordinarily fragrant spiced tea upon the table.

The apprentice drank it beside the fire until the storm passed.

Before leaving, the woman handed her a folded piece of paper.

It contained a recipe.

The following morning, the apprentice attempted to find the cottage again.

She never did.

There was only an enormous old hawthorn tree... and beneath it, a single pumpkin.

Huatua still has the original piece of paper.

Or so he claims.

From The North Pole Tea Shop

Ingredients: Black Tea, Ginger, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Black & White Pepper, Clove, Nutmeg, Hibiscus, Apple, Rosehip, Soy Lecithin, Candy, Calendula & Sunflower Petals, Pumpkin & Natural Flavours

Allergen: Contains Soy

Character: Warming, richly spiced, autumnal and deliciously mysterious

North Pole Tradition: The Hollow Tea — traditionally brewed during the darkening evenings between harvest and the first great snows.

Prepared according to the traditions of Huatua, Tea Master of The North Pole Tea Shop, Santa's Village.