Noël à Vienne

Day 19!

I think it is ok to say I was not a fan of this one. It is not a bad blend, but I am just finding the tastes are not working for me. There is definitely a really strong smokey black tea. I am getting a bit of chocolate taste but it tastes quite watered down. This one is reminding me of those chocolate oranges that you can get around Christmas time. I am also getting hints of vanilla.

I definitely got hints of hazelnuts with this one in taste and smell.

Advent calendar, day 19 (though I’m having it today because I got mixed up.)

Another Christmas tea! These are so fun. I like imagining the different cities and why they picked the flavors they did. I’m assuming this was based on the Sachertorte (chocolate cake) and Marillenkuchen (apricot cake) that are traditional Austrian desserts.

Steep notes: no additives, below parameters.

Dry leaf smelled mostly like chocolate and caramel (I’m pretty sure the vanilla is responsible for this). I don’t mind chocolate in tea but it feels like they put it in every blend, practically. Luckily they do it well. Once steeped the aroma has transformed into a sweet milk chocolate. This, again, is pretty standard Dammann…I imagine the apricot is waiting for me in the taste.

Mmm…it was! I get the fruity apricot followed by creamy vanilla and a muted chocolate. As the liquor has cooled the apricot is more evident in the scent as well. I like this! It’s probably my second favorite after the Venice Christmas one. I’ll keep this on the reorder list for sure…

Dammann advent calendar, day 19. I skipped 18 because I am not drinnking rooibos anymore, so it will have to get passed on to another person. Thankfully there has only been one rooibos tea in the advent calendar so far!

So I drank this tea without knowing what was in it at all… and wow were my taste buds off! To me it was very hazelnutty, which is not an ingredient at all. I didn’t really get fruitiness from the apricot or orange. Makes me want to have it again to properly wrap my head around it. Weird!

YUM! I think I want to move to France and live next door to the family Dammann. (And in this fantasy of mine, they invite me to tea every day)

I seriously have not yet encountered a tea from them that I do not like.

I need to thank Doulton for this experience – thank you! This tea is incroyable!

Noël à Vienne translates into Christmas is coming. I can taste a bit of christmas in this cup – there is a certain “baked” flavor to the tea that reminds me of the apricot cookies my grandma would make at christmas time. And of course, there is the chocolate. It is a bit more delicate than I would like (but then, I’m a chocoholic, so more chocolate is always better). There is also a light touch of citrus and a pleasantly creamy character to it. This is SO GOOD!

Thank you again Doulton!

okay! this is one of my top picks from the noel teas.
but duh chocolate and apricot of course it is.

i’m watching documentaries still.
yesterday i finished “56 up” and today i’m watching “into the Abyss”. i could easily watch all of Werner Herzog’s documentaries multiple times. i plan to watch all the ones available on netflix before the new year starts hah.

and what-the-hell how did i even end up crocheting and knitting again? i knew the super basics a long time ago, and this week i taught myself granny squares and the purl stitch and i’m getting used to doing them smoother.
oh wait
i know how that happened
it’s all your fault you amazing jerks.
i’m having fun!

Merry Christmas everybody.

This ended up being my Christmas tea – Dammann has a lot of Christmas teas, many of them smelling (and their descriptions sounding) very tempting, but this was the winner for me. Christmas in Vienna, why not?

For me the notes here are chocolate, apricot jam and tangerine (?). Vanilla as well, and the chocolate is kinda of liquorish, making me think of hazelnut liqueur as well. Both the base and flavouring are a bit weaker than I hoped for, but on the other hand being a milder flavoured tea, it is also a very pleasant christmas to serve anybody. Very nice

For some reason this tea sort of (unfairly maybe) came off to me as being the ugly stepsister of Thé du Loup. I love the wolf tea, I think the stepsister would be prettier without the comparison, if only I had not been reminded of it!

Another oversteep. In my defense, it’s a one cup tea bag, and therefore I had to steep it the ‘normal’ way. Yea, that’s my excuse.

I thought this would be horribly bitter by the time I got to it, yet it’s still really smooth and gentle. It’s kinda meh on it’s own, and turns into subtle dark chocolate yumminess with some Truvia. Not getting the orange really, other than perhaps if I think about it.. I wish I had more than the advent calendar sample to play with this a bit more.

I had to upgrade my ranking (which was already high) on this after living with it for a couple of weeks. I’m finding this blend absolutely delightful, never tiring to my tastebuds (as most flavored teas are apt to become), and it is now not only on my must-always-have list, it’s moved to #2 after Noël à Venise — both of them elbowing a couple of amazing Mariage Frères teas down just a bit (Wedding Imperial and Marco Polo) . I vote this my “most drinkable, any time of day” and “most comforting.” I’m a bit worried that after hitting upon these two in my very first order from Dammann Frères it will be diificult for them to live up to my now crazy high expectations!

Note that I’m using a generous amount (roughly 1.5 – 2 grams per 100 ml, which is maybe 2 – 2.5 heaping teaspoons per 300 ml? ), which I’m finding is a good rule of thumb for black teas for me, and going with medium milky and sweetened most of the time. It’s tastiest once it’s cooled just a bit.

And now I’m off to make my third cup of the morning. mmm.

Sipdown no. 12 of 2023 (no. 670 total).

I’m embarrassed to say that since I sipped this down a few days ago and neglected to write about it immediately or take any notes, I just don’t remember what I had planned to say about it.

Looking back at my original note, I’m just going to stick with that. The last bit of this was super old. It didn’t approximate a coffee-like richness like I said in my original note. If it had, I would have remembered. I just remember a pleasant, mild, tea with a flavor I couldn’t define, as though all the distinct notes had flattened with age into something nondescript but that suggested its former self. Sort of like a much worn and long-lived piece of fine clothing.

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.