Holiday Tea-son! New month, new theme, so this month I’ll be trying to crack out all the random holiday blends I have sitting around my house from years past, as well as working on my advent calendars (I didn’t go like, Cameron B. crazy on them, so I only have Bird & Blend’s 24 day one and 52Tea’s 12 Days of Christmas one). I don’t have an abundance of what I would consider holiday blends, so I might just throw in some flavors that seem to fit, or finally put progress toward the ol’ sipdown goal. My New Year’s Resolution is to make some major progress on sipping down my tea collection and freeing up space on my tea wall, and cutting down my tea spending by half (or more) next year.
So this is my first Bird & Blend advent calendar tea, an Irish Cream coffee inspired blend. Unlike most tea drinkers I know, I am not coffee adverse, I drank it for a good decade or more… in fact, I’m new in the scheme of things when it comes to the tea game. I had to go off of coffee to determine if caffeine was one of my migraine triggers, but I was so used to that “warm” drink in the morning I bought a bunch of bagged herbals from the store to make those few months of hell easier. After one month of worse headaches from caffeine withdrawal, one month off, then month three reintroducing caffeine, it was determined it had no effect on my migraines at all: didn’t trigger them, didn’t make them better (it can do both). So I could start drinking coffee again. But I’d been so impressed with the variety in tea, I just stuck with tea, and started exploring it’s caffeinated options at that point. I still can (and will) drink coffee, and like the taste. So there isn’t going to be any “Oh boo, coffee evil!” from me here. In fact, they absolutely nailed the aroma of Irish Cream here (at least, the flavoring, I’ve never had proper Irish Cream in coffee… alcohol definitely is something that gives me migraines!)
The flavor is quite nice for what they are going for… it does have that slight liquor sort of bite at the end of the sip, it’s quite sweet with some creaminess, very mild cocoa notes, with a nice roasted coffee flavor. But the coffee flavor is making me want a strongly caffeinated cup, so I’m a bit confused why this is on a rooibos base… perhaps the sweet/honeyed rooibos made the flavors pop more, since black tea would be quite malty and dominate the flavors more? It just feels like an odd juxtaposition, since my brain associates the coffee flavor with a morning drink, but the rooibos blend with a relaxing evening herbal. I’m sure all the blender was going for was trying to mimick the flavor as faithfully as possible, but sometimes practicality needs to stump ingenuity.
I enjoy the taste. But I have other blends with coffee beans in them, and they are on black, pu-erh, or roasted yerba mate bases, and I prefer them more as they know what they want to be: caffeine rescue drinks. This is little more than a novelity.
Flavors: Alcohol, Caramel, Cocoa, Coffee, Cream, Roasted, Sweet
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I’ll take that as a compliment. ;)
I will be enjoying reading the advent notes from everyone who bought them. :D
I’ve been enjoying reading them too!
I bought mine back in November and have had them stashed away, heh. I made an Advent Calendar using teas from my collection and gave it to a friend for his Christmas present. :-D (Hey, that gets rid of some of my over-abundance of teas, and isn’t bad for a DIY Christmas gift, especially since he seemed to like it!)
Oh that IS a cool idea to get rid of excess teas. haha.
Hee hee, “didn’t go Cameron B. crazy!” I’m same as you, although I never received my 52 teas one. I got Tea Revv and T2. I considered this one but am glad I didn’t because this first one sounds like something I’d like to like, but wouldn’t. And I hate when the first one out of the box is one I don’t like…I’m looking at you, Tea Revv…
And I feel the need to mention that I’ve not actually communicated with 52 Teas yet, so please no one consider my comment as a negative one against them. If it was sent, someone probably swiped it off my doorstep because that has been happening some in my otherwise nice suburban neighborhood. But I don’t want to imply any shadiness or lack of help from 52 Teas!
I fully understand if everyone wants to unfollow me for the month of December, LOL!
@Mastress Alita – I love your idea for a homemade tea advent calendar! If I’m still around next year, maybe I’ll organize a secret swap sort of deal where we all exchange calendars… That sounds fun!
The 52Teas ones haven’t been shipped out yet, TreeGal. They are 12 Days, not 24, so they are on a later schedule. Also Anne got hit with some menangitis in the middle of November that set her back quite a bit. She was in the hospital for a week straight at one point.
Oh, how awful! I’m extra glad I hadn’t contacted her yet! Thanks for letting me know so that I wasn’t adding extra stress!
@Cam I was actually considering posting about doing a swap where people make their own advent calendars and send them to people.If you did that next year I’d totally be in!
I’ll take that as a compliment. ;)
I will be enjoying reading the advent notes from everyone who bought them. :D
I’ve been enjoying reading them too!
I bought mine back in November and have had them stashed away, heh. I made an Advent Calendar using teas from my collection and gave it to a friend for his Christmas present. :-D (Hey, that gets rid of some of my over-abundance of teas, and isn’t bad for a DIY Christmas gift, especially since he seemed to like it!)
Oh that IS a cool idea to get rid of excess teas. haha.
Hee hee, “didn’t go Cameron B. crazy!” I’m same as you, although I never received my 52 teas one. I got Tea Revv and T2. I considered this one but am glad I didn’t because this first one sounds like something I’d like to like, but wouldn’t. And I hate when the first one out of the box is one I don’t like…I’m looking at you, Tea Revv…
And I feel the need to mention that I’ve not actually communicated with 52 Teas yet, so please no one consider my comment as a negative one against them. If it was sent, someone probably swiped it off my doorstep because that has been happening some in my otherwise nice suburban neighborhood. But I don’t want to imply any shadiness or lack of help from 52 Teas!
I fully understand if everyone wants to unfollow me for the month of December, LOL!
@Mastress Alita – I love your idea for a homemade tea advent calendar! If I’m still around next year, maybe I’ll organize a secret swap sort of deal where we all exchange calendars… That sounds fun!
The 52Teas ones haven’t been shipped out yet, TreeGal. They are 12 Days, not 24, so they are on a later schedule. Also Anne got hit with some menangitis in the middle of November that set her back quite a bit. She was in the hospital for a week straight at one point.
Oh, how awful! I’m extra glad I hadn’t contacted her yet! Thanks for letting me know so that I wasn’t adding extra stress!
@Cam I was actually considering posting about doing a swap where people make their own advent calendars and send them to people.If you did that next year I’d totally be in!