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12 Teas of Christmas: Day 6

As a maple fiend, I approve this tea! I was really excited to see the name when I opened it up, and even more excited to drink it. It’s such a sweet, dessert-y, breakfast-y delight. The blackberries are abundant and juicily flavorful, and they really complement the maple. To my taste buds, this particular maple flavoring sits somewhere between pure maple syrup and artificial maple pancake syrup. I do find the scent a tad cloying after a bit, but not enough to really put me off this tea.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I appreciated that I could taste more of the oolong on the second steep.

English Tea Shop Advent Calendar: Day 15

I accidentally over-steeped this one while puttering this evening, so I’ll abstain from rating it! It smelled really nice, with sweet berry notes, but there’s a bitter, metallic edge to it that I assume is because I over-steeped it. Or maybe that’s what garcinia fruit tastes like?!

English Tea Shop Advent Calendar: Days 12 & 22

I am woefully behind on my notes for this calendar, but it’s partially because they keep repeating teas!

Day 12 was the first time for this one, though. I’ve got a nostalgic love for any kind of Candy Cane Lane-inspired tea, so I was pleased to see this one. Unsurprisingly, the ingredient list is chock full of random garbage that does not need to be there, but apparently that’s English Tea Shop’s MO.

Anyway, yep, this was a wholly inoffensive minty green tea. No flavors really stand out, and it could do with more of a creamy vanilla flavor to evoke a candy cane/peppermint candy, but it’s fine. Not a best in show when it comes to this flavor profile, but entirely drinkable.

Edit: This one showed up again on day 22, and I’m getting more of the creamy vanilla flavor today. Upping my rating accordingly!

12 Teas of Christmas: Day 5

The dry leaf was 100% underripe banana, which made me nervous — no matter how hard I’ve tried to conquer it, I have a powerful aversion to the flavor of even slightly green bananas.

Happily, the banana flavor is not as strong in the brewed cup. Instead I got a pleasant whiff of smokiness. I love lapsang souchong, so it was a welcome surprise! It’s odd that I couldn’t smell it in the dry leaf at all… maybe my senses are still a bit addled.

I’ve never had bananas foster but I think the smokiness is smart. Maybe a stronger burnt caramel note would help, too?

12 Teas of Christmas: Day 4

This smells amazing, especially dry — so crisp and effervescent! Brewed up, I’m getting heavy notes of citrus and lime and not so much pomegranate. It’s really refreshing, though, and I bet it’d be amazing cold-brewed.

Yawn Advent Calendar: Day 17

I’m wrapping up the first semester of a part-time grad program, and this morning I banged out a draft of my final paper. I was powered mostly by a pot of this chai.

Despite a robust ingredient list, most of the spices here fade to the background behind pepper, ginger, and an unexpected creaminess. Yeah. It’s like a peppery caramel on a weak black tea base. I wonder how it would work with chili pepper instead of peppercorn — I feel like that would make sense, given the name!

As it is, I… weirdly kinda like it?

Yawn Advent Calendar: Day 16

OK, this is ostensibly a coffee-flavored rooibos blend! Interesting! Most of the coffee flavorings in tea tend to remind me of old, stale coffee, not a fresh, aromatic cup. But the coffee in this one actually seems decent. Unfortunately, I’m barely getting any of it, either in small or taste. It’s more a suggestion of coffee.

That said, I can see what they were going for with the cappuccino inspiration. The sweetness of rooibos actually works alongside a gentle creamy, almost caramel flavor to suggest frothed milk. But every flavor is just SO dang light — it needs to be bolder!

Points for trying!

Advent Calendar from Kaylee: Day 14

Decided to try this as an iced tea because I wasn’t really into a hot herbal blend. I don’t know that I’ve ever had an iced rooibos, actually, but I don’t mind it. It seems like the medicinal quality of the rooibos gets tempered a bit. I’m mostly tasting mint and lemongrass, and it’s pretty nice. Not sure where the lavender and rose are going but I don’t miss them in this instance.

Very cooling and refreshing.

12 Teas of Christmas: Day 3

Reviewing this a day late, though I did drink it yesterday!

I’m never gonna be excited to see an Earl Grey, but this was lovely. The bergamot is so delicate, and it’s balanced out by a dose of creamy vanilla. I feel like it’s Earl Grey Lite, and I’m down with that!

Lebensbaum Advent Calendar: Days 4, 5, & 6

Day 4: Blütenkuss (Flower Kiss): Featuring linden, lemongrass, elderflower, lime blossom, lemon balm, and vanilla. “Start your day with a gentle kiss of flowers on your lips and let yourself be enchanted by our special tea.” Well, don’t mind if I do! I actually drank this one on Sunday evening. TIL that linden = lime blossom (not citrus lime, obviously). Despite all the very light-sounding ingredients, this one smells and tastes almost musty when it’s brewed up.

Day 5: Minze, Minze, Minze (Mint, Mint, & Mint): Based on the name, one might expect a minty delight. One would be sorely disappointed. Somehow this is not terribly minty?! Google Translate says the ingredients are “Nana mint, peppermint, apple mint, and white lemon balm” but I just got muddy muted mint.

Day 6: Würziger Winterapfel (Spicy Winter Apple): I glanced at the ingredients quickly, saw “Ceylon,” and assumed this was a black tea blend — perfect for my second tea of the morning. Butttt then I saw that the recommended steeping time is 10 minutes and quickly realized that “Ceylon-Zimt” is Ceylon cinnamon, not tea. Ha!

This is a winter spice blend with wild apple as the first ingredient. I’m not getting much apple, though, just a kind of drying, muddy, almost woody cinnamon flavor followed by a mouth-coating sweetness. I initially thought it came just from the licorice root, but then I realized that “Honigblatt” (literally “honey leaf”) is apparently stevia! There’s maybe a little apple as it cools, but in a weird, kind of sour way. Meh.