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As I expected, I kind of fell out of following my advent calendar once exams finished and I started working more, so now I’m trying to get through the last of it (and will hopefully finish it off before New Year).

I actually forgot I brewed up a pot of this so it sat for…well I’m not actually sure but at least over an hour. Fortunately it was a big pot so it stayed decently warm.

As for the actual tea, it’s fine. I do get chocolate covered almond, but the chocolate is definitely a cheap, waxy chocolate. Kind of wish the almond was a little stronger. There’s a strange sweetness that reminds me of stevia, even though there isn’t any in this blend. I still have a small sample of this, but I won’t miss it.

Advent calendar day 14/24

As much as I’ve become a much bigger fan of straight black teas over the last year (really ever since I had Nepal Black in last year’s advent calendar), I still don’t really go for “breakfast” teas, mostly as I don’t find them all that special.

This is not changing my mind on that. This is very woody and drying and I’m not getting much else out of it. Even at a fairly short steep time of 2 minutes I’m finding it more astringent than I personally want. I could see it appealing to someone more into intense red wines or something similar. It’s honestly not a bad tea, it’s just not my thing.

Advent calendar day 13/24

I still kind of cringe when I see rooibos. By this point I’ve had good experiences and “meh” experiences and really nothing that awful, but I still don’t find myself wanting to drink them, thus I was kind of dreading brewing this one up.

Well this is another that falls under “pretty good,” though by no means something I would want to stock up on. The caramel is the dominant flavour, though still fairly light, with almost a nougat-y vibe as well. I also get vanilla and, if you kind of squint your taste-buds a bit, I can see how this would kind of come across as creme caramel. Kind of. Fortunately, the rooibos really isn’t coming out in this one at all. Overall it reminds me of Tea Forte’s Caramel Nougat, which I was underwhelmed with when I first tried it and then I really liked, so maybe I’ll give this another go one day.

I want to like this one (and in fairness it’s not terrible — the aftertaste is really lovely with strong strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry notes) but I cannot get over the tartness of this. It’s not even that I’m a huge hater of tart teas, but there’s something about the acidity of this that just reminds me of vomit and (unsurprisingly) that’s kind of off-putting. It also kind of reminds me of haskap berries, which in turn reminds me of tomato, which I hate. All around, not a winner, but I will give credit to the aftertaste.

Advent calendar day 10/24

I was kind of surprised to find that I hadn’t had this one before as I remember when it came out and I was on an iced tea kick at the time so I definitely was interested in trying it. Not that it’s a big deal.

So I brewed up a pitcher of this. I never (very rarely) have ice in the house so I usually just brew the tea up hot, let in cool at room temperature, and then pop it in the fridge (or do a cold brew, but I didn’t want to go that route with this one). As a result, it takes a while to actually be “iced” so I just went to bed and decided to have it this morning.

Then I woke up to find 7/8 of it had been drunk by my boyfriend…

In fairness, he didn’t know I hadn’t had this tea before and that I had used up all that I had. Iced tea in the fridge is usually fair game. Fortunately, what I had was just “okay” in my opinion so I’m glad he enjoyed it. The green base is prominent, but I don’t find it particularly stellar. My experience with passionfruit is limited to a gelato I had when I was a kid, but the flavour here seems to match that pretty well, with some pineapple and other fruit notes thrown in.

Again, it’s hard to judge based off the small glass I had.

Had to mark a bunch of exams today so the prof. bought tea to help the marking along. Can’t complain, cause I really needed the caffeine. This was better than last time (i.e. I drank it). Still ending up dumping the dregs cause it just wasn’t worth it at a certain point (especially as I was full from all the pizza, etc. we had to eat). Boosting the rating…slightly.

Day 7/24 of the DAVID’s Tea advent calendar.

This one is supposed to just be Bubbie’s Baklava re-branded, which is absolutely what is it. Super happy about this because Bubbie’s Baklava was always one of my favourites (particularly as a latte, which is how I had it today). I do get more of a cooked apple vibe than I remember, but I don’t know if that’s an actual change in the tea or if this particular sample just had more apple or if I’m just not remembering properly. Whatever it is, it doesn’t take away from the tea. I’ll probably pick up a substantial quantity of this before it disappears (not that I need more tea right now…).

I do find it funny that this was the third tea from the winter collection in a row from the advent calendar. Last year they were more spread out.

Day 6/24 of the David’s Tea advent calendar.

I expected this one to be a lot like Honeycrisp Apple, and I was right in the sense that the apple flavour tastes the same. Unfortunately I find it a little too artificial and candy-like to be all that pleasant. This tea gains back some points in the after-taste, which reminds me of apple-crumble with whipping cream, however it’s not enough to make up for the tea itself.

Day 5/24 of the DAVID’s Tea advent calendar.

I know reviews for this haven’t been fantastic, so I was pleasantly surprised by this. It’s by no means a new favourite, but it did taste more like coffee cake and less like pineapple than I had expected it to based on what I had read. I do get pineapple notes, but mostly cinnamon, caramel, and cake (duh). There’s also something I can’t quite place, but it reminded me of some other teas from DAVID’s.

Overall, this tea does remind me of the cinnamon coffee cake that you can get at Superstore (which does have caramel drizzled over the top), which is awesome because that stuff is delicious. A little drying, but not as much as I found Red Velvet Cake to be.