1146 Tasting Notes

88
drank Coconut Oolong by DAVIDsTEA
1146 tasting notes

Sipdown, sadly. I so enjoyed this blend. It’s obvious that the coconut was starting to fade/turn, though, so I’m glad to be finishing it off while it’s still pretty good. There’s just an oh-so-slightly acrid and soapy note that I know wasn’t there when I first got this. Still not terrible, just not as utterly delightful as it first was. I wish Davids would bring this one back.

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96
drank Evening In the Garden by Plum Deluxe
1146 tasting notes

Taking it easy tonight with a big ole mug of this soothing blend. Delicious as always. The rose is particularly pleasing at the moment.

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drank Throat Rescue by DAVIDsTEA
1146 tasting notes

Sipdown. This one’s so old that I actually bought it in-store as part of a set back when DavidsTea still had stores in the U.S. I only really drink it when I have a sore throat or am sick. Mostly it just tastes like licorice root – at this point that’s all it tastes like, but I don’t remember it ever tasting like more. It does still have a bit of a demulcent effect, which is really all I need from it. And this counts as a tea bought “in-store” for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge.

Flavors: Licorice Root

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90
drank Cape Jasmine Oolong Tea by daebete
1146 tasting notes

Dipped into my Taiwan stash again today. I paired this tea with some Red on Tree mango jam on a couple of butter cookies. No regrets.
The jasmine here is present but not in the same forward way that it often is with jasmine green teas. Here it’s more like the jasmine adds a floral quality that just amplifies whatever floral notes the oolong might already have had. I got a lot of butteriness from this (before eating the cookie, so it wasn’t a contamination thing). You wouldn’t necessarily think that buttery and floral would go well together, but it works very nicely here.
On a practical note: this tea comes in pre-portioned loose leaf, but I quickly found that the instructions to brew an entire packet Western-style in a 12oz mug for 3-5 minutes creates too strong a cup. So I ignored that it’s pre-portioned and used about two tsps in an 8oz mug. That gave me four solid steeps and counting, with enough dry leaf left over to do it again.

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85
drank Ginger Spice by Adagio Teas
1146 tasting notes

Sipdown! Counting this as a tea ordered online for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge. This is probably one of the more popular teas/herbals in our home, in that both I and my partner like it. Although I learned recently that we drink it at radically different strengths! I tend to brew it long and strong to really bring out that good burn, whereas he tends to do a more standard steep and add milk and sweetener for a ginger latte situation. We’re almost certainly going to restock this sooner rather than later, but since I just placed a DavidsTea order for Manoomin Maple I just picked up their ginger blend to tide us over for a bit rather than place two separate tea orders/pay shipping twice.

Unrelated: Roswell Strange has me dreaming of trying the mint blends from Foggy River Farm. Except they’re in Canada and I’m in the U.S.! They have free shipping for orders over $175, though, so if anyone in the U.S. is interested in going in on an order together I’d be happy to coordinate.

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94

Yay, it’s BACK! DavidsTea has restocked Manoomin Maple, which means I can finally dip more into the tiny stash I’ve been hoarding for a year. I really didn’t expect to like this one, both because black teas are always risky for me and because I’m not big on blueberries. But it turned out to be really wonderful, and by the time I figured that out it was already out of stock. Happy it’s back, have already placed my order before it disappears again.
So I’m continuing my Canadian food theme today, pairing this tea with a different vegan lox. This particular lox turns out to be phenomenal, by the way – Living Tree Foods’ Slammin’ Lox. It’s not exactly in wide distribution outside of British Columbia and literally one online grocer, unfortunately, but for anyone who doesn’t eat fish and can get their hands on it, I highly recommend it. This blend, as an oat milk latte, actually paired really well with a bagel/cream cheese/lox. I think that’s because the maple isn’t super sweet, and the maltiness of the black base plus the roastiness of the wild rice gives it some heft that works well with a savory meal. Also this lox isn’t as strongly smoky as the one I had yesterday. So the smoke/sweet flavor contrast wasn’t as jarring between the lox and the tea.

AJRimmer

Is it back to stay?? Deciding how many bags to get. It’s so so good.

AJRimmer

Oh it might be only in tins. Ha it’ll be a lot more expensive to stock up like that.

Dustin

Looks like you get 20% off right now when you buy 2 or more teas in tins!

