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Advent Calendar Day Twenty-Three

Second tea of the calendar that I’ve tried before/own; though yesterday I was quite thankful it was one I had familiarity with because I had my abscessed tooth pulled early yesterday morning and I spent the majority of the day groggy, and in varying degrees of pain. So sticking to things I had familiarity with was a good plan, I think. Really enjoyed the cherry notes – it was something smooth and comforting for my sore mouth.

Also, I’m feeling much better today – for the record! No pain, just adjusting to the weird hole/gap in my tooth line….

Advent Calendar Day Twenty Two

So, I’m behind on posting advent calendar notes – but only ‘cause I’m at my mom’s for the rest of the holiday now. So, for everyone here on Steepster celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or anything in between or otherwise: Happy Holidays! May they be spent drinking good tea in good company!

This tea was alright – it’s a spicier one, so not my favourite from the calendar by a long shot. However, it’s much heavier on the fennel and clove, and those are some of my preferred of the different ‘spice in tea’ options so it could be worse. The finish is very licorice root-y, though. Which is kind of… meh?

But not the worst tea!

Advent Calendar Day Twenty-One

Tragedy has struck, tea friends!

I slept in this morning, so in my rush to get out of the house and catch my bus I didn’t have time to brew my advent tea, so I grabbed the sample and tossed it in my bag. I had intended to drink it at work for lunch. However, when I went to do so the bag of tea was missing! I figured that I’d probably left it on the counter and, in my sleep deprived state, had maybe only imagined I’d tossed it in my bag.

Well, I just got home from my second job and… the tea is no where to be found.

So, this is basically a tasting note to say that I didn’t get to taste the tea. I have absolutely no clue where I lost it; but it’s gone and I’m incredibly bummed out/sad because I feel like my advent experience is incomplete now! Something that’s been a key part of my day for twenty days in a row now is just gone.

So on that notes…

If anyone, perhaps from the group order(?), happens to have any of this on hand I will HAPPILY pay you to send me a sample of it. I don’t need much – just a cup or two worth. It’s really bothering me that there’ll be ONE tea from the advent I wont have tried though so if I can get my hands on some that’d be great!!!

Advent Calendar Day Twenty

Ok, so I 100% understand the need to incorporate a no frills Chai into the advent calendar because the flavour profile definitely does fill a gap flavour wise. Plus, it’s hard to argue against Chai being seasonally appropriate…

So, I get it. I just don’t like it.

And really that’s no surprise; I’m not a lover of Chai and this one is very clearly a bold, classic style Chai. The best I can do is focus on the elements of the blend that I DO like; that primarily meaning I trying to hone in on the clove flavour. It’s hard to do with how balanced this is, though…

Not rating; clearly I’m too biased to give this a fair shot.

Don’t shoot me…

But this is my first tasting note of Santa’s Secret here on Steepster. At least in regard to the drink; I’ve reviewed the infused chocolate bar.

HOWEVER! It’s not my first time ever drinking it – I first tried it three(ish) years ago when I was first getting into tea, and I didn’t like it then. Every year since I’ve had it in some way or another; sample cups of it in stores when it’s been a featured TOTD or infused into different chocolate treats. Last year it was as a chocolate bar, which was actually pretty good, and this year I tried it as one of the tea infused Truffles in the Truffle Tower and that was really good. This year I decided it was finally time I commit to drinking a full mug of it though…

Bottom line: I just don’t understand the hype surrounding this tea.

I mean, to be completely fair I don’t think it tastes bad at all – but the flavours read as really flat and bland to me compared to a lot of other mint/vanilla teas I’ve tried. It’s just not really nailing it in either area: the vanilla isn’t super creamy or rich – in fact, what it reminds me of, is the vanilla frosting used on predecorated grocery store/bakery cakes. Not bad; but it’s no Betty Crocker or even homemade icing. The mint doesn’t leave that refreshing menthol taste on your tongue and isn’t overly refreshing. It’s a little like the difference between fresh mint leaves, and prepackaged, hydrated mint leaves you’d get in the spice aisle of your grocery store. I like Candy Cane Crush better.

Just wish I understood the demand for this one a little better…

Friendly reminder that I’m not currently numerically rating DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently seasonally employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

I don’t know if the pomegranate comes through to me as a clear and defined flavour, but as I’m enjoying a hot mug of this while just resting/recuperating I can say that it does come off as a little more fruity than your average EG; it’s just in a little bit more of a generic way than I’d expected it to be. Very smooth drinking though; I think the balance of bergamot to the actual base is done really tastefully.

Just based on first impressions, I like LP’s other bergamot blend (the Peach Formosa) a lot better though…

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3g9US1aNN4

Cold Brew Sipdown (163)!

I’m taking it relatively easy with tea today; after everything from yesterday I mostly just want to relax as much as possible. This was actually the cold brew I had made to drink yesterday but for obvious (ie. My being in the ER) reasons that didn’t happen. So, the brew time for this one was long…

As such, certain elements of the tea were more drawn out/powerful than others. In this circumstance, the cinnamon note in the tea was REALLY strong. A little drying/astringent too, but not to the point where it was unpleasant: just noticeable/note worthy. So with that flavour note dominating the cup, the maple and apple notes that came through did so as more of a supporting mid-sip background flavour. The maple gained some prominence again in the finish when the cinnamon was subsiding, but overall both the maple and apple were lighter than I expected/wanted.

