Cameron B. select Send Message

Vahdam Advent Calendar – Day 24

Well this seems an odd choice for the last day… Also I don’t see any green tea here, just big, beautiful mint leaves with chamomile, lemongrass, and citrus peel. I’m still steeping it as a green tea, just in case.

Yeahhhh, I don’t taste green tea either. The chamomile is the strongest flavor here, and it’s very soft and honey-sweet. The mint is second, and adds a soothing cool freshness. I also get little pops of gentle citrus from the orange peel and lemongrass.

As a chamomile fan, I like this one. It has a very soothing herbal flavor with a nice mellow sweetness. But I’m not sure why they even bothered with the green tea, since I can neither see it nor taste it…?

Overall, this was a very interesting advent calendar experience. I ordered this with the idea of going outside my comfort zone, as I haven’t had a ton of experience with masala chai and I knew this would have a lot of spiced blends. The format is really cute, with the unique little mini-tins inside numbered boxes. The art on the front of the box is gorgeous as well. However, I admit that I felt the distribution of teas was very unbalanced… There were far too many turmeric tisanes, and a lot of them were close together as well. I didn’t mind the several masala chai teas, as I expected them going in. But I really would have liked to see more straight teas included, especially more Assam teas. Maybe an Indian white tea would have been fun as well? And the price was quite high, at $80 – though there was a lot more tea included than other advents (470 grams!). Overall, wouldn’t recommend unless you really like turmeric…

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJMA9FugSnn/)

Kusmi Advent Calendar – Day 24

Ooh, an adorable little mini tin of this today! And the design is so cute, it matches the advent calendar – teal with gold foil accents. The dry leaf smells surprisingly fruity given it’s mostly a spice tea.

It’s pretty good. I do get the orange, though I feel like I’m tasting other fruits as well (none are listed). It’s a nice sweet orange, which is a pleasant change-up from most orange spice teas. It almost reminds me of those yummy orange slice gummies that are covered in sugar. There’s a soft anise note here as well, along with ginger, cinnamon, and clove. I really like that the clove isn’t the strongest spice, as I’m really bored of the whole “orange & clove” flavor profile. It’s a little Juicy Fruit-y, but I think that’s just a flavor that I tend to find when orange is combined with ginger…

As far as the Kusmi advent overall, it was definitely the prettiest of the bunch, with a lovely soft touch finish. I loved the detail of how the sachets were in perfectly-sized little recesses, with a raised border around them. I will say I was a bit disappointed in the selection, there were a few too many fruit tisanes, which I don’t think is representative of Kusmi’s offerings as a whole. And only Anastasia and White Anastasia for Russian blends! Where’s the St. Petersburg?! Anyway, the teas were certainly high quality, and the colorful wrappers put a smile on my face in the morning. I found the $45 price somewhat reasonable, especially with the two mini-tins.

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJMA9FugSnn/)

Adagio Advent Calendar – Day 24

The last one from Adagio! Unfortunately, it seems like a boring orange spice tea.

Yeah, it’s mostly orange and clove here. There’s a bit of candy cinnamon as well, and an earthy black base.

Inoffensive, but quite boring.

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJMA9FugSnn/)

ETA: Forgot to add my thoughts on the calendar overall!

This was probably my least favorite advent calendar, though we’ve already established that I haven’t had good experiences with Adagio’s teas. I did feel like there was a good mix of different bases and flavors though. The design left a bit to be desired, though I liked the images they fell a bit flat without any metallic or texture detail and a plain semi-glossy surface. I will say, I really liked that the windows were separated into two halves, days 1-12 and days 13-24. This made it much easier to find the number I was looking for each day. I did find one or two teas that I really liked and plan to reorder. This was also the cheapest of my calendars at $29.

DAVIDsTEA Matcha Advent Calendar – Day 24

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!

The last day of advent calendars has come… I have mixed emotions, sad because it has been fun to open those festive doors every day and get tea surprises, but also relieved because with my new spreadsheet it’ll be nice to be able to get a lot of sipdowns in!

