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Dammann Frères Advent Calendar – Day 5 (from November backlog)

This is one of my favorites from Dammann, and it’s in such a pretty little metallic rose gold wrapper! I love all of the special wrappers in the advent so far.

What a lovely tea… A perfect balance of sweet and tropical passionfruit with a little zesty lime and spicy but warm ginger. The green tea base is a great choice with its mellow sweetness and light flavor that doesn’t overwhelm the other flavors.

Such a tasty and relaxing tea for afternoon or evening, and I bet this would be great iced as well. A permanent resident in my cupboard! :)

Palais des Thés Advent Calendar – Day 5 (from November backlog)

This is surprisingly fragrant, although it does smell a tinge medicinal as well…

Hmm… The flavoring is quite light here, not that I would know what moringa tastes like anyway. It has a slight tropical note, but mostly it tastes like rooibos. There is a tinge of medicinal flavor, but it’s not overwhelming. Woody is the dominant note, and it does create an itchy sensation in my throat.

This one is not for me. I don’t mind red rooibos lately, but this takes it a bit too far, without enough added flavoring to temper its less positive qualities.

Giving this one another chance after I had such a weird experience trying to make it on the stovetop a few days ago! This time I’m just steeping it straight.

Yeah, this is a very mild chai, I’m not surprised I had such a hard time with the stovetop prep. There’s a pleasant cardamom flavor in the forefront, along with a bit of clove. The CTC base is fairly mild as well, and very smooth with a cereal grainy and slightly bready maltiness.

It’s yummy! It’s not really what I think of when I think of masala chai, as it’s mostly a cardamom-spiced black tea. But clearly it counts! :)

P.S. – Am I the only one that is reminded of Grape Nuts when I see CTC black tea…?

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 5

Okay, I had no idea wtf a cherimoya is, so I had to look it up. The descriptor I found said something like a combination of apple, pineapple, banana, peach, and something else? Which sounds like a lot, lol! But this smells nice and it’s green rooibos, yay, so I’m excited to try it!

Well, I definitely get apple and a little bit of sweet pineapple. I would definitely say pear is in the mix for me as well, and I can understand why someone would say banana.

But mostly it’s apple, and it’s a lovely cooked apple with just a hint of cinnamon and a nice big glug of crème Anglaise over the top. It also sort of reminds me of apple pie with French vanilla ice cream melted over it… Needless to say, it’s yum!

I had this with my two advent chocolates for the day – the DAVIDsTEA matcha advent had a salted caramel matcha-infused white chocolate star, and the La Maison du Chocolat advent had a few dark chocolate-covered almonds. A really nice pairing actually, as they had a great contrast and played well off each other.

The matcha white chocolate was decadent and creamy, of course, but there was a sort of slight texture to it that I assume was salt? There was a nice salty presence to it as well which was delish. I wish there had been more matcha though, as I didn’t really get a matcha flavor at all… The chocolate almonds were so good because the almonds were really nicely toasted and had such a rich nutty flavor, and the dark chocolate really contrasted well with its more bitter notes.

Yum, amazing evening snack! That is all. :D

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIcCdMsAGkz/

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbA7q0g6Fu/)

Kusmi Advent Calendar – Day 5

So this one confused me. Having “morning” in the name, to me, implies black tea or some other sort of breakfasty tea. But then the description said something like “citrus and herbs” which sort of makes me think it’s an herbal tea. But then the plot thickens, as the steeping instructions recommended a temperature of around 175°F, which makes me assume there’s green tea here. Anyway! I followed the recommended parameters so we’ll see. Looking at the sachet, I think there might be maté here as well, as it has that sort of crushed up leaves appearance.

So looking at the description, it’s a blend of green tea, maté, and guarana. So that sort of explains all of the weird conflicting information LOL. I quite like this though! It has a lovely sweet and herbal maté flavor with a hint of smokiness. The green tea has a different sort of dry grassy note and adds a touch of bitterness. I think orange is the main citrus that I taste here, and it’s a lovely sweet orange. I also do get a little hint of sharper grapefruit which adds a nice tang.

I like it! I don’t know if I would order it specifically but I would happily drink it again. I really need to explore getting some plain yerba maté, as I always find myself really enjoying it in blends…

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbA7q0g6Fu/)

Adagio Advent Calendar – Day 5

I don’t have a lot of puerh experience, and it’s not really something I’m interested in pursuing at this point, since honestly I’m drinking almost all flavored teas right now anyway. But I find the ripe puerh used in flavored blends is usually earthy and mild, with no weird fishy aromas, so I’m not too worried about this one. Dry scent is very strong on the orange, which is encouraging.

The orange flavor is the strongest note in the steeped tea as well, and it’s an orange essential oil sort of note. There is chocolate as well, but it tastes fairly artificial to me, sort of like a darker chocolate Tootsie Roll. It’s not terrible, but I think I would prefer just the cacao nibs and no flavoring, even if it means a more subtle chocolate note. Chocolate flavoring always reminds me of cheap waxy chocolate, like chocolate coins or those cheap Easter chocolates. I suppose that’s probably because they use chocolate flavoring in those things…

ANYWAY, tangent over! The puerh here is mellow with a sweet earthy flavor, which I think makes a nice base for a chocolate orange tea.

