Plum Deluxe

Sipdown (2624)!

Finished off this lingering advent sample with some early morning reading! This black tea strikes the perfect balance of smooth, floral notes of linden and creamed honey with brisk, ever-so-slightly astringent top notes of autumnal leaves, malt, and muscatel grapes. Hard to beat a cup of tea and a good book on a lazy Sunday morning…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7__BM1ONSk/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDegEMKzx5M

Adventageddon Day 15 – Tea 2/4

I said just a few days ago that I was really craving more black teas, and the advent selection delivered. I ended up drinking this while at work today and it was perfectly lovely, Nothing especially distinct to the tasting notes; a little honey and a little floral undertone to compliment the smooth, medium body.

I will say that, in the realm of straight black tea, Darjeelings are not a favourite. I find that when they’re bad they’re really bad and it takes quite a lot for one to be exceptional. This was somewhere in the middle, though I’d been craving black tea so badly that it did hit the spot probably more than it would have on a regular day.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C049M5QuHNI/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOEe_-6NY1Y

Day 14 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. The dry leaf smells almost cinnamon-y, but that disappears as soon as it brews up. Brewed, a clear cherry aroma wafts up. This smells and tastes like maraschino cherries with an almost marzipan element to it. With a shorter steep time, I got a little more of the plum flavor to come out, but that cherry stayed dominant no matter what I did.

ETA that this makes a wonderful tea soda!

Day 8 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler ending on a high note! This is probably more chocolate vanilla than chocolate marshmallow but that’s ok. It’s so tasty that I drank down an entire giant latte of it even though it literally made me sick (not the tea’s fault, I’m just sensitive to the base). Chocolate flavor extremely on point, not a whiff of alcohol to be had. The vanilla makes it extra wintry and cozy. A black tea base makes a lot of sense here because of its heft and slight maltiness. I don’t love the hint of astringency that it brings to the party though. So I went back and checked: there were indeed two options this year and I chose the caffeine sampler rather than the caffeine-free. Which explains why all 8 days were caffeinated blends! When there are only 8 days, I think I like a mixed sampler like they did last year better. Especially because FIVE were black teas, with 1 pu’erh and 2 greens. Next year I’ll just get the herbal if they do the two options again. Not a lot of places do Hanukkah samplers at all, so I appreciate that Plum Deluxe puts in the effort and they do have quite a few blends that I like.

Adventageddon Day 14 – Tea 4/4

Cold Brew!

I don’t know if I’ve tried cranberry and grapefruit together before, but it’s a pairing that makes sense to me since cranberry goes so well with both lemon and oranges. This is definitely an enjoyable cold brew, as well. Not super intense in terms of sweetness or acidity, and in general the flavour is a bit more mellow and smooth. Not as weak/flat as the Butterfly Effect blend from yesterday that was very disappointing, though.

I like the amount of body from the black tea, and the cranberry and grapefruit are pretty well balanced. I’d say I taste a smidge more grapefruit – mostly in the backend/finish.

So fun having another cranberry black tea following yesterday’s as well. Both are very good, but I might slightly prefer 52Teas since it was the more cranberry forward of the two. They’re so different from each other that despite the shared flavour and base it feels unfair to compare them. Maybe if I’d steeped them the same way. Maybe.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C02ZiiMU5Dz/?igshid=YzZhTZiNWI3Nw==

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI0bRo96hew

Day 7 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler. This is just a thoroughly middling chai. The clove is very prominent. There’s a hint of lemon. The base is weaker than I’d expect in a chai – both in color once steeped and in sturdiness relative to the spices. Once I added oat milk, it got even more washed out. I’m curious whether this is the same black tea base that they use for their other blends. I would assume so, but it tends to come off stronger in other blends. Possibly there are too many spices and not enough actual tea?

Adventageddon Day 13 – Tea 3/4

Cold Brew!

