Loads of fun

"Absolutely understand the other reviews criticising the quality of the product itself—it's not for everyone (read: not for matcha snobs) and there will obviously be flavours that each buyer doesn't like (personally there was some ingredient in all the fruit flavours that tasted like metal to me?) but I think this is a really great advent calendar. I thought the concept was so fun and well-executed, and the little tins are GORGEOUS. Plus, you get more than your 2 cups' worth in each tin. Great way to try all the flavours, and in my case know not to waste money on the fruit ones haha!"

— Emilia (5/5)

Was super excited, but left a little disappointed.

"I was extremely excited about this calendar as I love every matcha I try from B&B, but I dont know if I'm the issue here or what but a lot of the flavours just started tasting the same? I felt like I was getting a vanilla matcha profile on a lot of the drinks, and nothing more. I felt a bit sad about that. Maybe I just have weird tastebuds I'm not sure. I was super excited about the gingerbread one, but this one was extremely overwhelmingly ginger to the point it was all I could taste and honestly spicy feeling! My absolute favourite is the cinnamon bun matcha though, and im glad I tried the advent calender but I'm not sure I would repurchase this year, unfortunately."

— Kristine L. (3/5)

Disapppointed unfortunately

"We got the regular tea calendar last year, and thought this year we’d try the matcha calendar. We’d been to Japan recently and so tried some really good quality matcha, and compared to the matcha in the calendar I really see the difference. The colour is not nearly as green as the matcha that I got from Japan, and some of the flavours look brown rather than green I guess because of the flavour blending. I still think it was good to try, but I only really liked about 4 of the flavours unfortunately."

— Alice (3/5)

Horrible

"The packaging is cute but for the price the matcha is absolutely disgusting tastes extremely artificial, hardly any matcha taste which would be expected it’s basically matcha flavoured powder. A nice idea overall but matcha needs improving a lot for it to even be drinkable Don’t buy"

— Ellie (1/5)

Poorly made with lids coming off in calendar.

"I've only opened 7 days so far but 5 of these the lid hasn't been attached correctly and it's come off whilst trying to get it out of the box. Customer service is replacing these but it's taken all the fun out of the calendar. Instead of getting excited and wondering what flavour I'd get, I instead get my camera out to record if the lid comes off or not. I planned to try a different flavour each day but I haven't since day 2 as all the fun is gone and it has just made me depressed. I've asked to send it back and get a refund. People spend so much money on calendars because they're meant to be exciting."

— Sam (1/5)

"It’s been really fun seeing what flavour I’m going to get each day. I haven’t had the issues other people have described, but I did find it a bit difficult to scoop out of the tub without making a mess. There’s some interesting flavours in here that I can see myself repurchasing so it was useful just to try a bit of everything. However, there were also several flavours that just tasted the same or extremely similar."

— Eilidh (4/5)

Really poor quality matcha

"I feel that the positive reviews are quite misleading for this, as when you look at the reviews from this year they appear to be from people who hadn't opened/tried the calendar yet and were excited to. I feel like the quality must have declined since last year, because the flavours I've had so far haven't been good at all. They all taste and smell very artificial, and have very little matcha taste to them. I've only enjoyed 2 out of 9 of the flavours so far, and even then they weren't great. The 'honey bunny' flavour smells and tastes like a lush bath bomb!"

— Lauren (1/5)

Mostly great but packaging disappointing

"I’m really enjoying it so far! Some flavours are not as nice but I’m liking being able to sample all different types. Definitely have some favourites I may reorder. The only thing is the tins keep shifting around and end up falling through to other doors. I’m having to shake it a bit to jostle the tins back, and am having mixed success."

— Georgia (4/5)

Slightly disappointed

"Received this calendar in December and was excited to try as matcha tends to be quite expensive! Upon opening the colour of the green wasn’t on par with other good quality matchas ( some were understandable like the chai) I didn’t know if this was a packaging or manufacturing issue? The plus side was it smelt lovely! However upon making(and I tried different ways upon the 24 days) it never tasted as good as my alternative brands such as perfect ted"

— Katie (2/5)

Very disappointed

"I purchased this calendar for my 22 year old daughter, who is a huge matcha fan and who was really looking forward to trying the Bird and Blend brand. However, upon opening the first window on the 1st December and trying the matcha, my daughter said the flavour was awful and she found the quality of the matcha to be very poor. It was such a bad experience for her in terms of quality and taste that she will not try any of the other matcha tins in the advent calendar and all the other windows remain unopened. She has only tried the tin from the 1st December. It's such a shame as these calendars are not cheap, and it is a very expensive lesson to learn, but I have told her in future to stick to what she knows and enjoys. Just before posting this review I had noticed other reviews that say similar things about the taste and quality of this calendar, so I'm glad we're not the only ones. Hopefully Bird and Blend will learn from this and improve the quality of their matcha for future calendars."

— Anna (1/5)