Everyone loves a good team up, and good combinations can amplify an experience. Fall is the return of hot tea season and its specific fall flavors. And the perfect activity to go with tea drinking is reading, particularly reading books that take place in the fall.
Through my affiliate partnership with The Whistling Kettle, I’ve come up with three fall graphic novel recommendations to pair with three of their fall tea flavors. Check them out below and share your favorite fall reads and tea flavors in the comments!
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Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and pumpkin chai tea
Pumpkinheads is a graphic novel that takes place at a pumpkin patch on Halloween night. It’s high school students’ Josie and Deja’s final season working together, and they often only interact with each other at the Patch. During that time, they’re thick as thieves, and they’re sorry to see it end.
Knowing it’s their last night at the Patch, the pair decide to ditch their duties and spend the night doing the things that they always said they were going to do. In Josie’s case, it means finally talking to his crush of three years. In Deja’s, it means sampling every food at every booth in the Patch.
Fast paced and hosting a fun and energetic Halloween atmosphere, Pumpkinheads is a fun ride that the audience is taken on as our heroes weave their way through the Patch chasing a girl, scarfing down kettle corn and caramel apples, and avoiding a runaway goat. Everything from the real-time fading color scheme from dusk to night to the traditional fall country setting and the unrequired teen love stories make this a perfect non-spooky Halloween read that will help you feel like a kid again if you’re not still one yourself.
The pairing
I’ve paired Pumpkinheads with The Whistling Kettle’s pumpkin chai tea. It’s a mix of black tea, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, black and white pepper, clove, nutmeg, hibiscus, apple, rosehip, candy, calendula petals, sunflower petals, and, of course, pumpkin.
This tea isn’t your usual pumpkin spice. It’s for pumpkin lovers who actually love the raw pumpkin taste, not just the spices and sugars that we tend to dump into our pumpkin drinks. However, it provides a nice base in which to do that if you can’t live without that sweetness factor.
The dry tea leaves give off a cinnamon scent. Once brewed, it gives off a dark chocolate color. The cinnamon smell goes away, and you get that rich pumpkin flavoring.
The blend of the ingredients that pull together to create this flavor reminds me of the Patch and all of its individual booths that make up its combined event. This tea feels like a drink that would be sold at one of the booths to sip on during the nightly hayrides as the night grows darker and the Halloween air grows colder.
Only Skin by Sean Ford and apple cider donut tea
In Only Skin, teen Cassie and her young brother, Clay, arrive at their father’s gas station out in the middle of nowhere where they’re met by a police officer investigating a series of mysterious disappearances. Their father too has recently gone missing, leaving the kids and attendant, Chris, struggling to keep the gas station open.
Meanwhile, Clay begins to receive visits from a ghost who shares valuable information about the disappearances which points the blame at a creature in the woods. As Clay travels into the woods to investigate, he stumbles into a deadly trap full of both physical and supernatural twists and turns.
Only Skin is an eerie supernatural crime story set in the middle of nowhere where anything can happen. The brother/sister duo are a team to root for, and the events grow darker and grimmer, mirroring the simple black and white illustrations that intensify in tone and composition.
The pairing
I’ve chosen apple cider donut to drink while reading Only Skin because of its spicy, American flavor. Containing black tea, lemon peel, clove, green apple, red apple, cinnamon bark, and nutmeg, the dry leaves give off a strong apple cinnamon scent.
Once brewed, the tea is a dark caramel color, and the cinnamon scent takes center stage. The taste is a subtle apple flavor that tastes like a splash of unsweetened apple juice was added to the mug.
The taste relates to the dark and sinister moments and themes of the plot of the graphic novel while the apple plays into that classic American tone. Be sure to pick up your favorite fall-themed donut to munch on as you turn the pages and sip away.
Sheets by Brenna Thummler and pumpkin cheesecake tea
Sheets introduces us to Marjorie Glatt, a 13-year-old girl with a lot on her plate. She’s tasked with running her family’s decaying laundromat while trying to keep it out of the hands of weaselly Mr. Saubertuck.
Meanwhile, a ghost named Wendell is having trouble adjusting to the afterlife, and he takes refuge in the laundromat. Overnight, he inadvertently makes a big mess leaving Marjorie to clean it up. But when he and Marjorie meet, they form a friendship, and Marjorie helps Wendell try to figure out how he died while Wendell lends an ear to Marjorie’s troubles.
The cover of this book alone grabbed my attention the first time I saw it. Using the classic bedsheet ghost trope with a Casper-like plotline and a high stakes family story creates a perfectly blended twist on the classic ghost story trope. It too is not scary so much as it is atmospheric with characters who need all the support they can get, even if it is from a reader who is as invisible to them as Wendell without his sheet.
The pairing
Sheets and pumpkin cheesecake are the perfect fall tea combination because of the book’s desert-colored color palette. Thummler’s graphic novel paints with intentional pastel pinks, greens, and blues over the usual bold fall colors that are more traditional to its setting.
The pumpkin cheesecake tea contains rooibos, honey brush, green rooibos, carrot, cinnamon bark, currant, white chocolate, pumpkin flakes, sunflowers, and nutmeg. The dried tea smells like chocolate and cinnamon that disappears into a golden liquid once brewed. I recommend adding a little sugar to bring out the dessert taste.
The unique plot and illustrations in Sheets relates to The Whistling Kettle’s unorthodox choice to pair up pumpkin and cheesecake. The sweet friendship story makes it a melancholy comfort read and puts a cutesy twist on a classic ghost story with an equally delicious fall flavor to match.
What are your favorite Halloween graphic novel recommendations? What fall tea flavors would you like to try from The Whistling Kettle first? Leave your answers in the comments below!
Also, check out my posts, 8 Audiobook Recommendations for Fall and Tea Sampling The Whistling Kettle Teas.
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