Kaylee

I did some quick searching and found a general 20% off coupon, which helped. Sadly, can’t redeem a reward for it. I just got the one tin because I only have so much space. My guess is that this will sell out quickly.

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drank Oolong Tea Candle by Adagio Teas
1146 tasting notes

I mean, this is definitely me taking liberties with the Steepster medium, but I wanted to write up a note about this and in my mind it’s categorized with all my other tea stuff (see also: tea-themed stationery and tea lip balms, but I generally don’t feel the need to write notes about those things).
I bought this a couple of years ago. From what I can tell, Adagio still sells tea-scented candles, but not the oolong one and the containers are now glass rather than cement. I lit this a few times when I first got it. Unfortunately, although it smells wonderful, it doesn’t have very good throw – you basically have to be right on top of it to actually smell the candle when it’s lit. So I kind of stuck it on a shelf and ignored it for a while. But I really like the cement container! I want to use it as a tiny desktop trash can. Today I finally decided to do something about it. Since the best way I know of to clean out the container is to burn the candle, I’ve had it burning all day. And hey, it turns out that after burning for hours it does eventually develop better throw. So now my living room smells of honey sweet, floral oolong. Another day of burning this and I should have my new mini trash can :-)

gmathis

Ooh, nice! We’ve got one from Bath and Body Works that is an almost accurate Earl Grey scent, but there’s still something a little chemically about it. Hard to find a good tea-scented candle.

Dustin

Theodor had some tea scented candles. I sort of wish I had bought the milky oolong once that smelled fantastic, but it was 30 euro which seemed like a lot for a smallish candle.

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90
drank Vanilla Parfait by DAVIDsTEA
1146 tasting notes

Another tea from a Canadian company today! This one has been in heavy rotation. I don’t know whether it’s actually helping my stomach, but it’s not hurting, and it’s just a very easy tea to have a cup of every evening. The creamy vanilla is pleasant on its own, makes a great oat milk latte, and lends itself readily to blending with other teas when I want to mix up the flavor profile. I got some vegan marshmallows in my order today, so I threw some maple vegan marshmallows in my vanilla parfait tea. Great combo. The marshmallows added just a bit of maple flavor to the cup, which was really nice. I’ll probably be doing that again.

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87

Eating food from Canadian companies today so I’m curating my teas to match! I placed a truly ridiculous order with a vegan grocer in British Columbia, initially because I wanted the specific vegan gummies they had in stock but then because they had a bunch of other intriguing treats. Canadians, your vegan options are SOLID!
I paired this with vegan lox on a bagel and cream cheese. Not the best pairing, but I don’t have any non-sweet low-caffeine/no-caffeine options from a Canadian company. My thinking here was that at least the roastiness of the hojicha might complement the smokiness of the lox. Which it probably would, but the cinnamon sugar really clashes. I ended up waiting until I finished the bagel and drinking most of the tea afterwards.

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87

Managed to get covid for a third time, which at this point just feels like a cruel joke. I still hadn’t fully recovered the most sensitive/acute part of my sense of smell from the last time. The good news is that this is a relatively mild case, with no further degradation of my sense of smell! I’m not fully better yet but definitely already significantly improved and finally starting to have some teas for fun rather than just health.
I knew this blend would hit the spot as soon as I saw it. The combination of roasted, caramel-y hojicha and cinnamon sugar is just so cozy. I made it as an oat milk latte, which is how I usually make most of Deb’s teas. It’s perfect for curling up under a fluffy blanket on the couch on a cold day even when I’m not sick.

Flavors: Caramel, Cinnamon, Roasty, Sugar

Dustin

Yikes! Hope you are back to 100% soon!

Michelle

Feel better soon!

Kaylee

Thank you both!

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Bio

she/her

Geek and nerd (shoutout to GeekSteep). Still trying to get a handle on this whole work/life balance while ALSO succeeding at work thing. I have some chronic illnesses that make that harder. Tea is my respite.

Favorite tea types, in order:
oolongs
green
herbal
white
yellow

Don’t drink:
black
pu’erh

A sampling of tea shops I like:
Te Company
Calabash
Volition
Tea Thoughts
Harney & Sons
Yunomi
Teavivre

RIP Butiki

Website

https://www.instagram.com/try...

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