From memory this is a blend of white and green teas with mango flavouring and a lot of butterfly pea flower. It’s a very, very beautiful tea with a purple-y blue appearance. However, I found it really watery tasting and week without enough distinction from the added flavouring. Just kind of a muddier and forgettable flavour, and though the colour is cool it’s not enough to make up for the very mediocre taste. At least, for me anyway…

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0z38OLuPeM/?igshid=YzZhZTZiNWI3Nw==

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOvYVAHj4Qw

Day 13 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. I like this! I definitely mistook the yuzu for orange, though. Gotta work on that. At any rate, the yuzu-orange and the lemon go together nicely. Not sure what the moringa is bringing to the party but I’m not missing it. I’m more interested in the lingering lemongrass note, which is bright and fresh. Could easily drink through an ounce of this pretty quickly.

Day 6 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler. Starting to suspect there aren’t any caffeine-free blends in the sampler this year, which would be unfortunate. Maybe there were two versions available and I didn’t realize?
On the up side, this blend uses Plum Deluxe’s excellent hazelnut flavoring. The blackberry and hazelnut flavors are both very clear and work well together. It takes oat milk well, though that does drown out the blackberry a bit. While I’m perfectly happy to have a hazelnut latte, the blackberry flavor here is good enough that it’s worth uplifting rather than washing out. A significant improvement over yesterday’s blend!

Adventageddon Day 12 – Tea 3/4

Used both of today’s packets to make a giant iced tea with a generous splash of milk. Not quite a latte, but definitely on the verge. I thought this was pretty good! I really, really like the hazelnut flavour that Plum Deluxe is using – I’ve had it in three teas now and (not all in the advent) and they’ve all really delivered on that front. Overall, the whole thing had a sort of iced coffee vibe – in part because of the earthiness of the pu’erh and because hazelnut creamer is a decently standard flavour addition to iced coffee.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I just don’t love hazelnut and chocolate together and so the more chocolate liqueur type of flavour was definitely my least favourite element of this tea. However, it was still very good and I know that a lot of people love that combination. I think many people would be really into this.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0xPAg6ulwP/?igshid=YzZhZTZiNWI3Nw==

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tIBimP6isA

Day 5 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler. Um… not a fan. To be fair, I’m generally not a fan of pu’erh, but my guess is that this blend also does not use a particularly high quality pu for the base. The berry blend smells and tastes nice, but when that earthy, fishy puerh flavor comes in mid-sip and lingers long after it kind of kills the experience. Second packet of this definitely up for grabs if anyone wants to brave it.

Day 12 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. I’m getting raspberry and apple, but not really picking up any rosemary. Too bad – that would have been cool. Pretty tasty raspberry tea, though. Not too sweet, not too tart, not too strong or too weak. It would probably make a nice tea soda but I’ve already gulped down nearly all of it hot!

Day 4 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler. I’m not sure how I feel about this one. The passionfruit flavor is nice enough, but I don’t know how well it matches the sencha base. I’m picking up a marine note from the base that’s a bit of a weird combo with the passionfruit. The green grass note complements the fruit well, but the marine note just makes it feel a little off. On the other hand, it was very easy to finish off the mug despite not being my favorite. 

Day 11 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. Honestly, I can taste the raspberry in this better than the pomegranate. I’m getting more “tart red berry” than, well, specifically pomegranate. It’s fine but just fine, you know?

Sipdown (2610)!

I was holding out hope that my second tasting of this would be better because I’d have time to pay closer attention to the steeping and really focus in on the flavour now that I’m drinking it outside of Advent Season, but this was actually worse than last time. It’s just so unpleasantly earthy in a really muddy/dusty and musky sort of way. Also made me think of mothballs a bit. Any stonefruit is just lost.

I’d be pretty happy never seeing this tea again in my life.

Adventageddon Day 11 – Tea 1/4

This was not a favourite today, though I absolutely adore the concept of the blend. It’s like a more fun twist on the very overdone Peach Ginger profile. Unfortunately, it was just very earthy tasting – like, past the point of what I would normally expect from ginger. Very raw, kind of musty and just made me think of dirt in a not exactly lovely way. Sort of a shame, because the stonefruit note was pretty nice – it just felt, excuse the pun, buried underneath everything else and I didn’t much love having to dig for it.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0uqf7gOYTS/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgVH28g9TLI

