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Next in the line up of Summer Teas!

Drank this one iced, as I did with all the new summer iced teas for my first tasting. The smell of the dry leaf for this one is definitely berry like and sweet, but I don’t think really conveys the blackberry super clearly so I was curious to see just how strong the blackberry taste would be. After all, there are WHOLE blackberries in the dry leaf so you’d hope that they’d come through in the taste.

Sadly, I don’t think that the steeped up brew totally nails the blackberry flavour – though it definitely effectively communicates that it’s a berry infusion, so at the very least you have that. The most interesting part of the blend is actually the underlying creamy notes though; they’re somewhat subtle but really tasty. In a way, it reminds me quite a lot of a blueberry or blackberry Greek Yogurt; same sort of creaminess but accompanying tangyness as well. I really wish there wasn’t hibiscus in this, because I definitely get the impression it’d make such a nice berries and cream latte. Overall it’s a nice, fruity iced tea though and really refreshing. I think the berry notes, cream, and softer background notes of apple and pineapple all go together quite well.

Of the four new teas, this is my third favourite. Though I think it’s worth noting that those first three are so close together – I mean, genuinely I enjoyed this one, Sour Watermelon, and Rainbow Sherbet quite a bit and would happily drink ANY of them again. They all had really good flavours/aspects, and the fact that this is third on my list shouldn’t be taken to mean that it’s not good.

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that this one pretty strongly reminds of me a more cleaned up/refined version of Berry Poppins from a few years ago. It’s like the company saw that the berry element of the blend was well received but that the cream was chalky/too artificial so they switched things up and gave us this tea which does a much better job of nicely conveying that flavour.

So, of the four new teas in the summer collection this was my favourite!

I was a little surprised that I enjoyed it so much because when the teas were announced to staff I was pretty neutral towards it overall – I also thought it pretty weird that the blend doesn’t have lime. After all, I consider lime one of the key flavours of Rainbow Sherbet. You could call it… key lime. Pun very much intended.

But yeah, I kind of adore this tea even if the fruit notes in it ARE really muddled and somewhat non-descriptive, and there really isn’t any lime in it either. I mean, it is vaguely citrusy and it is vaguely red fruit tasting so you can kind of fill in the gaps mentally as orange and raspberry respectively. It’s just such a nice overall fruit flavour though. Plus, it hasthe perfect level of sweetness without anything added to it and it’s not really all that tart either.

That just makes for a really nice, refreshing and hydrating iced tea! Hard to complain about that…

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Hooray Summer Collection!

So, it’s official – our new summer collection, the Sorbet Collection, has launched today along with the seasonal teaware – and yes that means that we wont have a Spring Collection this year. Instead, the company focused on several smaller mini collections during that time period. I did the set up for everything for this new collection last night, and I have to say I’ve fallen pretty hard for all the neon colours. They kind of reminds me of the eighties a bit. In the end I ended up grabbing the Electric Purple Locktop and the Green gradient Nordic mug – only afterwards did I realize that meant needing to find homes for them on my tea shelves. Still working on that part of things…

Since all the new teas are geared towards being prepared iced, that’s how I first tasted all of them, so prepare for a string of tasting notes for the whole collection coming up momentarily. The only one I’m not going to be reviewing is Coco Colada because it was part of the collection last year and nothing about that one has changed this time around…

So, Sour Watermelon! This is the tea I was most intrigued by in the new collection – just how sour would it be? Would the sourness be contributed solely by hibiscus? Would there still be a decent amount of sweetness!?

Well, I have to say that it IS quite sour but more in the way that sour candy, like sour patch kids, would be – and that sour quality primarily comes from the sour apple used in the blend and not from hibiscus. Overall, I think it tastes quite a bit like a sour Watermelon Jolly Rancher with some apple undertones. I think it’s just sweet enough, since it does give off ‘candy vibes’ and I’d worry that any added sweetener might make the whole thing taste over the top. Besides, the really interesting this about this one that sets it apart from our other melon teas is the sourness.

Out of the four new ones, this one comes in as my 2nd favourite – but it’s pretty close to my overall favourite. Like, really close. Also, as far as our staff goes this one was the overall favourite of the staff!

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Drank this one last night with some almond milk;

What does it say that I had just gotten home from our staff meeting at DT where I drank a lot of tea (five cups in two hours) only to come home and immediately after turn on the kettle?

This was great through; the perfect silky, creamy and soft sweet tasting note to end the day on. Except I ended up having an unplanned final cup after this so it wasn’t really an end to the day. I love the natural balance of caramel and fresh, floral and green oolong as well. It doesn’t feel like it should work but it totally does. The almond milk added a hint of nuttyness that suited the overall sweetness as well.

Blissful.

So, I won last month’s (March’s) subscription box for tasting notes here on Steepster but due to some Canada Post shenanigans I only just got the box for that two days ago, so I’m just cracking into those teas now.

