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Finally getting around to this one from the Advent calendar. This must be one of their newer tisanes because I don’t remember seeing it on the site. I don’t visit the tisane page super frequently, but I sometimes do, and I’ve enjoyed the tisanes I’ve had from there in the past. But I would have been interested in this one, because all of the flavors (rhubarb, rose, raspberry, date, orange blossom) are things I am a fan of.

This one is very tasty. The rhubarb is the most prominent note, as they say. Mmm rhubarb. I definitely get hints of raspberry, floral rose and orange blossom, and a hint of dark, sugary date. It took me a bit to place the date (until I looked at the description again) because it is almost candy-like. As it cools, it is getting stronger and sweeter. I’m also getting more berry on the aftertaste, lingering my tongue in a juicy way. Yum yum! I may need to order this one in the future in one of my biennial DF orders.

I bought this tea a while ago, but I never wrote a review for it. It is the first tea in my Dammann advent calendar this year, though, so it seemed like a good time to do it.

This is pecan pie, but it’s really more a melange of nut pie. It smells a lot like almonds and hazelnut, and a bunch of other general nuttiness. I like this one better than the standard almond one because I think the other nuts give it depth. There is maybe a hint of custardy flavor, but it’s mostly all nuts all the time. Pretty tasty all in all.

It totally feels like it has been longer than a year since I last reviewed a tea, but my tealog says otherwise. Several things contributed to my absence: I took a new job that has kept me insanely busy and without much time to drink tea; I moved away from Equusfell so I lost my tea buddy; and I have settled into a certain cupboard of teas, haven’t branched into many new ones, and decided that I didn’t want to do tasting notes the same teas over and over again. I almost exclusively drink few companies these days: Dammann, MF, Fauchon, Lupicia, with my occasional unflavored by Verdant or Teavivre. Finally, I just got out of the habit, and have been spending way more time knitting than drinking tea. But I do have a handful of teas I have never reviewed, so I figured I would jump back in for a bit (short lived though it may be).

I recently restocked some Lupicia flavored oolongs for cold steeping (since I do still do a cold steep every night to drink with lunch) and I threw this one in because I love guava, and I miss Lupicia’s guava-flavored oolong (also a Hawaiian edition). It smells powerfully tropical and tasty, and I can definitely pick out guava. I think I have gotten very used to the same black tea base (Dammann/Fauchon, with some select MF thrown in), and I’m really not digging this base tea. It’s pretty bitter, and has some notes that don’t sit well with me. I think there must be some Assam (or something Indian that isn’t Ceylon) in the blend, which is not my friend. Otherwise the flavors are pretty nice: guava, some mango. I was a little worried about the papaya in the blend (because papaya tastes like feet), but it’s not really present, thankfully, or at least isn’t offensive.

Looks like I will be cold brewing this one to tame the base. These days I prefer to cold brew greens and oolongs, but black tea is ok, and I think I will enjoy this one a lot better that way.

I got some of this tea from MissB and was a little hesitant based on the reviews, but I did see that it might be best cold brewed (my plan with it anyway, since it is a green). I also took a couple big hunks of ginseng root out of the infuser, since I’m not huge on ginseng.

This was definitely really pinappley. Unfortunately, it was kind of fakey and candy-like, and not in a good way. It was drinkable, but not my fave. Glad I cold-steeped it though, it seems like the best method.

Polished this one off this morning. Still delicious! Love red fruits, the combo is always so comforting. Thanks again to MissB for sending a sample of this along!

This was another sample from MissB, albeit one I’ve had before. Apparently MissB actually sent me previous sample I had, too! I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding because MF also has another tea called “Lune” that is not this one, and that I haven’t tried, but I am still happy to have more of this. Previously I had a sachet, and now I have loose tea.

Today, my cup was super almondy with a hint of spice. Before I had issues with what I thought was cherry flavoring; I think I had gotten the ideas from previous reviews, and somehow my brain convinced me that even though there is NOT cherry flavoring, that I was tasting cherries. I’m not even sure I would call this cup distinctly fruity (there are some unspecified fruits in the blend), I mostly just tasted almond and a hint of spice. So I am glad that I got a chance to try this again, to set me straight on it. It is, in fact, quite delicious.

When I looked up this one from MissB, I was excited to try it, since it has a lot of good reviews here and the flavors sounded pretty good. I’m not sure if I would recommend it as a cold brew, though. The fruit flavors became perhaps too intense, and the whole thing tasted like some kind of strange peach candy. I could also be reacting to the strawberry; I enjoy fresh strawberries, but anything else strawberry-flavored is not my thing. All in all, not my favorite fruit blend.

I had been putting this one off a bit (one of the last black teas in my MissB package) because it is a Christmas tea, and it just didn’t feel Christmasy. It still doesn’t, but I put it off long enough. I also tend not to care for LPdT’s black tea bases, but we’ll see how this one goes.

Anyway, almonds and spices and such. Also supposedly citrus and rose; I think I got some orange (though it wasn’t very strong), but no rose. It was nicely almondy, and the cinnamon wasn’t overpowering. My biggest gripe with this one is the base… at current parameters, it seems like it needs an “oomf”, something to pick it up and give it a little more flavor. Like a higher temp! But there are also notes that warn me that it might not be so friendly at a hotter temp, like the base would go bitter on me. I think this one would likely be delicious brewed strong and taken with milk and sugar, so I will likely save the rest of it until winter when I feel like doing such things again. :)

MissB sent along a sample of this tea as well. From the name alone I knew it was the Dammann blend, not surprising since apparently they wholesale their teas around France in general. As always, it’s one of my favorites. :)

I’ve had teas variously called 1001 nights before, although I think this one is quite different from all of them. This one I got from MissB, and I cold brewed it. I have to say, although it was reasonably tasty, none of the flavors really stuck out to me. It was kind of just a generically fruity green tea as a cold brew. Apparently it has mint in it too, and I’m glad that did not come out in the cold brew. I definitely preferred Roi Solei from Laduree as a cold brew, it held it’s flavors better.