Plum Deluxe

Advent tea! Sweet tea with a slight chocolate aftertaste. The puerh base makes it savory and salty. I would probably overleaf a cup, especially in the morning like I am drinking it now. That may bring the chocolate out? It is an easily drinkable cup and I would add it to an order.

Advent tea! This has an ok strawberry note, but it smells more like strawberry than it tastes like strawberry. The finish is astringent. Might make a nice iced tea, so I’m confused as to why it’s in a holiday advent. Not something I need to try again.

Last blend in the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler! This smells so good while it’s steeping. The white chocolate, peppermint, and coconut scent just wafts at you alluringly. Those same notes translate into the flavor, too. With a splash of oat milk, it’s a perfect wintry dessert tea. Theme-wise, this is probably more of a Christmas or generic winter blend than a specifically Hanukkah blend, but it’s so tasty that I’m willing to forgive it. In general, I feel like this year’s Hanukkah sampler didn’t have any holiday-specific flavors/themes that I picked up on. But most of the blends were tasty, the price point is very reasonable ($12 for 16 packets, each with enough leaf to make 2 regular or 1 large mug), it’s packaged nicely, and I can see that they’re working to make this offering better every year. All of those things keep me coming back to this sampler, and I expect that I’ll be getting it again next year.

Advent tea! This is very lightly berry flavored green tea. Maybe it’s blueberry aside from any other berry? Whatever berry it is, it’s quite smooth and drinkable, a perfectly good afternoon cuppa. Not something I need in my cupboard, but glad I got to try.

Advent tea! This has a burnt toffee, sweet caramel vibe. I can even taste the pecan. I wish I had more of this tea and would switch it out for a few of the other ones in the advent. This reminds me a bit of OBTC pecan pie.

Boo, it’s already the 7th night of Hanukkah! At least I’ve been having fun with it – lots of latkes and sufganiyot, candle lighting, cute socks, my epic holiday playlist on repeat, family time, crafting, and presents. I just finished applying gloss to a Hanukkah repaint of a vintage Polly Pocket McDonald’s toy, so fingers crossed that works out well! This is the second to last tea in the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler. Good news: it’s not hurting my stomach. Alas, it’s still an Earl Grey, which means lots of bergamot. It’s fine for an EG, but there’s too much bergamot for my tastes. I do like the creamy note from the vanilla and the base tea is nice enough. Hard to get past the bergamot of it all though.

Arbitrarily selected day 6 of the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler. Who knew pear and chestnut would go well together? Even more surprising, I liked this better cold than hot. I think of chestnut as more of a hot-tea flavor but the fruity pear here seems to portal it into iced-tea territory.

Day 25 and final day of  the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free advent calendar. Bit of a bummer that this is the last one, just because it’s not my favorite. I can see why it was chosen, though – spicy orange is a pretty classic Christmas flavor. I like that this goes for ginger instead of clove. That makes it a little different than the usual, plus I generally love ginger. I don’t know though, this just isn’t hitting the spot for me. And the base is one that I’m sensitive to, so it doesn’t really seem worth continuing to drink this if I’m not enjoying it. Folks who like orange-clove blends and don’t have issues with black tea would probably like this, though!

Did every tea in this advent calendar bowl me over? No. But I consistently found myself pleased to have something from this calendar for my evening cuppa and drank through it pretty quickly. There were some particularly notable blends – candy cane herbal, chocolate caramel macadamia nut herbal, and warm hibiscus herbal come to mind. I’ve bought this calendar in the past and something I appreciate is that they don’t do a lot of repeats year-to-year. At $48 and free shipping on my order, this came out to 96 cents per sample bag. Each bag had enough leaf for either two regular-size mugs or one large mug. This year, for both convenience and in order to avoid dealing with a bunch of little opened baggies, I made every sample bag in a large mug rather than deal with portioning it out. It’s not an incredible value but I’m ok with that price point. It’s nicely packaged in a lovely tin, individual numbered envelopes, and some useful tracking tools. And it’s a nice way to try out a wide variety of their blends, which is ultimately what I get these calendars for. Very likely that I’ll get it again next year.

Day 24 of the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free advent calendar. I tried this one both straight and as a latte. I think I liked it more as a latte, but it was surprisingly tasty straight and cold too. Plum Deluxe has a pretty yummy maple flavor that I enjoyed here. I have never actually had cherimoya so I don’t know whether this is a fair representation. But this has a tropical-fruit note that goes surprisingly well with maple. I wouldn’t object to playing around with this some more. Also now I’m keeping an eye out to try custard apple!

Randomly selected Day 5 of the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler. With a long steep, the hibiscus was too strong. So I tried a four-minute steep for the second packet. That didn’t get me great results either – the flavor was overall a bit thin but still primarily hibiscus-tart. Mostly this just tastes like a hibiscus blend with a creamy, almost vanilla element. I like hibiscus so it was fine, but definitely not one for the anti-hibi crowd.

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