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I was inspired by the lovely and wise VariaTEA to figure out which of my teas are the oldest and sip them down. So I went back through all of my tea purchase emails and order histories and added all of the data to my spreadsheet (also a recent thing). Added a filter view for oldest teas and put the first five into a separate sipdown box to work on!

This happens to be the oldest tea in my cupboard, and it’s from December of 2016! Not only am I slightly embarrassed by that, but also shocked that this still has this much flavor left! I still love this tea, it has such a nice tart cherry flavor that reminds me of the dried cherries I love to eat with cheese and olives. There are pops of other red fruits as well, notably raspberry, and a hint of sakura. Apparently there is blackcurrant here as well, which makes total sense as it does have a dark syrupy note to it.

I have a good amount of this left, so I’ll likely be working on it for a little while. But it’s nice to have such an old favorite in the sipdown box! ❤

The first one from my December Sips by box! This is both the one I was most excited about and the most festive with the apple and cinnamon flavors. The dry leaf was quite dusty and fine, so I only steeped it for 2 minutes. I’m never sure what temperature to go with for green maté, and their website was not helpful, so I used a green tea temperature.

I really like this! This might be the closest to a straight yerba maté that I’ve ever had – the maté itself is front and center. It has such lovely soft and sweet hay and dry grass notes to it, and a mellow earthy herbal-ness that I find really comforting. It’s like somewhere between a white tea and a linden or verbena tisane. The apple is mild but fresh and crisp – it complements the base well. It tastes like a tart apple to me. There’s also just a whisper of sweet cinnamon adding some warmth.

I noticed “coconut sweetener” in the ingredients, but happily I’m not getting a lot of sweetness here. We’ll see how that changes as I get to bottom of the little bag… XD

Kusmi Advent Calendar – Day 23

Holy crap, Dustin wasn’t kidding, this is only licorice!

It’s a combination of fennel and licorice root. Not gonna lie, the fennel is really reminding me of Italian sausage right now… Which is kind of an odd connotation to have with a tea. The licorice root comes in at the end with a big wallop of sweet anise flavor.

I do like licorice, but the beginning of the sip feels a little empty and I can’t stop thinking about sausage… Hmm…

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJJTedoAugd/)

Sipdown! And the last one from my November Sips by box.

This one is fairly good. I like the combination of the cardamom with the custardy vanilla, it almost reminds me of eggnog in a way. But the vanilla can veer a tad bit artificial and cloying, and I feel like the base tea is just wrong for these flavors. It’s sort of harsh and grassy with a definite minerality to it, which conflicts with the creaminess of the vanilla. A softer base would be better, maybe a nuttier green tea or even an oolong.

It’s good, but with limitations that hold it back from greatness!

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 23

Ooh, another linzer tea! I have the one from Dessert by Deb, so it’ll be interesting to compare. I’m not sure I understand the mix of bases here, but I steeped it like a black tea.

Hmm, well I do get cookie from this, and it has a nice buttery sweetness to it. A hint of raspberry in the background maybe? And there’s a teeny bit of sweet cinnamon as well.

It’s a bit thin overall, though. I don’t really get the black tea here, as I can’t taste it at all. Why not just make it a honeybush/rooibos blend? That being said, I’m not really getting much flavor from those two either here. I expect the honeybush is contributing to the cookie-ness, though.

It’s very drinkable and went down quickly, but the flavor and the base are both too light overall, and it comes out tasting a bit bland. Also, needs more raspberry!

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJJTedoAugd/)

DAVIDsTEA Matcha Advent Calendar – Day 23

Oh, boy… This is the one that everyone in the Instagram chat group has been dreading. I don’t hate bubblegum, but am still not thrilled for this flavor. But thinking about how I would enjoy it most, I thought of Ramuné, which to me has a sort of bubble gum-esque flavor. And I happen to have some lemon lime sparkling water in my fridge, so I decided on tea pop! I mixed the matcha with an ounce or so of warm water, then poured over ice and topped with the sparkling water.

