Yawn

This blend didn’t say “popcorn” to me at all. And also they added tartness to my beloved rooibos. Definitely not my cuppa.

With apple and orange present, poor pumpkin didn’t stand a chance. And then cinnamon? Fuhgeddaboudit. I like the black tea base more than just a straight fruit blend, cos that usually just tastes too much like hot apple juice, but this still isn’t for me.

I appreciate that this blend keeps it simple. It’s apple, and it has apple, and it’s apple-y. The addition of hibiscus adds juuuuust that touch of tart I don’t love. But you might! =)

Of note is that this is the first “candy cane” blend I’ve tried that isn’t minty; in my book, that’s a wonderful thing. Interesting blend—what with the popped rice with the black tea ‘n’ all—and interesting flavour. Kinda toasty, a little sweet. Always happy to try any tea at least once, but not sure there’s anything here that would compel me to try it again.

There are a whole lot of ingredients in this blend that tastes only like apple and clove and cinnamon. Hard for anything else to shine through when clove and cinnamon are around. Bit tart for my tastes.

This was the second tea in Yawn’s 2021 advent thingy. I can’t find it on their site, though, so not sure it was worth the effort of adding and logging it.

The last time I thought, “What sorcery is this?” was when I spread Biscoff on toast. Funnily enough, this time it’s about drinking biscuits (cookies), not spreading them on toast. I don’t know how they combined berries and flowers to make cookies, but I’d be a lot slimmer if I could figure that out.

Anyway this is delicious and I super duper recommend it.

This one smells super chocolatey and tastes like chocolate-covered cherries. The long and diverse list of ingredients confuses me, because in the end it still tastes straight-up like chocolate-covered cherries, so I’m not sure what—if anything—all those other ingredients add to the mix.

Be a little careful steeping this one. In my thus far limited experience of Yawn tea, the black tea base they use tends to get bitter pretty quickly. I’d stay close to the three-minute mark and be generous with the cream and/or sweetener, if that’s your kind of thing.

If you like chocolate-covered cherries, I think you’ll like this one. I love them and love this. And while I couldn’t find any info about particular certifications, this is vegan.

You know how sometimes when you’re painting you start out with these lofty aspirations of colour experimentation? I’m just going add a dash of this, and a dash of that, and… And in the end the beautiful hue you were hoping to create resembles something not entirely unlike … mud?

That’s this tea. It is … not good. It seems like it would be lovely, on paper, but no. Sadly, the result is a thing whose fragrance made my nose crinkle and whose taste made my tongue try to mimic my nose. I can’t even describe why it’s so awful, it just is.

I don’t have the heart to rate it, just stashing this note here so I don’t accidentally buy it.

Ach, I’m so far behind on logging my slurps! I’m not saying I bought too many advent calendars this year, because what even is that, but…

Anyway. Yawn is a brand new to me (and apparently to Steepster, so I guess I’ll be adding a bunch of new blends to the database) and now that Christmas has come and gone, I’m cheating by reading the back of their advent calendar box and just selecting whichever tea I feel like trying. Today we start with number 24, the last in the box.

Star anise is an interesting choice here. Black jellybean flavour wouldn’t be my first choice to add to a gingerbread blend, but it works pretty well. What I like most about it is that you get a nice and mild liquorice-y flavour without the usual coating of the tongue and throat that liquorice in tea tends to do. Maybe it’s just me, but liquorice teas always make me scramble for the tongue scraper when I’m done.

What’s a little less nice is that no matter how you shake it, anything liquorice-like doesn’t know how to be subtle; consequently, while the other spices give this blend a nice sort of roundness and depth, it’s still blatantly liquorice-y. Still, it’s quite nice.