New Tasting Notes
This is one of my more expensive teas, but I was already buying some teaware from Gabrielle, so I might as well – paying those ,2€/g really does pay off – especially at Nannuoshan.
This sheng pu erh is fantastic. I usually have a hard time noticing the savoury notes, but not with this tea; it is very savoury.
I usually brew this tea lightly, ≈5sec in my gaiwan (I know I should buy a yixing pot…). It is very creamy, viscous, and with a lot of forest notes (mushroom, fresh vegestables, forrest berry).
Overall a very good experience.
Flavors: Artichoke, Berry, Creamy, Forest Floor, Vegetables
Preparation
Sipdown! (32 | 236)
I just ordered another package of this (along with a couple of sakura teas), so I figured I’d finish off the bit I have left from the group order.
I do really like this one. The raspberry is both sweet and somewhat fresh-tasting, and the chocolate is dark and cocoa-like, so it doesn’t taste artificial to me (thank goodness). The base tea is strong and malty.
I bet this would make a lovely milk tea, I’ll have to try it that way one of these days…
Flavors: Candy, Cocoa, Dark Chocolate, Malt, Raspberry, Smooth, Sweet, Tart
Preparation
N is for… Niagara Icewine!
Sipdown (1396)!
Another share from VariaTEA – so thank you again! I’m about 95% sure (if not more) that this is the exact same tea as the Icewine blend from Metropolitan Tea Company, as Dollar Tea Club carries majority teas from MTC – I haven’t compared the ingredients list but it tastes dead on for it.
I’m a big fan of that catalog blend though – I think it’s one of the nicest baseline grape blends out there, and I think I have a few “variations” on it in my stash right now under different names/from different companies. It’s punchy and flavourful deep/dense grape with a coating sweetness, but also leans into some of the tannic and astringent qualities of the black tea base and I loooovvveee the layers of nuance that brings to this otherwise simple but beautiful boozy grape.
I was really happy getting the excuse to enjoy it this morning.
N is for… Night in The Glittering Caves!
Sipdown (1397)!
Thank you VariaTEA for this share – I remember your Steepster review of it as well as your post about it on IG, so I was excited to try this tea! It’s a pretty cool concept – I very much like how the use of glitter/luster dust was tied into this nerdy tea reference. Tickles all the right buttons for me, plus steeped the tea just looks hella pretty. I love luster dust so much and I am very glad to see so many other tea companies are beginning to start working with it!
(It can be a bit gimmicky, imo, when you over do it – but balanced, it’s fun!)
I find the taste of this blend a little generic for my tastes but I appreciate what Happy Turtle was going for – notes of caramel, sweet nuts/pecans, and marshmallow all do come across to varying degrees but it makes for a little bit of a generic “sweet” profile if you don’t actively think about all of the parts making up the whole. I like sweet teas a lot typically – this is actually similar in feeling to DT’s Sweet Potato Pie – but I think maybe I was just not REALLY in the mood for it today??
N is for… Nutty Toffee Roller Coaster!
Gonna need to have this again and monitor the steep time better because I left my teabag in while sipping (was in a meeting and it was easier than fussing with stuff mid meeting) and after a while this got weird tasting from over steeping – however it started off on a really good foot! Very buttery/nutty sweet flavour, like almond brittle/candied almonds with a sweetness and a freshness from the grassier yerba mate. Some smokier undertones as well, which I felt added to the sweet and nutty profile.
When it began oversteeping, it was just too concentrated and the grassiness took on a more sour edge – so if I can watch for that in the future I think I’ll really enjoy this blend.
N is for… Night Trap!
I’m not sure what flavour I would expect a “Five Night’s at Freddy’s” inspired tea blend to taste taste, but chocolate and orange probably isn’t it – still, curiosity and all that…
I finished my mug of this one not too long ago tonight, and I find myself perplexed by the flavour and yet intrigued. To start, I enjoyed it – it was a tasty cup and I think I’m going to have fun playing with slightly tweaking the steep time, leaf amount and trying different addition types to it, like milk. However – it kind of doesn’t taste like chocolate or orange!? I mean, in the finish a bit – definitely a lingering chocolate note and some undertones of orange. However, overall the flavour is just much lighter than I’d have expected and more of a generic “sweet brown” – like caramelized sugar, maybe? I was reminded, actually, of Della Terra’s (wow, that’s a throwback tea reference!) Pineapple Upside Down Cake, which had a similar sweet brown sugar/cake kind of vibe about it.
