Noël à Paris

Advent 22.

Tastes like Christmas Tea Blanc on a black tea base. The cherry flavor pretty much overpowers everything else except the woodiness of the black tea. Cherry Jolly Ranchers, sour cherry juice concentrate. I swear I taste orange, too. No almond to be found by my senses.

2020 Advent Calendar – Day 22. Finally caught up with this advent calendar! And just in time too. This one smells very much like cough syrup but the almonds show up beautifully in the cup. Thank goodness. It’s still very much about the cherry but the artificial medicinal cherry flavoring disappears and I get this almondy, cherry pie. I get some “pain d’epice” vibe from it but I can’t say that I can pick out the individual winter-ish spices.

It would have been a great Thanksgiving morning tea to put you in the mood for a fun day of cooking and a hint at desserts to come. It did go down easy (and fast)

Day 13 of the Dammann Freres Advent Calendar

Ah, at last a tea I thoroughly enjoyed. No bitterness or astringency. No bergamot or green tea or hibiscus. The cherry flavor is a teeny bit reminiscent of kids cough syrup. The almond must have been too subtle for me to pick up. The tea base was smooth. I liked it quite a bit. If I do place an order (which I had planned to do in late January, but the offerings so far has caused me to re-think that plan) then this will be one of the teas I get.

TBH I am not really sure why I picked this up. Between the cherry and the almond, this is marzipan and medicinal and basically not what I look for in a tea. However, I feel like I should have seen that coming with this flavor profile. I am wondering if I confused this with one of the other Noel teas.

Thick, sweet, but perfect as a morning latte. Lots of maraschino cherry (black cherry?).

VariaTEA sample from yesterday. I’ve had this one before, or thought i have. On the whole i can do without “noel” teas from france. there has been maybe 1 that i’ve really enjoyed and the rest sit in that grey area of sure…i guess i can drink this, if you haven’t got anything else that i’d prefer. lol It’s not that the tea is bad – great base tea, lovely blends. but the combination of flavours is rarely what i want :) cherry and almond aren’t really my favourite. Still, enjoyed the cup, happy to have a good tea yesterday, but not sad it’s all gone :)

additional notes: I usually crave this flavor profile once a year, it’s usually this month, and then trying to think of what tea it is, I realize it’s a NOEL tea, meaning appropriate for the month! This isn’t my favorite DF Noel tea but a nice flavor profile to have a little bit in stock… it’s like boozy cherry. (That pairs well with Lupicia’s Marron Chocolat that I’m having also.) I’m very grateful for that Steepster group order years ago! I was able to try so many DF teas and honestly haven’t written tasting notes for a few of them yet. These 25gram amounts are now reaching the bottom, so I definitely want to order from DF, probably next year… or the year after that….

Needed agave to help perk up the flavours, since this tea is now old as fuck and suffering some serious flavour deterioration issues – but with that little bit of boost the taste was very lovely. Ginger and cherry, in a way that came together to kind of create a “Cherry Cola” sort of profile. It’s been a while since I last had this tea, but I quite enjoyed this mug of it! Think of agave as the botox of flavoured teas; a little bit can have some nice results but you need to restrain yourself a little bit because when you go overboard you can ruin a nice thing.

Dammann Frères Advent Calendar – Day 22 (from November backlog)

Uh oh, this one lists gingerbread flavor again… Bubblegum, here I come! Although really, the dry sachet smells strongly of cherry, and it has a nice tartness to it which is promising.

Not really getting bubblegum here for some reason… I wonder if it’s gingerbread and orange together that does it? Regardless, I am relieved. This has a strong and sweet cherry flavor, which narrowly avoids tasting like a cough drop. I think it has just enough tartness to remind me more of a dried cherry or at least a cherry sour candy. I also taste the marzipan, and a little warmth from the gingerbread. Apparently this has ginger oil in it, so I’m surprised that there’s not a stronger ginger presence. The base tea has a woody flavor, which I actually enjoy with the added flavors.

Very pleasant, but not something I see myself ordering. I prefer a slightly more tart cherry flavor, and already have a tea from Dammann that fills that need. Plus, I also find myself shying away from marzipan teas these days, having tried plenty of them in my tea “youth”. :P

This blend smells a little funky. It’s quite heavy on the fruit and light on the spices. Certainly not a bad thing as I prefer my spices to be in the background.

Sipping… I taste juicy fruit gum and that strange “doughy” thing that I get in some of Dammann’s other blends. It’s not bad, but it’s sort of a fruity and strange blob that sits on my tongue. I can’t pick anything out, unfortunately. I think this blend reminds me of a cup of juice in that it tastes decent, but lacks any sort of dimension.

December 23 – Advent 2014