Celebrate Tea Day with the 6 Best Tea and Cookie Pairings

 April 21 is officially National Tea Day, and there’s no better way to celebrate than by pairing tea with some delicious cookies. That’s why we put together the ultimate guide to tea and cookie pairings below. Regardless of your tastes, we think you’ll find a tasty cookie and tea combo below to inspire some special moments with tea in your own life.

But that said, National Tea Day is about more than just sweet afternoon treats. So let’s start off by taking a closer look at the tradition that inspired it all...

What is Afternoon Tea, and What Can We Learn From It?

Breaking for tea and a snack in the middle of the day isn’t a mere guilty pleasure. It’s actually a time-honored tradition going back many hundreds of years.

In England specifically, where the tradition still exists today, afternoon tea was introduced by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in 1840. The Duchess would often become hungry around four o’clock in the afternoon, and ask for a tray of tea, bread and butter. When this became a habit, she later started inviting friends to join her.

Soon after, the traditional afternoon tea became a popular shared social event. In London, several hotels (including the Ritz and the Savoy) still pay homage to this tradition by continuing to serve afternoon tea today.

This idea of “breaking” in the middle of the day may seem strange to Americans, but many cultures participate in something like this. The Swedish Fika or Mexican Siesta are other examples.

As Americans, we can sometimes glorify being fast-paced and focusing on productivity, when these qualities aren’t always necessarily healthy. Afternoon tea and other afternoon breaking traditions are a reminder that rest is actually a key part of sustainable productivity (after all, that’s the reason we sleep, have weekends, and take vacations).

6 Delicious Tea and Cookie Pairings

We worked with our friends at Buddha Teas to discover the best tea and cookie combinations. Tea and cookies can be enjoyed separately, but for this challenge we actually dunked the cookies into the tea. Because of that, we chose to focus on our crispy cookies, which hold up better in tea and provide a really nice texture contrast to the tea.

Here are the best tea and cookie pairings we found:

Spicy, Bold Tea & Cookie Pairings

1. Speculoos Cookies with CBD Cacao Fusion

Speculoos cookies and coffee are a time honored tradition. So much so that Lotus named their speculoos cookies Biscoff, short for biscuits and coffee. 

But Speculoos also goes really well with tea. We tried a wide variety of Buddha Teas and were surprised to find that the CBD Cacao Fusion was our top choice. Our Speculoos cookies are full of flavor, so it takes a bold tea to make the pairing work. The CBD Cacao Fusion is just that! Bold, earthy, chocolatey. 

2. Speculoos Cookies with English Breakfast Tea

Our second favorite pairing with Speculoos was with English Breakfast Tea. English Breakfast is bold and slightly bitter. When paired with our sweet and spicy Speculoos cookies, they really bring out the best in each other. 

3. Speculoos Cookies with Japanese Cherry Blossom Tea

A surprising find was that Speculoos paired well with Japanese Cherry Blosson tea. This black tea combined with preserved cherry blossoms was a unique floral and spicy combination that we loved.