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The Montecelio brand for teabags is quite common in Spain, especially when ordering a cup of tea or infusion in a bar or restaurant. Travelling to our destination for New Year´s Eve, we stayed at the hotel of a Michelin star rated restaurant, with tea facilities in the room, and we had this black tea in the afternoon when we had just checked in.
This is a standard blend of black teas, and could be a perfectly normal “English Breakfast”. Advised steeping time on the teabag is 5´but neither steeping it a bit longer nor leaving it a certain time afterwards results in too much bitterness.

Cupper Advent calendar #8
This is the only infusion I missed when I first had it (on day 8), but I remembered to write down some notes on day 20, when I drank it again.
On 18th December i left for my home country to spend Christmas with my family and no, I didn´t forget the teabags left from the Cupper advent calendar.
At first, the brew reminded me of the herbal infusions my mother loved to prepare (very often nettle based), which I must admit weren´t exactly what I used to like to drink, but then it opens up, with a bit of mint in finish. Both mint and even chamomile (at 30% even) are dosed to give a well balanced blend, which I can certainly approve of. Presence of lavender also very subtle.

Every time I´m in UK (whenever I´m not living there, that is), I need to have a look in M&S, especially when Easter or Christmas is near, as they always have original ideas for presents. When I last was over there, at the end of March, I could buy a few really fun presents to take back to my family in Belgium and here in Spain…and I bought a few boxes of teabags. This “spiced apple” was one of them.
Look at that, another blend with white hibiscus! (I just commented earlier today that I had never come across “white” hibiscus before, and today, twice!!!) The infusion is exactly what it is supposed to be : it tastes of a spiced apple, and it does smell of a spiced apple as well…very autumn and winter-y…but the list of ingredients doesn´t include cinnamon, which I find amazing, because the spiced apple tastes of cinnamon. Obviously, using ginger, liquorice and cardamom they can make someone believe there´s also cinnamon somewhere ;-) . Very enjoyable at this time of year.

Advent Calendar Cupper #12.
Another infusion I tried blind, another one where Cupper fooled me partially ;-) …I wouldn´t have guessed this blend contains 35% of cinnamon and 25% of chamomile! No, the rooibos base together with the melissa and orange aroma´s make this a nice “different” Xmas blend, according to me, where the sweetness in nose fortunately turns into much more subtle in mouth, with sweet&spicy notes from something I thought might have been vanilla, but there I was wrong. I definitely look forward to 24th December to try this blend again!

Advent Calendar Cupper #11.
I needed to look quite thoroughly through the Clipper teas already in the Steepster system and compare ingredients as the Cupper version indicated on the box states “be happy” instead of “happy mondays”. Then I also drank this tea/infusion blind, thinking the blend was herbal with added citrus. Moreover, I thought the infusion was soft and subtle (I didn´t get the peppery notes). As my stomach afterwards started to protest a bit, I even mistook this to imply the infusion also contained chamomile (although I hadn´t tasted it), and now seeing the ingredients listed on the box, I wonder where the cinnamon and ginger went…I´ll need to pay more attention when coming to #23.
And, the white hibiscus on the list of ingredients is a bit of a mystery to me too…I believe I´ve never encountered it before.

Advent calendar Cupper #10.
I´m now writing the reviews for a few pouches from the advent calender I took with me on a stay away from home, so I need to indicate I´ve tried these teas/infusions blind. No way did I know that this tea I obviously had already drunk 9 years ago, and that I then had quite liked it. This time, I definitely recognized the red fruit but thought it wasn´t only raspberry; I even thought this was an hibiscus/rose hip based infusion instead of a white tea with fruit, so I really think the blend has changed over the years…or maybe I didn´t spend enough attention when drinking it this time??? Anyway, as #22 is this same blend, I´ll pretty soon find out.

Advent calender Cupper #9.
Ginger in nose and especially (natural) lemon in mouth. As someone who´s not exactly keen on ginger nor lemon, I found this infusion tasty and refreshing, and I could certainly enjoy it more often.

Advent calender Cupper #7
So, finally a Xmas -y blend! The typical spices of a chai come through from the start, and even now my empty mug smells nicely of them. I normally associate chai to black tea based blends, so this is a bit of a change. But, yours truly isn´t a chai tea lover, so in taste I notice – positive point – that the spices don´t overpower you, as in most of the chistmas teas; however, cinnamon ruins a lot for me.

Advent calendar Cupper #6
Keep Calm consists almost half of chamomile, so it´s really surprising that I kind of liked this infusion…but I did. Is it because of the honeybush, as I didn´t notice the cinnamon (which I´m even a lesser fan of!).

In october my parents celebrated their 65 years of marriage, so I travelled – already for the second time this year as in March my mother celebrated her 90th birthday – all the way by car from Spain to Belgium. I´ve learnt during the 20odd years of living abroad that I better spread my trip over at least 2 days if I don´t want to spend at least a day completely exhausted and unable to do anything. However, this time, enjoying the nice weather, we took a scenic route ;-) and drove 3 days stopping at a friend´s place in the Lot (France) as well, for instance. We booked small B&Bs (chambres d´hôte) for the rest of the trip. In one of these, there was even a coffee and tea tray…it must be that a lot of British people stop here, as it´s not at all common to find that in continental B&Bs.
No black tea, only this “tisane” from a traditional French brand.
Yes, Martin, nowadays l´Eléphant is part of Unilever (since 1975) but the company dates back to 1892. And researching the matter, I found a great story : in 2010 Unilever wanted to close down the plant near Marseille (called Fralib then) where the l´Eléphant teabags are made, and the workers fought 1336 days to get control of the factory, which they finally managed with help of the département (who bought the land on which the factory stands). It´s a cooperative now and I read they mainly focus on teas based on natural and local plants. Their brand name is 1336, and they managed to realise profits in 2020. Originally, they had another claim, that of maintaining the brand name, but unilever refused and took the production to Poland although they sold the entire tea division at the end of 2021 to an investment fund, and I don´t know what consequences that had or will have, but it seems the Marseille employee owned Scop-Ti (current name of the company) will continue trying getting the l´éléphant brand name back.
Back to this tisane though…I had a “nuit tranquille” (quiet night), so that was OK ;-) As I´m not a fan nor an expert in herbal teas I cannot really judge but I thought this tisane lacked taste overall. Next time in France, I´ll look for the 1336 brand, only to support the workers I think it´s already worthwhile buying it.