Figgy Pud!

I wanted to see how accurate this tea tasted, so I made some figgy pudding to have with it (always looking for excuses to make desserts). The flavor of the tea isn’t what I expected at all. The spices are quite strong, but it lacks the baked and fruity elements I’d expect to find. It’s better with milk. Then, it tastes pleasantly spiced and nice – I think clove and rooibos are the primary flavors I get. I do like it, but I don’t think it matches its name.

Holiday tea 2023 #4

additional notes: I love the exclamation point in the name of this tea, as I always say it/think it like that anyway! FIGGY PUD!!! This cup today seemed especially flavorful and then I realized it was yet another holiday tea that I had brought on my trip. I think there were many of them, now that I think about it. I finally caught up on reading the December 1st advent notes today, so I’m slowly catching up!

2.5 grams, 12 oz

Weird, this sampler bag had two teabags in it.

After Bird and Blend’s Egg Nog, I was a bit wary of another cinnamon rooibos of theirs. But this one is a much nicer balance of flavors. Cinnamon, rooibos, cardamom, and clove notes party together in this festive tea. I pick out a subtle ginger note too. I’ve never had figgy pudding, but if it’s anything like this, I’ll probably like it.

This will be less of a review and more of an “I, too, drank this” note, mostly because chais are not really my favorites, and this is very chai-esque. However, for a chai type, it’s rather okay. I won’t have a problem finishing the sample pack. I agree with Cameron B. that there’s a pepper note here — a kind of surprising spike right in the middle, disconcerting at first, and then okay as I decided to just go with it as pepper (I don’t know if it’s really pepper). The main thing for me is that the clove is not overbearing, so I can drink it … but I’m very disappointed there’s no fig flavor. Zero. Is there no fig in figgy pudding? For me this would be waaaaay better with some fig. Odd.

Edit: er, suggestion. Don’t steep this in your plastic gravity infuser. Currently trying to deodorize mine with some strong plain black tea. :(

Sipdown! (8)

The second sachet from my B&B advent calendar. I had two sachets inside one of my “single serve” wrappers! I also had a pouch of this from my subscription, but ended up selling it to tea-sipper upon request.

I quite like this one, and I’m honestly not sure why. I’m not often a fan of chai, nor am I always a fan of rooibos. But for some reason, this strikes a good balance in many ways.

The main flavors for me are cinnamon, clove, cardamom, and black pepper. And I actually enjoy the pepperiness here, when often I find it strange in tea. There’s also a nice dried fruity note, I suppose representing the fig in the pudding. I wouldn’t call it specifically fig, but it is a sort of sticky dried fruit flavor with honeyed notes. The pepper flavor sort of builds as I continue to sip, with an interesting tongue-tingling effect.

And the rooibos base is nice and deep, with brown sugar/caramel and wood notes.

I’m not sure it’s really pud-ish. But it is a nice rooibos chai with some subtle fruity notes. I’m not sure I would feel the need to stock it, as I’m not generally a chai aficionado, but I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to try it!

Holiday Tea-son! This is the tea in my advent calendar today, an herbal so I’m fixing it up as my night brew. I really didn’t care for the last rooibos chai I had from B&B, Gingerbread Chai, which I have decided to gift to a friend because I just have too large of a bag to ever sip down when I just don’t like it enough; I found that tea to have a strong “holiday candle” sort of aroma, and while this tea doesn’t have the same aroma as Gingerbread Chai, it is still reading very much as one of those “holiday candle” sort of scents.

Hopefully this spice blend will just be more to my liking… my main issue with Gingerbread Chai is I could tell they had used some sort of flavoring in the rooibos that I am certain they also use in their Birthday Cake rooibos, and I have formed a stomach aversion specifically to that Birthday Cake Rooibos blend because I got hit with a nasty case of food poisoning on my birthday last year, and that was the last thing I’d had before the sickness hit (note it was my burger that caused the food poisoning, certainly not the tea, but that just happens to be what my stomach has attached the aversion to…) Whenever I taste that particular flavoring, I feel queasy. So if that flavoring isn’t in this chai (and if it isn’t so ginger-heavy, and the aroma smells much more cinnamon forward) hopefully it’ll be more up my ally.

The aroma smells quite sweet, still very cinnamony, and I still can’t stop thinking of spice candles! I definitely like the flavor of this one better than Gingerbread Chai… it is spicy and produces a nice warmth, but I don’t find that it is lingering in my mouth in an unpleasant way. There is a slight heat at the back of the throat, but it settles down rather quickly, and I taste a better blend of the spices rather than just a really potent ginger kick like I was getting with the other tea. The cinnamon seems to be the most forward spice, though I get a lot of clove notes as well, with the ginger/cardamom leaving a spicier note at the end of the sip. The base of the tea definitely doesn’t have that vanilla/cherry tasting flavoring that came out so strongly once I’d added milk to Gingerbread Chai and immediately set off my stomach aversion; the base of this tea is hard for me to describe… it really makes me think of those poinsettia spiced candles, if you could imagine that without any soapy context to the flavor. It’s not exactly reading as floral in taste, though, more fruity, perhaps like dried tart berries, in the most subtle of ways… and it’s a bit roasty/nutty?

I actually really like this one! I’d say this might be my favorite tea from the calendar after Christmas Cake, even though I fail entirely trying to properly describe it.