Yeah. I think that’s where my brain is going with this one.
Wait, this isn’t based on the famous Night Trap video game from the 90s that (along with Mortal Kombat) caused the ESRB rating system to be formed?! Cause that’s immediately the video game I thought of…
Hmmm – I suppose it could be! I’ve noticed that sometimes Retro Leaf seems to merge multiple video game references into their blends, like with Blue Shadow. I just remember when they were doing their IG advertising for this one and the graphics had the same “security camera” footage style as FNAF…
I like the idea of multiple video game interpretations, though!
Well, security camera footage was also a thing in Night Trap! (So ahead of its time…)
Sipdown (239)
Thank you for sharing, Sil! As far as caramel teas go, this was ok. The roastiness from the rice makes this come off a touch burnt. I think it’s also coupled with the Tealish black tea base that I always found sort of mediocre. Both those elements take away from the caramel note. So it’s fine but I’m content with just this sample.
N is for… Nice Melons!
Cold Brew Sipdown (1398)!
I’m currently working my way through this cold brew and it’s just not very enjoyable for me right now. The green tea, with it’s sharp freshly mowed grass and oceanic/marine notes, is too aggressive for my tastes and the melon is only present in the finish as a tasty and welcome reward for gritting my teeth through the greener top/body notes. I can’t remember if there was more melon when this was fresher, but it’s possible it’s just lost some of those notes with time. I think my brew method has also exaggerated the greener notes, which doesn’t help.
None of this is to say that I think the tea is bad – it’s just another ones of those blends where I have some bias since I don’t enjoy green tea much. I knew that would likely be the case when I ordered it – none of this is a surprise. I just enjoy 52Teas’ melon blends a lot, and was curious enough to roll those dice. If you don’t mind green tea, I think this could be a really refreshing choice with some delicate melon flavours.
Happy to pass the rest off to someone else so they have the chance to experience it and have more success than I did.
“An Ode to Tea” Alphabet Challenge – O
Well, this is odd.
This is meant to be an orange and clove tea, but I’m not getting either of those at all.
It’s a perfectly pleasant second flush Darjeeling, but I’m shocked to not detect any added flavor, ha ha! (shrug)
Flavors: Dried Fruit, Hay, Malt, Metallic, Smooth, Thick
Preparation
M is for… Mulled Wine!
This was my last “M Tea” during a very packed day of M blends. I just had so many to choose from and they were also REALLY diverse that I ended up going way too hard…
I’ve learned from my less than stellar cold brew experience though, and I’m back to drinking this tea as a hot brew only. It’s once again sweet and bubblegum like with those juicy orange and mulling spice (clove/cinnamon) undertones. Weird, but familiar and tasty – and a welcome switch from the cold brew I didn’t love.
Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
M is for… Mince Pie Chai!
Sipdown (1399)!
Thank you to my IG friend Sewwie for sharing this with me! I will admit I was curious about the profile, but not enough so to have wanted to order it for myself – blind buying chai blends is usually a no go for me. Love trying samples like this, though!
I found this interesting – it’s very peppery to me. Like, a whole big punch of pepper in a way that kind of made me want to sneeze from the very first sip up until I finished the mug. However, that aside, the warming notes of ginger and allspice did feel very festive and winter appropriate. We’re a little past that now (there’s green grass outside!!), but considering this was a Winter Blend that profile makes total sense contextually.
It’s ultimately not my cup of tea, but I’m really happy I got to try it because I think it’s a cool concept and not a bad execution if you don’t mind a more peppery chai.
M is for… Melange Laduree!
Sipdown (1400)!
I honestly never know what this tea is supposed to taste like, and that’s probably not the best sign – but it’s also not bad. I found this cup of it had a pretty Euro feel to it, and was both generally fruity and generally floral with a lighter body. I don’t think, had I been in a different mood, I may have enjoyed it as much as I did – but I was cooking supper and I had it in such a nice, pretty mug that it made for a non-complex and enjoyable sipping tea.
M is for… Mocha!
Sipdown (1401)!
Thank you VariaTEA for sharing this – and all the other Kenneth Ave teas – with me! I think we were actually pretty aligned with this one in that it’s a bit too coffee like. I typically REALLY enjoy the earthy robustness of shou pu’erh but I think it really leaned into those dark roast coffee notes in a way that made me feel less like I was having a tea and more like I was having coffee. I actually appreciate the accuracy of the flavour a lot, but it’s not for me. Coffee flavours like this are always just so weird for me because I like REALLY dark roasted/earthy flavours a lot – Hojicha, Guinness, Shou Pu’erh, Buckwheat…
But not coffee.
