Kaylee Send Message

Day 1 of the Tea Thoughts Winter Countdown box. I’ve gotten every countdown box Nazanin has made in the past three years. Because they are usually a delightful mix of tea, stationery, teaware, and other items, it generally doesn’t occur to me to post advent-style tasting notes. Since this year’s box is mostly tea, though, I guess I’ll do it this time! I did pick up the stationery advent too. I already opened all of it as a countdown to tea advent season and absolutely loved it – lots of variety, not limited to just wintry vibes, but enough wintry stuff to incorporate into all my mail and gift wrap for the season. I think she still has some left for anyone who needs more tea-themed stickers and washi in their lives.

I made this gong fu. Somehow I just didn’t get a lot of sweetness out of it. Mostly slightly dry, rocky, and mineral-y, with a hint of cassia. Mayyyyybe stone fruit, but more stone than fruit. Pleasant on a cold wintry day, just not sure it’s what the tea is supposed to taste like.

Sipdown of this one. I was pretty excited about getting this sample with my order, but it turned out not to be as great as I’d hoped. It’s just not particularly well-balanced. The spearmint and clove are way too strong, overpowering everything else. I also think this would have been better with peppermint instead of spearmint, but that’s a second-order complaint. I ended up cutting it with straight hojicha to get a more balanced cup. That worked pretty well – the roastiness of the hojicha (a flavor missing in the blend itself because of the imbalance) combined well with the mint and clove.

Thanks again to Courtney for sending me a sample of this one. I originally planned to gong fu a straight tea today, but I’ve been having trouble getting going and blew through most of my caffeine window. So instead I opted for a blend that feels special. I rarely see mulberry blends and they’re so so tasty. This one does a good job of letting the mulberry shine while also having a bit of complexity from the tropical fruit flavors and just enough heft from the base. The word that comes to mind today is shimmering, for some reason. Not literally but in terms of the vibe. It’s working for me.

Another sipdown! This was a souvenir brought back by a friend from a trip to Florida. I’ve had a handful of Spice & Tea Exchange blends. So far they’re hit-or-miss for me, though their straight ginger root is really good. I liked this blend more than I expected to. It’s definitely a winter drink for me because of the combo of a thick, syrupy mouthfeel, cooked plum flavor, and the cinnamon. That plum note is definitely held up by the hibiscus, so this is not for the hibiscus-averse, but I think it worked well. Once I pulled it out to start working on the sipdown, I finished it off pretty quickly.

Sipdown of another tea I could have sworn I had already written a note for… is Steepster eating notes again? This jasmine is fine. It’s not terrible, but it’s also not the most stunning jasmine green I’ve ever had. It just sort of falls squarely in the middle as floral on a vegetal green base. Brewed just-so, at 175f for 2-4 minutes, it tastes floral and fine. But if overbrewed, it takes on that aftertaste you get from a jasmine tea that’s been flavored rather than scented. I don’t definitively know that to be the case here and can’t tell from the T2 website – it may be that this flavor is happening because the base has oversteeped. Either way, not super enjoying that element and ended up adding some vanilla agave to soften it.

Huh, another situation where I came to just mark a sipdown and somehow there is no prior note for it. I actually enjoyed this one. It reminded me of strawberry milk, though admittedly I always had it as an oat milk latte so I can’t promise that the blend on its own would have the same effect. Hibiscus is clearly part of how that effect is created so hibiscus haters will probably want to steer clear.

15th and final day of the Tiger Box from a couple of years ago, which also means I’m officially done with all of my lingering countdown boxes and ready for advent season.

I was so glad to see an oolong for the last day! This is definitely a good fit for a cold, wintry day. I steeped this gong fu style and oversteeped it a few times, but it is actually very forgiving. The oversteep just made the roasty, mineral notes stronger and cozier. I think part of the reason it takes an oversteep well is that there’s no bitterness or astringency here. Yes, it’s a bit drying, but not in that sharp way. It’s getting late now so I should probably cut off my caffeine for the day, but I think I’ll make a full mug of this and stash it for tomorrow.

I came to mark a sipdown thinking I had previously written a note for this blend, but either I haven’t or it disappeared. Either way, I definitely want to say that I enjoyed this blend! It’s a really nice citrus/cream herbal, especially as a latte since the oat milk brings out the creaminess well. The orange also doesn’t tip over into being overly acidic, alcoholic, or concentrated, while also not fading into the background.

My last remaining lingering countdown calendar is the Yaocha/Volition Tiger Box from two (maybe almost three?) years ago. Just a few left from this one, so I’m working on finishing it off. This tea is Day 12.

I gong fu’d it, because it’s a Saturday and a nice tea and why not. I’m not as good with black tea flavor profiles – I think the astringency tends to throw me and as a result a lot of black teas tend to taste similar to my palate. This isn’t super astringent, just enough for that to be the thing my brain focuses on. Besides that, I find this very pruney: not like a fresh, ripe plum but more of a dried or cooked plum flavor.

25th and final day of the Kiani advent calendar. It’s labeled “glamorous earl grey” but I’m pretty sure it’s the same as this one. This tea is suitably festive because it’s glittery and I won’t pretend to mind. I’m a sucker for the entrancing, shining, sparkling swirls that glitter teas make in my mug. Definitely a trend I’m not sick of yet. Otherwise, though, this seems like a pretty standard earl grey. Which is… fine? Earl grey just isn’t my favorite kind of tea, so I don’t really feel that I can speak to a specific blend’s relative merits with a whole lot of nuance. The bergamot here is definitely strong but not overwhelming or alcoholic. For a blend that I’m not super fond of, I did manage to finish the mug and even finish off a second steeping, though that was in significant part because I was more interested in the sparklies. Still, if the tea itself had been appallingly bad, I wouldn’t have been able to drink it no matter how pretty, so there is that to commend it.

I’m glad I tried this advent calendar, but I probably won’t do it again. The teaware was fun but I have that now! I never even opened or used the matcha scoop because I already have one and I rarely drink matcha that fancy (if anyone wants it, it’s yours free, just let me know). A pretty significant disadvantage of this advent is that it only provides enough leaf each day for exactly one serving, so it’s hard to experiment with optimal brewing methods and preparations.  While many of the teas were tasty, some would have benefited from gong fu brewing vs mug steeping, or vice versa, and I just wasn’t able to test that out. I was most intrigued by the Iranian teas, so if I order from Kiani again in the future it will probably be to just get more Iranian tea rather than an advent.

It also took me almost a year to finish the nine advent calendars I got in 2022! That’s too many! This year I only got three that I’ll be opening in December, so hopefully that will be much more manageable.