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Bird & Blend Tea Advent Calendar Day 1:

Yay!! Tea Advent Calendar season has begun!!! In the past I’ve gotten the David’s Tea calendar and the Dammann Freres tea advent calendar, and this year I decided to try this one. It is such a fun thing to do: open the door and find out which tea is for today. I’m like a kid that way.

Thank God this work week is over. I have been working so much overtime for the past 11 months that I hardly knew what to do with myself leaving after only 8 hours. Monday and Tuesday went pretty well, but so many people were out today that I never got a chance to breathe. I shouldn’t have even tried to get any work done. I should have sat back and waited for the next fire to put out.

On crazy days like this it’s nice to take a break and sip some tea. Sadly, I barely got to sip tea before I had to go fix another crisis.

That was the last cup!

I ended up liking this one a lot more than I thought I would. It was a refreshing caffeine free cup for after supper. I never tried it iced, but I bet it would have been good that way. I know Black Friday sales will be starting up, but I have ENOUGH tea. I will keep saying that until I believe it!

Yesterday I went with two friends to a craft/vendor show. It was an eclectic mix of traditional craft show (think handmade candles, unique earrings, crocheted dishcloths, quilted table runners, etc) and gourmet food suppliers. There were people selling artisan soup mixes, frozen bread and cookie dough, coffee beans, small batch hand made truffles, a build-your-own hot chocolate vendor, and a single tea merchant.

This merchant had a small selection of loose leaf teas, almost all named for cities in Norway. Since 90% of the people living in Fargo are of Scandinavian ancestry, this was a good gimmick. They had free samples of Cozy Cabin (one of the two teas not named for a Norwegian city). It was nice. Nothing special really, but I was so happy and pleased to find a local tea vendor that I bought a couple. I got 1 ounce of the Cozy Cabin, 1 ounce of this one, and two ounces of Royal Pleasure Garden in a gift tin for a friend for Christmas.

This one, Oslo, was again not spectacular, but it is a pleasant tea with a mild flavor, with only a bit of astringency at the end of the sip. I was able to chat with the women who own the tea shop. It is a mother and daughter team and when I asked what kind of tea leaves they used their reply was “black.” I asked again what kind. Ceylon? Assam? They both seemed amazed that I knew particular teas came from different regions. tea. They said most people they sold to had no idea so they labeled their teas as “black” or “green”. They didn’t want to put people off b y sounding too snooty. It’s a sad statement on the general knowledge of Fargoans on tea. :(

As I said, this isn’t really anything special, but I will probably buy from them again, just to support local tea suppliers.

This came in my subscription packet from Bird & Blend just yesterday. I am so stoked, because this month I think I will love all three teas! I decided to try this one this afternoon. The name reminds me of those Ferrerro Roche candies. Yum, I love those things, so I was glad to try this tea.

I bet this tea has a heavenly scent. I had my steroid shot about a month ago but the sense of smell never returned. Pity. No smelling the Thanksgiving turkey roasting or the aroma of apple pie baking. And no scent of the festive teas. I hate that. I really wish they would find an actual cure of Samters. If I were a person of the male persuasion with a certain dysfunction, I would have my pick of treatments. But breathing and smelling isn’t as important I suppose.

Okay, this tea. Smooth. Very smooth. Brews up a nice amber color. The mouth feel is silky. The hazelnuts are ‘carmelised’ with sugar. There is a very faint note of sweetness, but not that icky sweetness from stevia. I can taste sweet, and this was barely there. Just enough to round out the flavor. It had a very faint hint of astringency at one point when it cooled. Next time I shall drink it faster so it doesnt’ get to that temp.

All in all, this first of the teas in the subscription package is delightful. I can see myself ordering 50 grams of this in the future.

Dang, dang, dang. It’s snowing. Good weather for tea drinking and knitting. I chose to indulge in one of my pricier favorites. Do you ever put off drinking these teas because you don’t want to run out? I do, but really, that is silly. I may as well enjoy it. This one is so smooth it is a joy to drink. No bitterness and no astringency to mar my enjoyment. Just a perfect afternoon tea to indulge in on a cold snowy afternoon.

I’ve had a couple cups of this now and I can’t decide what I think of it. To me it is warm water. I can’t taste anything . Of course, someone else probably could taste it perfectly well, but with no sense of smell, I rely on the ‘feel’ . Like, peppermint and ginger and other spices leave a sensation on my tongue. I can taste sweet. I can taste bitter or sour. At least it is not bitter. That really ruins a tea for me. Or things like hibiscus are so tangy that it is unpleasant.

This is not at all unpleasant. I just don’t taste anything. Maybe I’ll double the amount I use next time.

A call went out in my SCA Shire for tea/coffee donations for our event this weekend. For convenience, they wanted bagged tea. I had a box of this tea in tea bags, so I made the donation. I think this is a great breakfast tea. And its hearty warmth was much appreciated this morning since it was in the lower twenties this morning, and we’d had an inch of snow. Those who arrived early to set up needed the warm boost..