Bird & Blend Advent Calendar Day 1 – Christmas Cranberry Pie
Happy first day of Advent everybody! Advent is a big deal for Christians what with being the beginning of the Western liturgical year and everything, but for a heathen like me it’s all about the Advent calendars.
This year I bought myself not one but two calendars. Firstly, I have this Bird & Blend tea one – a “magical advent-ure, hand packed with love” apparently. I also have Paperchase’s 24 Days of Stationery Treats Advent Calendar.
I do not – in any way – need any more stationery in my life. But I like it. Owning notebooks and biros and highlighters shaped like penguins gives me a little fillip of happiness, which probably proves I haven’t matured all that much since I was nine years old.
Back in the old days – before the Sickness came and I used to work in an actual office in London rather than a shed at the bottom of my garden – I used to pass three Paperchase stores on my way to work every day.
I therefore justified the ridiculous expenditure of Paperchase advent calendar, full of things I don’t need, because – hey – that’s an awful lot of impulse stationery purchase that I haven’t made in the last 21 months. Today stationery treat, in case you’re wondering is a stripy notebook.
But back to the tea. First out of the box – in a smaller box – is Christmas Cranberry Pie. Unfortunately we’re kicking off with a fruity tisane rather than an actual tea-type tea. But I’m going to be sanguine about it. There will, I imagine, be a fair few herbal nonsenses over the next 24 days. Bird & Blend do produce a caffeine-free advent calendar as an alternative to this “regular” one.
What they need to do next year is also produce a Caffeine-only version with blacks, greens, oolongs and other legit Camelia sinensis brews. (I’d be happy for them to include rooibos as well, actually, but then we’re in “Teas that Em likes” calendar territory, which is a bit more of a niche market.
Christmas Cranberry Pie contains apple, cinnamon, rosehips, hibiscus cranberry lime leaves, stevia, orange peel, cherries and natural flavourings. It gets an extra point for the cinnamon, which gives it a nice spicy kick. And the inclusion of cranberries and cherries lends it a suitably festive vibe.
It mostly tastes of rosehips and hibiscus which is just ‘generic red fruit tea flavour’ as far as I’m concerned. I shan’t be rushing to stock up on this one for the Christmas season.
I am remaining entirely spoiler free for this calendar so I have no idea what tomorrow’s tea will be. Fingers crossed, it will actually have some tea in it.
Today’s featured book is The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore. You’re going to be seeing a lot of this book over the next few weeks.