This was the first one I pulled out because of all the teas I thought it would make the best iced tea. The dry leaf for it smells absolutely incredible. Like, truly, I think it nails all three key fruit flavours for a true “Rainbow Sherbet” – the lime, raspberry and orange. I was pretty stoked to get to taste it.

Now, it’s worth noting that I have had this tea before – but the Frank era version of it and not Anne’s recreation. I ranked the Frank era version a “35/100” because I really, really did not enjoy it when I had it. My biggest complaints then were that the black tea base tasted off, and the fruit flavours were painfully nondescript/muddled. So I was definitely keeping that in mind going into trying this version.

My first observation was that I could 100% taste both the raspberry and the orange notes so that was already a plus in my books. The taste of the lime itself wasn’t as clear to me, and I think it kind of ended up blending in with the orange as a uniform “citrus” sort of flavour because I did find the taste of the fruit much more weighted towards the orange overall than anything else. There was an heir of pithyness to the orange, which seemed a little exaggerated in turn by the black base – I didn’t hate it, but it only served to further tip the focus of the fruit notes onto the orange. The sweetness level of the fruit was great though, and I thought the raspberry specifically was really convincingly natural.

As for the black base, I know that Anne uses a different one than Frank did but I still don’t love it here. I just found it to be very brisk in a way that contrasted with the fruit notes too greatly. It had a sharpness that cut through the flavours and seemed to command attention that I didn’t particularly want to give it. Something more light/medium bodied would have worked better in my opinion – the fruit really should be the central focus in this tea. However all in all, it was a good iced tea and definitely a BIG improvement upon the Frank era version of it which I had so strongly disliked.

Drank this one iced yesterday;

Normally I find the strawberry in this to be pretty defined but as an iced tea it was definitely a lot more gentle/subtle and less clearly defined. That’s not to say that it wasn’t distinguishable, but I do think I tasted more of the floral, green/grassy oolong than I normally would have. In a way, that almost made for a more refreshing and seemingly hydrating drink.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZlbahhoEIo&index=2&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

Not totally sure how well the lyrics match up to the tea, but the overall pacing and tone of the song it pretty mellow/relaxing and I think captures the feel of the tea well in at least that regard.

Late night cuppa from yesterday while going through some new music!

I just really found myself craving the tangyness of this tea, and it happily delivered. The cup was full of juicy, bright and tangy mango notes with just a hint of sourness. Very tropical and refreshing. It really, truly satisfied that craving I was experiencing.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDV679O_tZE&index=8&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

Drank this one as a latte yesterday on shift,

I was scooping it out for a customer and much to my surprise I just found myself really craving it afterwards. I think it was the strong creamy smell and the idea of the earthiness that really got to me though, not so much the coffee itself.

The latte was alright; it had a very strong, robust briskness to it that almost verged a little bit on bitter from the coffee. That very harsh top note was kind of distracting, and it really cut into the creaminess and nutty notes that made up the body and tail of the sip. Those latter, silkier flavours and mouthfeel were what I was hoping to get from this latte as primary flavours – but they just couldn’t compete in intensity. Though all in all, it wasn’t bad tasting. I think it just primarily boils down to the fact I wanted a sort of sweet, creamy “coffee drink” more akin to an Iced Cap or some other sort of coffee concoction you’d get from Starbucks and this was more in your face “black coffee” kind of vibes with earthiness and then some soft sweetness.

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Made a little teacup of this yesterday morning before heading off to work; I added in a smidgen of almond milk and just slowly sipped away at the smooth, silky vanilla notes. The lavender was a nice, delicate undertone. Normally I really enjoy this tea as a night time drink, but I have to admit that it made for a pretty nice “gentle ease into the morning” drink too.

Well, I hadn’t tried a new matcha infused recipe in a while so I decided that the perfect one would be from one of the tea themed books with a cooking section that I already owned. In particular, I settled on making candied matcha carrots – after all I already owned all of the needed ingredients.

Sadly, I think this might be the first ever “tea infused cooking” flop I’ve ever had – and it was pretty well a complete flop…

The recipe seemed so simple! Mix coconut sugar, peanut oil, matcha, ground cinnamon, and a touch of salt together to make a “sauce” of sorts and coat some sliced carrots with it. Give that all a good cook in the oven until the carrots are tender and the sauce caramelizes and you’re set! Except, the matcha sauce wouldn’t caramelize to “candy” the carrots, and when I finally gave up on getting it to caramelize the taste was pretty terrible too.

Basically, it boiled down to this tasting just WAY too salty/savory. Even with the sweetness of the cooked carrots as you bit into them, the combination of peanut oil/salt/and very seaweed-y matcha was SO over powering and gross. I wanted this to work so badly, but not a single person in the house was willing to eat more than two or three pieces before giving up…

Oh well, guess you can’t win ‘em all. I just can’t help but wonder what I messed up.

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.