Plum Deluxe

This is the kind of tea I pretty much exclusively cold brew, but given the amount of leaf and time available to me with these advents, hot preparation it is! (So daring!)

I’m loving the aroma as my tea steeps and reaches drinking temperatures… I smell sweet apple, toasted coconut, a tart cherry aroma, and am getting an overall tropical sort of feel.

Like the last “chunky herbal” tea, I probably should’ve dropped my water way back, since I like the flavor on those types of teas with a very heavy hand. The flavor just feels too weak with what is in the sample. I’m tasting mostly cherry, and it is coming off with both a nice fruity tartness but there is also a sweetness to the cup from the coconut, which is the other main flavor note I’m getting. After the sip, I get an aftertaste of strawberry, which I assume is the kiwi (not a fruit I ever have often, so it usually reads as strawberry to me). I like the flavor, I would just (optimally) use twice as much leaf as this to get my preferred brew. Since I tend to use leaf my herbal teabags swimming in my cup, hopefully the flavors will pop a bit more the longer it soaks.

Plum Deluxe Advent Day 12
(backlog)
Rooibos, red hot cinnamon, and a bit of ginger. Meh.

Ooo, I smell chocolate and rose from the dry leaf, which is one of my favorite flavor combinations! I even make my own rose cocoa powder…

Steeping, the tea smells very fudgy with sweet rose florals, but I’m also getting a bit of pepperiness in the aroma (a note I sometimes get from honeybush).

The chocolate flavor here, as I find in many teas, is a bit thin and artificial, so mostly I’m getting a rose honeybush with some underlying cocoa notes, rather than a nice chocolate rose profile (honestly, I feel like the last really good chocolate rose tea I had was 52Teas Chocolate Rose Truffle, and it was quite old… don’t imagine that one will get reblended since florals aren’t very popular, but damn did I love that tea!) I do, however, really like rose, so I’m not particularly bothered by a rose-heavy cup of honeybush… except that the peppery note I’m getting from this honeybush is very off-putting with these flavors. I have no idea if it’s just this particular honeybush, or something in the chocolate flavoring that is making it pop since I know I didn’t taste it in some of the previous honeybush teas…

A thicker, creamier, more pronounced chocolate flavor would probably help this cup a lot. As a floral fan, I’ll have no problem finishing this cuppa tonight, but I’ve certainly had better of this particular profile.

Advent Day 15

TWO advents with a chocolate rose combo for the day. The first was on a black base and this is honeybush, which I want to pronounce as honeybooosh right now for some reason. The scent of rose dominates, but the chocolate isn’t lost either. The flavor is more ethereal than tangible. It’s very light and perfumy. The tea I had earlier seemed to be wanting in the mid note range and this is missing the base note range. Maybe with their powers combined? There is a slight tang on the back and sides of my tongue in parts of the sip, but I can’t decide if I dislike that or not. Tempted to try cream, but also afraid I’ll ruin the cup.

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 15

Rose and chocolate essence? (makes face)

Yeah, no. This is very rosy. To its credit, it’s not horribly perfumey or anything.

But it’s definitely not for me. And the chocolate flavor isn’t helping either… :P

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI0x3pugvaO/)

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 14

Well, I like the idea of berries and green tea. But I take pause whenever I see berry-flavored things because they almost always taste chalky and weird to me. Hopefully that’s not the case here…

Yeah, this is pretty much mixed berry Tums. It has a powdery chalkiness to it that I don’t enjoy. I think I can taste both blueberry and raspberry, but they’re a bit overpowered by the artificial powdery taste. I can’t really taste much of the green tea? Maybe just a little bit of toasted seaweed-like umami. I probably should have steeped it longer.

Also, how is a blueberry and raspberry green tea “holiday”?!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIzSbDag6dV/

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIyI3bGAi3z/)

Advent Day 14

The smell of this tea dry totally makes me think of salad dressing! It’s got to be some combo of the berries or something I have logged in my brain as raspberry vinaigrette. I get berries in the sip, but there is an ashy flavor too. Maybe that’s the pine? I don’t know if it’s my brain or the tea that can’t decide what it’s supposed to be: sweet or savory. This tea confuses my brain!

Oof, it’s a Winter Wonderland here today! I am not a fan of the white stuff, and was just thankful I found enough time to brew a hot cuppa to drag out the door with me on my way to work…

At first, the flavor was very cotton candy-esque… a sweet, generic berry sort of flavor. And I’m still getting that, a bit, except now I’m tasting a sort of piney note toward the end of the sip. I’m not even sure what would cause that, since my (vague) recollection of the ingredients on the package before I left for work didn’t show anything that would attribute that note (I know I stuck the empty packet in my pocket so I could double-check once I made it to work and had a chance to actually drink my tea/write a note, but uh… it’s now not in my pocket. I wonder where it went…? Ah well…) So ya… a sweet, fruity, artificial/candy berry flavor, followed by a more subtle brisk/fresh/menthol-tasting pine. I would really like the berry/pine combo if the berry were juicy/tart and not candy-like. These two notes together are a bit strange to me… cotton candy itself I like, pine I like, not sure how I feel about the two together. But I’ll happily drink it because that’s the thermos of hot tea I have to drink.

