1154 Tasting Notes
I was wrapping presents for Chrismakkuh this weekend until 3am, so going to have to keep the tasting notes short. The holiday timing is rough this year, so it’s going to be a bit of a marathon squeezing in Hanukkah and Christmas celebrations in the same weekend. This tea is Day 21 of Kelmishka’s advent calendar. I’m getting a nice natural pineapple juice flavor, but no cakey note. It’s tasty but doesn’t quite match the name for me. I should probably try this as a cold brew but honestly I’m enjoying it hot!
Day 9 of the DavidsTea herbal advent calendar and possibly my favorite so far! Credit for the follow-through on the theme: these white star-shaped sprinkles are darling. The orange peel and mint are the true stars of this blend though. The creamy orange mint flavor here is so soothing. It’s gentle and comforting. I had the first few cups during work, which I sort of regret, because this is a great wintry evening cuppa. And cue the tears, because I can’t even find it on their website to order more if I decide to! If anyone has extra and is interested in a swap, let me know – taking a quick look at the other reviews, I seem to be mostly an outlier in how much I enjoyed this!
Day 8 of the DavidsTea herbal advent calendar! A friend’s husband likes to blend this with Super Ginger, so I saved a little bit to try that out on the assumption that there will be some Super Ginger later on in this calendar.
This generally reminds me of a healthy take on those fruit punch drinks for kids, though I haven’t had one in absolute years. It’s citrusy, juicy, and bright. Unlike Hibiscus Splash from earlier in the calendar, which was so so very sugary, this one feels sweet but not overly so. Definitely if I was looking for a fruit punch-type blend, I’d find this one preferable. But it’s probably not something I’d go looking for very often.
Day 19 of the Teeccino advent calendar! This one is just rich chocolatey goodness. As an oat milk latte, it’s like drinking velvety hot cocoa. I think this might be even more chocolatey than the Maca Chocolate, which was also delightful but had coffee notes whereas this one is heavier on the chocolate and lighter on the coffee notes. The only down side is that the heat from the chile flakes isn’t really coming through. 9 years ago I was apparently less enthusiastic about it than I am now – adjusting my rating up a bit!
Day 18 of the Teeccino advent calendar. The good news is that this thankfully doesn’t taste like the Chaga Ashwagandha from earlier in the calendar. And I like the maple here, plus it does have a nice coffee-like taste. Where it falls short for me is that it tastes like rather thin coffee compared to the robust brew that the standard Teeccino base produces. Because of that, it works better cold – it’s a good mimic for a lightly sweet cold brew coffee. I just personally prefer something heartier.
Day 20 of my Steepster homemade advent calendar from Kelmishka. This is our standard household migraine/sick tea, partly for the taste/quality and partly because it comes in sachets so it’s easy for my partner to make it when I can’t. We both like the taste, so I was happy to have a tea that I know I like and respond well to in here! Crystallized ginger pieces and lemon seeds are visible in the dry leaf, and it translates to the cup. The nice zingy ginger has that gentle burn that proper ginger does. The lemon flavor here is juicy, tart perfection. It’s just a really tasty and well-balanced tea for when we’re not feeling well. I do substantially prefer the flavor profile here to DavidsTea’s Super Ginger, which has more pepper and stevia than I would like. However, we’ll likely switch, at least for a while, because of their plastic-free sachets.
Pulled this out today for a celebratory afternoon drink. I’ve been carefully hoarding the last few servings of this and Latkes & Applesauce, only having them for Hanukkah, for years now. The flavor has faded a bit but it’s still there and still tasty. One of my favorite things about this tea is how I can play with additives to tone up one side of the flavor profile or the other – salt for more potato flavor or sugar to amp up the cinnamon applesauce flavor. Few places do Hanukkah-specific tea anything, even fewer get the theme right, but Stacy really knocked it out of the park with the Hanukkah blends.
This is easily the tea I miss the most from Butiki! There’s absolutely no replacement for it.
No, none. I need to write up a note for a blend that has Hannukah in the name, and I’m truly at a loss as to what the perceived connection is between the name and an oolong passionfruit blend. It’s tasty, but… what? This blend just set the bar so high in terms of creativity, cultural competence, and execution!
Oooh, I still have some of the Latkes and Applesauce one, I might have to pull it out!
Nattie, fwiw, I suggest that you do – we’re hitting the point where the flavor is really starting to fade and we either have to drink these up or we’re going to lose them. Which… sucks.
Yeah, my heart doesn’t want to let go, but my head knows that they’re not going to be the same anyway :/
Day 17 of the Teeccino advent calendar. It was another early day, this time for work, so I was happy for a tasty coffee-like latte. This one is very seasonally appropriate! It’s like a chocolate version of the candy cane blend from earlier in the calendar. All chocolate and peppermint on that great classic Teeccino base. This was a perfect start to my day as an oat milk latte.
I’m finding that I am really enjoying the classic-base blends as my first cup of the morning. I forgot how badly I missed coffee and having the substitute is really nice. The only down side is that, because the flavors are so robust, they linger for a long time afterwards and that can make it a bit of a project to clear my palate for other teas.
Day 16 of the Teeccino advent calendar. This is better than I thought it would be. It’s still not something I’d voluntarily drink again, but I don’t want to pour it down the drain! I taste cinnamon and berries in this, but also something a little tart and acidic that I can’t place and am not enjoying. Alas, this one is not for me.
So the Hannukah sampler teas aren’t numbered, but there are 8 of them in little envelopes, so I’m just going to randomly select one each day. Today’s randomly selected tea is Strawberry Elderberry Black! A jammy, gummy candy strawberry aroma wafts up from the leaf as soon as I open the packet. The strawberry flavoring works much better on this black tea base than it did on the rooibos base in the Strawberries n’ Vanilla blend. I don’t need to add anything to get robust, jammy strawberry notes. The elderberry isn’t really detectable when it’s hot, but a little tartness and dryness comes out as the tea cools. This is a pretty solid strawberry tea – not the greatest I’ve ever had, not even my favorite Plum Deluxe blend in general, but tasty and cozy. This could make for a refreshing cold brew/tea soda, I suspect.
