70 Tasting Notes

90
drank Orange Pekoe by Tetley
70 tasting notes

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72
drank Lychee Bellini by DAVIDsTEA
70 tasting notes

This tea smells moderately strongly of strawberry in the pouch, but not overwhelming. Definitely a sweet smelling tea though.

To prepare I used my standard 0.75 tsp of tea for my 12 oz cup. Steeped at slightly below boiling (95C) for 5 minutes (I was aiming for the mid range time of the 3-5 minutes that was recommended, but I got distracted lol…)

After steeping, the tea came out a dark amber colour and smells strongly of fruit, but not so much of strawberry anymore, so maybe that’s the lychee I’m smelling now? I’ve never had lychee before, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to.

The hot tea isn’t as bitter as I thought it might be due to it being a black tea, but the ingredients do list sugar and stevia extract, so that probably has something to do with it. Also, the black tea was the less prominent part of the dry tea mix. It does get a bit bitter though as it cools down, so I ended up adding some sugar partway through while drinking.

As for flavours, the flavour that’s coming through strongest to me is mango, not the strawberry like I’d been hoping for. Mango is the third ingredient after apple and black tea. The flavour is very reminiscent of a mango juice I used to drink years ago from a can.

Would I buy this one again? I don’t know. I’ll still have to try this one cold, but as a hot drink, I’m pretty neutral towards it. It’s okay, but nothing spectacular.

Cup count from the 27g pitcher pack: 1 (Plenty left to play around with)

Flavors: Mango

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec 12 OZ / 354 ML

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90
drank Orange Pekoe by Tetley
70 tasting notes

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70
drank Frozen Raspberry by DAVIDsTEA
70 tasting notes

Not sure what possessed me to try a cold steep of this on a cold day, but here we are.

The dry tea in the bag smelled super strong and my nose was not pleased. It’s not one that I could just smell in the bag and enjoy the scent of. Fortunately, the smell during and after steeping was much more pleasant and doesn’t overwhelm the senses to the point of almost gagging.

As for preparation, steeped 0.75 tsp of this tea cold in my 12 oz cup in the fridge for 90 minutes and now have a tasty pinkish red drink. Very reminiscent of a raspberry freezie or snowcone while cold, though less sweet than a freezie and slighly tart—like very slightly. Plenty sweet enough to drink on its own, but leaves a lingering artificial flavour. Refreshing is a good way to describe this drink.

Also worth mentioning: I took a peek after around 1 hour of cold steeping and noticed the yogurt pieces weren’t quite dissolved, so I dipped the infuser basket a few times to break up the pieces and put it back into the fridge for the extra 30 minutes. Seems to have done the trick. Not really sure if I taste the yogurt or not though.

Cup count (12 oz) from the 27g pitcher pack: 1 (Lots more to play around with)

Would I buy this one again? Maybe, still want to try it hot too, but I do prefer this to their Just Peachy flavour I tried yesterday.

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more 12 OZ / 354 ML

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90
drank Orange Pekoe by Tetley
70 tasting notes

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90
drank Orange Pekoe by Tetley
70 tasting notes

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67
drank Just Peachy by DAVIDsTEA
70 tasting notes

Decided to try a cold steep of this one using the same amount of tea (0.75 tsp) for a more direct comparison to the hot version I made yesterday. Steeped it for one hour in 12 oz cold water in the fridge.

The colour is about 3/4 as dark I’d say of yesterday’s drink and while the scent of fuzzy peaches candy is still there, the flavour is still more of an peach/apple mix.

I do think that cold brew is my preferred taste of the two, however, because it does preserve more of the peach flavour than the hot brew had after it cooled down and the cold brew drink tastes less acidic and more sweet.

Several reviews of this tea I’ve read talk about steeping this cold overnight, which does sound like a great idea for future attempts. An hour was all I was prepared to wait today, however.

Upping the rating to reflect this slightly better flavour profile I’ve found: 65 to 67.