Plum Deluxe Advent Day 14

A festive blend! A green tea! Very happy to see this blend today. It also looks like it’s an advent exclusive?
Smells like a melange of sticky sweet berries.
I’m tasting a smokiness I wasn’t expecting. Once the smokiness fades, it’s a lovely light blueberry flavor.

Plum Deluxe Advent Day 13

I’m not really a fan of coconut in teas, with very few exceptions. But, I’m very glad to see something that’s not a rooibos today.
The coconut is creamy and sweet, but the black tea is pretty astringent and drying. I’ll [probably] get through this cup, but I’d definitely not purchase.

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 13

Well, it’s nice to see a caffeinated black tea from this advent! I’m not a coconut lover, but I don’t dislike it either. It’s just not one of my favorite flavors. Dry, this definitely smells like coconut cream pie.

It’s fairly good. The coconut and cream flavors are nice, and overall they remind me of coconut macaroons (which I haven’t had in ages), or maybe those Brach’s coconut candies with the Neapolitan stripes. There’s a nice toasted note as well.

The base is unfortunately a tad bitter and overall just not very tasty. It’s tannic and a bit astringent which really takes away from the sweet coconut creaminess… :(

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIvvvDxAx9V/)

Advent Day 13

I do love coconut teas, but I rarely buy them anymore. Maybe if I had a smaller cupboard where my tea stash was manageable and I could drink it before it went bad, but that’s just not the kind of cupboard I keep. It’s a sacrifice. :D

Steeped up this tea is kind of one dimensional. I get creamy coconut enhanced by the vanilla, but that’s it. There is a little bit of an astringent twang and a rooibos dryness at the end. I’d love it if it were multifaceted and had additional flavors to play off the coconut. Lime, cinnamon, smoke and mango are flavors that come to mind that pair well with coconut. I recently made some vegan bacon from coconut shavings to use as toppings in salads and I can’t stop grabbing handfuls of it to snack on instead. I want a coconut tea that I can’t get enough of like that! This is not that tea.

Ooo, I love the dry leaf aroma of this one! Definitely smells like a coconut cream… I rarely buy coconut teas anymore just because it takes me so long to get around to drinking them, and the coconut has such a short shelf life before it goes rancid that I often end up having to throw them out before I even get to try them as a result, but it is a flavor/ingredient that I really love so it always feels like a special treat when I do have it in a tea.

The aroma wafting off my too-hot cup is still that lovely coconut cream smell; the coconut aroma has a bit of a toasty element, and the cream has lovely vanilla undertones. My patience is waning thin to drink this, but at least I have my breakfast of the matcha smoothie I prepared before bed last night and two pieces of toast slathered in PB and honey (I’m a simple person!) to tide me over while this aroma-steam plays games with my heart… Probably my favorite tea in the advent aroma-wise since the pecan one!

The flavor… I think my tongue is expecting something a little sweeter based on the aroma, but this actually has a fairly present black tea base mellowing that out a bit, where you can actually taste tea and not just flavorings: I’m getting some malt, oat bread, honey, and a very subtle hint of citrus from the black tea. It’s mildly astringent as well, adding a slight bit of dryness at the back of the tongue after the sip. While the flavorings aren’t bombarding the tea, they are pleasantly present, as the cup has a nice toasted coconut flavor, with slight vanilla taste that lingers on the tongue after the sip.

I really like this one! I think if I wasn’t just using their pre-selected servings and had enough leaf to tweak my cup a bit to see if I could smooth out some of the astringency, I would probably like this even more. I would, if we ever crossed paths again, also love to see how this would be with a dash of warm coconut milk.

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 12

This sounds good, actually. I like cinnamon and a caffeine-free chai sounds nice tonight. My sample smells very strongly of anise.

Hmm… This tastes a bit… flat? It has a lovely spicy cinnamon aroma, but the flavor is somewhat bland. I taste cinnamon in a spicy Red Hots way, and there’s definitely clove, anise, and black pepper. But even with all of the spices, it’s quite flat. The only thing popping out at me is the peppercorns, and they’re creating a tingling, slightly burning sensation at the back of my mouth and in my throat.

Not a fan, unfortunately. Too much pepper and not enough anything else…

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIuXY1ig9Gp/

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

Advent Day 12
Lots of cinnamon! Maybe some apple and some clove. I dumped the whole thing in my steeper, so it’s extra potent and harder to taste the Rooibos which works great for me. It came through more as it cooled, but the cinnamon was almost red hot candy strong. Not bad for a rooibos.

The dry leaf smells like a holiday candle… I know when most people say that they mean it in a bad way, but I like that smell! A comforting, familiar scent…

Brewed up, this is fine. Another one I personally would’ve brewed a bit stronger if I had a choice in the matter, just because the body is coming through a bit weak to me. The spice flavor is fine, though. Most strongly of cinnamon, but I’m getting some very nice clove notes, and a bit of ginger and pepper warmth at the back of my throat. Not too spicy that I need to douse my throat after each sip or try to tame the cup with milk (though I’m sure it would take milk fine, if I had more leaf to create a richer body for it), but there is enough that there is some lingering warmth after the swallow.

