Advent calendars are a fun way to count down to Christmas. There are all sorts of calendars with chocolate, soaps, muesli… and, of course, tea. However, it’s not easy to find one with loose leaf tea; most contain teabags. A fun, wintry activity is to make your own advent calendar with loose tea or high-quality teabags. A homemade tea advent calendar is also super original to give as a gift.
Choosing tea: loose leaf or teabags
The first step is to buy 24 delicious teas for your calendar. Think especially of winter flavors, Christmas tea, warming herbal infusions… You also have to decide whether to make an advent calendar with loose leaf tea or teabags.
At Thee.be, we have many wintery teas such as Apple Spice, Orange Cookie, Pu-Erh Yunnan, Chocoberry Kiss, Very Berry Muffin, Forest Walk, Golden Tippy AMBAR, Cosy Nights, Ginger Fresh, Rooibos & Orange Shuffle, Verbena Verveine… The Garden of Eden collection is also very suitable and contains many warming teas like Earl Grey – Garden of Eden and Ginger Tea – Garden of Eden. And for those who prefer teabags, there are our own House of Tea teabags or those from Or Tea?.
Budget Tip: If you have a large tea collection, take some teas from your collection and use them in your calendar. This way, you can rediscover fun teas from your own collection or give your personal favorites as a gift if you are making the calendar for someone else.
Finding a fun shape
Once you’ve bought the tea, you need 24 places to put it. For loose leaf tea, small tins are ideal, like our small white square tea tin or our set of 4 stacking tins. Decorate the tins with fun Christmas stickers and number them from 1 to 24.
Another option is to reuse an old advent calendar or to buy a beautiful wooden one. You might find these in the attic, in a thrift store, or for sale in many stores during the end-of-year period. They come in all sorts of fun shapes and sizes, such as a house, Christmas tree, Christmas train, etc. Once you’ve found a nice one, you can reuse it every year.
Another option is to put the tea in small envelopes. Find 24 Christmas-themed envelopes, for example, green or red envelopes with a Christmas design… You can also pimp white envelopes yourself with Christmas stickers or stamps. Number the envelopes and hang them up. A beautiful way is to hang them on a special garland for Christmas cards or a beautiful Christmas ribbon.
Assembling your Advent Calendar
Put your chosen tea into your advent calendar. For loose leaf tea, you can also put it into teabags yourself with our ‘fill-your-own tea bags’ to make them fit more easily into your advent calendar. Optionally, you can also add an extra sticker or a little note with the name of the tea.
Make sure to have enough variety so that you don’t have two similar teas back to back.
And voilà, your tea advent calendar is ready!
Some additional tips
- Make sure the numbering is clear so you know which door/drawer/envelope to open each day.
- You can also ask someone to fill the advent calendar for you so you don’t know which tea is where. This way, you’ll be sure to be surprised when opening!
- If you’re giving the advent calendar as a gift, it’s nice to include a small tea accessory on some days (at the start of the calendar on day 1 or 2) instead of tea, like a tea filter, tea clip, or tea scoop.
- You can also opt for a ’12 Days of Christmas’ instead of a 24-day advent calendar. You’ll need fewer different teas, and your calendar will be ready sooner.
