So this was the first tea in my DAVIDs advent calendar, and I can already see that it was a mistake to buy it, if every tea in it is like this one I’m going to be out of A LOT of money when I have to buy bigger quantities of them.
A quick aside from my actual tea review, the thing that worried me the most about my advent calendar wasn’t the actual tea, but the amount that could fit into the little thimbles that hold the tea. They look really tiny, and the people in the store I bought mine from told me that they were only intended to hold about a cups worth. Well when measured with liquid they actually hold 30 ml, otherwise known as one ounce to anyone who speaks imperial measurements, which is a pretty decent sized teapot’s worth or several cups. Needless to say there’s more than enough of each tea to properly try it (or share it) in whatever sized cup you wish to use, and I’ve pretty happy the information I was given was wrong. I’m also really excited to be able to re-use to little containers for when I bring tea with me to work.
I didn’t find the dry smell of the tea too exciting, basically your normal mildly/blandly flavoured black tea. I should also mention that for my first brewing of all my advent teas I’m choosing not to look at the ingredient list to try and keep some surprise/magic in the process. For all the dry smell didn’t excite me the brewed smell/taste did. It smells like the warm creamy drink that you sip on while sitting beside a window wrapped in a warm blanket while watching the snow, or in my case sitting in a gallery and watching people have to walk their dogs in the pouring (cold) rain – even the dogs looked unhappy. Which I’ve since learned is what I associate with the smell of vanilla and coconut. I got more of the buttered taste then the rum while drinking it – the richness probably coming from the coconut – and I loved it. If you like the lifesaver Buttered Rum flavour you’ll like this, I found them both really similar, and yes I did a side by side comparison.
