Winter Nog

Another hit. I like the little snowflake sprinkles lol.
I can smell the spices easy but they aren’t strong in the taste. No idea why, but I catch a hint of mint in it. It’s tasty and good! I’m a rooibos fan and this one I’ll happily drink on those cold winter days.

I got this in the Christmas Card swap from Khaleesical. The card I was sent was adorable! I got quite a few samples of tea, but since I didn’t make it to my parents’ house where I had all my tea sent until very late.

Anyway, this tea is odd for me. I like it, but it’s nothing like I thought it would be. I thought it was going to be more nog flavored, by which I mean more egg nog flavored. The Rooibos has a naturally vanilla scent, which works for a nog flavor. But the tea itself has no vanilla accents, despite the fact the blend smells, dry, like vanilla. Brewed, it’s heavier than vanilla, and I taste the tea, and even more than spices. I taste something kind of heavy, which I did not expect (it does not smell heavy at all!).

Even though this tea is so different than I anticipated, I like it. It still doesn’t satisfy my need to find rooibos teas that make me not miss regular tea, but it does taste lovely. It’s a great blend, just maybe for other people.

So cream. Wow. Such spice.

Decided to open this one today. It smells fantastic. Like spices, and holiday baked goods. The closest in would probably be snickerdoodle or sugar cookie. Great blend of spices and sweetness in the flavour. One of my very favourite winter blends.

I have been a Rooibos nut lately! I could not wait to try this. Description mentions cinnamon and spices, which I definitely detect. It also mentioned white snowflake sprinkles, but I did not seem to have any, and I was sooo good with that. I did not detect any creamy taste, which maybe the sprinkles helped lend, but I doubt it. This did not taste like ‘nog’ to me at all, but I enjoyed it. I actually think this was my favorite out of all the tea I chose in the sampler. Actually my favorite tea from Della Terra, was the free sample they included in my order, Holiday Cheer-which is another review.

I banked that I would love this and ordered two ounces in my first order from DT teas. Turns out, it was a really good choice, and is a nice change from all the autumn flavored teas that I’ve overdosed on. It both smells and tastes delicious-kind of reminiscent of a liquor such as Tom and Jerry’s batter w/ brandy and rum if you ever have had that? It def makes me think of eggnog as it is spiced just right and has a creamy mouth feel. I would say it doesn’t have the “egginess” that actual eggnog has, but I’m ok with that. I’ve enjoyed this several times, and especially like it with soy milk and Truvia to make it even creamier.

First of all, I’ve never had eggnog before, so I can’t make any comparisons!

The dried tea is a rusty brown colour with odd white snow flakes in it. It’s smells of cinnamon with a hint of other spices like nutmeg. When steeping the spices come out again, but with extra warmth which makes the sweetness more pleasant. There is also a slight liquor smell to it, although not in a bad way. I found it was present more in the dry leaves than the mug.

My first try was without milk, and it tasted nice, but I felt it needed some creaminess to help balance the sweetness, so I added just a dash to my second cup. This made it really good. Cinnamon is one of my favourite sweet spices, and it came across well. It is quite a sweet blend, and I didn’t really get much of the tea at all in the first cup, so second time round I also steeped for a lot longer.

Based on my first cup I wouldn’t have rated it as highly, but playing with how I made it helped a lot, and I really enjoyed the second cup. It’s not a flavour to drink all the time, but nice would be nice with sticky bun in the afternoon.

I decided to sort/reorganize my teas, which resulted in finding a lot of little samples of this and that and going “holy cow I really need to finish these”. So, nice caffeine free sipdown here, though I’m pretty sure some of the flavour has been lost over the years. A little bit sweet, a little bit creamy, a little bit spicy, generally quite pleasant.

I’m not an eggnog fan, and I’m glad I didn’t know this was supposed to be eggnog related because I might have shyed away (even though the name clearly has NOG in it… blonde moment for sure). MMM this is yummy! Thanks Ost for the sample, love being able to try these Della Terra Teas!

For taste, I am getting a slight woody taste, rooibos so understandable, and some cream and spices. Definitely a nice tea for the winter.

EDIT: Finished this sample up! I added some cream to my last cup and it made it so much more creamy and delicious!

Another sample from Ost. Love the cute snowflake sprinkles!

I’m not sure what I did wrong here, but this basically tastes like straight rooibos to me. Perhaps it needed a shorter steep. However, I can’t imagine it making much difference when my cup barely has any spicing at all, and certainly no cream. Withholding rating. :/