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Origines Advent Calendar-Day 5
As its name already indicates, this is a litchi tea, on a white and green tea blend base. The base teas are nice big leaf teas of good quality, and the litchi flavourings are natural, not overly sweet (which I honestly was afraid of) and well in harmony with the rose petals and rose extract also used here. Litchi in nose and mouth, but it stays elegant, naturAL and not over the top…

Origines Advent Calendar – Day4
Indeed, I´m having some delay writing my tasting notes of the advent calendar teas ;-)
Origines tells me this tea is a “sobacha”, or a tea with “soba”, or buckwheat…I think this is a first for me, and I just adored it! I´m already preparing a trip to Japan, but as I´m really fascinated by the country, I´m afraid to go too early, i.e. to go w/o enough preparation…so, now I really want to try more sobachas :-))
I smell cacao when opening the pouch; this turns to something malted (cf. in ale) once steeped. And it drinks like a very aromatic chocolatey drink…nice!

Origines Advent Calendar-Day3
Tropical fruits like mango blend well with rooibos, I think. This is an example of it, really enjoyable both in nose and mouth. It´s quite surprising that it “breathes” mango, while the pieces of fruit in this blend are really apricot so the entire mango vibe comes from the natural aromas added.

Advent Calendar Origines-Day2 : Douce Harmonie
green/white tea base of good quality. The natural strawberry flavourings stand out in the nose. The rose petals and extract are not overwhelming (some similar teas almost seem perfumes ;-) not my cuppa BTW). Long finish.
This fruity floral tea reminds me so much of a typical British afternoon tea, to acompany high tea, in a tearoom with Laura Ashley designs for decoration…all the while reading a Jane Austen novel ;-)

This year I ordered a wonderful tea advent calendar…of a French company I hadn´t heard of before, Origines. I saw their tea and coffee (which I also bought, to share with my husband) advent calendars and they convinced me with their intention of making an advent calendar to be enjoyed by a family or a group of friends as every pouch has enough tea (or coffee) for quite a few cups (15-20g for tea, 40g for coffee). Furthermore, the calendar comes with a leaflet giving a lot of information about the tea blend (or the origin of the coffee beans), practical information to brew and taste the tea/coffee…and the ingredients are all bio as well!
So far (I´ve tasted a few already, as I´ll be travelling soon to my parents´place and I don´t intend to take my teas with me) the blends have been really great, and I can only recommend Origines´advent calendars.

Advent Calendar Day 1 – Earl Grey des Amoureux
Not the usual earl grey as the main citrus notes come from yuzu, and in nose yuzu and rose blend together wonderfully. Pale yellow in colour and particularly floral in mouth, which makes this overall a very elegant tea, maybe too easy going on the taste buds to have it at breakfast…

This is the other tea my friends Rahel & Kees gave me as a present when we saw each other (we had seen Rahel “only” ;-) 6 years ago, but Kees I hadn´t seen for 30 years!!!) 10 days ago.
Also black tea based (Rahel & Kees surely knew what I like!) with added sea buckthorn and juniper…which gives a fresh aromatic touch to the tea, both dry as steeped. As I prepared my cuppa in a glass mug, I could also enjoy the really nice dark cupper colour of the steeped tea.

My friends Rahel & Kees changed their programmed trip to Brussels to come to Leuven on my last day there before returning home, and they had a nice present for me (apart from the wonderful afternoon we spent together) : 2 Dutch tea blends.
This one is from a Den Bosch based company indicating “exclusive Amsterdam tea” : a black tea (Ceylon) base with touches of speculaas, orange and “stroopwafel”…good to read the intention, as the list of ingredients is long and makes it hard to see this intention. In nose the dry blend is full of spices, but way more balanced than the average Christmas blend, for instance; once steeped, the spices make an elegant addition to the nice black tea backbone w/o overdoing it (OK, maybe a tiny bit too much of the cloves!)…great effort!

Another (herbal) tea I tried at my friends Cathy&Frank´s place. I normally don´t really enjoy herbal teas, but this blend I found great…the fennel, aniseed and licorice are really in balance, with all adding a natural sweetness to the tea w/o the need to add sugar.

I´ve just returned from a 4000+km road trip to my parents in Belgium. On my way back I managed to meet up with good friends I hadn´t seen in 12 years, so we spent many an hour chatting over a cup of tea, a glass of beer or wine :-) One morning, I drank this tea. Similar to a standard Earl Grey with less prominence of bergamot, soft on the whole with orange lending a sweet touch. Not bad at all, although I tend to like stronger teas in the morning.

Another teabag picked up in UK. In nose quite boring lacking character. The pouch indicates “Brew for 3-4 mins (or longer if preferred)”, and indeed, this long steeping time could well be ok for the tea doesn’t taste as bitter as the Twinings EB I had yesterday at similar steeping conditions.