1293 Tasting Notes
I’ve been curious about The Qi for a while! Their whole flower teas looked very pretty, and I like that they use ethical sourcing practices. I just hadn’t gotten around to ordering – between the cost, not being sure about whether I’d like the taste, and not being a huge fan of all the health claims, it wasn’t top of my to-buy list. But I was thrilled when Nazanin sent me a few!
One of the hesitations I had was whether this tea would be more style than substance. It’s just so social-media-ready, and that sometimes translates to mediocre flavor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this has both style and substance. The packaging is gorgeous. The dried whole flower is gorgeous. It unfurls gorgeously as it steeps. And the flavor is lightly sweet and floral rose. It holds up well to resteeps and doesn’t seem to overbrew, or at least it didn’t overbrew for me this time. I spent all night drinking it, just topping up the water. Honestly, I can now see why this costs this much. It’s probably the best rose herbal I’ve ever had. This one is a sipdown.
Day 12 of the 52teas advent calendar. I made this as an oat milk latte because the word “chai” always makes me think I should add oat milk. The spice balance here reminds me a lot of the gingerbread blend, in a favorable way. The cinnamon, clove, and pepper are clear but not overpowering. Not sure I’m getting “chestnut” per se, but there’s a nice creaminess that goes deeper than the oat milk. Another one that’s risky because of my stomach but I’d recommend for flavor.
Overall, this continues to be an excellent advent. There were some returning favorites (banana eggnog oolong! candy cane marshmallow treat genmaicha!) as well as some new and new-to-me blends that I found quite enjoyable. The gingerbread green and raspberry lemon linzer black were particular highlights there. The quantity of tea is just right – enough to play around with but not so much that it ends up sitting around forever. This calendar has quickly become a constant in my advent lineup; I expect that will continue to be the case.
Last blend in the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler! This smells so good while it’s steeping. The white chocolate, peppermint, and coconut scent just wafts at you alluringly. Those same notes translate into the flavor, too. With a splash of oat milk, it’s a perfect wintry dessert tea. Theme-wise, this is probably more of a Christmas or generic winter blend than a specifically Hanukkah blend, but it’s so tasty that I’m willing to forgive it. In general, I feel like this year’s Hanukkah sampler didn’t have any holiday-specific flavors/themes that I picked up on. But most of the blends were tasty, the price point is very reasonable ($12 for 16 packets, each with enough leaf to make 2 regular or 1 large mug), it’s packaged nicely, and I can see that they’re working to make this offering better every year. All of those things keep me coming back to this sampler, and I expect that I’ll be getting it again next year.
Flavors: Coconut, Peppermint, White Chocolate
Naturally, I had to include this in my Hanukkah tea lineup. Funnily enough, even though this is more intensely sweet than the DT latke blend, I like this better. I think because it’s trying to match a purely sweet flavor profile, I’m not having that feeling of wanting it to be something else (in the case of the latke blend, more savory). The DT Hanukkah gift set should just be a bundle of these two blends instead of a random assortment of teabags with a worse cost-to-tea ratio than the advent calendars. But I digress!
I like this one hot and unadulterated. The notes of jam, powdered sugar, and seemingly specifically fried pastry are just spot on.
Don’t even ask me how old this tea is. About a decade or so? I can’t believe I still have any left. Even more wild is that it’s still pretty tasty! I’m trying to finish it off this year to avoid pushing my luck too much. Probably my favorite thing about it is the ability to tune the sweet/savory balance and get very different flavor profiles. This blend was such a work of art – in a magical universe where Stacy came back to do some limited reblends, I’d vote for this one for sure.
Happy New Year, steepers! Obviously I’ve been drinking this latke tea during Hanukkah. It still reads as apple-cinnamon pancake to me. I find it too sweet and not savory enough to read as potato per se. But it’s tasty for a sweet pancake tea, I appreciate that it even exists, and I respect the effort.
I love this one! When I went to a store in April, I asked if they knew if this one would come back, and they thought it would, but I’m still waiting!
Boo, it’s already the 7th night of Hanukkah! At least I’ve been having fun with it – lots of latkes and sufganiyot, candle lighting, cute socks, my epic holiday playlist on repeat, family time, crafting, and presents. I just finished applying gloss to a Hanukkah repaint of a vintage Polly Pocket McDonald’s toy, so fingers crossed that works out well! This is the second to last tea in the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler. Good news: it’s not hurting my stomach. Alas, it’s still an Earl Grey, which means lots of bergamot. It’s fine for an EG, but there’s too much bergamot for my tastes. I do like the creamy note from the vanilla and the base tea is nice enough. Hard to get past the bergamot of it all though.
Arbitrarily selected day 6 of the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler. Who knew pear and chestnut would go well together? Even more surprising, I liked this better cold than hot. I think of chestnut as more of a hot-tea flavor but the fruity pear here seems to portal it into iced-tea territory.
Day 25 and final day of the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free advent calendar. Bit of a bummer that this is the last one, just because it’s not my favorite. I can see why it was chosen, though – spicy orange is a pretty classic Christmas flavor. I like that this goes for ginger instead of clove. That makes it a little different than the usual, plus I generally love ginger. I don’t know though, this just isn’t hitting the spot for me. And the base is one that I’m sensitive to, so it doesn’t really seem worth continuing to drink this if I’m not enjoying it. Folks who like orange-clove blends and don’t have issues with black tea would probably like this, though!
Did every tea in this advent calendar bowl me over? No. But I consistently found myself pleased to have something from this calendar for my evening cuppa and drank through it pretty quickly. There were some particularly notable blends – candy cane herbal, chocolate caramel macadamia nut herbal, and warm hibiscus herbal come to mind. I’ve bought this calendar in the past and something I appreciate is that they don’t do a lot of repeats year-to-year. At $48 and free shipping on my order, this came out to 96 cents per sample bag. Each bag had enough leaf for either two regular-size mugs or one large mug. This year, for both convenience and in order to avoid dealing with a bunch of little opened baggies, I made every sample bag in a large mug rather than deal with portioning it out. It’s not an incredible value but I’m ok with that price point. It’s nicely packaged in a lovely tin, individual numbered envelopes, and some useful tracking tools. And it’s a nice way to try out a wide variety of their blends, which is ultimately what I get these calendars for. Very likely that I’ll get it again next year.
I’ve enjoyed the caffeinated so far, haven’t tried them all yet. I’d consider doing both a caf and a decaf next year just to get variety.