Christmas is coming, and my family is already in the Christmas mood. We haven’t put up a tree or anything, but we’ve already bought (and eaten) panettone and Christmas pudding. That’s enough to put us in the holiday mood.
Since I was in the holiday mood, I wanted to get an advent calendar. I saw that Ethel got an amazing one from Whittard, but I didn’t really have the money to get that one. Plus, I have too much tea to justify an expensive purchase. Ideally, I’d get something from Lupicia, but that’s not available in Singapore so when I saw this one on redmart, I decided to get it.
There are 25 days and 13 types of teas. They listed them on the back and most of them are holiday blends! I’m definitely going to do a tea-a-day, as the calendar suggests, so I’ll update this post with my reviews as I try the teas(: (although I see that there are only 13 flavours so it might not be every day till Christmas)
Day 1 & 13: White Tea Lychee Cocoa
Yay my advent calendar has started (although technically advent begins tomorrow). Today’s tea is a white tea with cinnamon, cocoa, coconut, and lychee. I was actually a bit apprehensive about it because I mixed up “tea with cocoa” and “cacao tea”, which I didn’t really have a good experience with.
Dry, the tea didn’t smell particularly like lychee (antea social’s lychee oolong is still the best and strongest smelling lychee tea I’ve had) or chocolate; it did smell vaguely fruity though. Brewed, the tea liquor smelled… the best phrase I can think of is “festively fruity” which is not a very good description. It actually did remind me of Christmas – the tea is a little fruity, with the chocolate present in the scent (but not the taste) and I found myself really enjoying this tea.
Looks like we’re off to a good start with this advent calender.
Day 2 & 14: Post Festival Cleanse Me
It’s been raining for most of the day today, which explains the lighting in the picture. It does, however, make for excellent tea-drinking weather. Today’s tea is the Post Festival Cleanse Me, which is an organic green tea with garcinia, cinnamon, ginseng, and acai berry. I have no idea what garcinia is, but google is saying that it’s some sort of fruit?
The first impression I got when I opened the packet was: Willy Wonka’s nerds. No idea why. Brewed, the tea liquor is a very pale red and smells like berries. It tastes pretty much like it smells and reminded me of a berry-rooibos tea that I had recently. If I didn’t see the ingredient list, I would have thought this was a tisane because there wasn’t any green tea flavour in this.
Shared the tea with my family and my dad actually likes it (surprising because he normally drinks unflavoured black teas) while my mom thinks this resembles Ribena.
Day 3 & 15: Chai Immune Boost (Tisane)
So it turns out that one side of the tea cubes are parts of a picture! I turned a few more over and it seems like they’re part of one larger picture, but I prefer seeing the dates – so much easier to keep track of everything!
Today’s tea is called the Chai Immune Boost and it’s a blend of organic rooibos herbal tea with cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, garlic, turmeric, and echinacea. I have to admit that the ingredient list scared me a little (quite a few of the ingredients are not ones that I would like to see in a tea) and the smell didn’t help. Brewed, the tea smells a lot like a chai blend and tastes like one. Still, the taste of the ingredients lingers in the mouth.
This is definitely not my cup of tea.
Day 4 & 16: Energise Me for the Holiday (Tisane)
Compared to yesterday’s tea, Energise Me for the Holiday sounded much more delicious. This is a blend of organic rosehip herbal tea with hibiscus, apple, licorice*, cinnamon, and rose petals. Although worryingly, the ingredient list also contains a warning: “Contains licorice – people suffering from hypertension should avoid excessive consumption.” Glad this is just one teabag, then.
The tea looks and tastes a lot like a rosehip/hibiscus tea, which is to say, it’s a tart tea. It’s a bit sweeter than, say, a pure hibiscus tea, but I suppose that’s from the apple and rose petals. I don’t really taste the other ingredients though. Overall, quite a delicious tea and I’m glad that it’s a tisane because I had a LOT of tea as part of a workshop today.
*I grew up reading about kids eating loads of licorice candy, which we didn’t have in Singapore. Or at least, it wasn’t readily available. I wonder how all the people back then handled the side effects?
Day 5 & 17: Unwind Me for the Season (Tisane)
Another herbal tea, which is great because it’s a workday and I don’t really feel like bringing the whole calendar to work. Plus, I’ve finished the first row of the calendar, which is a both exciting and scary – we’re five days closer to Christmas!
Unwind Me for the Season is an organic lemongrass herbal tea with cinnamon, ginger, garcinia, hibiscus and lemon. I totally missed the hibiscus part of the description, so I was a bit surprised to see that the tea liquor was reddish. Taste-wise, this is a pleasantly tart tea with a strong lemongrass flavour. There’s a little bit of burn from the ginger, but it’s nothing compared to pure ginger tea (which I’ve been drinking for gastric). This was another nice tea.
Day 6 & 18: Peppermint Melon
I’ve realised that quite a few of the teas have this licorice warning – but it should be fine, right?
Today’s tea is peppermint melon and it smells so good, like melon with a hint of mint. The first thing I tasted was the mint with the taste of melon filling my mouth mostly as an aftertaste. After my first mouthful, I actually wanted a bit of sweetness because I associate melons with sweetness and I didn’t taste any. That was pretty surprising because I normally drink my tea straight. But as I continued drinking the tea, the taste of melon became more distinct and I realised that I didn’t need sugar after all.
