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This has been cold steeping in our fridge for five days! :O

Oops! It’s still as delicious as ever — the berry and cream flavours just pop right out and the hibiscus just works here!

Now what to cold steep next…maybe Trois Fruits Noir?

Bird & Blend Advent Day 9 (9-December 2020)

The dry sachet has the scent of orange and spices and a little bit of apple sweetness. The brewed tea has the scent of apple cider – yay! It may not be mulled wine, but I prefer apple cider anyway — another delightful memory of home. :)

Annnnd, as Lexa described the taste” hot hibiscus water” XD. Yep, the hibiscus here takes over the flavour so that’s pretty much all I taste, however, the scent of apple cider is still lovely.

Sipdown of this delicious tea this afternoon. I’m so happy I have lot 864 so I never have to live without this favourite.

Bird & Blend Advent Day 8 (8-December 2020)

Bleh. I woke up with a headache bordering on migraine this morning, so that was lovely. Curled back into bed in the dark an extra two hours before staring my day.

The dry smell was a bit hibiscus-y with orange. The steeped tea is a beautiful hibiscus colour, which is always pretty. The taste is a mix of raspberry (yum) with hibiscus and maybe ginseng. Lex describes the taste of the tea as slightly medicinal, almost like echinacea (is that ginseng?)

Also, I can’t even tell there’s black tea here — it really just tastes like a herbal blend.

Lex says that two tart things don’t make a right here (hibiscus and raspberry) haha!

Sigh. I’m just excited to move onto other teas I enjoy.

Bird & Blend Advent Day 7 (7-December 2020)

This one smells apple-y sweet and delicious as the dried sachet. It brews up a beautiful pinky-red because hibiscus. Still, I was excited because the steeped scent is very similar to the dry.

However, this is where it starts to unravel. Sadly, none of the flavour really comes through, but also the hibiscus barely comes through either — it’s as though the opposing flavours just somehow cancel each other out! Ahh, well it’s a warm cuppa to start the day.

I asked Lex how she felt about it and:

“I love it!”
“What does it taste like to you?”
“I don’t know!”

I decided I wanted this bagged tea that reminded me of tea at my Nann’s because sometimes comfort just makes everything better. I added coconut milk (from the tetra-pak, not the can) and it’s actually not bad. This tea is one of those breakfast teas like Red Rose and there’s definitely some astringency, but sometimes it just works. I’m also snacking on leftover homemade caramel popcorn we made last night and it’s super delicious.

Okay, back to this paper. I’m sure tea and popcorn will help!

Bird & Blend Advent Day 6 (6-December 2020)

Lex and I are in agreement with amandastory516 and Martin here: the dry tea smells like mustard. Bizarre.

The tea goes a lovely blue colour from the pea flowers here, which is always fun. The spearmint is the most prominent flavour to me, but it’s actually quite subtle. There’s perhaps a hint of jasmine? I can’t say for sure. The stevia is thankfully not really present in the taste — phew!

We both feel kind of meh about this tea. I think we can both safely say this one is sadly not enjoyable. However, I do like the fun colour!

On the plus side, I made espresso rye toast with lingonberry jam and blueberry chocolate jam. All these jam advents got me like.

After seeing tea-sipper and Cameron enjoying their DF Noël teas, I thought I’d make this one after the B&B advent this morning.

This tea is just like liquid fig jam to me, except not overly sweet, just perfect. It’s so good and a perfect morning cuppa. Who doesn’t love figs or fig jam in the morning? I can’t wait until fig season is once again upon us.

I could’ve sworn I ordered more of DF’s Christmas teas last year, so I went to check my order history on their website and I did also ordered Noël à Prague! Alas, I polished it off sometime before re-joining Steepster, so I can’t recall my feelings toward it. On a totally unrelated note, Lex and I have been working on our French since ~April and I really noticed the difference just perusing the DF site without translation. Woot!

Bird & Blend Advent Day 5 (5-December 2020)

Hazelnut rocher! I opened our sachets and picked out all the glittery pieces and then steeped this loose leaf. There is a very subtle chocolate smoothness here with all marzipan at the end of the sip. Shockingly, I’m actually enjoying this. Shockingly, because I usually cannot stand marzipan XD. The scent is very marzipan-y too. It all just mellows together to be a delightful cuppa.

This came as a sample in a holiday gift Lexa ordered for me (I guess I’ll have new tea under the tree this year :P).

The dry sachet smells intensely of ginger. The steeped tea smells a bit nicer to me with ginger still being the dominant note, but some other spices and maybe a hint of what I can consider a tea-ified gingerbread cookie.

Drinking this hot and the ginger is much more muted in the drink, which is nice, but I can’t decipher any of the other ingredients. I am enjoying this tea, but I couldn’t tell you why haha. On the upside, I actually forgot this was a rooibos base at all, which is an excellent thing. What a fascinating experience!

Lex just tasted my cup and despised it haha!

As the tea cooled, it became more and more almost perfumily ginger. I actually ended up dumping the last of my cup. No thank you.