This is a pretty good apple and cinnamon blend, but having cinnamon in it does not make it a chai, so points off for false advertising. It’s still good even when I borked the steeping this morning, though, so it has that going for it.

I bought a one-pound bag of this blend last April without ever tasting it. I generally like chai, and I generally like Elmwood Inn, so I figured it wasn’t too much of a gamble.

It turns out that this tastes different than any other chai I’ve had. It’s not cinnamony like some chais, but it’s also not the ginger and pepper combination that I really like in chais. Maybe it’s authentic in some way that I don’t appreciate, but it was a real disappointment at first. With time, it grew on me, but coming back to it after drinking none of it in December is reminding me how much of a disappointment it is.

Green tea is not usually my favorite, and I think hojicha would take a while to get used to, but even without a bunch of milk, I think I’d enjoy it more than other green teas.

Look, this isn’t that bad, and I’m probably being hard on it because it’s Starbucks, but I had a really good masala chai experience yesterday, and that makes me think about how too cinnamony and sweet this one is.

I don’t have Asian iced teas very often, but I usually enjoyed them! This had some fun flavors in it, and I think I like ube?

I have not paid any attention to the Dubai chocolate craze, but my spouse was right to guess I’d like this herbal blend. I wouldn’t mind a stronger pistachio flavor, but with more sips, I’m growing to appreciate the subtle nuttiness alongside the cacao flavor.

This isn’t what I want every day, but it’s an excellent combination of flavors.

I think this is my favorite tea of all time. It tastes just like an Andes mint and brings real joy to my morning.

This tea is tasty! The orange flavor is good, and I like the cinnamon more than I might have expected. I am not giving it full marks because I think I’d tire of it quickly, and even though that raises some inconsistencies in my rating system, I’m sticking with it.

One of my favorite herbals!

It’s not totally what I was hoping for (maybe I’m getting used to the oolong—the last licorice tea I had was just black), but it scratches the itch for a good licorice tea.

Good but not mind blowing!

I’ve been looking forward to this blend since the beginning of this advent calendar, and I’ve finally figured out how to follow these steeping instructions, and everything has paid off. I do miss some of the maltiness of blending it with Kenya tea, but this is good all by itself.

Okay, I think I figured out how to steep these “one bag per person” blends because this is really hitting the spot this morning! Plus, I reserved a bag instead of steeping both, so now I have more to enjoy later.

This would be better except that I steeped it too long, so some of the underlying tea flavor is too strong. It is the kind of chai I like (more pepper and ginger than cinnamon), so I’m going to have to be more careful the next time.

This was pretty good, but I think it would be better if I’d steeped it differently. I don’t get the “one bag per person” instructions and how it differs from “one bag per cup.”

Chamomile is not something I generally like in tea, but the overall combination here works, and it’s a nice “warm me up” blend for a cold day.

Feel weird giving this full marks because it didn’t knock my socks off exactly, but it wasn’t “slightly too strong” in the way that I penalized yesterday’s Kenya blend for, so I guess if I’m going to have plain black tea one morning, I’d be happy with Darjeeling.

Not bad but not my favorite. I liked the recent blend of Kenya and Ceylon tea a lot, and now I’m wondering if what I really liked was the Ceylon. I’m guessing I’ll find out!

Chai sounds good, and coconut sounds good, but this combination doesn’t work for me. The coconut flavor is too strong, too tropical, and too artificial. Pretty disappointing.

One of the first non-herbal teas I tried was a Lady Grey, and I think that biased me toward that approach to Grey-like teas. I’ve had mixed experiences with Earl Greys (sorry, Jean-Luc), and I usually find myself wishing it was a Lady Grey instead.

This Earl Grey was pretty good, though! Not enough to get full marks from me (again, I found myself wishing for more citrus), but I was pleased by how it worked out.

I bought this at a Renaissance Faire in September and had the last of it at lunch today, because it’s a “several cups of tea” kind of day. It’s not as exciting as I hoped when I first bought it, but it’s been a reliable weekend tea for the past few months, and I’ve enjoyed it.

I couldn’t articulate specifically why this breakfast blend (which mixes Ceylon and Kenyan leaves) impressed me more than the English Breakfast one, but it did! I could drink this one on a regular basis.

I was just posting this morning about how great this idea of teablogging is, but I’m going to immediately undercut that my questioning my ability to rate teas in the first place.

This is the most interesting and enjoyable blend I’ve had so far in the advent calendar, and for that, it gets a higher rating than anything I’ve tried so far. Yet, I think I’d also tire of it more quickly than most of the other blends I’ve tried, so in the long term (rather than as a first impression), I think it would rate lower. I could drink the vanilla chai every morning even if it was a bit disappointing, but I think I’d have to space the bergamot and jasmine flavors of this blend out or else I’d quickly get sick of it.

This one is fruity and floral, and maybe I steeped it wrong, because there’s the potential of something interesting in here, but it’s just not flavors I want in my tea this morning.