Tea Advent Calendar

It's a Christmas miracle - a new blog post from La Plume!

I love tea. Especially herbal tea. I regularly drank 4+ mugs per day of the stuff this semester. I hadn't had an advent calendar in many years but last year I discovered that there was such thing as a tea advent calendar. So this year I decided to get myself a tea advent calendar. Much healthier than a chocolate everyday (and my face thanks me for it too with the acne...) and more exciting as you get a new flavour every day.

The next choice was which one to buy. I was about to get one online, but then discovered the local 'New Leaf Co-op' was selling them in store, just 5 minutes walk away from my flat (shout out to my friend Kathleen who sent me this info!). This was also a brand I had never heard of before so all the flavours would be new too!

So in November I bought my lovely Yogi Tea advent calendar. Behind each door another little packet of tea would appear, along with a little encouraging message, generally with the theme of love, friendship and giving. The little bits of card at the end of the string of each tea bag had similar little messages. They were quite funny at first but got rather samey and sickening after a while. Here are a few samples of them:

"Live to Love. Love to give."

"Life without love is a ship without sails."

"Be you. Be great. Be together."

"Without gratitude there is no prosperity."

...you get the idea.

I started keeping the packaging for each tea and after a few days decided to start reviewing them (specifically, after the 5th day as it was so disgusting) so I could keep track of which ones were the best. Here are those reviews.

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1st: Classic - 9/10 - Starting off strong with the ‘classic’ flavour. Thought this was going to be more than normal tea but their classic flavour actually tastes more like Christmas tea. Very nice anyway.

2nd: Ginger Lemon - 6/10 - there are many better lemon and ginger teas out there and this one was rather too sweet and mild.

3rd: Turmeric Chai - 6/10 - Interesting but would probably not be my go to.

4th: Green Balance - 7/10 - not sure what this taste was but was expecting worse. Didn’t taste anything like green tea anyway.

5th: Sweet Chili - 2/10 - drinkable but not very nice, especially with the thought of sweet chilli in my head, had to throw away. Would not have probably guessed this flavour blind.

6th: Christmas Tea - 8/10 - generally good, warming Christmas tastes.

7th: Licorice - 7/10 - exceeded expectations, quite sweet with liquorice undertones. Probably superior to actually consuming liquorice sweets.

8th: Matcha Lemon - 7.5/10 - pleasantly refreshing and not too strong.

9th: Sweet Chai - 6/10 - not really sure to make of this one. No real taste and just tastes artificially sweet.

10th: Minty Chlorella - 8.5/10 - I swore it said cholera when I first opened it. Apparently chlorella is a type of algae. Interesting twist on normal mint tea, tasted very similar to tea made with fresh mint.

11th: Ginger - 7.5/10 - a good ginger tea that didn’t even need any extra honey to taste nice (it seems a lot of these yogi teas are already pretty sweet). Usually I only have ginger tea when I’m ill but this one was still nice outwith a cold and a good strength. However, ginger would still not be my go to on a normal day.

12th: Rooibos - 6.5/10 - cinnamon tasting rooibos. Interesting. I did buy a pack of rooibos tea this semester for when I want a less sweet tea. Not sure about this one though as it’s trying to be rooibos but also Christmassy/ cinnamon tasting at the same time.

13th: Lime Mint - 6/10 - Slightly strange, although very subtle flavour.

14th: Bedtime - 6/10 - rather tasteless and not nearly as good as other bedtime tea that I have.

15th: Women’s Tea - 6.5/10 - Smelled of McVities Jamaica Ginger cake that I’ve not had in years. Tasted slightly different though with a hint of ginger. Looked up ingredients after and they include ginger, camomile and orange. Minus 0.5 of a point for the slightly sexist name.

16th: Ginger Orange (with vanilla) - 7/10 - Smelled like a candle and not really in a ‘I want to drink this’ kind of way. Did taste quite nice actually.

17th: White Tea with Aloe Vera- 9/10 - Very nice. Was a bit sceptical about aloe vera but the taste is very subtle and overall a nice tea. Even had it in a clear glass as I was feeling fancy and wanted to actually see the colour of the white tea.

18th: Green Chai - 5/10 - Smelled quite pleasant but taste not really to my taste. Think mostly because I’m not that big a fan of green tea. Actually it grew on me after a while.

19th: Licorice Mint - 4/10 - A bit strange, mostly tasted of sickly sweet candy cane mint and the mint wasn’t even that strong.

20th: Turmeric Orange - 6/10 - Tastes the same as turmeric chai.

21st: Wellbeing - 6/10 - No clue what this was.

22nd: Black Chai - 7/10 - Similar taste and smell to chai latte so pretty nice. A slight fiery ginger kick too.

23rd: Choco - 6.5/10 - Didn't expect to find a chocolate flavoured tea, but here one was and it did actually smell and taste of chocolate a bit! Quite nice but the same kind of Yogi Tea taste undertones that I was starting to find a bit repetitive and not especially nice.

24th: Christmas Tea (again) - 9/10 - Just as good as last time if not better. Especially nice accompanied by a Lindt chocolate.

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What have we learnt? The classic tea and the white tea were the best flavours. Also Christmas Tea tasted better when it was closer to Christmas. But don't even think about sweet chili tea again. I've decided Yogi Tea isn't my favourite brand; they all taste slightly too sweet in an artificial kind of way and there weren't really any fruity flavours. Come back again next year for a new advent calendar review!

P.S. if you are completing my Christmas/ New Year puzzle this might be useful: bit.ly/ {123}. Ask me for the first clue or wait for your card.