Plum Deluxe

Advent tea! Well, I guess I should write a tea note about some of these teas in the advent, even though I was traveling too much to really enjoy it. I would consider doing this advent again, though I do wish it was a mix of caf and decaf teas. If that’s my only gripe, I think I like it! This one is certainly not one I would try, but I’m glad I did. I am not a bergamot fan, but this has enough lemon/orange/citrus and vanilla to disguise the bergamot. I will gift the second pouch of this to someone who will appreciate it more!

Night 2 of Hanukkah, and the second blend arbitrarily chosen from Plum Deluxe’s Hanukkah sampler. I took the day off work to spend time with family. The day went much better than I expected, so I’m taking the win. I also had a truly wonderful time visiting the Walt Whitman Birthplace Museum. It’s small but charming and I had a lot of fun learning from our tour guide!
By the time I got home, I just wanted something cozy to drink. This fits the bill! It’s got that almost alcoholic almond flavor taking up most of the sip, with the verbena sort of layering on top just to brighten things up a bit. The woodiness of the rooibos complements the nuttiness well. If it wasn’t for the twinge of an alcohol note, I’d like this even better. Possibly that might fade if the dry leaf had more time to mellow, but by the time I figured that out I had already made all of it.

Happy Hanukkah! I do adventaggedon because it’s fun, and it’s a community thing, and it’s a great way to try out lots of new teas and companies in a fairly short period of time. But I’m very aware that it is, at best, a borrowed tradition – like wearing your friend’s clothes. Having Hanukkah teas and Hanukkah-specific samplers is like wearing my own. I went for Plum Deluxe’s Hanukkah sampler again this year, but this time I opted for the fully caffeine-free option. There are four regular blends in here and four unique to the box. They’re not numbered the way advent calendar teas are; more of a choose-your-own-adventure. So I chose one that I’m hoping will help me digest the latkes I ate tonight after a big Christmas meal earlier today!
Good chunks of ginger in the dry leaf translate into a lovely ginger bite at the front of the sip that lingers afterwards. Sweet, tangy fruit notes dance around the ginger. I actually had to double check the ingredients for hibiscus because it reminded me of the flavor made by whole hibiscus flowers, which I think is generally sweeter than cut-up hibiscus. No hibi here though! Just the sweet-tartness of the strawberry playing tricks on me.

Day 22 of Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. Yup, this tastes like pomegranate and sugar! I get a kick out of there being a whole dehydrated cranberry in my sample. That’s probably not the best way to extract flavor but it is very visually pleasing (not to mention satisfying to watch it plump up). It’s good cold. I liked it even better when it was hot, though. Sort of a hot apple cider or hot toddy vibe, but with pomegranate as the base flavor.

Day 21 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. I neglected the mug and it ended up steeping for 20 minutes. Doesn’t seem to have done any harm, though. Crisp peppermint, goes great with a splash of oat milk.

Day 20 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. I had both servings of this as a bedtime tea and didn’t take good notes, unfortunately. I didn’t hate it and didn’t love it. Mostly I remember the citrus notes and that the honeybush was pretty assertive.

Day 19 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. Plum Deluxe makes a chocolate-lavender rooibos blend called Easy Like Sunday Morning. I liked that one a lot. I assume this blend uses the same lavender, mostly because it reminds me so strongly of the other blend. Except now I have this mental block of wanting the other blend in my cup based on the aroma. This is fine, it’s not my favorite thing but it’s fine. I’m getting the lavender and rosemary, not really any berry notes. Replace the rosemary in this with some cacao shells and I’d be a happy camper.

Day 18 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. This is good but it has to be brewed just so. I oversteeped the first cup and the woodiness of the rooibos drowned out the flavoring. I was much more careful the second time and stuck to a five-minute steep time. That did the trick. The ginger is not super strong but it does have a noticeable bite at the end. The pear is lightly sweet and juicy. Tasty hot, but even better when allowed to get cold. So for optimal enjoyment, a five minute steep and let it get cold.

Day 17 of Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. I don’t totally get why blueberry & cinnamon is a Christmas blend, but sure let’s go with it. This definitely tastes of blueberry and cinnamon to me. The sweeter versions of both of those, though. Like there’s not really any tartness to the berry or sharpness to the cinnamon. More like blueberry cinnamon frosting. Which is sort of what I wish they’d called this blend.

Day 16 of Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. This smells so cozy. The nuttiness seems distinctly macadamia, both in aroma and flavor. The vanilla shows up more as adding creaminess to the cup than a distinct pure vanilla flavor. There’s nothing inherently wintry about this but it is giving me winter vibes anyway.

