Silent Night

Wasn’t a bad tea but just didn’t taste great to me. Definitely tasted the citrus notes but there was an after-taste to it that put me off the taste of this.

I taste the orange and some nuttiness. It’s not the most unique flavor combination, but it’s decent cold. It’s a refreshing combination, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on that I’d prefer tweaked a bit. Maybe I need to underleaf this one for my preferences. I just feel like I’ve had better versions of this tea.

Backlog and Sip Down

I had this toward the end of the shift on Monday due to having struggles with sleeping. It’ll take ages to get to sleep and then I will be in bed longer than I’d prefer.

Anyway, I tossed the remainder of the (Advent) tin into the brewing device. I forgotten about it for a little over or around the hour mark when I first decided to make tea… It’s rooibos heavy, but I like rooibos, so I didn’t mind. There were light clove and citrus notes which were pleasant, but the rooibos took the mainstage in the cup. Maybe if I had sipped this sooner, the spices would have been more predominate. No fault in the tea, though, I let it sip too long before getting back to it.

Day 18 Davids Tea Advent Calendar 2023

I didn’t realize it was it was a rooibos tea until I opened the tin but the minute I took the lid off, it was evident. I have not had great experiences with rooibos in the past but generally find them tolerable. This was a pleasant mug with orange and spices. I’m glad I didn’t finish the tin because it is a good one for these late winter evenings.

I’m not usually a fan of rooibos tea. I find sometimes the leaves can be really overpowering and dominate any other flavour that’s apparently in the tea and then the tea itself just starts to taste like soap after a while.

But my friend and I were making Christmas cookies, and she suggested a tea from her advent calendar, and this was the one we picked because it was sometime in December. The pumpkin spice gave this tea a really nice body, and more spice than I was expecting so it had a nice mouthfeel. It was slightly herbal from the valerian and did actually taste like orange, so, there you go. A rooibos tea I didn’t totally hate.

This one tastes like an herbal version of constant comment. The orange and spices in this one are balanced. I would’ve expected a concept like this to result in the spices overwhelming the base. The orange is the star in this one and it works. My grandmother ordered a bag of this one and shared some with me. I love that this one isn’t a spicy cinnamon tea. It’s a good one for the holiday season.

A new winter tea that quietly launch earlier in the week!

Back when we were in the brainstorming phase of this year’s holiday assortment, someone had made a comment about the 12 Nights of Christmas (I honestly can’t remember the context) and I made an offended joke like “at that point just make a holiday sleep tea called Silent Night”. It obviously stuck, and we ran with it!

So yeah, this is definitely a blend intended to be relaxing/restful – something that most of us probably need during the holidays. Other than just having a more gentle flavour, the main thing that gives this tea that quality is the addition of Valerian root. When it comes to sleep, ingredients aren’t one size fits all (DT has a whole podcast episode on that, actually) but Valerian is one that we do get asked about a lot and I realized that right now we don’t actually have a sleep tea with Valerian that doesn’t also contain chamomile – and that’s a problem for people with ragweed allergies or who, like me, just don’t like chamomile.

As far as flavour goes, we went with the direction of a gently spiced and warming orange flavour. There’s something about the combination of spices – cinnamon in particular – and orange that just feels so wintery and cozy during snaps of cold weather. I thought it was the perfect direction while also being distinguished from the rest of our sleep assortment. The orange has a bit of brightness to it, and is more prominent than what’s in The Spice Is Right (now renamed Orange Spice) while the notes of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg are all more light handed. For people looking for a “Chai” I definitely don’t think the spices used here are at the intensity level to warrant that descriptor.

I don’t know – I guess I’m just pretty proud of how this one came out considering it started in a very non-serious sort of way compared to how most of our tea blend concepts come about. It feels really elevated and I can very much picture someone curdled up by their window sill on a really calm winter’s night watching a gentle snowfall with a cozy mug or pot of this tea – some kind of classic holiday movie playing softly in the background.

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.