A perfectly satisfying cuppa on a cold evening, but not my favorite rooibos chai — that title goes to Rishi’s West Cape Chai.

Plum Deluxe Advent Day 10
(backlog)
Another nutty decaf tea? Meh. This one actually smells really good- like the cinnamon coated almonds I used to get at Ren Faire. I’m tasting too much of the rooibos- not quite sure why it’s necessary here. Cinnamon, almond, rooibos. Not much orange.

Plum Deluxe Advent Te Calendar Day 11

I have decided to just move forward with the advent calendars. I’m not going to beat myself up or try to rush to catch up, and if I miss a day, I can always go back in January and try them then. I want to enjoy my tea, not make it a chore.

So. I enjoyed this one. I got a nice creamy, almond-y scent from the dry leaf, a bit or orange flavor in the sip. It was a little more artificial than I like. As I said, I enjoyed it. If a friend served this I would happily drink it. But I do not plan to order any.

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 11

Hmm, a fruit and food tisane à la Teavana. I never seem to enjoy these, so let’s get this over with… :P It smells like some kind of desserty candle in the packet.

Well, I’m glad that it’s not super tart given the beautiful-yet-worrisome coral color. It mostly tastes vaguely of creamy apple and sweet almond. Maybe a hint of sweet spice (anise?) as well, and some orange. The beginning of the sip is quite artificial and sweet, and then the hibiscus and apple tartness pops out in the aftertaste and leaves a somewhat acrid taste in my throat.

It reminds me of Forever Nut or something similar, and I never like those. Bah humbug!

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

Advent Day 11

This tea smells so good dry! I’ve been letting it steep all day and that might have been a bit much. There is a tartness that I’m not super into, but the rest of it seems pretty delightful. I get almond extract and fruit. There was a huge star anise in there that is nice too. I wish I could figure out how I feel about this tea, but my tiny roommates keep interrupting my thoughts to tell me about bird videos on Instagram or some random joke they just read in a book. I love my tiny roomies, but I also really love complaining about them. I complain with love. Orange. There is orange in the finish that I’m not crazy about with the rest of what this blend has going on. Almond, anise then orange.

Update: Sitting next to my empty cup after a few hours of finishing it and the cup smelled exactly like honey candy! That floral sweet scent. I didn’t get any of that in the tea.

I like the aroma of this dry leaf… it smells like creamsicle to me, orange and vanilla. Brewed up (full packet to 350ml, and honestly, chunky herbals like this I usually brew even stronger than what was available in this packet, but I didn’t want a tiny cup), the liquor is pinkish-orange and smells more strongly orange, and a little fruit punchy. The flavor… is indeed a bit weaker than I prefer these sorts of herbals (but then, I could tell that from looking at the dry leaf…) but is a pleasant enough taste. It does have a mostly creamsicle sort of taste to me, in that I’m getting a very orange forward flavor, but it’s a sweet orange… I remember there was a “candied orange” tea earlier in the advent that didn’t taste “candied” to me at all, because it was a strong, biting citrusy orange, but this is actually what I imagine a “candied orange” flavor would taste like… it’s a creamy, sweet orange. The base has a bit of a fruitiness to it, but the rosehips aren’t giving the sort of tart punchiness that hibi might… far more mellow. I’m not tasting any of the spices that are supposedly in the blend (huh…) Other than the citrus of the orange having a bit of a natural tanginess to it, this is actually a very sweet cup. I like it… but nothing about it tastes like “honey” or almonds to me! (And honestly, I’m so tired of nutty profiles from Plum Deluxe that I’m thankful I’m just getting candied orange/creamsicle instead…)

Plum Deluxe Advent Day 11

Very much like DavidsTea’s Forever Nuts and Forever Frosty. Very almondy, with a bit of orange. I’m getting a similar bubblegum flavor that I dislike in Forever Frosty.
But it just seems like there just isn’t enough dry leaf to make a proper cup. I used the entire packet and only a few ounces of water and it was still extremely weak and watery.

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 10

I’m with Mastress Alita in saying, another nut tea already?! They could have at least spaced them out a bit more…

This is fine, but the flavors are a bit muddled. The hazelnut is definitely the strongest, followed by almond and cinnamon. Then there’s some other stuff muddled up in the background, I think it’s the black tea combined with rooibos, maybe the orange peel? I don’t know, something about it tastes a bit overdone. Plus it doesn’t help that I just had a very similar tea from them two days ago, so I’m a bit over it at this point. I’m also getting a bit of astringency from the base that is not enjoyable.

Anyway, the nutty and cinnamon flavors are quite pleasant. The rest is meh!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIpHzlcAy2U/

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIn4CAHg-sf/)

Advent Day 10

This smells good! I’m getting an almond flavor with cinnamon. It looses some of it’s depth as it cools. It still smells pastry like. I bet it would taste better if I added sugar, but I’m not dedicated enough to venture ALL the way into the kitchen to make that adjustment. I am liking having a decaf cup of evening tea!