Day 14 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. This smells so chocolate-y while brewing, for some reason. But the flavor is spot-on honey and caramel. The nutty, slightly woody honeybush holds those flavors up beautifully. I especially like that the caramel lingers on the palate after the sip. Making quick work of this one.

This is certainly an interesting fruity herbal, though I don’t know if this is dragonfruit. It’s not like that’s a flavor I have often. The hibiscus is evident, and I get mostly apple and strawberry. There’s something else there that isn’t as clear. I do think it’s tasty and suspect it could be excellent iced (but I made it all at once hot so I can’t test that this time).

Plum Deluxe no caffeine advent day 5

A fine black tea. I made one packet hot with a little fruit-infused honey and one packet iced with a little crystalized lemon. I much prefer the iced version (typical for me and breakfast black teas). I don’t really get the orange either way, which might be my fault with the additions.

Plum Deluxe advent day 5

I was skeptical of this based on the name – vanilla and grapefruit didn’t sound like the best combination – but it’s better than I expected. I’m a fan of a grapefruit flavoring and scent. This reads a lot more like a perfume than I would prefer in a drink, and it overwhelms the rest of the tea. I get a little bit of spice in the back of the sip. Something I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy but wouldn’t be mad about having.

Plum Deluxe no caffeine advent day 4

Fascinating as a concept for a tea, and very pretty. Not a favorite flavor for me. It’s hard to pinpoint why, even. The cocoa is pleasant if a little bitter, and the flavor seems balanced well with the tea, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it (then again, I’m also not a fan of red velvet in baking, so maybe that’s all!)

Plum Deluxe advent day 4

Hmm. Day 13 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. They suggest cold brewing this one, so I steeped it overnight. It’s not bad, but I want to try it hot as I suspect I might enjoy it more that way. I couldn’t quite place the flavor until I looked at the ingredients. It was registering as sort of a less-tart, less-sweet raspberry-like flavor. Which, to be fair, is a way one might describe apricot. And “apricot” does match now that I’ve seen it. This is tasty, I just want to play with it more. Maybe add a touch of agave…

Day 12 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. I’d call this a rare miss from them. Hard to tell what’s even going on here; the flavors are just so incoherent. Hot, peppermint is definitely dominant, but the ginger and cinnamon are still very present. Cold, the cinnamon comes to the fore. Either way, the flavors just aren’t melding well. This is a calendar-specific blend, so it’s not up on the website yet. The best I can figure from looking at the ingredients is that this is meant to be an anti-inflammatory blend of sorts. There are lots of ways to get anti-inflammatory blends/tisanes that don’t taste like chaos incarnate, though. I’m finishing what I have – it’s drinkable, at least – but I can’t recommend it and would not intentionally purchase it myself.

Day 11 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. My partner got home today from a work trip. We went out to dinner at a nice Italian place in our neighborhood to celebrate. It’s strange, earlier in our relationship we could spend months apart and it sucked but we managed, but now we get all sappy about spending just a few nights apart. This seems like it would be the perfect after-dinner beverage for that meal! I brewed up the whole packet in a large mug and added oat milk. I had it plain yesterday and found it a bit thin, so I hoped that more leaf-to-water and some oat milk would give it more heft. It still doesn’t really hit the right thickness though. I also can’t help but compare it to Teeccino because it’s meant to be a coffee blend. Maybe if I used even less water, it would be more similar. As it stands, chicory and cacao are the dominant notes almost to the point of drowning out the cinnamon and dandelion root entirely. Which is tasty! But doesn’t taste coffee-like. As a latte, it’s mostly just tasting like chocolate milk. I think this would be more aptly called “roasted chocolate” or “cinnamon hot cocoa” or something like that. Would recommend for that flavor profile, but not as a coffee substitute. Straight chicory will get you closer.

Day 10 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. I don’t get how “pomegranate” translates to “après ski,” but I’m also not a winter sports person so this might just be a knowledge gap on my part. The dry leaf smells strongly and not unpleasantly of pomegranate. The flavor is the same – sweet pomegranate with a touch of astringency. Nice hot, better iced. Reminds me of those bottled raspberry iced teas. 

I had the first packet of this advent tea a few days ago, and went back for the second packet today. A nicely balanced chai with a caramel aftertaste. I gravitate towards ginger or cinnamon chai, but this one was creamy and sweet and I would purchase in the future. I am very much enjoying the Plum Deluxe caffeinated advent!

Well it seems I am way to busy to log the plum deluxe advent I am enjoying I am thankful I have a few minutes each morning to brew a cup. This week I’m on the Southern Californian coast removing ice plant with the Sierra Club. What a beautiful place to work! I typically prefer awesome tea to Ceylon, but this is quite nice. It’s smooth with a dark chocolate undertone and a sweet finish.