It’s not a “tea is the greatest, coffee sucks” thing either. I’ve just never really liked the taste of coffee, even long before I got into tea.
L is for… Lavender Coconut Macaron!
Um, oops. I totally forgot that I had already used this tea for “D” day. Ahahaha. Oh well, I picked it because I had instant lavender cravings when I saw it. I am just so stupidly into this tea. And one of the best parts? I get whiffs of the lavender from the infuser all the time in the kitchen. It’s just so good.
L is for… Lemongrass Milk Pudding!
This isn’t my favourite tea, but I am a big fan of the coconut/lemongrass combination in general, and this one works fairly well for me. Don’t really taste anything beyond creamy lemongrass, but that’s fine with me. This tea, however, does not resteep well at all (not that many greens do, but this one is particularly bad).
L is for… Lime Pear Fluff!
Forgot to note that I lost another day (just drank resteeps yesterday) so am now 3 days behind where I should be. Oh well.
Anyways, I’m a little shorter on “L” teas than I thought, but happened to locate this tea when I was pawing through my AQ2T stash the other day, and set it aside about a week early so I could have it today. Definitely hit the spot – creamy, fluffy lime, not really any pear but that was never really an issue.
M is for… Minty Marvel!
Sipdown (1402)!
This was my favourite blend from Wize Monkey for quite a while, but it’s since been over thrown by their Lemon Ginger and Chocolate Dream blends. Still, it’s an excellent fresh and menthol rich mint tea, and it compliments the coffee leaf base so, so well. It’s a bit bittersweet finishing it off and, as with anything from Wize Monkey, I have to fight the urge to just immediately order a replacement box – I’m just so in awe of everything they do.
However, I don’t need another box – and I have some other really good peppermint teas that I should be focusing on sipping through in the meantime…
(DavidsTea 123)
L is for… Lemon Cayenne Cleanse!
Ehh, this is a very lemony-flavoured tea, a little bit on the bitter side, and not too much else. I didn’t taste any cayenne and am ok with that. I’m not too interested in “cleanse” type teas anyhow, so would prefer a different type of lemon tea, ideally with creaminess.
M is for… Mont Blanc!
Sipdown (1403)!
I still don’t particularly taste chestnut, but I really got the cream notes in this cup and I liked the richness that they added. I found the greener, grassy edge to the cup a bit much for my own tastes – but I know others appreciate. Glad I tried this again though, because I think I liked it a bit more the second time around.
EDIT: This is my 11,111th tasting note. Damn.
M is for… Milk Oolong!
Sipdown (1404)!
I see I’m not the only one who chose to drink a milk oolong for their “M Day” – I had a few to choose from but picked this one for the easy sipdown. Really delicious though – like liquid butter with a slight green floral undertone. Thank you again for sending this my way VariaTEA. I love a good milk oolong!
A definitely guilty pleasure tea.
M is for… Mango Man!
It’s been such an incredibly long time since I last thought about Mega Man, but I really appreciate the pun and video game reference of this blend – and it makes me want to rewatch the anime or play one of the video games.
I think this is the same base oolong as Applevania, which is a blend from Retro Leaf Tea that I enjoy quite a lot – very warm and nutty oolong with some good baked notes to it. However, that nuttier base oolong doesn’t work at well in my opinion with this mango. The flavouring is a bit more subtle, and because of that a more oxidized oolong with nuttier notes doesn’t bring a lot of life/juiciness to the profile – mango just isn’t one of those flavours that you enjoy “baked” like other fruits. It can be tangy/sour, juicy, and creamy – even spiced. However, nutty/cooked/baked just feels weird.
Not an unpleasant tea/doesn’t seem like the quality is especially bad or anything like that – but just a disconnect of flavours. Maybe if the mango flavouring was more heavy handed and could mask some of the oolong flavours, or if the oolong base was just a different style (ala Lupicia’s Ripe Mango Oolong) – but not my jam as is.
M is for… Matcha Creamy Earl Grey!
I actually pulled out my tin of this like a week ago to try and find time to make this week, but between the alphabet challenge I wasn’t sure where it would fit in. However, as I was scrolling through my options for “M Teas” I saw this one and realized I had an excuse to prioritize making it! What I ended up doing was actually mixing it in with some vanilla ice cream to make a milkshake out of! It was really enjoyable, but not super complex. Basically like a London Fog milkshake.