I thought this was fairly enjoyable. The chocolate flavoring kind of ruins it for me, and for that reason I wouldn’t order this one. But the puerh base is perfectly pleasant and suitable for puerh newbies.

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbA7q0g6Fu/)

Vahdam Advent Calendar – Day 5

Ooh, an Earl! Definitely an unexpected choice (at least, for me) for this calendar. I was excited by the name, but looking at the ingredients, this appears to be a plain Earl with just black tea and bergamot. Not that I won’t enjoy it, but I assumed the mention of citrus meant orange or lemon or something. Oh well!

It’s a tasty Earl Grey. The bergamot is strong but not over-the-top, and has a lovely citrus-floral flavor. I also taste a bit of something evergreen-like here, though that could be flavor contamination again from one of the spiced teas. A hint of clove or cardamom maybe?

I will say, I wish I was getting more from the base tea. There’s a bit of malt I suppose, but otherwise not much going on. I wonder if I should use more leaf, or perhaps steep for an additional minute… Next time!

Overall, it’s fine but a bit boring for me. I tend to prefer my Earl with additional citrus or other flavors added in. This one needs a bit more from the base to keep it from tasting like bergamot water.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbTNpBgN6M/

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbA7q0g6Fu/)

Good morning, everyone!

The DAVIDsTEA matcha advent selection for today is a matcha-infused chocolate, but I’ve been enjoying my morning matcha and toast, so I pulled out another matcha to try! I had a single serve stick of this in my drawer and thought it was the perfect time to try it out. It’s funny that they call it “matcha latte” but there is no sweetener and no milk powder or anything like that. It’s just a mixture of matcha and cocoa powder. Sounds delish! Prepared it (mostly) according to their instructions, making a paste with warm water and then topping with warm milk.

Well, it’s certainly delicious. The matcha and cocoa go together so well, with the sweet grassiness and umami roasted seaweed and the slight toasty note of the cocoa powder. It’s decadent and chocolaty. I will say, I think in the future I would either do a mixture of water and milk or use two sachets, because since it’s only half matcha the milk is overpowering it just a little. But very scrumptious, I could see myself reordering this. It would also be interesting to try as a non-latte. Unfortunately it’s rather expensive, harrumph. I’ll have to try adding cocoa powder to my straight matchas!

On to the jam! Today it’s Strawberry-Verbena Spread which sounds highly interesting to me. I quite like it, though the verbena is reminding me more of mint than lemon. It’s surprisingly quite strong, holding its own against the sweet strawberry. It’s very different and I’m enjoying it a lot! I would love to try more jams with herbs in them in the future. :)

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIbA7q0g6Fu/)

Kusmi Advent Calendar – Day 4

I know I’ve had this before (or rather, the Løv Organic version) and I remember not liking it because of the turmeric and ginger. Oh well, now’s its second chance!

It has quite a fruity aroma, which is encouraging at least!

Hmm, I actually do like it. There’s a soft lemon note and some other kind of juicy and refreshing fruit. I suppose that would be the dragonfruit, as I haven’t tried one I don’t know what it tastes like. But I guess it reminds me somewhat of a juicy pear? It has a very refreshing flavor that reminds me of cucumber as well, and there’s a tropical edge to it. I do get a little bit of earthy turmeric in the background, and some warming ginger at the tail end of the sip. It looks like there’s chili in here as well, so that must be contributing to the slight kick at the end.

I quite liked this one! I’m not sure it’s something I’d run out and buy, but I enjoyed the juicy refreshing fruity flavor. I bet it would be lovely iced as well. Hooray for second chances! :)

I’ve been very good about working on sipdowns in between my (many) advent teas, so I figured I would give myself a break and make a mug of any tea I felt like this evening. tea-sipper and I were talking about how much we like DF’s “Noël à” range earlier in the day, so I still had it on my mind. This is one of two such teas I have in my cupboard at the moment, and it sounded tasty tonight so here we are!

Yummmmm. I happen to love fig, and this is definitely a figgy tea. A lovely mix of dried fig and dried strawberry or perhaps strawberry jam. It’s a deeper, more rich strawberry flavor versus a fresh berry. There’s also a lovely, slighly floral honey note that goes beautifully with the fig. Also a hint of lavender, so perhaps we can imagine it’s lavender honey if we’re feeling romantic. The base is a mellow yet flavorful mix of malty, woody, and earthy notes. It also has a nice amount of body, and feels somewhat thick and satisfying in the mouth.

Overall, I love it. I’m glad I chose to reorder this one in my recent DF purchase, even though I’ll never get through the ridiculous 100g package… I’m generally not a fan of lavender, but it’s subtle here and it works so well with the other flavors that I enjoy it anyway. ❤

So, Dammann group order? XD