Christmas Wreath

This tea has a very nice warmth to it. It brings to my mind images of a cold winter evening, sitting in front of the fireplace, watching snow fall outside a window.
At first I noticed the cinnamon. It’s not strong, but it is definitely present. Then there are apples, and I believe clove. All the elements are balanced, nothing really is overpowering anything else. On the other hand, there isn’t really anything to hang your hat on. All the elements are mellow and relaxing and cozy, which is I think what Lupicia was going for with this blend. I wonder how a dash of brandy would be in this? All in all, a pretty decent cup of tea, with a very evocative flavor and aroma.

This is a festive black tea with apples, cranberries and spices. It’s very heavy on clove and cardamom, with some cinnamon thrown in for good measure. It feels like a classic European Christmas tea, probably due to the old-world spice combination.

The fruits are present, but take a back seat to the clove and cinnamon. The tea is standard black Lupicia that doesn’t overwhelm the flavourings but isn’t overpowered by them either. The perfect behind the scenes support.

It’s a very solid holiday tea that does a great job of invoking the festive season, but I prefer Mariage Freres Espirit de Noel if you’re looking for teas with this flavour profile. It’s not a hard one to find this time of year, but a lot of “holiday blends” overwork the cinnamon/cloves or don’t counterbalance them properly with a zesty fruit.

An overall solid choice but not best in class.

Y’all remember tea party? Well, I haven’t mentioned it but after a 53 week hiatus, tea party resumed. There are just two of us now, myself and my guest, but once we were all vaccinated we started back up! And today was tea party day.

I ordered this because it was a Christmas tea with Christmas in the name that was NOT simply black tea with orange, cinnamon, and clove.

It smelled really good when I opened it, and when the hot water hit the leaves. I was pretty sure I would enjoy it. I like the cranberry flavor! The cardamom is really nice. As for the “other spices”, they were clove. All of them. Ha ha! I like the smell of clove and I like the taste of a leeeetle bit of clove, but much clove becomes too much clove for me. When nice and hot the clove is good in this, but as it cooled I would have liked less clove. No worries, I will reheat it or drink it faster in the future.

I thought it was great, and my guest loved it, as she has the other Lupicia Christmas blends I ordered. She is turning 82 next week at our annual Christmas tea party, which we had to miss last year. I did put a big gift bag on the porch for her to pick up last year, though, pre-vaccines!

Thanks again to Cameron B for allowing me to try these Lupicia teas! This one sounded intriguing… the black tea leaves look quite small but doesn’t result in a pitch black cup. It’s quite light actually. So I don’t believe any or many CTC black tea leaves are used here. The flavors that I’m supposed to be tasting don’t seem to be here though: black currant, cranberry and apple? Not really. Somehow what this tea reminds me of most of all, is 52Teas Coconut French Toast with Cardamom. There is mostly a cardamom flavor with otherwise a general feeling of baked goods. It’s tasty but a surprise when there should be other flavors here. The second steep somehow became more of the flavors it was supposed to be… more hints of fruit and cinnamon, less baked goods and cardamom.
Steep #1 // 1 teaspoon for a full mug // 16 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep

Holiday Tea-son! I am saving the tea that came out of my Bird & Blend advent calendar for my Doctor Who viewing this Sunday, so I’m making this sampler I got from an expired Lupicia holiday pack last April during a mottainai sale for my work thermos today

The brewed tea smells very fruity, with some spice notes. The base tea is fairly strong and produces some drying astringency after the sip. The tea has a somewhat sweet apple flavor, and there is a slight cinnamon flavor after the sip, but it is quite subtle. There is supposed to be cardamom and currant notes in this tea, but I’m not really picking up on either. The black base is quite robust, and it feels more like a weak apple/cinnamon flavoring over the top.

Not my favorite. I’m really only getting much of an apple flavor, and I prefer Lupicia’s Apple Black a lot more than this. If the other flavors had presented themselves, that may have changed my feelings some. I suspect the sampler sachet vs. the loose version of the tea may make a big difference, too; looking at the sachet I’m not seeing any full cardamom pods or cranberry pieces like in the picture here on Steepster, it pretty much just looks like plain black tea leaves. I’m assuming there are only a few flavorings in the sachet version?

Sipdown! (6 | 135)

Finishing this off, as it’s in my “5 oldest teas” box. It was from November of 2021, so not too terribly old…

This is such a cozy tea. There’s nothing amazing or exceptional about it, just a nice combination of mellow cooked apple with soft cinnamon and cardamom, all on a smooth and mild black base. It’s sort of a low-key apple pie tea, and perfect for both autumn and the holidays.

We’ll see if it makes it into my cart if I end up making an order from Lupicia this winter. Definitely worth a try!

This tea is full of flavor, but none of the flavors are super bold. There is warm, sweet cinnamon along with a darker clove note, and then there is a bright apple flavor that is really lovely. Lupica does apple flavors very well. I don’t taste the cranberry except for a slight hint of tartness as the tea cools.

I didn’t drink this at Christmas time, but today we had our first snowfall, so it’s been nice to sit and drink this while watching the snow fall outside.

Thank you, Naylynn for sharing this with me!

This smells like everything I want in a Christmas tea – apples, fruit, sweet, spice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger… The tea base is very strong though and without adding cream and sugar, the apple didn’t really come out. It doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of the scent, but I will allow room for it being operator error in steeping. :)

Thanks, NayLynn, for including this in the Christmas card swap!