My Top Five Teas from DavidsTea’s 2019 Advent Calendar

When you move, money gets tight. That’s one of the world’s few universal laws. It doesn’t matter how carefully you plan, unexpected expenses crop up. Plans go awry. At some point, you have to abandon something you were hoping to acquire during the move.

My husband and I made a pact during our last move. In August, his favorite local distillery put out the newest iteration of his favorite local whiskey. We agreed that he could grab a bottle while we still had the money on hand, with the understanding I could get my tea advent calendar come November. The prices aren’t really comparable, but I knew the storm that was coming. I wanted that forty dollars set aside just in case everything turned on its head.

It turns out, everything turned on its head during the first few weeks of November and didn’t really straighten out until the second half of December.

But I got my tea advent calendar!

So here are my top five favorites from David’s Tea’s 2019 Advent Calendar

Honorable Mention

First a disclaimer. I’ve had to disqualify a few teas from my top picks. Mostly because I already own them in bulk. I already know these teas are awesome so I didn’t consider them in the running for an extra boost. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention them.

First up: Apple Cider. I bought this after last year’s advent calendar. I regularly mix it with a pinch of The Spice is Right for an amazing mulled cider taste without having to go to all the effort of mulling cider.

Next up: S’mores Chai. Another tea I bought after last year’s advent calendar. It’s got all the layers of a s’more in every sip. I drink this one with a scoop of honey and a splash of milk (oat variety these days).

Finally: Santa’s Secret. My mother-in-law gifted me with this tea after last year’s advent calendar. It’s got a nice rich base and only faint traces of mint, which is one of the reasons I love it.

For more about these teas, check out my reports from last year.

Also included in this year’s advent calendar is a tea I’ve kept on hand for quite awhile: Green Passion Fruit. This is one of my favorite writing teas. I first mentioned it back in 2018.

There is, however, one tea from the advent calendar I own but haven’t mentioned before, so I’d like to give it a chance to shine.

Maple Oolong

I first encountered this tea when my husband chose it off the tea wall. Every time we visit a David’s Tea location, we try to choose one tea to taste test. (Why not, right?) My husband has never been a big tea drinker, but he liked the sound of something involving maple.

Turns out he has excellent taste!

This tea tastes like maple syrup. But it’s not sickly sweet. Quite the contrary, it has a robust base of buckwheat seeds and roasted chicory root that keep it balanced. (Side note – I love to drink this tea with my buckwheat honey! It makes a fabulous combination!)

This tea probably would have been the top of this list – if it wasn’t something I already drink on the daily.

Number Five: Forever Frosty

Funny story. When I bought my advent calendar, I bought a second one for my mother-in-law. She had just rebuilt half of my basement and we weren’t going to visit for Christmas. Plus they were basically half off if you bought two.

On the first of December, I opened my calendar to the flavor Caramel Blondie but she opened hers to Forever Frosty. She LOVED it, so I spent an entire month eager to taste this one. It finally appeared for me on day 19. (Strangely, none of the other days were different except these two.)

This tea smells like spice cake, but it’s a little more balanced than last year’s fruit cake tea. It also tastes pretty much how it smells (like spice cake). It’s very spice forward, but each sip ends with a pleasant fruity note. If you want to enhance the fruit flavor, throw in a scoop of honey!

Number Four: Silk Dragon Jasmine

I’ve been interested in Jasmine tea for a long time. It’s one of the ones I always look at while I’m shopping for tea and then end up walking away for some reason. Sometimes it’s the price tag, but sometimes I just get distracted by stuff I’m more interested in trying – I love trying new teas!

I’ve been thinking of using Jasmine tea as a base for Rose’s fan blend, when I finally get around to creating it. (So far the only character who has a tea is Domerin.)

Anyway, this tea was much different than I anticipated. It has a super floral flavor. I’m so/so with floral teas (depending on what they’re mixed with), but I really liked this one. It doesn’t really need anything to sweeten it. It’s really light and relaxing, and isn’t grassy like some other green teas.

Number Three: David’s Breakfast Blend

When you go shopping for loose leaf teas, you tend to look for the fancy ones, the ones chocked full of fruit or exotic leaves. You find a lot of ‘taste alikes’ in loose leaf tea stores and you’re inevitably drawn by the nostalgia factor.

But sometimes simple is better. David’s Breakfast Blend ended up standing out to me as one of the best teas in the advent calendar, even though it’s basically what you’d think of as they’re ‘default’ blend. It was a reminder that simple, straightforward things can really highlight the quality of their ingredients.

This tea has a dark , rich flavor. It’s almost coffee-like, but gentler (and with a bit less caffeine). I tend to drink this the same way I drink my coffee (with a scoop of honey and a splash of oat milk). In the past, I’ve always passed over this tea as uninteresting, but now I’m seriously considering adding it to my collection!

Number Two: Alpine Punch

This is one of those teas that really made me think after reading the list of ingredients. This tea features coconut chips, apple pieces, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, cardamom, black pepper, rose blossoms and almond flakes with a Rooibos tea base.

Quite a spread. I wasn’t really sure what kind of flavor to expect from this. And sometimes when a tea has this many diverse ingredients, it just ends up tasting like a confused mishmash.

That is not the case with this tea though. Alpine Punch has a wintery flavor, but with a hint of a tropical tang. It’s the kind of thing I could imagine myself drinking in the dead of winter. It has all the warming flavors you might find in a chai, but ends with a hint of fruity tang that reminds you of distant summer.

Which actually makes its name quite apt.

Number One: Valerian Nights

It was really hard to choose between Alpine Punch and Valerian Nights as my favorite tea from this year’s calendar. Ultimately, I think they might be equal in my estimation. But this was the tea I held on to the longest and ultimately finished last, so I thought it deserved the bump.

This was another tea that threw me from the ingredients list. This tea includes apple, roasted coconut, caramel pieces, sweet blackberry leaves, valerian root, and chamomile with a Rooibos base.

Valerian is something I usually associate with sleep. It’s often used in the UK as a treatment for insomnia. But this didn’t end up being a sleepy time tea; it’s just ultra relaxing to drink. And despite the similarities between the ingredients list for this and the Alpine Punch, it actually tastes completely different.

Coconut is the star of this show. It’s less fruity than the Alpine Punch, but pleasantly sweet. This is a great tea to cap off a stressful day!

I hope you enjoyed this peek at my favorite teas from Davids Tea’s last advent calendar. I want to give an honorable mention to Cream of Earl Grey, which was my favorite repeat tea from last year’s calendar (that I don’t already own). I remain tempted to add this to my regular rotation (except that I already own like five different types of Earl Grey).

Did you have an advent calendar last year? What kind was it and what was your favorite day?