Updated cup count (12 oz) from the 27g pitcher pack: 2 (Lots more to play with in the future!)

Flavors: Apple, Peach

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more 12 OZ / 354 ML

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90
drank Orange Pekoe by Tetley
70 tasting notes

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67
drank Just Peachy by DAVIDsTEA
70 tasting notes

Just got in my order from DAVIDsTEA today, so I was very excited to try something new. I purchased 10 of the iced tea pitcher packs because I love fruity drinks and they were on sale. Decided to make it hot and by the cup instead of as a full pitcher cold. As I didn’t really want caffeine at the moment, I chose Just Peachy from the five fruit infusion options I had.

The smell of the dry tea is to die for. Very similar smelling to the fuzzy peaches gummy candies that I love.

As the instructions on the packet are for a pitcher of cold tea, I looked to the website to find out how to prepare the tea hot. It suggested steeping the tea 5+ minutes in 95C water, so I went with that. The packet, however, says you can steep it to 20 minutes if you want for extra flavour, so that’s certainly something to try.

After 5 minutes of steeping, the tea still looked somewhat light, so I left the tea to steep an extra five minutes for 10 minutes total. The tea didn’t really darken, however, and ended up almost an apple juice colour, though slightly darker.

As for the dry tea, I used 0.75 tsp because that’s been my standard amount and I wasn’t really sure what “one to two perfect spoonfuls” was all about. Though I tend to use about 1/2 the recommended tea in most cases anyway… so half of one to two spoonfuls? That’s still quite a wide gap there.

The finished tea smells quite nice—definitely still has that fuzzy peaches smell to it, but not as in your face as the dry packet. Sipping it while very hot, the flavour is a mild peach—a tiny bit of tang and not overly sweet (I am a sweet tooth though, so take that how you will).

Definitely juicy, but the more it cools down, the less sweet it tastes and the more it starts tasting like an apple/peach mix. Not bad, but maybe a bit undersweetened for my tastes once it reached room temperature. By the end I felt like I was mostly drinking undersweetened apple juice.

Cup count (12oz) from the 27g pitcher pack: 1 (Tons left in this pack for future experimentation)

Would I buy this again? I don’t know. It’s okay, but it makes me think I’d rather go for a hot apple cider blend next time if the final result is approaching apple juice.

Flavors: Apple, Peach

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 8 min or more 12 OZ / 354 ML

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90
drank Orange Pekoe by Tetley
70 tasting notes

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Profile

Bio

Just getting into the whole loose leaf tea experience. (Thank you favorite sister of mine for getting me started on this journey…)

Since I’m a beginner when it comes to most teas, I don’t have a very good understanding of the flavors yet, but I hope I will get there. Right now I’m basically at “tastes good” “tastes less good” “tastes awful” lol….

Anyway, have been an avid tea drinker prior to now as well, but mostly only have experience with typical grocery store teabag selections. My old standby’s being Tetley’s Orange Pekoe and Celestial Seasoning’s Sleepytime.

My dislikes are: Ginger, licorice, overwhelmingly strong mint flavors, overwhelmingly strong anything flavors really.

At the moment I have 31 loose leaf tea varieties to try. (All single servings or sampler packs cause I’m too scared to get anything larger!) Though, I anticipate I’ll be getting plenty more because this experiment is too fun!

Please note:

I’m very picky when it comes to tastes so I’ll likely run into many flavors that I don’t personally like. I also tend to find most teas too strong and thus will likely use less tea than suggested while I experiment with the loose leaf teas.

Also, I’m more-so writing my reviews for myself like a diary, so I can keep track of how to best prepare the flavors to my liking and which flavors I might want to buy again.

Please keep this in mind if you’re reading my reviews. Thanks!

As for recommendations:
Recommended – I can drink it without issue.
Not recommended – I probably made a face while drinking it or gave up part way through.

Location

Canada

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