This was really good and I would actually buy it if I found it (and if I had less tea).
Day 7 & 19: Moroccan Spice (Tisane)
One week into this advent calendar and I’m enjoying it! Although I realised that because I have other Christmas teas to try too, I am drinking way more tea than normal. Luckily, this advent calendar has quite a lot of tisanes, so I can drink more than two teas without going over the limit my doctor prescribed (although given the tea workshops and the tea party coming up, I’m already going over the limit).
If a blend has the word “Morrocan” in it, it’s normally a mint green tea, but this is a herbal tea with cinnamon, chicory, licorice, peppermint, ginger, and orange. It smells like mint and something else… cinnamon, maybe*? I’m not really a fan of the other flavours, so I’m glad that the dominant taste here is mint. I don’t really taste anything else, so I managed to finish the cup.
I’m pretty neutral on this tea – I’m not a big fan but I don’t dislike it either.
*After the foundation tea tasting course I took, I’ve realised that my ability to distinguish smells is terrible. I’m trying my best to improve that, but it’s very slow going.
Day 8 & 20: Oolong Lemon Raspberry
I’m actually drinking two day’s worth of tea today (not including the tisanes I’ll be drinking later) because… I didn’t spend enough time at home yesterday. Yesterday’s tea was the oolong lemon raspberry. It smells like lemon, although very oddly, the tea liquor looks very light (even after steep the usual time I do for oolongs).
Taste-wise, it’s basically lemon and something fruity, which I’m guessing is the raspberry. I don’t actually taste any oolong, which is a pity because some oolongs (like Jin Guan Yin) can be fantastically fragrant and I imagine would go well with fruity flavours. If I want a fruit oolong in the future, I’ll probably get one of Antea Social’s teas.
Day 9 & 21: Christmas Cake
The name for today’s actual tea sounds amazing, although that’s probably because the only other ‘cake’ tea I remember having is Mslena’s French Cake tea. The dry leaves smell very different though – the first (and only thing) I smelled was cinnamon.
After brewing, the tea liquor still smells strongly of cinnamon, even though there’s more than that, this being a black tea with orange, apple, peach, cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla. I guess it smells like Christmas pudding (somewhat) which could arguably be called a cake?
The tea tastes very much like it smells, but with an additional hint of citrus. It’s a bit disappointing given the number of ingredients. I would have loved for the vanilla and fruity notes (especially the apple and peach) to be more pronounced because that would had made it taste more cake-like to me.
Day 10 & 22: Coconut Chai
Taking a photo mostly because I can’t believe we’re already on Day 10! I thought I just started this?
Anyway, today’s tea is Coconut Chai, and it really reminded me that… I don’t really like chai blends. I like actual chai, but I haven’t really found a chai-themed blend that I enjoy. Coconut Chai is an organic black tea with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and coconut. It mostly tastes like chai with a hint of coconut. Not much to say because this really isn’t my thing.
Day 11 & 23: Black Tea with Honey and Lemon
The name of this tea made me excited but the description confused me. It says that it’s a black tea with licorice, cinnamon, and cloves, which you may realise doesn’t seem to contain honey or lemon. The ingredient list didn’t have them either.
I did smell a bit of melon from the teabag, although the smell of cinnamon followed soon after. Brewed, the tea smells like honey and cinnamon, but strangely no melon. I was a bit apprehensive because it smelled so sweet, but it didn’t taste that sweet. And for some reason, I could taste melon as well, with the taste of honey coming more as an aftertaste. It was quite pleasant, but the more I drank, the more I could make out a cinnamon aftertaste as well, which wasn’t really my thing.
Day 12 & 24: White Tea Coconut & Passion Fruit
Another tea with coconut in it, which isn’t always my favourite thing. According to the description, this is an organic white tea lemongrass, cocoa, ginger, coconut, and passion fruit. Given the ingredients and that ingredients are normally listed in the order they have (the ingredients with higher proportions arriving first), I’m surprised this isn’t described as a white tea with lemongrass or something.
Surprisingly, the tea smells like coconut and passionfruit and it tastes like it smells. The coconut makes the tea taste sweeter for some reason. Personally, I prefer The 1872 Clipper Tea Co.’s Passionfruit tea.
Day 13 onwards: I opened up the tea for Day 13 and I realised it was White Tea Lychee. I knew they were going to repeat twelve of the teas, so I opened up the remaining days and realised that the order is the same. So I won’t be needing to update this until the 25th, where the last tea appears. So I get to go at a slightly more relaxed pace and drink some of my other Christmas teas!
Day 25 (Christmas!): Candy Cane
This is the end of the advent calender! I’m so glad that I did this, but I’m also glad that it’s over because it’s hard to try new teas when you have something to drink every day (especially when you’re not supposed to have too much tea).
Candy Cane is a peppermint and green tea with orange, cinnamon, roasted chicory, and vanilla. The tea liquour smelled like vanilla, but the taste was mostly peppermint. I like peppermint, so I’m not really complaining, but this wasn’t really similar to candy cane. If the name of the tea didn’t tell me what this blend was supposed to be, I probably wouldn’t have guessed.
Overall, this was a fun Christmas thing to do. It’s reasonably priced and it let me try thirteen new flavours that I would not have otherwise had.
Merry Christmas, everyone!