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Advent Day 13… and it’s a Friday!!!

Happy Friday the 13th! I have no idea who Ruby Granger is, the collaborator for this tea. I had to look on the B&B website to find out she is an influencer on tiktok and youtube. I’m trying really hard to stay off social media because my feed is overwhelmingly negative and it sucks time away before I realize an hour has gone by.

While sniffing this tea I keep trying to find malty notes. I don’t know why my brain wants to go there, but I’m not finding it. I get a hint of creamy coconut and something that makes me think mellow warmth, something cozy. Is this what a warm library smells like? Is this what aging books smell like? Something like chocolate in the scent, but not quite. When sipping I can pick up a tiny bit of the roasty hojicha. It’s very mild. Maybe the tiniest bit of malt at the back of the sip with that aging flavor in the finish. Some sips have a ghostly showing of coconut rounding any edges. It’s funny how much the name is making me try to connect the flavors to an old library. This is a tea I’m having to concentrate on. If I didn’t I think I’d just mindlessly sip it because it is so subtle and there is nothing trying to jump out and grab your attention. It’s a fun experience, but I’m left pondering how I feel about the tea.

Holy hell, this tea is minty! It may have been a case of oversteeping. I have had so many chocolate mint teas that were weak, so I decided to start my journey with this tea with a 4m steep instead of my usual start of 3. It was so minty I could feel it in my sinuses and I’m not complaining! I had to add some creamer to take the edge off the mint, which happens to be one of my favorite ways to have mint choco teas. It helped, but I feel like the chocolate is muted because of how bold the mint is. I’m happily drinking this cup and look forward to trying it again!

Advent Day 12

Steeping up very red and I’m hoping it’s beetroot related. Nope, hibiscus. This had a citrusy fruity flavor in the first few sips and smells like strawberries and lemons, but it changed over to that gross hib tang in the start of the sip and then alkaline at the back. Very unpleasant, but it’s what I’ve come to expect in blends that have hib in any amount above the most miniscule. Hibiscus is like my cilantro. This tea is not for me!

Advent Day 12

Well this is interesting! Kumquat and finger lime?! I have had a kumquat tea from Lupicia once, but I’ve never come across a tea with finger lime! I am partial to finger lime and have had two small trees in pots for years. The larger one that has not been a good producer of fruit is now covered in blossoms at the moment, so I have hope it may be catching up with my prolific tree. We moved in the fall, so perhaps it likes the new yard better. I also grew up with my grandma having a kumquat tree in the back yard and often snacked on those as a kid.

This has a light juicy citrus taste. The first couple of sips were powerful and then the tea mellowed out or maybe it was my tastebuds that did. I think I can pick out the sweetness and flavor of the kumquat peel mixed with the flesh of the fruit, but it lacks the tang the flesh has. The finger lime flavor would be hard to differentiate with a regular lime. The difference is the fruit filled sacs inside the fruit are round balls instead of tubes with tapered ends. I had to look up what marula is… a fruit from Africa. Finger lime from Australia, kumquats are native to China… that is three continents. Not sure where the lemon peel and green tea are from to make the namesake five continents, but I like the concept. This is a nice enough cup that I’d try again, although I’d love to try it cold steeped if I came across it again.

Advent Day 11

I didn’t follow the steeping instructions (3-5m steep) and instead did a little over a minute, afraid to oversteep this. I think I understeeped it instead. It does have a nice jasmine flavor, but it isn’t as strong as I prefer my jasmines. I do get a little green behind the jasmine flavor, but not a strong grassy green that would overpower the flower. Another tea that I’d happily drink another cup of, but am not moved to buy.

Advent Day 11

I think I’ve only had mince pie tea twice and then tried the actual pastry once after that, so my familiarity with the concept is limited. Steeped, this tea smells lightly of fruit and spices in a way that makes me think warmth. I can kind of get that in the sip, but the flavors seem really light to me. I get the scent of almond, but not the flavor. It’s is hard for me to pick out much in the flavor individually. I used the term murky for the last tea in this advent and I’d say the same for this one. I tried adding cream and it didn’t help. Another cup dump for me.

Advent Day 10

I love the chocolate mint combo in tea. One of my early gateway loose leafs was a Teavana mint chocolate blend. It’s one of the flavor combos that I find hard to pass up. That said… this was the blandest mint chocolate blend I’ve encountered. The flavor was so weak it was like it had already been steeped a couple times. It was murky with a hint of mint. I couldn’t even drink the whole cup. Hard pass.

I took my 1x steeped tea bag and put it in a mason jar in the fridge, cold steeping it for a week. Trying it now to find a delicious fruity scent. The flavor it very fruity, reminding me of Lupicia blends (Momoko, specifically), but it has a flatness to it that is slightly alkaline. Could be due to the leaves having been steeped previously or not. I won’t know unless I get my hands on another sample of this tea, but I think the potential is there to be a fantastic cold steeped beverage.

Advent Day 9

This is the only assam on the company’s website, but the teabag I got doesn’t say GFOP. I over steeped this. Set my timer and walked away to where I couldn’t hear it. Luckily this tea handled it well. The cup smells a more malty than I’m tasting. It seems slightly sweet. Solid tea, but I’m not finding it super exciting. Adding a plunk of creamer just turned it into a mostly cream flavored cup of warmth and took out the flavors of the tea.

Advent Day 10

This smells great. I get the bergamot scent, but there is something behind it that I can’t pick out and seems familiar. It has a strong berg flavor too, but it is smooth at the same time. That unidentified scent comes out in the finish too. This is a solid EG that is way too easy to sip through without realizing it!