Tea Advent Calendar 2017

You don’t need an Advent calendar to know that Christmas is coming, but opening a little numbered door to reveal a prize and enjoy one or two cups of delicious tea as a reward is an idea that everyone, religious or not, can get behind.

So what is Advent? Advent is the four week period beginning on the Sunday nearest the feast day of St Andrew the Apostle on 30th November, through the following three Sundays. Advent Calendars typically don’t follow the traditional period of Advent. Instead they begin on the 1st December and mark the 24 days before Christmas. Nowadays most Advent calendars are made up of paper doors that open to reveal an image or a piece of chocolate and in our case some delicious loose leaf tea.

You might think that traditional advent calendars have been around for centuries; the main elements, the church’s countdown to Christmas, paper and candles all have. As it turns out, the practice of counting down the days to Christmas in paper form, using wreaths or candles is actually relatively new.  The real blueprint for the advent calendar originates in Germany, the advent calendar we know and love; the little doors to peel back, revealing pictures, candles or chocolate.

There are many styles of calendars used in different countries. The most common ones in the UK and America are made of paper or card and have 24 or 25 little windows on. A window is opened on every day in December. In the 19th Century, German protestant Christians counted down to Christmas by marking 24 chalk lines on a door and rubbing one off every day in December. When advent calendars where first made, sections from the Christmas story and other Christmas images were used, such as snowflakes and robins, but now many calendars are made in themes of television programmes, movies, sports and toys.

Here at Cup of Tea we have an exciting Tea Advent Calendar containing 24 different loose leaf teas to try throughout the advent period. This is a great gift idea for you friends and family. Each window contains a 10g sample of tea, enough to make a pot of tea for 4-5 cups.

 

The teas included are:

Ronnefeldt Assam Bari – Malty, spicy tea with an extravagant, lively taste.

Ronnefeldt Darjeeling Summer Gold - Elegant flowery black tea with a delicious muscat flavour.

Ronnefeldt Finest Namring - Fresh and flowery Darjeeling tea from one of the oldest tea gardens of Darjeeling.

Ronnefeldt Irish Malt – Flavoured black tea with whiskey and cocoa flavours.

Ronnefeldt Duke of Grey Organic – Malty Assam black tea blended with a tangy, fresh bergamot flavour.

Ronnefeldt Chocolate Chai - Black Assam tea with cocoa shell and spices.

Ronnefeldt Chai Vanilla - Flavoured black Assam tea with Indian spices and vanilla.

Ronnefeldt Winter Fairy Tale - Flavoured black tea with orange, cinnamon and lulo fruit taste.

Ronnefeldt Milky Oolong – Specially produced, highly aromatic milky sweet Oolong tea.

Ronnefeldt Oolong Ti Dung - A tea mildly fermented with a surprisingly soft and fine nutty character.

Ronnefeldt Fancy Sencha Organic - Light green in the cup, with a continual but gentle breath of bitter sweetness.

Ronnefeldt Green Tea with Ginger and Lemon - Citrus meets fiery ginger in this perfectly balanced blend.

Ronnefeldt Jasmine Xian Yu - Wonderfully delicate, famous, sweet and flowery character.

Ronnefeldt Morning Dew - Flavoured Green tea with mango-citrus flavours.

Ronnefeldt Salted Caramel - Flavoured mixture of green tea and salt with caramel flavor.

Ronnefeldt Vanilla Apple - Delicate green tea with apple and vanilla.

Ronnefeldt Ginger and Lemon - A refreshing blend of ginger & lemongrass.

Ronnefeldt Gentle Wake Up Call - Flavored mixture of green tea and rhubarb with strawberry and rhubarb.

Ronnefeldt Coconut Macaroon - A Christmas like taste of coconut and a delicate hint of vanilla.

Ronnefeldt Amaretto Prickly Pear – Flavoured herbal infusion with amaretto and cactus cream flavour.

Ronnefeldt Rooibos Snow Flurry - Flavored herbal tea with orange and cinnamon flavor.

Ronnefeldt Magic Fire – Flavoured fruit infusion with almond and cinnamon flavours.

Ronnefeldt Fresh and Fruit – Fruity infusion with apple and hibiscus.

Ronnefeldt Fruity Baked Red Apple - Sweet fruit tea with a Christmassy touch.

 

 

Traditions and Fun Facts about Advent Calendars

 

The worlds biggest Advent Calendar!

Every year a town hall in the Black Forest village of Gegenbach, Germany is transformed into the world’s biggest Advent calendar.  On the 1st December at 6pm residents and visitors gather in the market place in front of the town hall and one by one the lights will come on until the building is lit with bright colours. Finally the first window of the advent calendar will open. This is then repeated every evening until 24th December. There are no edible treats behind these windows; instead they reveal works of art. In 2016 the calendar focused on the works by Andy Warhol and the first window that was opened was a picture of a cat!

In the Czech Republic there is a superstition that if you fast on the night of Christmas Eve you might see a vision of a ‘golden pig’. If you are lucky enough to see this vision it will bring you good luck! They also have a tradition for single women on Christmas Day to throw a shoe over their shoulder. If the shoes lands with the toe pointing to the door they will soon be married.

In Japan Christmas is not very widely celebrated. It is however popular to go to KFC for a bucket of ‘Christmas Chicken’ on Christmas Day!

In Caracas, Venezuela the streets are closed to cars so people can roller skate to early morning mass!

In Bolivia on Christmas Eve people bring roosters along to mass. This tradition is called ‘Mass of the Roosters’. Tradition says that a rooster was the first animal that announced the birth of baby Jesus.

A tradition in Finland is to have porridge for lunch with a hidden almond inside. Whoever finds the almond has to sing a song!

 

We hope we can create a new tradition with our Tea Advent Calendar and give you the opportunity to explore the world of tea in more detail.

Whether you want to indulge yourself with one of our tea advent calendars or give to a friend or loved one as an early Christmas gift, one fact is for sure; the user will enjoy every day up to Christmas.

Enjoy and if you find a couple of teas you really like and fancy carrying on drinking you can buy most of them online from our website www.cupoftea.co.uk

 

Posted by cup of tea admin
13th October 2017

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