Day 10 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent calendar. Not sure I’m getting the “cookie” part of this, per se, but definitely getting the candy cane. Which is surprising, because Plum Deluxe is really really skilled at landing the cookie flavor. I don’t know if it’s the candy cane note interfering? The front of the sip is soft vanilla. The peppermint comes sliding in mid-sip and leaves a lingering menthol quality on the breath long after. But for the second time today I’m having trouble making out a cocoa note despite there being actual cocoa peel in this blend. My brain just doesn’t really know how to identify this tea other than “gentle creamy mint on a pleasant but undefinable base.” I made the second packet as an oat milk latte. This got it a little closer to “cookie” but softened the mint to a whisper, noticeable mostly in the cooling sensation at the end of the sip and after. This might be the first time I’ve had a cookie tea from Plum Deluxe that I haven’t absolutely loved, sadly. I think the balance is just a bit off for me today.

Sipdown (2565)!

A perfectly fine full bodied and brisk black tea with a gentle nuttiness. Malty, maybe a smidge floral, and just a bit naturally raisin-y. I did find myself disappointed that the hazelnut note was so much weaker than I was remembering it, but I know hazelnut pops up as a flavour in several other Plum Deluxe blends so maybe I was mixing this one up with another tea that also has that flavour in it.

Adventageddon Day 10 – Tea 4/4

Definitely a “middle of the road” sort of tea for me from Plum Deluxe by which I mean there was just enough I liked and just enough I didn’t like for it to even out into something really neutral. Loved the brisk, full bodied black tea base and I’m always a fan of a hazelnut flavour not accompanied by chocolate. I especially thought the light touch of rooibos helped give some foundation for those nuttier notes.

The orange was strange with the hazelnut. Those two flavours definitely don’t go together in my opinion. It was just sort of distracting as I was drinking it. Everything was also really, really even in terms of where the flavours hit on the palate. It gave off this sort of vibe that the tea was flatter and duller than I think it actually was. I don’t know if that makes sense written out (I am exhausted) but that’s what it was like when drinking it…

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0sEWVnuQOF/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDYHWmUCiPQ

Day 9 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. Love both the chamomile flowers in here and the surprisingly juicy peach aroma. The dry leaf smells more apple-y, but the brewed tea smells distinctly peachy. Unfortunately, there’s an earthy quality to this particular chamomile that doesn’t play nice with the sweet, juicy, almost candy-like peach. The flavors just clash with each other. Not a winner for me.

Day 8 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. I’m not a huge fan of fig, so this isn’t my favorite blend so far. It tastes like fig with a citrus tail. Which if you like fig is fine enough, but just not my cup of tea.

Day 3 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler. This smells and tastes incredible, which is a bit of a bummer because I couldn’t finish it due to a sensitive stomach. But it’s a really great balance of maple, sweet apple, and gentle cinnamon on a malty base. With some oat milk, this made for a phenomenal latte.

Day 2 of the Plum Deluxe Hanukkah sampler. Between the TTB and this blend, I’ve had more pear teas in the past couple of months than I’ve probably had in a few years. Yet somehow I keep expecting them not to be very good! Thankfully I have been repeatedly proven wrong. Both the aroma and the flavor are dead on for a nice combo of sweet apple and pear. The base is just sort of inoffensively there – really it just exists as a canvas for the fruit flavors to shine on.

Happy Hanukkah! Catching up on tasting notes after being sick for a few days. I liked Plum Deluxe’s Hanukkah sampler enough last year that I got it again this year. They’ve definitely upped their packaging game – not as nice as the advent calendar but nicer than last year’s sampler. There’s no numbered envelopes so I am just going in order of how they are packed in the box. This kind of black tea/black tea blend often messes with my stomach, so I only taste tested it but my partner drank the rest. I went with an overnight cold brew hoping that it might cut down on the tannic quality but no such luck, or at least not enough of it. It’s still very tannic and brisk. The lemon does complement those qualities well, and for a tea called “fog cutter” I can see why. But also – no. This flavor profile is just so thoroughly not my speed. I don’t want to feel like I’m fighting with my tea. I couldn’t even tell you whether the tea/blend is good relative to its peer group or not, because this kind of black tea is just so not what I personally enjoy that I’m entirely out of my depth.

ETA: My partner, who primarily drinks black tea when he drinks tea at all, added a bit of sugar to this and reported that it’s actually quite enjoyable. So take that for whatever it’s worth.