Still – revisiting this tea in the “Back from The Dead” collection this year was worthwhile because I did end up having a better impression of it overall this year than when it was first/originally released. Still not a favourite – but an improvement.

Friendly reminder that I’m not currently numerically rating DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently seasonally employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

This was the only other tea I drank yesterday.

Like I mentioned last night, I spent the majority of the day in the emergency room. Basically, what happened was that on Sunday evening, after I got home from work at DAVIDsTEA, one of my teeth which was abscessed burst. I had just been eating the raw green peppers I was putting on my pizza, and I took a bite into one on the side of my mouth where the tooth was abscessed and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back; or burst the abscess, in this circumstance.

I have had abscessed teeth other than this one; but this is the first time I’ve ever had one burst. Without a word of a lie, it is probably the most painful thing I have ever experienced – and that pain didn’t stop until well into Monday. I was up literally all evening Sunday/Monday morning in writhing pain – during which I downed almost a whole bottle of advil to no effect. At one point I passed out from a combination of the pain and sleep exhaustion, but was back awake and crying in pain in less than an hour. Finally, at about 5:30 in the morning after hours of trying unsuccessfully to get through to an emergency after hours dentist I caved and called my mother and we went to the emergency room.

I was admitted in the ER at about seven in the morning. At some point the side of my face with the abscess swelled up to the point where I could hardly see out of my right eye.

At roughly eleven, we were finally called out of the waiting room to see a doctor. They took my vitals around noon, and shortly after that a medical student came and interviewed me and, with my permission, did an ‘exam’ of my mouth before the nurse came back and also did one. Around 1:30 they finally gave me a shot of a high dose pain killer, which did the trick and finally offered me some relief. I was prescribed the same pain killer to take at home, an anti inflammatory drug, and some antibiotics for the infection. By two in the afternoon I had been discharged.

I went home to my mom’s for a few hours, had my Dammann Freres advent tea, and then we were off to my dentist’s office – at some point during when we were in the ER and getting moved from the ER into an actual room my mom had gotten through to the receptionist when they’d opened up for the day and they’d advised we stay at the ER while my dentist made time during his day to get me in to be looked at in the late afternoon/early evening.

At the dentist, they took some X-Rays and then booked me in for an after hours extraction of the effected tooth on Friday – they can’t pull it until the swelling completely goes away and infection is totally cleared.

After that I went to my mom’s for the rest of the evening just to sleep/rest. At some point I ate a quiche – my first real food of the day. I was also served a cup of this tea, which my mom had originally purchased from Cuppa’T as a surprise to serve when I’m at her place on Christmas day. She said I looked like I could use it right away though; so she broke her own surprise to surprise me/give me some kind of positive experience throughout the day…

The tea was great – but even if it had tasted like shit I would have still been appreciative for a hot cup of something comforting. It tasted sort of like Eggnog in so far as the vanilla notes and then the cinnamon/nutmeg came together to resemble something creamy and ’nog like. The citrus notes in the blend broke the illusion a little bit, but were also still pleasant…

As it stands today; I’m all kinds of groggy, and still quite sore/tender. The side of my face where the tooth abscessed is still swollen/puffy to the point where it’s very visible but not to the degree it was yesterday where I could hardly see out that eye. I took the day off at job #1 to catch up on all of the sleep I missed during the ordeal; but I plan to work at DT tonight. So we’ll see how that goes.

Hell of a way to kickstart the Christmas season, though.

Advent Calendar Day Nineteen

So, I’ve had a really, really long and awful day. Without getting too much into detail now because I’m insanely tired/exhausted, I haven’t gotten more than a hours worth of sleep in what’s coming up on two straight days now I spent the majority of the day in the emergency room and then, following that, the dentist’s office. I’ll probably write about it in greater detail tomorrow or in a few more days when I’m feeling better; but rest assured that I’m fine now. Just a little shaken and worn out…

One of the very few and far between moments of pleasantness during the day was in the few hours in between being discharged from the hospital and heading to the dentist’s office. I was on some pretty good painkillers; and finally managed to get around to drinking some tea. So, everything was on track to pick up.

It was good tea too! I’m sure the pain meds didn’t help in regard to mental clarity/focus when it comes to picking up on tea flavours/specific tasting notes – but honestly at this point in the day I could have cared less about that. I just know the tea was smooth and sweet, and tasted like honey, apricot, and good chocolate and that was more than exceeded the expectations I had for the day or the tea. Really, anything hot would have been comforting enough to suffice.

So yeah – this tea was a life saver today, at least in regard to my mental health.

Advent Calendar Day Eighteen

Hey! Something in the advent calendar I own/know I like. I THINK this is the first one I’ve tried before? That I can recall, at the moment.

It was nice though; I sipped on it while having a bubble bath – and then halfway through soaking my worries away/indulging in the rich salted caramel notes that were melting on my tongue I remembered that I literally drank this one the exact same way last time I had it. Huh; that was unintended… But I guess the moment was just so perfect I had to recreate it? Even if I was doing so subconsciously.