I wish I would’ve checked the tea entry before I decided on this, as it turns out this isn’t actually bubble gum flavored… It has apple, pineapple, and vanilla flavors instead.

So it doesn’t really taste like Ramuné. From the matcha I’m mostly getting an artificial chalky note and hints of grass and bitterness. It does seem candylike, but not like bubblegum unfortunately. Harrumph! At least the sparkling water is yummy…

On to happier, jam-filled times! Today it’s Mandarin Spread. Now me and marmalade don’t really see eye-to-eye, so I can’t say I’m stoked about this one… It has quite a bit of bitterness from the peel, which is my main issue with this type of jam. The mandarin flavor is bright and zesty though, and it does taste very similar to clementines, which is the mandarin variety that I eat most often. Still not a favorite though, due to the bitter peel…

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJJTedoAugd/)

I really don’t drink enough Japanese teas. And I feel bad about it, because I get a lovely package of fresh teas from Obubu every quarter, and I’m just not in the habit of drinking them. So once I’m done with advent teas in a couple of days, I’d really like to try to drink a Japanese tea every day, or at least a few times a week. So I chose this hojicha as my last tea of the night in the spirit of that idea! I also bought this particular tea in Kyoto, and had a lovely cuppa in their little tea room. So it brings back nice memories as well.

Going with lazy Western-style in a mug since I’m not going to drag out the kyūsu at 11 PM… I sort of winged the parameters, and the result is delicious. This has a fairly dark color, both in the leaf and the steeped tea, but a surprisingly mellow flavor. Very smooth with notes of light roast coffee and toast, and plenty of the usual autumn leaf and wet wood. Because it’s mellow there’s just a little hint of soft smoke in the background. But my favorite thing about this tea is the lingering clear sweetness that appears at the end of the sip…

Such a perfect tea for a cozy evening, and I slurped down every last drop… :D

Sipdown!

Yay, this was the last one from my October subscription box! Now I can start on the November teas! \o/

This one is just okay for me. It actually reminds me more of a dry hard cider than the usual nonalcoholic kind? There’s something that feels effervescent about it, and it’s not really sweet. I don’t get caramel either, aside from the subtle natural notes of the rooibos itself. There’s also a weird banana flavor? Which obviously seems out of place.

It’s a bit odd, but not unpleasant. There were definitely others that I liked better from this month!

Plum Deluxe Advent Calendar – Day 22

Hmm, another one that seems suspiciously close to an Adagio advent tea that I already had. Not that I’m complaining, it’s nice to see something other than a black tea or herbal from this calendar. My sample was huge, so I had to get out a bigger mug… XD

It’s not bad. It does taste like it has flavoring to me, which isn’t listed in the ingredients. Mostly I get soft ginger, cardamom, and clove with a little bit of coconut added in. The lemongrass comes out toward the end of the sip as well. I can taste the white tea just a tiny bit in the background, and it does add a nice body.

It’s inoffensive, not something I would ever order but pleasant enough to have one cup of.

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJG5NvpANyn/)

Kusmi Advent Calendar – Day 22

I assume this is the same as the Mango-Passion Fruit white tea from Løv Organic, which I remember enjoying. I still have a couple of unopened boxes of sachets of the Peach-Blackcurrant version that was my favorite of the three. But I’m glad one of them made the transition to Kusmi! The aroma is a nice mix of passion fruit and mango, with the former dominating.

Yummy, this is quite good. I’m pleasantly surprised that I can taste the white base quite clearly, as the aroma was very strong on the flavoring. It’s a generic bai mudan with soft and mellow hay and grain notes and a hint of mustiness. There’s an unexpected minerality to it, and looking at the ingredients, I think it’s the green tea. The flavoring is very juicy and authentic, and I think I get the passion fruit more at the beginning of the sip, while the end reminds me of biting into a fresh mango. There’s a light creaminess in the aftertaste that reminds me of mango lassi, and a whisper of floral.

I like this one! I think I could do without the green tea, but that’s a minor criticism. I’m not sure I need this one in my cupboard however, just because I already have both passion fruit and mango teas that I really love…

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJG5NvpANyn/)