I was excited to see this flavor, as I tend to love candy cane teas. I prepared it au lait with 8 ounces of warm water and 4 ounces of warm milk.

It’s very yummy, though a bit weaker than I expected. It has a fresh and very candy cane-like peppermint flavor as well as a bit of creamy vanilla. I don’t mind the sweetness in a flavor like this, it makes sense since candy canes are obviously sweet. I can also taste the vegetal matcha in the background, which is nice. I really like that the flavoring here isn’t as overpowering as some of the other flavors were.

As for the DAVIDsTEA matcha advent overall, it was fun to try. I love the design of it, with all of the asymmetrical little drawers to pull out instead of folding doors. And the flavors were certainly interesting, I liked a few of them. I will say, I thought the matcha chocolates were a letdown, as they mostly just tasted like plain chocolate to me. The gummies were yummy, but mostly just tasted like peach without much matcha flavor. I wouldn’t do this advent again, just because I didn’t really like how sweet the mixes were, but I would recommend it to someone who likes sweetened matcha! It is a little bit pricey at $65 though.

So the last spread from Bonne Maman is plain Honey. I don’t understand why they saved it for the last one instead of doing perhaps the spiced cherry one. But I do like honey, so am perfectly happy to have this one my toast this morning. This has a nice soft floral note that makes me think it’s wildflower honey. Sweet and sticky rich honey goodness!

This is one of my favorite advents and one that I would do every year. The flavors are usually mostly different, as they’re almost all exclusive to the calendar. There was a good range of flavors and I really enjoyed almost all of them, the only exception being the marmalades, which I just don’t like in general. Would definitely recommend!

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJMA9FugSnn/)

Vahdam Advent Calendar – Day 23

Wow, what an unexpected selection from Vahdam! A rooibos with chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon? Sounds delicious though.

It’s quite good. There’s a nice creamy cocoa flavor with the perfect amount of warming cinnamon, and a pleasant caramelly note from the rooibos. It is a bit thin, which isn’t that surprising given that it’s a rooibos…

I’ll have to try playing with the amount of leaf and steeping parameters to see if it can be improved.

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

Adagio Advent Calendar – Day 23

There was a sad little amount of leaf in this packet, so I got out my little 8-ounce teacup and hopefully it doesn’t taste like water… XD

Well, it’s not weak, which is good. However, something here is reminding me of bubblegum? I wonder if this is the same issue I sometimes have with Dammann teas with gingerbread and orange flavoring. There’s a nice amount of hibiscus, it’s pleasantly tart but not sour. Apparently it has cranberry flavor, but I’m not sure I can distinguish that from the hibiscus/orange/apple combo. I can taste the ginger and a little bit of cinnamon.

Overall, it’s not bad. The bubblegum part is weird, but that’s likely just me…

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

Dammann Frères Advent Calendar – Day 23 (from November backlog)

Well I’m nearing the end of these advents. The window for tomorrow in this calendar is larger than all of the other days, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s behind it. This tisane has such a cute name, and there’s a lot of lemongrass in the sachet so hopefully I will enjoy it.

Yum, this tastes like lemon drops! Soft, lemony, and slightly sweet with a nice thick mouthfeel. There’s a bit of creaminess here as well, which makes me think of lemon meringue pie or a parfait with lemon curd and whipped cream.

I’m not a huge herbal tisane person, but I may have to add this to the list to pick up a bag when I order next. It’s like a lovely fluffy cloud of sweet lemon, perfectly for floating off to peaceful sleep… ❤

Palais des Thés Advent Calendar – Day 23 (from November backlog)

Hmm, I have mixed feelings about trying this. I love pear, but blackberry leaf is another story… It can be so cloying.

So this mostly tastes like apple to me. Maybe with a little bit of pear mixed in there? But it’s definitely cooked pear. I don’t really taste the blackberry leaf much, which is a good thing. Maybe a hint of earthy herbal flavor at the end of the sip?

I find this to be a very boring and somewhat bland tisane. The only real flavor here is apple, and even that isn’t very prominent or dimensional. It’s a bit like what I would expect to get if I just steeped a bunch of dried apple chunks in water. Meh!

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