Adventaggedon Day One – 2/5
Gongfu!
So, back before The Tea Practitioner announced their advent, I was really struggling to decide on a fourth advent. It was at that point that Marika came up with this secret plan to put together an advent for me from Epices de Cru – the spice shop owned by her family, which also has a really solid tea assortment.
Now, Epice de Cru doesn’t actually sell advents so this is one that she had picked out and packaged for me – it’s honestly one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone has ever gotten me around the holidays. I’m also sure it totally confused her parents when I tagged them on IG and announced that I was doing an advent from their store.
Today’s tisane was a slam dunk for me, though! It’s a blend of mostly fir and cedar, with some Labrador Tea and Tamarack. I decided to basically stuff a little tiny glass teapot with as much of the needles and herbs as would fit to brew gongfu earlier this morning. It’s a bit of a lighter tea just by the nature of its ingredient composition, so this is definitely a full rolling boil and long infusion sort of tea. Even still, I found it surprisingly more flavourful than other cedar or fir based tisanes I’ve had. Mostly it tasted of fir – crisp, sweet and woodsy. Really refreshing. I liked the addition of tamarack though, I thought it really did add a pleasant sweetness – a bit honey like and a bit like wintergreen. Of course I liked this tisane though, my predictable palate is on board with any tea that tastes like drinking trees.
I have to say that my only criticism is that the Labrador Tea in the blend feels redundant. It doesn’t detract from the infusion, but I didn’t feel like it added any noticeable body or taste either – and at the end of the day I’d probably take more fir in the blend in place of the labrador tea. That’s splitting hairs, though.
Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClpC3C9OZ7i/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNZu8-d8_8Q
What a sweet and thoughtful gift!
This sounds delicious, and what a lovely gift!
thoughtful surprises are the best.!